[Book review] Instruction Paintings

Tony Mann provides a review of the book: Yoko Ono, Instruction Paintings, Weatherhill Inc., 1996, ISBN 0-8348-0348-8, £12.99

Hermeneutics, accreting receptions, hypermedia: A tool for reference versus a tool for instruction

We provide a select overview of tools supporting traditional Jewish learning. Then we go on to discuss our own HyperJoseph/HyperIsaac project in instructional hypermedia. Its application is to teaching, teacher training, and self-instruction in given Bible passages. The treatment of two narratives has been developed thus far. The tool enables an analysis of the text in several respects: linguistic, narratological, etc. Moreover, the Scriptures' focality throughout the cultural history makes this domain of application particularly challenging, in that there is a requirement for the tool to encompass the accretion of receptions in the cultural repertoire, i.e., several layers of textual traditions—either hermeneutic (i.e., interpretive), or appropriations—related to the given core passage, thus including "secondary" texts (i.e., such that are responding or derivative) from as disparate realms as Roman-age and later homiletics, Medieval and later commentaries or supercommentaries, literary appropriations, references to the arts and modern scholarship, etc. in particular, the Midrash (homiletic expansions) is adept at narrative gap filling, so the narratives mushroom at the interstices where the primary text is silent. The genealogy of the project is rooted in Weiss' index of novelist Agnon's writings, which was eventually upgraded into a hypertextual tool, including Agnon's full-text and ancillary materials. Those early tools being intended primarily for reference and research-support in literary studies, the Agnon hypertext system was initially emulated in the conception of HyperJoseph, which is applied to the Joseph story from Genesis. Then, the transition from a tool for reference to an instructional tool required a thorough reconception in an educational perspective, which led to HyperIsaac, on the sacrifice of Isaac, and to a redesign and upgrade of HyperJoseph as patterned after HyperIsaac.

Research and perspectives on processing instruction

This volume tracks the impact processing instruction has made since its conception. It provides an overview of new research trends on measuring the relative effects of processing instruction. Firstly, the authors explain processing instruction, both its main theoretical underpinnings as well as the guidelines for developing structured input practices. Secondly, they review the empirical research conducted, to date, so that readers have an overview of new research carried out on the effects of processing instruction. The authors finally reflect on the generalizability and limits of the research on processing instruction and offer future directions for processing instruction research.

Delivering processing instruction in classroom and virtual contexts

Processing Instruction (PI) is an approach to grammar instruction for second language learning. It derives its name from the fact that the instruction (both the explicit explanation as well as the practices) attempt to influence, alter, and/or improve the way learners process input. PI contrasts with traditional grammar instruction in many ways, most principally in its focus on input whereas traditional grammar instruction focuses on learners' output. The greatest contribution of PI to both theory and practice is the concept of "structured input", a form of comprehensible input that has been manipulated to maximize learners' benefit of exposure to input. This volume focuses on a new issue for PI, the role of technology in language learning. It examines empirically the differential effects of delivering PI in classrooms with an instructor and students interacting (with each other and with the instructor) versus on computers to students working individually. It also contributes to the growing body of research on the effects of PI on different languages as well as different linguistic items: preterite/imperfect aspectual contrast and negative informal commands in Spanish, the subjunctive of doubt and opinion in Italian, and the subjunctive of doubt in French. Further research contributions are made by comparing PI with other types of instruction, specifically, with meaning-oriented output instruction.

Grammar acquisition and processing instruction: Secondary and cumulative effects

Research on Processing Instruction has so far investigated the primary effects of Processing Instruction. In this book, the results of a series of experimental studies investigating possible secondary and cumulative effects of Processing Instruction on the acquisition of French, Italian and English as a second language will be presented. The results of the three experiments have demonstrated that Processing Instruction not only provides learners the direct or primary benefit of learning to process and produce the morphological form on which they received instruction, but also a secondary benefit in that they transferred that training to processing and producing another morphological form on which they had received no instruction.

Sex talk? overcoming barriers about sex and contraception after childbirth

Anecdotal evidence tells professionals that childbirth is the best form of contraception. However, sexual health problems are the very common after childbirth with Barrett et al (2000) arguing that only 15% of women who have a postnatal sexual problem reported discussing it with a health professional. As health professionals with a predilection for the ‘clinical’ and the ‘prescriptive’ we organise antenatal classes to discuss bathing the baby and post partum reunions to recount birth stories, but often fail to address sexual health problems and contraception after birth.(Glazener 1997). Many women who have carefully used contraception for years prior to pregnancy are often not helped to re-engage with the issues following birth. This would seem to be a particular problem for the most vulnerable parents such as adolescent mothers and their partners (Social Exclusion Unit 1999, 2004) where some young women go on to have more than one baby in a short time period (Reeves 2003). The focus of this paper is to explore the apparent general failure of health professionals to discuss sex after childbirth and provide information regarding reliable contraception. Glazener (1997) tells us that health professionals are encouraged to educate and prepare patients antenatally, for example to be trained to identify problems and deal with them openly and sympathetically. What is brought into question is why this form of rigorous support is not extended to providing sexual health advice in the immediate and often vulnerable postnatal period and why this provision is not a priority for some groups. The paper will explore if this situation caused by a lack of training or is it a symptom of our culture and a British attitude towards sex and contraception.