Strategies and Precise Vocabulary Knowledge: Exploring the Relationships Among Mathematics Vocabulary, Problem Solving, and Confidence

In this action research study I focused on my eighth grade pre-algebra students’ abilities to attack problems with enthusiasm and self confidence whether they completely understand the concepts or not. I wanted to teach them specific strategies and introduce and use precise vocabulary as a part of the problem solving process in hopes that I would see students’ confidence improve as they worked with mathematics. I used non-routine problems and concept-related open-ended problems to teach and model problem solving strategies. I introduced and practiced communication with specific and precise vocabulary with the goal of increasing student confidence and lowering student anxiety when they were faced with mathematics problem solving. I discovered that although students were working more willingly on problem solving and more inclined to attempt word problems using the strategies introduced in class, they were still reluctant to use specific vocabulary as they communicated to solve problems. As a result of this research, my style of teaching problem solving will evolve so that I focus more specifically on strategies and use precise vocabulary. I will spend more time introducing strategies and necessary vocabulary at the beginning of the year and continue to focus on strategies and process in order to lower my students’ anxiety and thus increase their self confidence when it comes to doing mathematics, especially problem solving.

General Insights into Word Choice in Business Communication

Words are the smallest units of messages. Attention should be given to each word used to be sure it is the most effective one. An effective word is one that the receiver will understand and that will elicit the wanted response. The ability to choose words by (a) using a dictionary and a thesaurus and (b) following some of the principles of business communication described in this text can be improved.

A tradução de texto filosófico

A tradução tem sido tendenciosamente categorizada em dois grupos: a tradução de texto técnico e a tradução de texto literário. Contudo um determinado tipo de texto vem questionar essa separação sistemática: o texto filosófico. Apresentando tanto características de texto literário, devido ao seu estilo discursivo, como características de texto técnico, com uma forte presença de vocabulário técnico e específico, o texto filosófico apresenta-se como um híbrido entre texto literário e texto técnico. O que torna, portanto, este texto diferente das tipologias de tradução geralmente identificadas? Quais serão as implicações da tradução de um texto desse cariz? Quais serão os processos e metodologias subjacentes a essa tradução? A tradução para francês da obra Filosofia do Ritmo Portuguesa de Rodrigo Sobral Cunha, realizada no âmbito de um estágio na Editora e Livraria Portuguesa e Galega Orfeu, teve como principal objectivo responder a todas essas perguntas. Com base numa breve incursão teórica relativa ao texto filosófico, às suas características, à forma como diverge da separação clássica de texto técnico ou literário, sendo uma junção de ambos, e às implicações que essas características têm no processo de tradução, a tradução da obra de Rodrigo Sobral Cunha, em si, permitiu destacar uns processos e metodologias de tradução e de resolução de problemas ligados à mesma, adaptados à especificidade deste tipo de texto.

O sentido espacial das crianças de 3 e 4 anos

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar e Ensino do 1ºCiclo do Ensino Básico

A tradução em turismo: criação de um glossário multilingue na área museológica

Dissertação de mestrado em Tradução e Comunicação Multilingue

Accommodating College ESL Learner Communication Needs: Perceptions, Policies, and Practices

The purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to determine how the Practical Nursing and Pharmacy Technician programs in one southern Ontario community college could more effectively accommodate ESL learners' communication needs. The literature review examined (a) linguistic issues, such as language testing and second-language learning theories, (b) organizational matters, such as ESL curriculum and teacher training, and (c) affective issues, such as motivation for second-language learning, learning styles, and the student-teacher relationship. I gathered perceptual data from the programs' administrators, faculty members, and ESL learners. Eleven participants took part in individual interviews or a focus group session. The results suggest that ESL learners need assistance with discipline-specific vocabulary and cultural nuances. College ESL learners' weak communicative competence, together with misleading acceptance standards for ESL learners and limited support available to faculty members and to students, decrease opportunities for successful completion of the programs. The results point to re-assessment of the college's admission policies and procedures, program evaluation practices that consider the needs of ESL learners, discipline-specific language support, and strategies to enhance the ESL student-teacher relationship. The study highlights theory relating to ESL learners' self-perception and engagement, as well as the importance of including the voice of college ESL learners in educational research. The results suggest that despite ESL learners' perseverance in completing their studies, power imbalances remain. The college has yet to implement organizational strategies such as discipline-specific communications and ESL courses and extended language support that could meet the communication needs of ESL learners in the two programs.

Les Clubs de « Manches de ligne » et du Dr Geoffrion : sociabilités gaies, discours publics et répression dans la région de Montréal, 1860-1910

Ce mémoire documente l’émergence d’une sous-culture gaie masculine dans la région montréalaise entre 1860 et 1910 et s’intéresse aux discours et à la répression envers les hommes ayant des comportements homosexuels ou d’inversion de genre. Par l’analyse de sources journalistiques, judiciaires et juridiques, il déconstruit une série de préjugés, notamment à l’égard des sources, présumées pauvres; du discours public sur les comportements homosexuels, supposé inexistant; et des hommes qui avaient ces comportements, que plusieurs imaginent invisibles et isolés les uns des autres. Il montre au contraire que des archives variées révèlent une vie « gaie » et le déploiement d’une opinion publique à son égard. Ainsi, l’analyse d’un important corpus d’articles de journaux et une étude de cas portant sur deux des plus anciens clubs homosexuels connus au Québec, démantelés en 1892 et en 1908, confirment l’existence de réseaux de sociabilités « gaies » dans la région montréalaise, dès le XIXe siècle. Ce faisant, il dévoile l’existence de pratiques caractéristiques des sous-cultures gaies telles que l’usage d’un vocabulaire spécifique ou l’adoption de manières efféminées par certains hommes que l’on qualifierait aujourd’hui d’homosexuels.

Le pouvoir du mot : le performatif, l'événement et la traduction dans quelques textes de Jacques Derrida

Pour exprimer ou définir une idée nouvelle, Derrida détourne souvent le sens d’un mot en se l’appropriant. La relation de Derrida avec les idées est telle que leur transmission passe par un vocabulaire spécifique, notamment l’analyse de l’étymologie (vraie et fausse). Mais quelle est sa conception du mot ? Quelles en sont les implications et les conséquences ? Pour répondre à ces questions, l’approche la plus féconde consiste à suivre au plus près celle que Derrida utilise en abordant la langue par rapport à la grammaire au sens large (c’est-à-dire tout ce qui fait événement dans la langue). En effet, la relation entre le mot et l’idée prend tout son sens dans l’analyse de certaines scènes bibliques, telles celles de la Genèse ou encore du mythe de Babel. Le fameux énoncé inaugural de l’Évangile de Jean, « Au commencement était la parole... », fait retour dans l’œuvre de Derrida, où il connaît plusieurs variations : il mérite examen, dans la perspective d’une déconstruction du logos et des origines de la langue. Le corpus de notre étude porte principalement sur trois textes de Jacques Derrida : « Des tours de Babel » (L’art des confins, PUF, 1979), Schibboleth – Pour Paul Celan (Galilée, 1986) et Donner la mort (Galilée, 1999), ces textes permettant tous une interrogation de l’« intention » divine dans le langage. Notre visée, en privilégiant dans l’œuvre derridienne ces « exemples » bibliques, est d’étudier la démarche de Derrida dans la « création » d’une langue, aspect qui a toujours été inséparable de l’élaboration de sa philosophie et auquel il a accordé la plus grande attention. À terme, ce travail se veut une contribution à la pensée du philosophe, portant sur un aspect capital de son travail et battant en brèche l’idée que son écriture est « absconse » ou « hermétique », alors qu’il y va pour lui de la mise en œuvre de sa manière même de concevoir la langue.

Taxonomic free sorting: a successful method with older consumers and a novel approach to preference mapping

Taxonomic free sorting (TFS) is a fast, reliable and new technique in sensory science. The method extends the typical free sorting task where stimuli are grouped according to similarities, by asking respondents to combine their groups two at a time to produce a hierarchy. Previously, TFS has been used for the visual assessment of packaging whereas this study extends the range of potential uses of the technique to incorporate full sensory analysis by the target consumer, which, when combined with hedonic liking scores, was used to generate a novel preference map. Furthermore, to fully evaluate the efficacy of using the sorting method, the technique was evaluated with a healthy older adult consumer group. Participants sorted eight products into groups and described their reason at each stage as they combined those groups, producing a consumer-specific vocabulary. This vocabulary was combined with hedonic data from a separate group of older adults, to give the external preference map. Taxonomic sorting is a simple, fast and effective method for use with older adults, and its combination with liking data can yield a preference map constructed entirely from target consumer data.

Strengthening communication skills in an innovative context of engineering project management learning

This document presents an innovative, formal educational initiative that is aimed at enhancing the development of engineering students’ specific competences when studying Project Management (PM) subject. The framework of the experience combines (1) theoretical concepts, (2) the development of a real-case project carried out by multidisciplinary groups of three different universities, (3) the use of software web 2.0 tools and (4) group and individual assignments of students that play different roles (project managers and team members). Under this scenario, the study focuses on monitoring the communication competence in the ever growing PM virtual environment. Factors such as corporal language, technical means, stage, and PM specific vocabulary among others have been considered in order to assess the students’ performance on this issue. As a main contribution, the paper introduces an ad-hoc rubric that, based on previous investigations, has been adapted and tested for the first time to this new and specific context. Additionally, the research conducted has provided some interesting findings that suggest further actions to improve and better define future rubrics, oriented to communication or even other competences. As specific PM subject concerns, it has been detected that students playing the role of Project Managers strengthen their competences more than those ones that play the role of Team Members. It has also been detected that students have more difficulty assimilating concepts related to risk and quality management. However those concepts related with scope, time or cost areas of knowledge have been better assimilated by the students.

Improving engineering students' communication competence: designing innovative learning strategies

This research presents an innovative and formal educational initiative that is aimed at enhancing the development of engineering students’ specific competencies when studying Engineering Project Management subject. The framework of the experience combines theoretical concepts, the development of a real-case project carried out by multidisciplinary groups of three different universities, the use of software web 2.0 tools, and group and individual assignments of students that play different roles (project managers and team members). Under this scenario, this paper focuses on monitoring the communication competence in the ever growing Project Management virtual environment. Factors such as corporal language, technical means, stage, and management specific vocabulary among others have been considered in order to assess the students’ performance on this issue. As a main contribution, the paper introduces an ad-hoc rubric that, based on previous investigations, has been adapted and tested to this specific context. Additionally, the research conducted has provided some interesting findings that suggest further actions to improve and better define future rubrics, oriented to communication or even other competencies. As specific Project Management subject concerns, it has been detected that students playing the role of Project Managers strengthen their competencies more than those ones that play the role of Team Members. It has also been detected that students have more difficulty assimilating concepts related to risk and quality management. However those concepts related with areas of knowledge like scope, time or cost have been better assimilated by the students.

Social Changes Reflected in Specialized Languages: Lexical Re-/deconstruction in Lesbian Studies

One of the most important factors of recognition, belonging and identification in scientific communities is their specialized language: doctors, mathematicians and anthropologists feel they are part of a group with which they can interact because they share a common “language”. While ideology is present in all academic registers, it is in human sciences where its presence (or absence) leads to more visible linguistic phenomena. An interesting example is that of lesbian studies: as non-heterosexual members of society have become less stigmatized, lesbian studies have developed a language of their own. In our paper, we shall explore the mechanisms used in the creation of specific vocabulary in this academic area, paying special attention to the refashioning or deconstruction of meaning of established terms as a result of changes in social perception or the challenging of pre-determined meanings.

La formazione degli stati regionali italiani (secc. XIII-XV). Acquisizioni scientifiche e ricadute sui manuali di storia, tra formazione degli insegnanti e approcci metodologici

La ricerca intende indagare i rapporti tra le acquisizioni della ricerca scientifica nel campo della storia, con particolare riferimento al tema della formazione degli stati regionali italiani, e il suo insegnamento nella scuola secondaria di secondo grado. Nella parte dedicata al quadro teorico si sottolinea la sempre più stringente necessità di un insegnamento e apprendimento della storia di qualità nella società attuale, basati sul senso della partecipazione democratica attiva e allo sviluppo del pensiero critico, nonostante i documenti ufficiali ministeriali non sempre dedichino al tema la giusta importanza e i recenti risultati ottenuti grazie a un questionario somministrato a studenti universitari sembrino confermare una didattica ancora legata alla pratica tradizionale. A questo proposito, quindi, occorre rifondare e ricentrare l’importanza della storia grazie all’approfondimento del lessico specifico e delle premesse epistemologiche basilari della disciplina. A partire da queste premesse, nell’inquadramento empirico si analizza lo stato di avanzamento della ricerca scientifico-accademica recente nei confronti della formazione degli stati regionali italiani bassomedievali, si confronta il tema nei principali manuali scolatici adottati nell’area metropolitana di Bologna; e sono infine analizzate le concezioni circa la storia, la storia medievale e l’utilizzo del libro di testo degli insegnanti di storia di scuola secondaria di secondo grado grazie alle risposte derivate dalla somministrazione di un questionario sulla pratica docente. I risultati ottenuti permetteranno di cogliere eventuali scollature tra la ricerca accademica e l’insegnamento nella scuola secondaria della storia, della storia medievale e della formazione degli stati regionali, sottolineando, talvolta, la necessità sempre più urgente di una integrata formazione continua degli insegnanti.

A manual of botany, for the northern and middle states of America : containing generic and specific descriptions of the indigenous plants and common cultivated exotics, growing north of Virginia, to which is prefixed a grammar and vocabulary : also the natural orders of Linneus and of Jussieu, with the medicinal properties of each order /

Includes index.

BIOMedical search engine framework: lightweight and customized implementation of domain-specific biomedical search engines

The Smart Drug Search is publicly accessible at http://sing.ei.uvigo.es/sds/. The BIOMedical Search Engine Framework is freely available for non-commercial use at https://github.com/agjacome/biomsef