The future aims of learners of English vary widely. For some they may be clearly defined. They may want to study in an English-speaking environment, or to keep up to date with what’s in the English-speaking press, or to get by on holiday in an English-speaking country, or to conduct business meetings in English. These…
Read moreYou have now explored in a practical way a number of different aspects of language and learning, including the difference between implicit and explicit knowledge of rules, rule discovery, the grammar of spoken and written English, phonology, and linguistic and communicative competence. I now want to turn to the significance of grammatical and communicative contexts…
Read moreThere must be a presumption that a public entitlement exists to free access to all data collected by a public service organization within the scope of this consultation except on defined grounds of data privacy or national security. It must not be acceptable to refuse requests solely for reasons attributable to poor data quality. This…
Read moreWe learned that native speakers have an implicit knowledge of grammar and that children acquire this without realizing it. I commented, however, that a language teacher needs to be able to describe grammatical rules, and in Unit 2 you noted some grammatical differences between spoken and written English. Unit 3 will introduce further grammar concepts…
Read moreThe word revolution has often been used in connection with the arrival of the new theory of language. However, we now need to look beyond how babies acquire the mechanics of a language in order to understand language use. So, it is to language in action that we turn in this unit, and, in particular,…
Read moreHave you ever asked yourself: – how babies learn language and how that’s different from learning a foreign language – how easy or difficult it is to teach English as a foreign language – how a language teacher comes to grips with finding out and explaining language rules – how to…
Read moreBorrowing by students and parents to pay for college has been one of the most commonly discussed and debated issues of national policy over the last two decades. Concerns about steadily increasing borrowing levels, have prompted a variety of policy proposals to ease the burden of college borrowing. Despite efforts to simplify and streamline student…
Read moreThe current reform movement in the United States began in the 1990s and has manifested itself as a standards movement. It is a movement to establish state and national frameworks, to which local school districts are encouraged to link their efforts to implement local standards. The linchpin that holds together the standards framework is that…
Read moreToday, it is no secret that our colleges and universities are beset by an array of problems, new to most of us: chronic shortages of funds, coupled with soaring fees and public resistance to higher taxes; new skepticism from members of the “attentive public” about our productivity, accompanied by hard questions about research and tenure;…
Read moreSome strategic issues will shape the university’s future for the next decade. Indeed, all of higher education will be changed in the next ten years by the developments we have in mind. Among these strategic concerns, two appear to be the most important. The first is resource availability and government oversight. The second concerns academic…
Read moreEducational finance monopoly is the radical alternative to parental freedom in education. These are opposite educational funding methods. They have to do entirely with this question: if there are tax dollars devoted to education to achieve a public good, how are those dollars actually assigned to schools? That is the question. One answer is educational…
Read moreAt a time when Americans view improving the quality of education as the most pressing issue confronting the nation, an overwhelming majority of the public considers improving the quality of teaching as the most important way to improve public education. A landmark national opinion poll shows the public strongly believes not only that quality teaching…
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