Marilyn J. Hunt

Primary Modern Foreign Languages: an overview of recent research, key issues and challenges for educational policy and practice

There has never been a UK-wide policy for primary modern foreign language provision. Scotland, which has for many years managed its educational affairs autonomously, introduced foreign languages into its primary schools over a decade ago. Wales has formulated its own primary and secondary curriculum with due respect for Welsh, tending to give greater priority to its national language than other languages. Northern Ireland, similarly, has had to take account of its indigenous language and has never developed a foreign language programme for young learners. Recent government documents relating to England, however, have outlined an entitlement for all primary-school children in England to learn a language by 2012. In order to achieve this, the DfES has provided additional funding for 19 LEA-led Pathfinder projects to identify sustainable and replicable models. It is appropriate at this point to review the current situation in order to gauge progress and development. This article, written by a research team funded by the DfES to evaluate the Pathfinder projects, outlines the national and international research context, the current national context and the key issues and challenges facing these local education authorities.

Learners’ perceptions of their experiences of learning subject content through a foreign language

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL, the teaching of another curriculum subject through a foreign language), although more widespread in Europe, is still relatively innovative in England. Since the government’s decision to remove the requirement for all pupils to learn a foreign language at Key Stage 4 (ages 14–16) the numbers of pupils opting to study a foreign language have decreased dramatically. This indicates low level motivation for language learning in England. This research involved the training of secondary Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) trainee teachers in the CLIL approach during their initial teacher training with a broader aim of increasing learners’ enthusiasm for languages through more interesting and challenging content. This article investigates learners’ perceptions of learning content through a language, their enjoyment, progress and motivation.

Case Study Investigation of a Videoconferencing Experiment in Primary Schools, Teaching Modern Foreign Languages.

The MustLearnIT European-funded research project with partners in Greece, Poland, Cyprus, Finland and the UK aimed to investigate ways of teaching and learning modern foreign languages (MFL) to early learners in small/remote primary schools where there were no specialist MFL teachers. This was to be carried out through new technologies such as videoconferencing. In the UK, distance was less of a problem, whereas lack of linguistic expertise (subject knowledge and pedagogy) for primary school teachers was likely to prove more challenging, given the governments plan for all pupils in England to study a foreign language throughout Key Stage 2 (ages seven to 11) from 2010. This article firstly examines a number of background issues in teaching MFL in primary schools in England and reviews two UK-based projects from the emerging literature on videoconferencing. It then reports on the MustLearnIT project conducted in the UK, which investigated the use of secondary teachers to teach French to primary school children through videoconferencing, and explores the perceived benefits in terms of pupil learning and staff development. The MustLearnIT project findings suggested that this approach, making expert subject and pedagogical knowledge available through current technologies, can be effective. The article ends by considering implications for the future.

Motivation and English Language Teaching in Iran

The Spirit of the Chinese People was written in 1915, from historical view, China was undergoing great social changes in all aspects at that time. The book written by Ku Hung-Ming is considered to be the first work in modern China to introduce Chinese people to the westerners. He shows deep love, passion and pride of Chinese culture in this book, intending to change the prejudice towards Chinese people of the westerners. Cultural confidence of Ku Hung-Ming can also be sensed greatly in his great work, which is of great value nowadays. This paper mainly demonstrates cultural confidence of Chinese people conveyed in this book by Ku Hung-Ming, some personal reflections are also discussed in this paper to show the author’s understanding of Chinese cultural confidence.Anne of Green Gables, one of Canada’s best known children’s books, has gained popularity all over the world. Anne has become a household name in the children world. The paper analyses the image of Anne in Chinese readers’ eyes: a romantic, imaginative, loyal, self-spirited and loveable girl. The author of this paper also reviews a brief history of Canadian literature’s acceptance in China, and offers some constructive suggestions for the effective popularization of Canadian literature in China. Key words: Anne; Canadian literature; popularization; children’s literaturePresently, most students of normal universities know nothing about music knowledge such as music score at all, and have no musical knowledge and culture. This is a common problem existing in many Chinese normal universities. Surveys, however, show the students are fond of and thirst for learning music knowledge. Thus, universities and related institutions have been laying stress on how to cultivate and improve the music knowledge and culture of students of normal universities. In view of this, this paper aims to research the problems in music curriculum design of normal universities, and put forward corresponding countermeasures, with a hope to give assistance to related universities in music teaching. The theory knowledge of music and vocality accomplishments is one of the basic knowledge and accomplishments that modern talents should have. Besides music majors, education majors also should be offered music education, so as to make up the deficiency of musical knowledge and culture of Chinese musical talents, and comprehensively improve students’ musical skills (Kong & Jin, 2014). There are many problems in music education curriculum design of normal universities. About this, this paper aims to analyze the problems, and put forward suggestions on related curriculum design.Frye’s theory of archetypal meaning includes the apocalyptic and the demonic imagery. The apocalyptic and demonic imagery will be applied to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, which is stuffed with symbols. Through the demonic imagery, the theme of the novel, people naturally revert to cruelty, savagery and barbarism is clearly revealed. The apocalyptic imagery gives us some hope, though.This essay is devoted to a review of Fotos and Ellis’ (1991) article about using task-based approach in teaching grammar. The choice of the article is based on the fact that it provides a good start for a discussion of the implementation of task-based approach to grammar teaching. First, a summary of the main points in the article is presented. The second part provides a discussion focusing on how the issue of teaching grammar communicatively has been tackled by other researchers. The last part is an attempt to draw some implications of task-based approach in teaching grammar for the Moroccan context.Based on the cultivating mode of special talents and cultivating target of professional talents in the higher vocational colleges, through imitating major cluster construction idea, so as to promote the efficient launch of thematic practical teaching, this paper will conduct relatively deep analysis and discussion on how to improve the practical teaching effectiveness of ideological and political course in the higher vocational colleges.As more and more Chinese farmers are moving to bigger cities, the education problems of migrant students become more and more severe in China. Based on the analysis on the current situation of compulsory education of migrant students in X City, and comparing with the successful solutions of migrant education problems in the United States, this paper offers some possible suggestions to schools in X City on solving the compulsory education problems of migrant students.This paper attempts to offer teachers effective and convenient models in explaining several basic concepts in translation theories to students in translation classes. Four models borrowed from the discipline of cognition are prototype, cognition domain, salience and the three-dimensional cognition mode. The concepts explained in this paper included translation variation, extra-linguistic knowledge for translation, translation criteria and un-translatability, all of which are among the primary concerns for students in translation classes. Key Words: translation concepts; translation theories; cognitive modelsOn the eve of the thirtieth Teachers’ Day, President Xi Jinping visited the Beijing Normal University, and gave an important speech on the forum of the teachers and students from Beijing Normal University: Be a Good Teacher Who Satisfies the Party and the People. The speech highlights the importance of education and teachers, which are of great significance to strengthen the construction of teachers’ contingent. With College counselors being an important part of teachers’ contingent, this paper analyzes the significance of college counselors practicing the Good Teacher With Four Haves Standard from this angle, and further puts forward some countermeasures on this basis, namely, a good college counselor should have clear ideal and conviction, have noble moral sentiment, have profound and relevant knowledge, and have a loving and benevolent heart, in order to provide a certain reference for the troop construction of college counselors.This paper clarified the concepts of cognitive load and combined EFL listening decoding as well as the relationship between them, and examined the change of learners’ cognitive load and its impact on their EFL listening decoding which were caused by input of pure audio information and that of combined audio information with mixtures such as pictures and images. Based on this, the author proposed some effective strategies to improve learners’ EFL listening decoding, including strengthening the training of learners’ English thinking, increasing their cognitive level, enriching the design of EFL listening teaching, creating multiple schemas and maintaining the reasonable cognitive load according to individual learners’ cognitive styles.Making a general survey of Jane·Eyre status changing process from its publication to the end of the last century, it is certain that the novel is a dynamic classic after its publication because of its own and outside factors. However, between the late 19 th and the beginning of the 20 th , the society and commentors transferred their focus from Charlotte and his works, causing Jane·Eyre to be stative classic. Since the middle period of the last century the dynamic classic position of Jane·Eyre was again raised.Most of the governments in the world provide the private colleges with necessary financial support. This is evident especially in U.S., Japan and South Korea where the private higher education is very advanced. The private colleges in these countries have undergone different development paths. As their school funds come from different sources, the public financial support they gain exhibits different characteristics. The governments of these three countries attach great important to the development of private colleges, and issued a complete set of regulations to stipulate that the private colleges qualify for the same financial support as the public colleges. Various measures that were taken by the governments to raise funds contribute to sustainable development of the private colleges.В данной работе предлагается методическая организация иероглифического минимума для обучения студентов языкового вуза письму на китайском языке, построенная с учетом принципов гнездовой и концентрической организации материала; выделяются три методически значимых типа иероглифов.There are three aspects to strengthen honest governance education to Chinese policemen which include fully utilizing policemen to construct socialist harmonious society, strengthening ideology and politics education to policemen to develop their autonomy, establishing complete the system to punish and prevent corruption in policemen to further construct system.This study investigated the strategies monolingual Saudi Arabian adults (MSAAs), Saudi EFL adult learners (SEFLALs), and native speakers of English (ENSs) used when complaining. Another related aim was investigating whether SEFLALs displayed pragmatic transfer when using complaint strategies. A total of 183 written responses were collected from MSAAs, SEFLALs, and ENSs via a three-item discourse completion task (DCT) were analyzed. Findings revealed the strategies used by the study participants when performing the speech act of complaints. First, hints, request and annoyance were the most frequently used strategies by MSAAs, SEFLALs, and ENSs. Second, there were no statistically significant differences among MSAAs, SEFLALs, and ENSs in using the strategy of direct accusation which consistent with the concept of positive pragmatic transfer. Third, hints, behavioral blame, request and indirect accusation were cases of weak negative pragmatic transfer as employed the SEFLALs in the current study. Fourth, modified blame was consistent with concept of strong negative pragmatic transfer. Finally, the last two strategies; annoyance and threat were consistent with no transfer, that is, SEFLAL employed these two strategies as ENSs.Lord Jim is an attempt by Joseph Conrad to contemplate on the failure of the dreams of a man whose romantic beliefs in classical heroism and manner of conduct finally brings about his bafflement. In fact, this writer is trying to mirror that one’s lack of knowledge in case of the “how to be of life”, or his inability to vision the modern world practically from an authentic viewpoint holds him from being conscious enough about his real existence, resulting in a tragedy: a death associated with ambiguity, absent-mindedness and fury. To be more specific, the present study intends to investigate Jim’s Romance, his character – as well as that of the other important characters – and the strategies or techniques applied by Conrad, to reflect the failures of such a romantic viewpoint. Key words: Lord Jim; Joseph Conrad; Romance; Heroism; TragedyBased on the development history of Chinese revolution, the recording in the form of painting can help to restore the scene by combining the related historic theme, thus enhance the authenticity of creation of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history and objectively help to raise collectors’ collection hobby and interest. This paper discusses the creation and collection of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history so as to realize comprehensive understanding of the creation and collection of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history and thus promote the development of paintings with the theme of contemporary Chinese revolutionary history.The work of building Party schools for vocational college students is faced with new challenges in the new situation. This paper analyzes the main problems in of the process of building Party schools for vocational college students, and suggests building a mechanism for building Party schools for vocational college students based on the process of cultivating activists.

The Use of ICT in the Assessment of Modern Languages: The English Context and European Viewpoints.

The ever increasing explosion of highly attractive multimedia resources on offer has boosted the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the teaching and learning of modern languages. The use of ICT to assess languages is less frequent, however, although online testing is starting to develop. This paper examines the national context for the assessment of modern foreign language proficiency in England, outlines the kinds of assessment currently available and the development of electronic forms of assessment and compares the above with the survey results of a European Union (EU) funded project on current good practice in online assessment of languages in other European countries. The findings indicate that speaking is inadequately served by online testing as tests currently focus primarily on receptive language skills. The implications for future successful online testing include the incorporation of interactive skills and effective formative feedback.

In memory of Dr Ann Barnes (née Rawnsley), 1964–2009

If you are a regular at Language World, the annual conference of the Association for Language Learning, you cannot have failed to notice Ann Barnes. Ann was a loyal and enthusiastic speaker and delegate, whose vibrant hair colour and lively presentations never failed to draw attention and admiration. Many colleagues in the language teaching community will share our fond memories of partying with Ann into the early hours of Sunday morning after the conference dinner. So it was a particularly poignant moment when Marilyn and I found ourselves at Language World in Leicester last year without Ann, following her death on 27 January 2009. For us, and other colleagues, Language World will never be quite the same again. If you are a language teacher, researcher or adviser in the UK, you will undoubtedly have come across Ann’s work. Ann had a prolific career as a researcher as well as a lecturer. She joined the University of Warwick as a lecturer in foreign languages (teacher education) in 1994. She was promoted to senior lecturer in 2003 and the following year was awarded her PhD by the University of Warwick. In September 2004 she became course leader for the secondary PGCE programme and in September 2008 was appointed director of teacher education. She gained a Warwick award for teaching excellence in 2006, a tribute to her excellent skills. Ann was an active researcher and her many inspiring conference papers and articles about language teaching and learning demonstrated her wisdom and insight on a range of issues including target language testing, reading skills at A level, assessment, and the use of ICT in modern foreign languages (MFL). She wrote Effective Assessment in MFL with Marilyn Hunt (2003) and co-edited the third edition of Learning to Teach Modern Foreign Languages in the Secondary School, A Companion to School Experience with Norbert Pachler and Kit Field (2008). Ann also worked as a member of research teams on both nationally funded and EUfunded research projects. Projects commissioned by QCA and DfES related to evaluating the feasibility of introducing the teaching of a modern foreign language into the statutory curriculum at Key Stage 2 (2001) and the evaluation of the Key Stage 2 Language Learning Pathfinders (2005). Projects with EU partners included the development of on-line assessment for MFL, and videoconferencing as an aid to teaching and learning MFL in primary schools where there are no specialist MFL teachers. Ann co-authored the paper reporting on this latter project which appears in this issue of the LLJ. Ann published numerous articles in The Language Learning Journal on such diverse topics as teacher education, homework, multilingual approaches in the primary school and dictionary use. She was a guest editor of the first special issue of the Journal devoted to primary languages which was published in July 2009. Her Language Learning Journal Vol. 38, No. 2, July 2010, 133–134

A Potential Library for Primary MFL Pedagogy: The Case of "Young Pathfinders".

As readers of this journal will know very well, 2010 will see all KS2 (ages 7-11) pupils in England entitled to learn a modern foreign language in normal curriculum time. This development of the commitment to primary language learning should provide an excellent opportunity and experience for pupils, whilst at the same time requiring some radical changes for many teachers, schools and much of the wider language learning community. Recent research has indicated general trends suggesting an increase in primary languages already, in anticipation of this development and even beforehand. One of the most recent studies indicates that 43% of primary children currently learn a foreign language at KS2, either in class or as an extra-curricular activity, although the extent of this learning varies considerably (Driscoll, Jones and Macrory, 2004). It has also been suggested (Muijs et al, 2005) that there are certain aspects of the process that will be particularly demanding if the challenge of providing this entitlement are to be met.