Introducing a Romanian Frequency List and the Romanian Vocabulary Levels Test

Vocabulary is considered essential to language learning, thus English word lists and tests based on frequency information have become the centre of attention for researchers, teachers and learners alike. As a result, it is argued hereby that frequency based word lists and tests should be adapted and regarded as key elements for teaching and learning Romanian as an additional language as well. Since there are currently no reliable frequency lists and lexical tests in Romanian, this paper aims to bridge this gap by introducing the first Romanian Word List and the Romanian Vocabulary Levels Test. The list contains the 10,000 most frequent Romanian words and is based on the Romanian Balanced Annotated Corpus (ROMBAC, Ion, Irimia, Ștefănescu, Tufiș 2012). The primary objective of the paper is to elaborate on the compilation criteria, the challenges involved and the benefits of such a list in the case of teaching, learning and curriculum design for Romanian as an additional language. The secondary objective is to present a practical application of the word list by introducing an exemplary Romanian lexical test, the Romanian Vocabulary Levels Test and examine its reliability and validity

Are We Spending Too Many Years in School? Causal Evidence of the Impact of Shortening Secondary School Duration

This paper analyzes the impact of shortening the duration of secondary schooling on the accumulation of human capital. In 2003, an educational policy reform was enacted in Saxony-Anhalt, a German state, providing a natural experimental setting. The thirteenth year of schooling was eliminated for those students currently attending the ninth grade. Tenth grade students were unaffected. The academic curriculum remained almost unaltered. Primary data collected from the double cohort of 2007 Abitur graduates reveals signficantly negative effects for both genders in mathematics. Only females were negatively effected in English and the results obtained in German literature were statistically insignificant.student performance, school duration, learning intensity, natural experiment

Milwaukee Parental Choice Program: Descriptive Report on Participating Schools 2010–11

This report is the fifth in a series of annual reports produced by the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) that will provide descriptive information about the schools participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP)

An investigation of students’ preferences in Japanese teaching and learning

The teachers in the individualist country usually teach students using individualist approach while teachers in the collectivist countries teach students using collectivist approach. However, teachers and students do not usually share the same educational culture in language classrooms. The purpose of this study has two: first, to examine individualist and collectivist characteristics; second, to ascertain the students’ teaching preference whether it is individualist or collectivist approach in a British university. Participants were 19 students who study Japanese language through institution wide language program at a British university in the South of England. The collected data consist of two: questionnaire and an informal interview, both of which were conducted at the end of spring term 2019. The data were analysed using mixed methods. The quantitative results showed that students preferred a mixture of both educational cultures. The ratio of individualist: collectivist: neutral position was 74:11:16 in spite of the fact that this study was conducted in an individualist education culture

Peer heterogeneity, school tracking and students'performances: evidence from Pisa 2006

This paper analyses the interaction between school tracking policies and peer effects in OECD countries. Using the PISA 2006 dataset, we show that the linear peer effects are stronger and more concave-shaped in the early-tracking educational system than in the comprehensive one. Second, and more interestingly, the effect of peer heterogeneity goes in opposite directions in the two systems. In both student- and school-level estimates, peer heterogeneity reduces students’ achievements in the comprehensive system while it has a positive impact in the early-tracking one. For late tracking countries, this result appears driven by pupils attending vocationally-oriented programs. Finally, peer effects are stronger for low ability students in both groups of countries.peer heterogeneity, peer effects; schooling tracking, educational production functions