Talking about teaching in English: Swedish university lecturers’ experiences of changing teaching language

This study documents the experiences of Swedish university lecturers when they change from teaching in their first language to teaching in English. Eighteen lecturers from two Swedish universities took part in a training course for teachers who need to give content courses in English. As part of the course the participants gave mini-lectures in their first language in a subject area that they usually teach. The following week, the lecturers gave the same lectures again, this time in English. The pairs of lectures were videoed and commented on by the lecturers themselves and the whole course cohort in an online discussion forum (an input of approximately 60 000 words). In addition, twelve of the lecturers were interviewed about their experiences of changing language in this way (total of 4 hours of recorded material). The paper presents a qualitative analysis of the thoughts and experiences expressed by the lecturers in their online discussions and in the interviews concerning the process of changing the language of instruction to English. These results are presented as nine themes. Nine recommendations for teachers changing to teaching in English are also presented. The findings replicate those of earlier studies with one notable exception: the lecturers in this study were acutely aware of their limitations when teaching in English. It is suggested that this may be due to the lecturers’ relative inexperience of English-medium instruction

The Ability of Students to Explain Science Concepts in Two Languages

This paper analyses the ability of twenty-one physics undergraduates at two Swedish universities to orally describe and explain in both Swedish and English the science concepts met in their lectures. This ability is related back to the language used to teach the concepts (English, Swedish or both languages). Transcripts of student descriptions in both languages are rated using three measures:1.  Fluency (in terms of syllables per second and mean length of runs)2.  Code-switching3.  A judgment about the ‘disciplinarity’ of what is said.Comparison between languages finds that students speak on average 45% slower and have 33% shorter runs in their English descriptions. However, these differences in speaking rate and run length become much lower (28% and 26% respectively) in those transcripts where students appear to have adequately understood the concepts that were presented in the lectures. These latter values are in line with findings in comparative studies of other types of speech event (See Hincks 2010). Analysis of code-switching identifies some students (n=3) who have great difficulty describing disciplinary concepts in English. These were first year students and were being taught in English for the first time. It is thus concluded that for some students disciplinary English is indeed a problem. However, from a disciplinary point of view, all other students give similarly good (or bad) descriptions of physics concepts in both Swedish and English, regardless of the language used in the lectures

Note on a sigma model connection with instanton dynamics

It is well known that the instanton approach to QCD generates an effective term which looks like a three flavor determinant of quark bilinears. This has the right behavior to explain the unusual mass and mixing of the $\eta(958)$ meson, as is often simply illustrated with the aid of a linear SU(3) sigma model. It is less well known that the instanton analysis generates another term which has the same transformation property but does not have a simple interpretation in terms of this usual linear sigma model. Here we point out that this term has an interpretation in a generalized linear sigma model containing two chiral nonets. The second chiral nonet is taken to correspond to mesons having two quarks and two antiquarks in their makeup. The generalized model seems to be useful for learning about the spectrum of low lying scalar mesons which have been emerging in the last few years. The physics of the new term is shown to be related to the properties of an "excited" $\eta'$ state present in the generalized model and for which there are some experimental candidates.Comment: reference added, minor typos correcte

Discrete element modelling of creep of asphalt mixtures

Creep tests on asphalt mixtures have been undertaken under four stress levels in the laboratory while the Discrete Element Model (DEM) has been used to simulate the laboratory tests. A modified Burger’s model has been used to represent the time-dependent behaviour of an asphalt mixture by adding time-dependent moment and torsional resistance at contacts. Parameters were chosen to give the correct stress-strain response for constant strain rate tests in Cai et al. (2013) . The stress-strain response for the laboratory creep tests and the simulations were recorded. The DEM results show reasonable agreement with the experiments. The creep simulation results proved to be dependent on both bond strength variability and positions of the particles. Bond breakage was recorded during the simulations and used to investigate the micro-mechanical deformation behaviour of the asphalt mixtures. An approach based on dimensional analysis is also presented in this paper to reduce the computational time during the creep simulation, and this analysis is also a new contribution

Transduction and Science Learning: Multimodality in the Physics Laboratory

In this paper we discuss the role of transduction in the teaching and learning of science. We video-filmed pairs of upper-secondary physics students working with a laboratory task designed to encourage transduction (Bezemer & Kress, 2008). The students were simply instructed to use a hand-held electronic measurement device (IOLab) to find the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field and mark its direction using a paper arrow. A full multimodal transcription of the student interaction was made. In our analysis of this transcription we identify three separate transductions of meaning. In particular, we observed that student transduction of meaning to the paper arrow allowed it to function as both a persistent placeholder for all the meaning making that had occurred up until that point and as a coordinating hub for further meaning making. Our findings lead us to recommend that teachers interrogate the set of resources necessary for appropriate disciplinary knowledge construction in the tasks they present to students. Here, teachers should think carefully about whether the introduction of a persistent placeholder would be useful and in that case what this placeholder could be. We also suggest that teachers should think about what persistent resource may function as a coordinating hub for the students. Finally, we suggest that teachers should be on the lookout for student transductions to new semiotic resources in their classrooms as a sign that learning is taking place. We claim that the constraining and complementary nature of transduction offers a good opportunity for teachers to check student understanding, since disciplinary meanings need to be coherent across semiotic systems (modes)

Unpacking physics representations: Towards an appreciation of disciplinary affordance

This theoretical article problematizes the access to disciplinary knowledge that different physics representations have the possibility to provide; that is, their disciplinary affordances. It is argued that historically such access has become increasingly constrained for students as physics representations have been rationalized over time. Thus, the case is made that such rationalized representations, while powerful for communication from a disciplinary point of view, manifest as learning challenges for students. The proposal is illustrated using a vignette from a student discussion in the physics laboratory about circuit connections for an experimental investigation of the charging and discharging of a capacitor. It is concluded that in order for students to come to appreciate the disciplinary affordances of representations, more attention needs to be paid to their “unpacking.” Building on this conclusion, two questions are proposed that teachers can ask themselves in order to begin to unpack the representations that they use in their teaching. The paper ends by proposing directions for future research in this are

Which representation is best? How students use representational information in problem solving

We can present information to students, but the representation we use may change the way it is understood. Both diagrams and equations are seen as abstract physics representations, part of the physics disciplinary discourse (Airey & Linder, 2009), and can be notoriously difficult for students to understand (Woolnough, 2000). In this respect, Fredlund et al (2012) have suggested that different physics representations have different disciplinary affordances, that is, they perform different disciplinary work. In the area of refraction, Snell’s Law is often regarded as the essential form of information, but can Snell’s Law distract students from understanding simple questions? In this study, a survey with either a ray diagram or Snell’s Law as an equation was administered to over 300 first year university physics students. It was found that a ray diagram drawn as an example instead of Snell’s Law allows for a better reasoning tool to understand refraction of light for students both novice (219 students who had not studied physics previously) and experienced (98 students who had studied physics at high school). This finding has an impact on the way that optics are taught and understood at a high school and university level. The work suggests that the choice of representation may also be educationally critical in other areas of physics and science where a variety of representations including equations and diagrams are commonly used to share knowledge

Tourism policy making: the policymakers' perspectives

This research explores tourism policy making, from the perspectives of policy makers using grounded theory. It focuses on Leeds, a city in the North of England, which is characterized by its turbulent environment. The paper identifies themes around policy making, including low status, lack of clarity, uncertainty, lack of consensus and congruence and complexity. Its findings indicate policy making is essentially a social process, involving communication and negotiation between people in the context of wider change. It suggests a social conceptualization, and further research to investigate the communications involved in producing policy rather than the current research focus on the tangible outputs of the process such as a plan or a physical development