The challenges of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test for second language students

Results from the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) indicate that English as a Second Language (ESL) and English Literacy Development (ELD) students have comparatively low success and high deferral rates. This study examined the 2002 and 2003 OSSLT test performances of ESL/ELD and non-ESL/ELD students in order to identify and understand the factors that may help explain why ESL/ELD students failed the test at relatively high rates. The analyses also attempted to determine if there were significant and systematic differences in ESL/ELD students' test performance. The performance of ESL/ELD students was consistently and similarly lower across item formats, reading text types, skills and strategies, and the four writing tasks. Using discriminant analyses, it was found that narrative text type, indirect understanding skill, vocabulary strategy of reading, and the news report writing task were significant predictors of ESL/ELD membership. The results of this study provide direction for further research and instruction regarding English literacy achievement for these second language students within the context of having to complete large-scale English literacy tests designed and constructed for first English language students

Circadian rhythms and the induction of flowering in the long-day grass Lolium temulentum L.

Plants of Lolium temulentum L. strain Ceres were grown in 8-h short day (SD) for 45 d before being exposed either to a single long day (LD) or to a single 8-h SD given during an extended dark period. For LD induction, the critical photoperiod was between 12 and 14 h, and more than 16 h were needed for a maximal flowering response. During exposure to a single 24-h LD, the translocation of the floral stimulus began between the fourteenth and the sixteenth hours after the start of the light period, and was completed by the twenty-fourth hour. Full flowering was also induced by one 8-h SD beginning 4 or 28 h after the start of a 40-h dark period, i.e. by shifting 12 h forward or beyond the usual SD. The effectiveness of a so-called 'displaced short day' (DSD) was not affected by light quality and light intensity. With a mixture of incandescent and fluorescent lights at a total photosynthetic photon flux density of 400 µmol m-2 s-1, a 4-h light exposure beginning 4 h after the start of a 40-h dark period was sufficient to induce 100 flowering. The flower-inducing effect of a single 8-h DSD was also assessed during a 64-h dark period. Results revealed two maxima at a 20-h interval. This fluctuation in light sensitivity suggests that a circadian rhythm is involved in the control of flowering of L. temulentum