Hearing Children Read: An Exploration and Pedagogical Analysis of a Teacher-Child Interaction in Infant Schools

The study explores the teacher-child interaction of hearing children read in infant classrooms. A total of 156 interaction recordings from six different teachers have been collected from naturalistic settings. Additionally these interactions were observed by the writer and subsequently teacher interviews took place. The transcriptions of these recordings form the basis for a pedagogical analysis of the interaction. A descriptive system of the teacher verbal moves used within the interaction was developed. This system indicates three main varieties of moves: pedagogical, feedback and asides. The pedagogical moves are sub-divided into areas concerned with welfare, directions, providing words, word recognition, phonics and comprehension. Feedback moves consist of both positive and negative feedback. Examples of the teacher moves are provided and analysed. Teacher word recognition moves were especially helpful to the reader. This move was most usually provided by the teacher restarting the phrase/sentence for the child and stopping immediately before the miscued word. The move was uttered with rising intonation to indicate a question was being asked. Moves which indicated to the reader to use a phonic analysis were also helpful. It was noted that the interactions of two teachers were dominated by asides. In such instances the interaction becomes akin to a ritualised event rather than a positive teaching activity. For other teachers the interaction provided the opportunity to observe, diagnose and teach, e.g. one teacher allowed time for the child to self-correct, made frequent use of word recognition and phonic moves, and used pre-read and post-read exchanges to develop mechanical and comprehension skills. A series of questions for teachers to use in the analysis of hearing children read interactions is outlined. Finally, a suggestion of guidelines, which a teacher might use,when hearing children read, is put forward and forms the basis for a discussion

Origins and development of representational systems in early childhood

It is argued in Chapters 1 to 4 that in cognitive psychology in general, and in the disciplines of language acquisition and cognitive development in particular, there is substantial benefit to be derived from distinguishing between two representational systems, one system being deployed in long-established or highly-practiced functions, and the second deployed in novel tasks, or where difficulties interrupt the first system. It is also argued that the proper subject of cognitive development is the second of these systems. Chapters 5 and 6 are concerned in different ways with the origins of language in the individual, in particular with the question of what innate knowledge of language might be justified. It is concluded that many questions regarding innate knowledge remain open, and that a source in human evolution for knowledge of language is no more likely than sources in individual or social development. In Chapter 7 it is argued that representational drawing emerges late in the 4th year of life, and some new techniques are described for studying early representational drawing. Following these treatments of external systems of representation, Chapter 8 offers a general developmental theory of forms of representation, extending Piaget's insight that mental representation is co-extensive with thought, and that the main axis of cognitive development is the content of thought and representation. Chapters 9 to 12 apply this theory to the representation of belief and desire, and of extrinsic and intrinsic qualities of objects, by 11/2 to 4 year-old children. Chapter 13 introduces a new method for analyzing the free classification task, a task sometimes used to assess children's ability to think about intrinsic qualities, and applies this method to various data sets. Chapter 14 applies these insights and results to the problem of characterizing concepts and concept development and favourably discusses the idea that more precise knowledge of this aspect of development may help to explain certain features of early language acquisition

The Dynamics of Emerging Market Equity Flows

We study the interrelationship between capital flows, returns, dividend yields and world interest rates in 20 emerging markets. We estimate a vector autoregressionn with these variables to measure the degree to which lower interest rates contribute to increased capital flows and shocks in flows affect the cost of capital among other dynamic relations. We precede the VAR analysis by a detailed examination of endogenous break points in capital flows and the other variables. These structural breaks are traced to the liberalization of emerging equity markets. Our evidence of structural breaks call into question past research which estimates VAR models over the full sample. After a liberalization, we find that equity flows increase by 1.4% of market capitalization. We also show that shocks in equity flows initially increase returns which is consistent with a price pressure hypothesis. While the effect is diminished over time, there also appears to be a permenant impact. This is consistent with our finding that our proxy for the cost of capital, dividend yields, decreases. Finally, our analysis of the transitition dynamics from pre-liberalization to post-liberalization suggests that when capital leaves, it leaves faster than it came in. These results may help us understand the dynamics of the recent crises in Latin America and East Asia.

Your Voice is Important: Open Forum

As we start a new school year, what are the issues you think we should be talking about as a diverse campus community? What are the conversations we should be having about how current events impact different groups of us in different ways, and what can we do about it? What do you wish you could say about your experience of diversity at NSU but haven’t felt like the time or place was right

The Influence of Servicescape and Local Food Attributes on Pleasure and Revisit Intention in an Upscale-Casual Dining Restaurant

The current study looks at the relationship between servicescape, emotional product involvement, perceived quality of local foods, the positive emotion of pleasure, and revisit intention in an upscale buffet style restaurant on a university campus in the Southeastern U.S. Test results show positive relationships between all of the constructs in the proposed conceptual model. The study also gives practitioners and academics insights into practices that can help to market the use of local foods through the restaurant environment in order to engage emotionally involved customers. This marketing can illicit pleasurable feelings and increase perceived product quality of local foods with the purpose of getting customers to revisit the restaurant. Suggestions for further research on the subject are proposed

A Low Carbon Defrost System

A new system for defrosting the air coils of freezers is described - the patented Frigesco(TM) system. The net energy consumption of this system is close to zero and so it effectively reduces the overall energy consumption of a freezer system by the amount of energy normally used by electrical or hot gas defrost systems. The principal of operation is that heat available from the hot liquid refrigerant leaving the condenser (normally wasted) is stored in phase change material and then used when a defrost is needed. The subcooling of the liquid refrigerant by passage through the heat store increases the refrigeration effect to the extent that the post-defrost re-chilling of the freezer body, circulating air and contents is virtually energy neutral. Results of applying this system to a walk-in frozen food store and also a frozen food retail display cabinet under laboratory conditions will be presented. For example in the case of the RDC which was normally electrically defrosted 6 times a day we have shown a 40% reduction in energy consumption when the Frigesco system was introduced into the refrigeration circuit. It is anticipated that results from in-store trials (currently about to start) of the walk-in store application will be available for inclusion in the paper