Teaching English as a Non-Imperial Language in an Underprivileged Public School in Spain

This article summarizes the processes and findings of a 2-year collaborative action research (CAR) project that analyzed and aimed to counteract some of the most negative educational effects of English linguistic imperialism in the field of English language teaching (ELT) and, more concretely, in the context of English as a foreign language education in Spain. The CAR investigated the ramifications of this phenomenon in a primary school located in one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in the city of València. The pedagogical alternative it embraced in order to reverse the underlying tenets of ELT under present-day neoliberal imperialism consisted in combining art and multimodality through a series of projects; a variety of qualitative strategies were used (classroom observation, journal entries, recordings, student interviews, photographs, etc.) to assess its effects. Evidence showed that the three projects developed during the CAR succeeded in offering a worthwhile educational experience and hence a valuable critical alternative to mainstream ELT, one that brought about a change in the way the socially underprivileged students related to the English language

Were the first Bantu speakers south of the rainforest farmers? A first assessment of the linguistic evidence

Popular belief has it that the Bantu Expansion was a farming/language dispersal. However, there is neither conclusive archaeological nor linguistic evidence to substantiate this hypothesis, especially not for the initial spread in West-Central Africa. In this chapter we consider lexical reconstructions for both domesticated and wild plants in Proto-West-Coastal Bantu associated with the first Bantu speech communities south of the rainforest about 2500 years ago. The possibility to reconstruct terms for five different crops, i.e. pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), okra (Hibiscus/Abelmoschus esculentus), cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea) and plantain (Musa spp.), indicates that by that time Bantu speakers did know how to cultivate plants. At the same time, they still strongly depended on the plant resources that could be collected in their natural environment, as is evidenced by a preliminary assessment of reconstructible names for wild plants. Agriculture in Central Africa was indeed “a slow revolution”, as the late Jan Vansina once proposed, and certainly not the principal motor behind the early Bantu Expansion

Is ELF more effective and fair than translation? An evaluation of the EU’s multilingual regime

The management of multilingualism in the European Union (EU) has become an increasingly debated issue. Some argue that ‘English as a lingua franca' (ELF) should help solve many of the attendant challenges. The claim is sometimes made that ELF, as a multilingual way of using English, is no longer dependent upon the practices and representations of native speakers and therefore poses no threat to linguistic diversity or to fairness. In this article, we question the relevance of the concept of ELF from a language policy perspective, showing that the socioeconomic implications of using ELF are no different from those of using English only. We examine the costs associated with alternative language regimes for the EU, showing that a reduction in the direct costs of European multilingualism through the imposition of a single language merely shifts costs towards citizens whose mother tongue is not English, and that re-labelling it as ‘ELF' makes no difference. The use of translation and interpreting, though not free, remains more effective (and at a reasonable cost) than a monolingual regime based on English alone; it also more fair than a monolingual regime which unavoidably privileges native speakers

Configuración Territorial de la pesca comercial ribereña en la Reserva de la Biosfera Los Petenes, Estado de Campeche (México)

Small-scale fishing is a significant activity from a socioeconomic, environmental and alimentary perspective; and is considered in the goal number 14 of the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. In this global context, it is relevant to reveal its territorial traits in natural protected areas, which participate in international trade, as in the case of the Los Petenes Biosphere Reserve (282,858 ha). In order to reach this objective, the following aspects are recognized: infrastructure, the organization of the fishermen, the use of the resources and the commercial flows. The investigation, which uses both qualitative and quantitative data, is substantiated by the theory on the spatial organization of the economy. The results show a sector with good access to national and international commercialization channels, but with multiple territorial imbalances.La pesca a pequeña escala tiene una significativa perspectiva socioeconómica, ambiental y alimentaria; está conside­rada en la meta número 14 de la Agenda 2030 de Desarrollo Sostenible. En este marco global, resulta pertinente develar los rasgos territoriales de mencionada actividad en áreas protegidas que participan en el comercio internacional: tal es el caso de la Reserva de la Biosfera Los Petenes (282.858 ha). Para alcanzar dicho objetivo se reconocen: las infraestructuras, la organización de los pescadores, la explotación de los recursos y los flujos comerciales. La teoría de la Organización Espacial de la Economía funda­menta esta investigación que utiliza datos cuantitativos y cualitativos. Los resultados muestran un sector con buen acceso a los canales de comercialización nacional e internacional, pero con múltiples desajustes territoriales

Key Concept: Criticality

In English language education, the word 'critical' can be used in different ways, qualifying different phenomena. Thus, the development of 'critical thinking' is a goal in some ELT classrooms or teacher education programmes; there is also 'critical pedagogy', which seeks empowerment and social transformation; and 'critical perspectives' can be taken towards the enterprise of ELT itself. Here, we will try to show how these apparently different forms of criticality are linked together

Ricin B chain targeted to the endoplasmic reticulum of tobacco protoplasts is degraded by a CDC48- and vacuole-independent mechanism

The B chain of ricin was expressed and delivered to the endoplasmic reticulum of tobacco protoplasts where it disappeared with time in a manner consistent with degradation. This turnover did not occur in the vacuoles or upon secretion. Indeed, several lines of evidence indicate that, in contrast to the turnover of endoplasmic reticulum-targeted ricin A chain in the cytosol, the bulk of expressed ricin B chain was degraded in the secretory pathway

The archaeology of complexity and cosmopolitanism in medieval Ethiopia: an introduction

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Cambridge University Press via the DOI in this recordArchaeology increasingly attests the complex and cosmopolitan nature of societies in medieval Ethiopia (c. seventh to early eighteenth centuries AD). Without negating the existence of relations of dominance and periods of isolation, key emergent themes of such research are pluralism and interaction. Four religious traditions are relevant to this theme: Islam, Judaism, Christianity and Indigenous religions. This article introduces a special section of contributions on medieval Ethiopia and sets the scheme by highlighting the temporality of cosmopolitanism as episodic rather than continuous. The following articles address varied aspects of this cosmopolitanism, identifying issues of general relevance for studies of the archaeology of religion, as well as the need for further research in Ethiopia.European Commissio

ICAM-2 facilitates luminal interactions between neutrophils and endothelial cells in vivo

This work was supported by funds from a Wellcome Trust Programme Grant [grant numbers PG081172/Z/06/, SIA 098291/Z/12/Z to S.N.]; and the Arthritis Research UK [grant number 19207 to J.W.]. K.H. was supported by a British Heart Foundation PhD studentship [grant number FS/07/006]. Deposited in PMC for immediate release

Framework of synchromodal transportation problems

Though literature reviews of synchromodal transportation exist, no generalised mathematical model of these problems has been found yet. In this paper such a framework is introduced, by which mathematical models described in literature on synchromodal transportation problems can be classified. This framework should help researchers and developers to find solution methodologies that are commonly used in their problem instance and to grasp characteristics of the models and cases in a compact way, enabling easy classification, comparison and insight in complexity