Introduction: building the history of language learning and teaching (HoLLT)

The papers presented in this issue are the result of a workshop held at the University of Nottingham in December 2012 as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council research network Towards a History of Modern Foreign Language Teaching and Learning (2012–14) intended to stimulate historical research into language teaching and learning. This, the first workshop in the programme, focused on exchanging information on the history of language learning and teaching (HoLLT) across the different language traditions, for it had become clear to us that scholars working within their own language disciplines were often relatively unaware of work outside these. We hope that this special issue — with overview articles on the history of English, French, German, and Spanish as second/foreign languages — will help overcome that lack of awareness and facilitate further research collaboration. Charting the history of language teaching and learning will, in turn, make us all better informed in facing challenges and changes to policy and practice now and in the future. It is instructive in the current climate, for example, to realize that grave doubts were held about whether second foreign languages could survive alongside French in British schools in the early twentieth century (McLelland, forthcoming), or to look back at earlier attempts to establish foreign languages in primary schools (Bayley, 1989; Burstall et al., 1974; Hoy, 1977). As we write, language learning in England is undergoing yet more radical change. Language teaching for all children from the age of seven is being made compulsory in primary schools from 2014, while at Key Stage 3 (up to age 16), where a foreign language has not been compulsory since 2002, the most recent programme of study for England has virtually abandoned the recent focus on intercultural competence and now requires learners to ‘read great literature in the original language’,1 a radical change in emphasis compared to the previous half-century, which seems to reflect a very different view of what language learning is for. We seem to be little closer in 2014 than we were at the dawn of the twentieth century to answering with any certainty the questions that lie at the very foundations of language teaching: who should learn a foreign language, why learners learn, what they need to learn, and what we want to teach them — answers that we need before we can consider how we want to teach. The research programme begun under our research network is intended to help us to take ‘the long view’ on such questions

Contact resistivity measurements of the buried Si–ZnO:Al interface of polycrystalline silicon thin-film solar cells on ZnO:Al

An experimental method is developed for contact resistivity measurements of a buried interface in polycrystalline silicon poly Si thin film solar cell devices on aluminum doped zinc oxide ZnO Al layers. The solar cell concept comprises a glass substrate covered with a temperature stable ZnO Al film as transparent front contact layer, a poly Si n p amp; 8722; p cell, as well as a metal back contact. Glass ZnO Al poly Si metal test stripe structures are fabricated by photolithographic techniques with the ZnO Al stripes locally bared by laser ablation. The high temperature treatments during poly Si fabrication, e.g. a several hours lasting high temperature step at 600 C, are found to have no detrimental impact on the ZnO Al Si interface contact resistivity. All measured amp; 961;C values range well below 0.4 amp; 937; cm2 corresponding to a relative power loss amp; 916;P below 3 for a solar cell with 500 mV open circuit voltage and 30 mA cm2 short circuit current density. By inclusion of a silicon nitride SiNx diffusion barrier between ZnO Al and poly Si the electrical material quality of the poly Si absorber can be significantly enhanced. Even in this case, the contact resistivity remains below 0.4 amp; 937; cm2 if the diffusion barrier has a thickness smaller than 10 n

Raster image correlation spectroscopy in live cells expressing Endothelin ETA Receptor

Fluorescence spectroscopy is the most common non-radioactive technique used to study GPCR interactions with their ligands. Raster image correlation spectroscopy (RICS) exploits spatio-temporal correlation functions rather than the simple temporal correlations of conventional fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. In this paper we describe the use of RICS and the number and brightness method to determine the diffusion of a construct of endothelin ETA receptor with EGFP and the aggregation state in the cytoplasm. Our construct seems to locate mainly in the cytoplasm where it undergoes diffusion and it appears to be monomeric. Although our construct could not fully represent the native protein, we believe that the methodology we describe in this paper could be used by anyone in this field

Challenges and Opportunities of Doing Fieldwork as a Woman on Women in Guinea

The researcher with his or her multiple identities, his or her background, and habits forms part of the experience in the field and therefore influences data generation. In this chapter, Ammann reflects on how her identity shaped her field research on the women-state nexus in a Muslim West African city. She analyses how she has dealt with gender-related difficulties and opportunities she came across during fieldwork, especially how she adapted her ethnographic approach because accessibility to women proved to be a major challenge. In the conclusion, Ammann argues that flexibility and adaptation are key for ethnographic research. She pleads for more contributions in which not only female but also male researchers reflect on how their gendered presence influences their research settings