Language Education for Ab Initio Flight Training: A Plan Going Forward

English language proficiency for the aviation industry is a critical issue given the industry’s growth in regions of the world where English is not a first or a national language. This chapter discusses language training for ab initio flight students who will comprise much of the next generation of aviation professionals (NGAP). It describes aviation English as a form of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and the language skills required for flight school contexts where English is the Medium of Instruction (EMI). The chapter advocates for the assessment of incoming ab initio flight school students using a tool adapted from the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) language proficiency requirements (LPRs) that also accounts for flight school-related language skills. Based on the language proficiency results, the chapter recommends a training curriculum informed by ESP principles that uses a Content-Based Language Teaching (CBLT) and Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) approach with materials and topics relevant to ab initio flight training

Birds as Evidence for Climate Change

Global climate change is the phenomenon of fluctuating weather patterns over time caused by various factors, including plate tectonics, solar radiation, and human influence. Current climate change is thought to result primarily from global warming, the increase in temperature near the Earth’s surface. Although there is substantial evidence that climate change is occurring and that it is primarily caused by humans – a view highly supported by the scientific community – there are deniers who refuse to believe our planet is warming significantly and that this trend is due to anthropogenic factors. In an effort to convey the reality of climate change to nonscientists, we will use data on birds to illustrate some of the effects of climate change. Since birds are so commonplace, using them as vehicles for explaining climate change gives people the ability to see changes occurring in their own backyard. For example, bird phenology, the timing of life cycle events, is closely tied with temperature and constitutes the most well studied ornithological evidence for climate change. There are substantial amounts of data documenting shifts in the timing of critical bird life events, such as earlier spring migration arrivals and earlier reproduction. A recent report by the Audubon society projects that over one half of North American bird species will lose significant portions of their range by 2050 as a result of climate change. We plan to use examples from these studies to develop a presentation for college students of all majors highlighting the effects of global warming

Making the Invisible of Learning Visible: Pre-service Teachers Identify Connections between the Use of Literacy Strategies and their Content Area Assessment Practices

In this paper we describe four ways secondary pre-service teachers appeared to be developing assessment practices during field experience, after taking a content area literacy course. This paper arises from a multi-year study exploring pre-service and beginning content area teachers’ use of literacy strategies in teaching mathematics, science, and other content areas. Pre-service teachers’ descriptions of their teaching revealed how they understood assessment and literacy practices during field experience as intertwined and symbiotic. Pre-service teachers discussed the use of literacy strategies as multi-faceted and serving multiple assessment purposes in their classrooms, enabling them to better understand student learning by making the invisible processes of thinking visible. Dans cet article, nous décrivons quatre façons dont les enseignants en formation semblaient développer des pratiques d’évaluation pendant une expérience sur le terrain et après avoir suivi un cours en alphabétisation aux contenus adaptés. Les résultats découlent d’une étude pluriannuelle portant sur l’emploi de stratégies en alphabétisation par des enseignants en formation et des enseignants débutants offrant des cours de maths, de sciences et d’autres disciplines.  Les descriptions par les enseignants en formation de leur enseignement ont révélé que pendant l’expérience sur le terrain, ils ont compris le lien serré et symbiotique entre l’évaluation et les pratiques en alphabétisation. Les enseignants en formation ont également décrit leurs stratégies en matière d’alphabétisation comme étant multidimensionnelles et aptes à satisfaire à plusieurs objectifs d’évaluation dans leurs classes, ce qui rendait visibles les processus invisibles de réflexion et leur permettait ainsi de mieux comprendre l’apprentissage par leurs élèves. 

Inquiring into Pre-service Content Area Teachers’ Development of Literacy Practices and Pedagogical Content Knowledge

The focus of this qualitative multi-year case study is on pre-service teachers’ experiences related to the development of their literacy practices in teaching high school science, math, social studies and other content area courses during their final field placement in a teacher education program. Results indicate tangible indicators of overall growth in participants’ developing pedagogical content knowledge as well differences in the depth of their learning. All participants willingly supported the idea of integrating literacy in content area courses, but their successes were somewhat uneven, and reflective of their evolving pedagogical content knowledge, as they attempted to make literacy practices a regular part of their teaching practices. Our findings should be of interest to teacher education programs and school districts in supporting pre-service and beginning teachers as they develop their practices as teachers of literacy in content areas

Fostering an Irish writers' circle: a revisionist reading of the life and works of Samuel Thomson, an Ulster poet (1766-1816)

The Ulster poet Samuel Thomson (1766-1816) experienced a brief period of fame during the 1790s and early 1800s when he published three volumes of verse and became a regular contributor of poetry to Belfast newspapers and journals. Known in popular memory as the ‘Bard of Carngranny’, Thomson had been closely associated with many radical activists who participated in the 1798 Rebellion, although it has never been established if he himself took part in the armed rising. His earlier poems, many of which are written in the vernacular Scots language, celebrate and parody local life in the rural North of Ireland. This study examines Thomson’s significance as a literary artist; an initiator of literary discussion and correspondence; and the father of a Northern school of Irish poets who span the cusp where eighteenth-century Augustanism and first generation Romanticism meet. Through the thorough examination of a range of evidence from published editions, public press and journal contributions, to the poet’s manuscripts, this study investigates Thomson’s work against the political, social, historical, and theological contexts which informed its composition. It attempts the first full reconstruction of Samuel Thomson’s life and career, paying particular attention to his correspondence and his last volume of verse, Simple Poems on a Few Subjects (1806) which has rarely been scrutinised in any detail. It highlights Thomson’s desire to assume a bardic role as an enthusiastic young radical who identified cultural similarities between his corner of Ireland and Robert Burns’s Ayrshire. The thesis also traces his enduring political engagement. While Thomson’s political radicalism may have cooled during the Union period, it was substituted for a radical spiritualism that adopts some of the visionary traits of early Romantic poetry

Summary of Franchise Tax Board of the State of California v. Hyatt, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 71

The Court (1) affirmed the intentional tort and bad faith exceptions to discretionary-function immunity under NRS 41.032; (2) recognized the common law tort of publicity in a false light; (3) adopted the sliding-scale approach to proving a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress; (4) determined comity does not demand granting immunity from suit to foreign state government agencies if immunity would be available under that state’s laws, but not under Nevada law; and (5) determined comity does not require extending statutory caps to foreign state government agencies even if provided by law to Nevada government agencies