Making the implicit explicit: raising pragmatic awareness in trainee interpreters, using semi-authentic spontaneous discourse samples

Following the recent interest in the teaching of pragmatics and the recognition of its importance for both cross-cultural communication and new speakers of an additional language, the authors carried out an action research project to evaluate the effectiveness of a new approach to the teaching of pragmatics. This involved the use of semiauthentic discourse samples of New Zealand English to raise the pragmatic awareness of trainee interpreters in an undergraduate course taught by the first author. The researchers analysed qualitative data from learner blogs, written during instruction as part of the course requirements, for evidence that the learners noticed paralinguistic features used for pragmatic effect in conversations they overheard or took part in outside the classroom. The class teacher also kept a reflective journal recording her observations on learner progress and the usefulness of the materials. The researchers found there was a growth in the number of learners noticing pragmatic features during tuition, suggesting that the semiauthentic samples were effective as learning tools. Use of these samples also facilitated the noticing and discussion of cross-cultural differences and enabled more learner-centered methodology to be used

Empowering the apprentice academic: teaching writing at postgraduate level

Tertiary institutions offer a variety of provision for postgraduate students aimed at the development of academic writing skills. This article using a series of workshops and individual tutorials designed specifically for students engaged in writing theses and exegeses in certain discipline areas in a large New Zealand university. It outlines and reflects on the process of identifying and analysing relevant information for the design, content and on-going development of the workshops. This includes supervisors’ expectations, students’ needs and feedback, as well as the features of published texts and unpublished theses and exegeses. The post-workshop tutorial provision is underpinned by the two key principles of dialogue to assist clarity of expression, and encouragement for students to express their own voice. The experience gained from this work has led to the development of a discipline specific online paper for students in their first year of postgraduate study

Spectral shaping of laser generated proton beams

The rapid progress in the field of laser particle acceleration has stimulated a debate about the promising perspectives of laser based ion beam sources. For a long time, the beams produced exhibited quasi-thermal spectra. Recent proof-of-principle experiments demonstrated that ion beams with narrow energy distribution can be generated from special target geometries. However, the achieved spectra were strongly limited in terms of monochromacity and reproducibility. We show that microstructured targets can be used to reliably produce protons with monoenergetic spectra above 2 MeV with less than 10% energy spread. Detailed investigations of the effects of laser ablation on the target resulted in a significant improvement of the reproducibility. Based on statistical analysis, we derive a scaling law between proton peak position and laser energy, underlining the suitability of this method for future applications. Both the quality of the spectra and the scaling law are well reproduced by numerical simulations