Teacher Talk: The Structure of Vocabulary and Grammar Explanations

Current research addresses the relationship between the language available to learners in language classrooms and its affect on language acquisition. Different types of classroom activities can be expected to affect the classroom discourse. For example, the interaction between teacher and students when doing a language drill is expected to be different from the interaction that takes place when the teacher is giving a lecture or assisting students with homework. Based on Long's (1981) findings that the degree of adjustment made in foreigner talk (FT) is related to the nature of the task performed, task type was considered an important factor in the analysis of classroom discourse. The work presented here provides a description and characterization of teacher talk (TT) in two different classroom activities: grammar and vocabulary explanations. Vocabulary and grammar explanations both involve the expression and explanation of information to facilitate comprehension by the students. These were selected for analysis because they are believed to be typical of a commonly occurring type of teacher talk

Del pensamiento a la práctica decolonial

Entre los muchos «giros de las últimas décadas, el denominado «decolonial» es quizás el más abarcador y al mismo tiempo más ambicioso. Abarcador, porque integra y a la vez inflexiona perspectivas y métodos precedentes; ambicioso, porque su objetivo es no solo cambiar las «reglas del juego» del conocimiento, sino también fomentar la recuperación de otras subjetividades, silenciadas bajo el peso de la Modernidad.  ¿Qué significa entonces «integrar» las críticas y prácticas decoloniales tanto en la constitución de islas de lectura, como en la manera en qué leemos los textos, incluyendo a los «clásicos»?  Este ensayo parte de esta pregunta para indagar sobre los modos de implementación de los objetivos decoloniales, no solo repasando sus principales propuestas teóricas, sino acercándose también a algunas prácticas concretas que intentan influir sobre todo el conocimiento, reorientar la relación entre saberes y poderes, y modificar tanto la constitución de diferentes cánones y bibliografías como el estatus jerárquico de los mismos. El alcance de estas prácticas decoloniales, como trataremos de mostrar, hace que más allá de las críticas acertadas a este nuevo giro, se haga difícil descartarlo completamente y que, incluso, sea provechoso integrarlo, también en nuestro quehacer universitario

Collective Impact: Theory Versus Reality

Collective impact is an increasingly popular approach to addressing persistent social problems, but such strategic, cross-sector collaboration is challenging. This brief draws on the experiences of five committed collective impact communities participating in the Ford Foundation’s Corridors to College Success initiative to expose some of the practical obstacles to translating the theory of collective impact into action. The authors highlight three major challenges faced by Corridors stakeholders: developing a shared understanding of collective impact work, maintaining organizational competencies in a coordinated system, and using data to support collective impact work. They also consider whether the incentives for collective impact are sufficient to drive the work despite the funding and capacity constraints faced by participating organizations. Thus, the brief provides a lens for understanding why well-intentioned collective impact efforts may not take root

Lessons from the Corridors of College Success Initiative: An Introduction

Collective impact is a new place-based model of educational and social intervention that aims to shift responsibility for improvement in outcomes from individual organizations to entire systems that affect the lives of people in a particular location. CCRC’s Corridors of College Success Series provides insights into collective impact efforts in the postsecondary sector, drawing on qualitative research in five communities participating in the Ford Foundation’s Corridors of College Success initiative. The Ford Foundation supported these communities as they planned, organized, and applied a collective impact or place-based approach in order to improve pathways into and through college and into family-sustaining careers for low-income and first-generation students and other vulnerable populations. This brief provides an introduction to the collective impact model and the Corridors of College Success initiative. Subsequent briefs in the series will focus on key areas of concern for practitioners, policymakers, funders, and researchers engaging in place-based collective work—including implementation issues, “backbone” organizations, postsecondary engagement in collective impact, funders and funding, and community voice

Social acknowledgement as a predictor of post-traumatic stress and complicated grief after witnessing assisted suicide

Background: In Switzerland, right-to-die organizations such as Exit Deutsche Schweiz offer suicide assistance to their members. However, there is limited knowledge of the impact that witnessing assisted suicide has on the post- traumatic stress severity or the grief process of family members. Low perceived social acknowledgement may affect mental health. Methods: A cross- sectional survey of 85 family members who were present at an assisted suicide was conducted in December 2007. The Inventory of Complicated Grief and the Impact of Event Scale were used to assess symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complicated grief (CG) at 14 to 24 months post-loss. Further, the Social Acknowledgement Questionnaire was used to examine the impact that the social environment’s acknowledgement of the end-of-life decision had on respondents’ mental health. Results: As expected, social acknowledgement as a survivor was related to PTSD symptoms and CG. In particular, perceived general disapproval was strongly correlated with all outcome measures, whereas recognition was not significantly related to PTSD or CG (intrusion and avoidance). Conclusion: Family members of patients who use assisted suicide may hesitate to disclose the manner of death, and the community and societal environment may express strong views concerning the end-of-life decision. This can lead to increased levels of PTSD and CG

Conflicted Analysts and Initial Coin Offerings

This paper studies the contribution of analysts to the functioning and failure of the market for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). The assessments of freelancing analysts exhibit biases due to reciprocal interactions of analysts with ICO team members. Even favorably rated ICOs tend to fail raising some capital when a greater portion of their ratings reciprocate prior ratings. 90 days after listing on an exchange the market capitalization relative to the initial funds raised is smaller for tokens with more reciprocal ratings. These findings suggest that conflicts of interest help explain the failure of ICOs

We Try to Find Something for Whatever Obstacle Might be in Our Way”: Understanding the Health Information Practices of South Carolina LGBTQ+ Communities

Objective: LGBTQ+ people experience health disparities compared to heterosexual, cisgender peers. Individual and systemic barriers produce these disparities. One barrier is informational, as LGBTQ+ people experience challenges when learning about their health needs, navigating the healthcare system, and overcoming obstacles to care. This paper investigates the future of libraries and the health sciences by exploring how they can address these informational barriers. Methods: This paper reports on ~30 ongoing interviews with LGBTQ+ community leaders from South Carolina (SC) using a semi-structured protocol. The protocol asked participants to discuss their community’s health questions and concerns, how the community addresses them, and the barriers experienced along the way. Qualitative data analysis of interview transcripts and drawings from an information worlds mapping exercise is iterative and inductive. The researchers employ the constant comparative method to generate open codes and then organize them into broader thematic categories. Results: Findings denote that SC LGBTQ+ communities are keenly aware of their health information needs, however, they perceive a lack of institutional knowledge to address them. Moreover, participants mistrust experts like medical practitioners due to their perceived lack of cultural competence when serving LGBTQ+ communities. In turn, participants orient themselves and their communities through and around barriers to health information and resources via defensive and protective information practices. Conclusions: Implications suggest that LGBTQ+ people do not view themselves as experiencing deficits regarding how they engage with health-related information. Therefore, it is not the job of librarians to “correct” information practices that they may find to be risky or problematic. Instead, it is their duty to provide systems and services to meet the health needs of LGBTQ+ people, which may include reorienting their own approaches to information provision and assessment. This reorientation can be accomplished by leveraging defensive and protective information practices in which SC LGBTQ+ communities already engage

We Try to Find Something for Whatever Obstacle Might Be in Our Way : Understanding the Health Information Practices of South Carolina LGBTQ+ Communities

Title: “We Try to Find Something for Whatever Obstacle Might be in Our Way”: Understanding the Health Information Practices of South Carolina LGBTQ+ Communities Objective: LGBTQ+ people experience health disparities compared to heterosexual, cisgender peers. Individual and systemic barriers produe these disparities. One barrier is informational, as LGBTQ+ people experience challenges when learning about their health needs, navigating the healthcare system, and overcoming obstacles to care. This paper investigates the future of libraries and the health sciences by exploring how they can address these informational barriers. Methods: This paper reports on ~30 ongoing interviews with LGBTQ+ community leaders from South Carolina (SC) using a semi-structured protocol. The protocol asked participants to discuss their community’s health questions and concerns, how the community addresses them, and the barriers experienced along the way. Qualitative data analysis of interview transcripts and drawings from an information worlds mapping exercise is iterative and inductive. The researchers employ the constant comparative method to generate open codes and then organize them into broader thematic categories. Results: Findings denote that SC LGBTQ+ communities are keenly aware of their health information needs, however perceive a lack of institutional knowledge to address them. Moreover, participants mistrust experts like medical practitioners due to their perceived lack of cultural competence when serving LGBTQ+ communities. In turn, participants orient themselves and their communities through and around barriers to health information and resources via defensive and protective information practices. Conclusions: Implications suggest that LGBTQ+ people do not view themselves as experiencing deficits regarding how they engage with health-related information. Therefore, it is not the job of librarians to “correct” information practices that they may find to be risky or problematic. Instead, it is their duty to provide systems and services to meet the health needs of LGBTQ+ people, which may include reorienting their own approaches to information provision and assessment. This reorientation can be accomplished by leveraging defensive and protective information practices in which SC LGBTQ+ communities already engage