English Speaking and Listening Assessment Project - Baseline. Bangladesh

This study seeks to understand the current practices of English Language Teaching (ELT) and assessment at the secondary school level in Bangladesh, with specific focus on speaking and listening skills. The study draws upon prior research on general ELT practices, English language proficiencies and exploration of assessment practices, in Bangladesh. The study aims to provide some baseline evidence about the way speaking and listening are taught currently, whether these skills are assessed informally, and if so, how this is done. The study addresses two research questions: 1. How ready are English Language Teachers in government-funded secondary schools in Bangladesh to implement continuous assessment of speaking and listening skills? 2. Are there identifiable contextual factors that promote or inhibit the development of effective assessment of listening and speaking in English? These were assessed with a mixed-methods design, drawing upon prior quantitative research and new qualitative fieldwork in 22 secondary schools across three divisions (Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong). At the suggestion of DESHE, the sample also included 2 of the ‘highest performing’ schools from Dhaka city. There are some signs of readiness for effective school-based assessment of speaking and listening skills: teachers, students and community members alike are enthusiastic for a greater emphasis on speaking and listening skills, which are highly valued. Teachers and students are now speaking mostly in English and most teachers also attempt to organise some student talk in pairs or groups, at least briefly. Yet several factors limit students’ opportunities to develop skills at the level of CEFR A1 or A2. Firstly, teachers generally do not yet have sufficient confidence, understanding or competence to introduce effective teaching or assessment practices at CEFR A1-A2. In English lessons, students generally make short, predictable utterances or recite texts. No lessons were observed in which students had an opportunity to develop or demonstrate language functions at CEFR A1-A2. Secondly, teachers acknowledge a washback effect from final examinations, agreeing that inclusion of marks for speaking and listening would ensure teachers and students took these skills more seriously during lesson time. Thirdly, almost two thirds of secondary students achieve no CEFR level, suggesting many enter and some leave secondary education with limited communicative English language skills. One possible contributor to this may be that almost half (43%) of the ELT population are only at the target level for students (CEFR A2) themselves, whilst approximately one in ten teachers (12%) do not achieve the student target (being at A1 or below). Fourthly, the Bangladesh curriculum student competency statements are generic and broad, providing little support to the development of teaching or assessment practices. The introduction and development of effective teaching and assessment strategies at CEFR A1-A2 requires a profound shift in teachers’ understanding and practice. We recommend that: 1. Future sector wide programmes provide sustained support to the develop teachers' competence in teaching and assessment of speaking and listening skills at CEFR A1-A2 2. Options are explored for introducing assessment of these skills in terminal examinations 3. Mechanisms are identified for improving teachers own speaking and listening skills 4. Student competency statements within the Bangladesh curriculum are revised to provide more guidance to teachers and students

Classroom Practices of Primary and Secondary Teachers Participating in English in Action: Second Cohort (2013)

Executive summary a) Background The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether there had been changes in the classroom practice of teachers and students participating in English in Action (EIA) over the period of the 2012–13 intervention (Cohort 2). Previous research in language teaching has established that when teachers take up most of the lesson time talking, this can severely limit students’ opportunities to develop proficiency in the target language (Cook 2008), while a general goal of English language (EL) teachers is to motivate their students to speak and to practise using the target language (Nunan 1991). This study therefore focused upon the extent of teacher and student talk, the use of the target language by both, and the forms of classroom organisation (individual, pair, group or choral work) in which student talk is situated. Of course, the amount of teacher talk is not the only indicator of quality language teaching; the nature of that talk is also important – for example, whether teachers engage the attention of the class, present them with new information in an understandable way and allow them time to ask questions and comment. Classroom Practice 2013 is a repeat of the studies on the pilot EIA programme (Cohort 1) (EIA 2011a & 2012a). The students and teachers of Cohort 2 are sixfold greater in number (4,368 teachers, compared to 751 teachers, in schools). To enable this increase in scale, the programme has been delivered through a more decentralised model, with much less direct contact with English language teaching (ELT) experts, a greater embedding of expertise within teacher development materials (especially video), and a greater dependence upon localised peer support. This study addresses two main questions: 1. To what extent do the teachers of Cohort 2 show improved classroom practice, particularly in relation to the amount and language of student talk, compared with the pre-intervention baseline? 2. To what extent has the programme been successful in repeating the post-intervention improvements in teachers’ classroom practice seen in Cohort 1, at the much larger scale of Cohort 2? b) Research methodology The EIA classroom practice baseline (EIA 2009a & b) was originally adapted from a general classroom observation study, and was geographically limited, due to an uncertain social and political context at the time of the fieldwork. Subsequently the methodology was revised to give more fine-grained data about student and teacher talk, use of the target language, and forms of classroom organisation, and was implemented on a representative sample of EIA teachers, four months after the launch of the pilot programme (EIA 2011a) and again 12–16 months after the programme start (EIA 2012a). The research instrument is a timed observation schedule (see Appendix 1), directly comparable to that used in the earlier studies on the EIA pilot intervention (2010 and 2011). The sample comprised 401 lesson observations – 230 of primary teachers, 145 of secondary teachers, and 26 of primary head teachers. For this study, the practices observed were compared directly (statistically) with the earlier pilot studies (EIA 2011a and 2012a), and indirectly with the earlier baseline (EIA 2009a & b). c) Key findings: Primary classrooms i) Teachers’ talk and activity In the observation of Cohort 2 lessons, average primary teacher talk had dropped to less than half of the lesson time (45%). This represents a very significant reduction in teacher talk from 2009 baseline practices, where teacher talk was the predominant classroom activity. Although this is a higher figure than was found in the 2010 early-intervention observations (34%), it had not caused any reciprocal drop in student talk-time (compared to that found in 2010). Teachers’ use of the target language was very much greater than that observed in the 2009 baseline, and slightly higher (76%) than that found in 2010 (71%) or 2011 (72%). In the observation of Cohort 2 lessons, there was a notable increase in time teachers spent organising and a decrease in time spent presenting when compared with the baseline and with the 2011 study. Primary teachers were using a wide range of activities in the classroom and involving students in these activities. Primary teachers were found to be organising for 32% of the time, presenting 25% of the time, asking questions 23% of the time, and giving feedback 20% of the time. This is a change from the baseline studies (EIA 2009a & b), where teachers were observed to be primarily reading from the textbook and rarely involving students in activities. Compared to 2011, primary teachers spent less talktime ‘asking questions’ (falling from 27% to 23%) and more time ‘organising’ classroom activity (rising to 32% from 22%), and much less time presenting (falling from 40% in 2011, to 25% in 2013). These observations suggest EIA Cohort 2 primary teachers were making great and sustained efforts to increase the use of the target language, and involve students more actively in their English lessons. ii) Students’ talk and activity In the observation of Cohort 2 lessons, average student talk-time accounted for 27% of the lesson. This figure represents a very different situation to the 2009 baseline, where in two-thirds of lessons observed ‘none or hardly any’ of the students spoke. The figure is identical to that found in the 2010 observations. Students’ use of the target language had also increased substantially over the baseline, to 91% of student talk in English. The proportion of primary students’ talk in English was higher than that observed in 2010 (88%) and 2011 (81%), with the difference between 2011 being statistically significant (p<0.05). Almost half (46%) of student talk was observed in the context of choral activities, while approximately a third (36%) was individual student talk. 18% of student talk was pair (10%) or group (8%) work, a figure midway between that observed in 2010 (30%) and 2011 (9%). In all forms of talk organisation, English was the main language used by students (86–91%). The fact that students were often engaged in activities in which they interacted with their classmates marks a notable change from the baseline studies (EIA 2009a & b), which identified few occasions when individual students or groups were encouraged to speak in English (2–4% of the lesson time) and which showed that in most classes students were not interactive at all. d) Key findings: Secondary classrooms i) Teachers’ talk and activity In the observation of Cohort 2 lessons, average secondary teacher talk had dropped to less than half of the lesson time (48%). This represents a very significant reduction in teacher talk from 2009 baseline practices, where teacher talk was the predominant classroom activity. Although this is a higher figure than was found in the 2010 early-intervention observations (33%), it is lower than 2011 (50%), and is not related to any reciprocal drop in student talk-time (compared to that found in 2010 or 2011). Teachers’ use of target language was much greater than that observed in the 2009 baseline, and slightly higher (87%) than that in 2010 (86%) or 2011 (79%). In the observation of Cohort 2 lessons, there was a notable increase in the time teachers spent organising and a decrease in the time spent presenting when compared with the baseline and the 2011 study. Secondary teachers were using a wide range of activities in the classroom and involving students in these activities. They were found to be organising 29% of the time, presenting 32% of the time, asking questions 22% of the time, and giving feedback 17% of the time. This is a change from the baseline studies (EIA 2009a & b), where teachers were observed to be primarily reading from the textbook and rarely involving students in activities. Compared to 2011, secondary teachers spent similar talk-time ‘asking questions’ (22% compared to 23%), more time organising classroom activity (rising from 22% to 29%), and much less time presenting (falling from 45% to 32%). These observations suggest EIA Cohort 2 secondary teachers were making great and sustained efforts to increase the use of the target language, and involve students more actively in their English lessons. ii) Students’ talk and activity In the observation of Cohort 2 lessons, average secondary student talk-time accounted for 24% of the lesson. This figure represents a very different situation to the 2009 baseline, where in two-thirds of lessons observed ‘none or hardly any’ of the students spoke. The figure is about the same as that found in the 2010 (23%) and 2011 (24%) observations. Students’ use of the target language had also increased substantially over the baseline, rising to 87% of student talk in English. The proportion of secondary students’ talk in English was similar to that observed in 2010 (88%) and 2011 (85%). Over half (53%) of student talk observed was individual talk, while 28% was pair (13%) or group (15%) work, a figure similar to that observed in 2011 (27%), but below that observed in 2010 (57%). In all forms of talk organisation, English was the main language used by students in all forms of classroom organisation (85–92% for individual, pair and choral work); though as might be expected, in group work English still predominated (64%), but students used Bangla more (36%) than they did in other forms of organisation. The fact that students were often engaged in activities in which they interacted with their classmates marks a notable change from the baseline studies (EIA 2009a & b), which identified few occasions when individual students or groups were encouraged to speak in English (2–4% of the lesson time) and showed that in most classes students were not interactive at all. e) Conclusions Despite a sixfold increase in scale for Cohort 2, and a more decentralised, peer-supported approach to teacher development, observations of Cohort 2 classroom practices show substantial and important changes compared with the baseline studies, which show teachers making great efforts to promote and model the target language, and to organise increased student participation in lessons. The observations show substantial increases in students’ active participation, with more opportunities to speak and practise the target language. These latest findings mark a notable increase in the time teachers spent organising and a decrease in the time spent presenting when compared with the baseline and with the 2011 study. The results show that both primary and secondary teachers were using a wide range of activities in the classroom and involving students in these activities. In summary, the 2013 cohort of teachers observed in the EIA programme were using more English in their classes, involving students in more activities and encouraging them to spend more of their class time speaking in English

Conceptual design proposal: HUGO global range/mobility transport aircraft

With the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the emergence of the United Nations actively pursuing a peace keeping role in world affairs, the United States has been forced into a position as the world's leading peace enforcer. It is still a very dangerous world with seemingly never ending ideological, territorial, and economic disputes requiring the U.S. to maintain a credible deterrent posture in this uncertain environment. This has created an urgent need to rapidly transport large numbers of troops and equipment from the continental United States (CONUS) to any potential world trouble spot by means of a global range/mobility transport aircraft. The most recent examples being Operation Desert Shield/Storm and Operation Restore Hope. To meet this challenge head-on, a request for proposal (RFP) was developed and incorporated into the 1992/1993 AIAA/McDonnell Douglas Corporation Graduate Team Aircraft Design Competition. The RFP calls for the conceptual design and justification of a large aircraft capable of power projecting a significant military force without surface transportation reliance

The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children - A resource for COVID-19 research:Antibody testing results, April – June 2021

The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) is a prospective population-based cohort which recruited pregnant women in 1990-1992 and has followed these women, their partners (Generation 0; G0) and their offspring (Generation 1; G1) ever since. The study reacted rapidly and repeatedly to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, deploying multiple online questionnaires and a previous home-based antibody test in October 2020. A second antibody test, in collaboration with ten other longitudinal population studies, was completed by 4,622 ALSPAC participants between April and June 2021. Of 4,241 participants with a valid spike protein antibody test result (8.2% were void), indicating antibody response to either COVID-19 vaccination or natural infection, 3,172 were positive (74.8%). Generational differences were substantial, with 2,463/2,555 G0 participants classified positive (96.4%) compared to 709/1,686 G1 participants (42.1%). Of 4,199 participants with a valid nucleocapsid antibody test result (9.2% were void), suggesting potential and recent natural infection, 493 were positive (11.7%); 248/2,526 G0 participants (9.8%) and 245/1,673 G1 participants (14.6%) tested positive, respectively. We also compare results for this round of testing to that undertaken in October 2020. Future work will combine these test results with additional sources of data to identify participants’ COVID-19 infection and vaccination status. These ALSPAC COVID-19 serology data are being complemented with linkage to health records and Public Health England pillar testing results as they become available, in addition to four previous questionnaire waves and a prior antibody test. Data have been released as an update to the previous COVID-19 datasets. These comprise: 1) a standard dataset containing all participant responses to all four previous questionnaires with key sociodemographic factors; and 2) individual participant-specific release files enabling bespoke research across all areas supported by the study. This data note describes the second ALSPAC antibody test and the data obtained from it

The household economic burden for acute coronary syndrome survivors in Australia

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background: Studies of chronic diseases are associated with a financial burden on households. We aimed to determine if survivors of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) experience household economic burden and to quantify any potential burden by examining level of economic hardship and factors associated with hardship. Methods: Australian patients admitted to hospital with ACS during 2-week period in May 2012, enrolled in SNAPSHOT ACS audit and who were alive at 18 months after index admission were followed-up via telephone/paper survey. Regression models were used to explore factors related to out-of-pocket expenses and economic hardship. Results: Of 1833 eligible patients at baseline, 180 died within 18 months, and 702 patients completed the survey. Mean out-of-pocket expenditure (n = 614) in Australian dollars was A$258.06 (median: A$126.50) per month. The average spending for medical services was A$120.18 (SD: A$310.35) and medications was A$66.25 (SD: A$80.78). In total, 350 (51 %) of patients reported experiencing economic hardship, 78 (12 %) were unable to pay for medical services and 81 (12 %) could not pay for medication. Younger age (18–59 vs ≥80 years (OR): 1.89), no private health insurance (OR: 2.04), pensioner concession card (OR: 1.80), residing in more disadvantaged area (group 1 vs 5 (OR): 1.77), history of CVD (OR: 1.47) and higher out-of-pocket expenses (group 4 vs 1 (OR): 4.57) were more likely to experience hardship. Conclusion: Subgroups of ACS patients are experiencing considerable economic burden in Australia. These findings provide important considerations for future policy development in terms of the cost of recommended management for patients

Systematic identification of genetic influences on methylation across the human life course

BACKGROUND: The influence of genetic variation on complex diseases is potentially mediated through a range of highly dynamic epigenetic processes exhibiting temporal variation during development and later life. Here we present a catalogue of the genetic influences on DNA methylation (methylation quantitative trait loci (mQTL)) at five different life stages in human blood: children at birth, childhood, adolescence and their mothers during pregnancy and middle age. RESULTS: We show that genetic effects on methylation are highly stable across the life course and that developmental change in the genetic contribution to variation in methylation occurs primarily through increases in environmental or stochastic effects. Though we map a large proportion of the cis-acting genetic variation, a much larger component of genetic effects influencing methylation are acting in trans. However, only 7 % of discovered mQTL are trans-effects, suggesting that the trans component is highly polygenic. Finally, we estimate the contribution of mQTL to variation in complex traits and infer that methylation may have a causal role consistent with an infinitesimal model in which many methylation sites each have a small influence, amounting to a large overall contribution. CONCLUSIONS: DNA methylation contains a significant heritable component that remains consistent across the lifespan. Our results suggest that the genetic component of methylation may have a causal role in complex traits. The database of mQTL presented here provide a rich resource for those interested in investigating the role of methylation in disease. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13059-016-0926-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Human metabolism and elimination of the anthocyanin, cyanidin-3-glucoside: a 13C-tracer study

BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that the consumption of anthocyanin-rich foods beneficially affects cardiovascular health; however, the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination (ADME) of anthocyanin-rich foods are relatively unknown. OBJECTIVE: We investigated the ADME of a (13)C5-labeled anthocyanin in humans. DESIGN: Eight male participants consumed 500 mg isotopically labeled cyanidin-3-glucoside (6,8,10,3',5'-(13)C5-C3G). Biological samples were collected over 48 h, and (13)C and (13)C-labeled metabolite concentrations were measured by using isotope-ratio mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. RESULTS: The mean +/- SE percentage of (13)C recovered in urine, breath, and feces was 43.9 +/- 25.9% (range: 15.1-99.3% across participants). The relative bioavailability was 12.38 +/- 1.38% (5.37 +/- 0.67% excreted in urine and 6.91 +/- 1.59% in breath). Maximum rates of (13)C elimination were achieved 30 min after ingestion (32.53 +/- 14.24 mug(13)C/h), whereas (13)C-labeled metabolites peaked (maximum serum concentration: 5.97 +/- 2.14 mumol/L) at 10.25 +/- 4.14 h. The half-life for (13)C-labeled metabolites ranged between 12.44 +/- 4.22 and 51.62 +/- 22.55 h. (13)C elimination was greatest between 0 and 1 h for urine (90.30 +/- 15.28 mug/h), at 6 h for breath (132.87 +/- 32.23 mug/h), and between 6 and 24 h for feces (557.28 +/- 247.88 mug/h), whereas the highest concentrations of (13)C-labeled metabolites were identified in urine (10.77 +/- 4.52 mumol/L) and fecal samples (43.16 +/- 18.00 mumol/L) collected between 6 and 24 h. Metabolites were identified as degradation products, phenolic, hippuric, phenylacetic, and phenylpropenoic acids. CONCLUSION: Anthocyanins are more bioavailable than previously perceived, and their metabolites are present in the circulation fo

Identification of patients for clinical risk assessment by prediction of cardiovascular risk using default risk factor values

Abstract Background To identify high risk patients without cardiovascular disease requires assessment of risk factors. Primary care providers must therefore determine which patients without cardiovascular disease should be highest priority for cardiovascular risk assessment. One approach is to prioritise patients for assessment using a prior estimate of their cardiovascular risk. This prior estimate of cardiovascular risk is derived from risk factor data that are routinely held in electronic medical records, with unknown blood pressure and cholesterol levels replaced by default values derived from national survey data. This paper analyses the test characteristics of using such a strategy for identification of high risk patients. Methods Prior estimates of Framingham cardiovascular risk were derived in a population obtained from the Health Survey for England 2003. Receiver operating characteristics curves were constructed for using a prior estimate of cardiovascular risk to identify patients at greater than 20% ten-year cardiovascular risk. This was compared to strategies using age, or diabetic and antihypertensive treatment status to identify high risk patients. Results The area under the curve for a prior estimate of cardiovascular risk calculated using minimum data (0.933, 95% CI: 0.925 to 0.941) is significantly greater than for a selection strategy based on age (0.892, 95% CI: 0.882 to 0.902), or diabetic and hypertensive status (0.608, 95% CI: 0.584 to 0.632). Conclusion Using routine data held on primary care databases it is possible to identify a population at high risk of cardiovascular disease. Information technology to help primary care prioritise patients for cardiovascular disease prevention may improve the efficiency of cardiovascular risk assessment.</p