The Secret Life of Methods

This paper addresses two questions: (1) How do Methods of language teaching differ from one another? (2) What factors are responsible for the spread of Nethods? I hope to demonstrate that while fundamental differences between methods often relate to different views of the nature of language, or to different instructional theories, the reasons for the rise and fall of Methods are often independent of either of these factors. To understand the role of language theory, instructional theory and implementation factors in Methods, is to know their Secret Life

Communicative Needs in Foreign Language Learning

The theme of language and the learner's communicative needs is a familiar one in language teaching. In recent years applied linguistics has been revitalized by attempts to describe how language reflects its communicative uses, and by demonstrations of how syllabus design and methodology can respond to the need for communicative uses of language in classrooms and teaching materials. This paper attempts to contribute to our general understanding of how language use reflects underlying communicative needs by considering some central aspects of communication. Five assumptions about the nature of verbal communication will be discussed, namely, that communication is meaning based, conventional, appropriate, interactional and structured. These will be discussed in relation to the communicative needs of second or foreign language learners

30 Years of TEFL/TESL: A Personal Reflection

This paper tries to answer eight questions, which are as follows. (1) What are the goals of teach English?; (2) What is the best way to teach a language?; (3) What is the role of grammar in language teaching?; (4) What processes are involved in second language learning?; (5) What is the role of the learner?; (6) How can we teach the four skills?; (7) How can we access students' learner?; (8) How can we prepare language teachers

Transmissive and transformative approaches to language teacher education

In this paper I compare two contrasting educational philosophies that have had a significant impact on the way we approach and understand our practice as teacher educators. These have been labeled in several ways such as top-down versus bottom-up or product versus process based. I will characterize them a transmission-based approach and an ecological approach. My aim here is to describe and compare these two approaches and suggest how they offer complementary perspectives on the nature and practices of second language teacher education

Transmissive and Transformative Approaches to Language Teacher Education

In this paper I compare two contrasting educational philosophies that have had a significant impact on the way we approach and understand our practice as teacher educators. These have been labeled in several ways such as top-down versus bottom-up or product versus process based. I will characterize them a transmission-based approach and an ecological approach. My aim here is to describe and compare these two approaches and suggest how they offer complementary perspectives on the nature and practices of second language teacher education

Language Curriculum Development

Language curriculum development, like other areas of curriculum activity, is concerned with principles and procedures for the planning, management, and assessment of learning. But whereas in general educational practice, curriculum development has spawned a major educational industry, what is understood by curriculum development in language teaching has often been rather narrowly conceived. The focus has primarily been on language syllabuses rather than on the broader processes of curriculum development. Consequently there has been a relatively sparse literature on language curriculum development until recently. Such discussion that appears in the language teaching journals of the 1940s, 50s and early 60's, is primarily concerned with procedures for selecting the linguistic content of language courses. In this paper we will review issues and practices in language curriculum development and attempt to provide a framework for the discussion of current curriculum questions in language teaching

On the edge of a new frontier: Is gerontological social work in the UK ready to meet twenty-first-century challenges?

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website. Copyright @ 2013 The Authors.This article explores the readiness of gerontological social work in the UK for meeting the challenges of an ageing society by investigating the focus on work with older people in social work education and the scope of gerontological social work research. The discussion draws on findings from two exploratory studies: a survey of qualifying master's programmes in England and a survey of the content relating to older people over a six-year period in four leading UK social work journals. The evidence from master's programmes suggests widespread neglect of ageing in teaching content and practice learning. Social work journals present a more nuanced picture. Older people emerge within coverage of generic policy issues for adults, such as personalisation and safeguarding, and there is good evidence of the complexity of need in late life. However, there is little attention to effective social work interventions, with an increasingly diverse older population, or to the quality of gerontological social work education. The case is made for infusing content on older people throughout the social work curriculum, for extending practice learning opportunities in social work with older people and for increasing the volume and reporting of gerontological social work research.Brunel Institute for Ageing Studie

Accuracy of In Vivo Multimodal Optical Imaging for Detection of Oral Neoplasia

If detected early, oral cancer is eminently curable. However, survival rates for oral cancer patients remain low, largely due to late-stage diagnosis and subsequent difficulty of treatment. To improve cliniciansﾒ ability to detect early disease and to treat advanced cancers, we developed a multimodal optical imaging system (MMIS) to evaluate tissue in situ, at macroscopic and microscopic scales. The MMIS was used to measure 100 anatomic sites in 30 patients, correctly classifying 98% of pathologically confirmed normal tissue sites, and 95% of sites graded as moderate dysplasia, severe dysplasia, or cancer. When used alone, MMIS classification accuracy was 35% for sites determined by pathology as mild dysplasia. However, MMIS measurements correlated with expression of candidate molecular markers in 87% of sites with mild dysplasia. These findings support the ability of noninvasive multimodal optical imaging to accurately identify neoplastic tissue and premalignant lesions. This in turn may have considerable impact on detection and treatment of patients with oral cancer and other epithelial malignancies