Promoting acquisition of academic vocabulary in English-medium secondary education in the USA

In U.S. secondary schools, particularly in large urban areas, many English language learners (ELLs), which term here designates those who immigrate to the United States and learn English as their second language while attending school, demonstrate an impressive command of oral skills. Some students who have been in the country for only a few years speak English well in day-to-day situations. However, this level of language proficiency may cause others to overestimate these students’ readiness to handle academic subjects in English, as ELLs often have acquired only the vocabulary of daily social interaction. Social encounters are context embedded and do not require technical or specialized vocabulary. Many ELLs who are competent to handle these encounters in English have not yet acquired a higher level of language proficiency that encompasses the vocabulary and skills necessary to succeed in school.This level of language proficiency is needed for formal academic learning of subject-specific material, for which the context is considerably reduced and the conceptual tasks are more challenging. ELLs need to be able to use complex, abstract vocabulary to understand and succeed through academic English. This article examines the unique challenges that ELLs encounter when acquiring academic vocabulary in their core subjects and presents practical and, where possible, research-based strategies to foster the acquisition of vocabulary that can be used across the content domains.Muchos aprendices de lengua inglesa (ELLs, sigla en inglés de “English Language Learners”) demuestran un dominio impresionante de las habilidades orales. Algunos sólo llevan en los Estados Unidos unos pocos años y hablan inglés bien en situaciones cotidianas. Sin embargo, este nivel de conocimiento del idioma puede hacer que muchos sobreestimen la preparación de estos estudiantes para el manejo de temas académicos en inglés, pues a menudo éstos solamente han adquirido el vocabulario de la interacción social diaria. Los encuentros sociales son contextos ensamblados y no requieren de un vocabulario técnico o especializado. Muchos aprendices de la lengua inglesa, los cuales son hábiles en el manejo de estas situaciones en inglés, no han adquirido todavía un nivel más elevado de conocimiento en el idioma que abarque el vocabulario y las habilidades necesarias para obtener éxito en el contexto educativo. Este nivel de conocimiento del idioma es necesario para el aprendizaje académico formal del material específico de una determinada materia, para la que el contexto se reduce considerablemente y las tareas conceptuales son más desafiantes. Estos alumnos necesitan poder utilizar un vocabulario complejo y abstracto para poder comprender y tener éxito con el inglés académico. Este artículo examina los particulares desafíos que deben afrontar estos estudiantes cuando adquieren el vocabulario académico de sus materias básicas y presenta estrategias prácticas basadas en las investigaciones para fomentar la adquisición del vocabulario, las que se pueden utilizar de manera transversal en las áreas de contenido

Priorities for realizing the potential to increase agricultural productivity and growth in Western and Central Africa:

"We identify a set of development priorities for agriculture that cut across West Africa, at both the country and the regional level, to achieve economy-wide growth goals in the region. To do this, we adopt a modeling and analytical framework that involves the integration of spatial analysis to identify yield gaps determining growth potential of different agricultural activities for areas with similar conditions and an economy-wide multimarket model to simulate ex ante the economic effects of closing these yield gaps. Results indicate that the greatest agriculture-led growth opportunities in West Africa reside in staple crops (cereals as well as roots and tubers) and livestock production. Rice is the commodity with the highest potential for growth and the one that could generate the greatest benefits for many countries. Activities contributing the most to agricultural growth in the Sahel are livestock, rice, coarse grains, and groundnuts; in coastal countries, staple crops like cassava, yams, and cereals seem to be relatively more important than the contributions of other subsectors; and livestock and root crops are the sources of growth with highest potential in Central Africa. Our results also point toward an essential range of policies and investments that are needed to stimulate productivity growth of prioritized activities. These include the following: development of opportunities for regional cooperation on technology adaptation and diffusion, strengthening of regional agricultural markets exploiting opportunities for greater regional cooperation and harmonization, diversification of traditional markets, and enhancement of linkages between agricultural and nonagricultural sectors." from authors' abstractAgricultural growth, Multi-market model, spatial analysis, Staple food crops, Yield gap, Development strategies,

Accelerating Africa's food production in response to rising food prices: Impacts and requisite actions

"In Africa the global food crisis threatens the livelihoods of millions of people who because of high rates of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and food dependency are already exceptionally vulnerable. In better circumstances, Africa's agricultural sector would respond to rising prices by increasing food supply. But such a response is impossible without significant new policy actions on both the production and marketing of African agriculture. This paper assesses the likely impacts of two strategic policy options: doubling African staples production, and improving “market access” through regional integration and lowering transaction costs. Using an economywide multimarket model for 17 African economies and econometrically estimated parameters describing the relationships between growth and poverty and between public spending and growth, we assess the impacts of these two strategic options on Africa's food markets and its broader economic development. Doubling staples production significantly increases food security, reduces consumer food prices by roughly 25 percent, reduces producer prices by 10 percent (thus raising farm revenue), accelerates agricultural growth rates, facilitates broader economic growth through new agroprocessing and export opportunities, and lifts more than 100 million Africans out of poverty. Key policy actions are needed to move from this strategic vision to implementation. The first set of actions requires investing $38 billion from 2009 to 2013, or$7.5 billion per year, in a well-designed package of modern agricultural inputs and provisions. The second requires improving and extending transport infrastructure, especially major transport corridors and rural feeder roads. The third requires reducing tra*de barriers, which still remain much higher in agriculture than in other sectors. All of these actions are technically and financially feasible, but their timely implementation requires urgent initiatives by both national and international policymakers." from authors' abstractFood prices, Green Revolution, Staple foods, Agricultural productivity, Market access, infrastructure, economic modeling,

El Farol Revisited

This article is concerned with the global behavior of agents in the El Farol bar problem. In particular, we discuss the global attendance in terms of its mean and variance, and show that there is a strong dependence of both on the externally imposed comfort level. We present a possible interpretation for the observed behavior, and propose that the mean attendance converges to the perceived threshold value as opposed to the actually imposed one.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Effects of transition metal substitutions on the incommensurability and spin fluctuations in BaFe2As2 by elastic and inelastic neutron scattering

The spin fluctuation spectra from nonsuperconducting Cu-substituted, and superconducting Co-substituted, BaFe2As2 are compared quantitatively by inelastic neutron scattering measurements and are found to be indis- tinguishable. Whereas diffraction studies show the appearance of incommensurate spin-density wave order in Co and Ni substituted samples, the magnetic phase diagram for Cu substitution does not display incommensu- rate order, demonstrating that simple electron counting based on rigid-band concepts is invalid. These results, supported by theoretical calculations, suggest that substitutional impurity effects in the Fe plane play a signifi- cant role in controlling magnetism and the appearance of superconductivity, with Cu distinguished by enhanced impurity scattering and split-band behavior.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Major change in the manuscrip

Modification of the Landau-Lifshitz Equation in the Presence of a Spin-Polarized Current in CMR and GMR Materials

We derive a continuum equation for the magnetization of a conducting ferromagnet in the presence of a spin-polarized current. Current effects enter in the form of a topological term in the Landau-Lifshitz equation . In the stationary situation the problem maps onto the motion of a classical charged particle in the field of a magnetic monopole. The spatial dependence of the magnetization is calculated for a one-dimensional geometry and suggestions for experimental observation are made. We also consider time-dependent solutions and predict a spin-wave instability for large currents.Comment: 4 two-column pages in RevTex, 3 ps-figure

Analytic Solution of the Pion-Laser Model

Brooding over bosons, wave packets and Bose - Einstein correlations, we find that a generalization of the pion-laser model for the case of overlapping wave-packets is analytically solvable with complete n-particle symmetrization. The effective radius parameter of the two-particle correlation function is reduced for low values and enlargened for high values of the mean momentum in the rare gas limiting case, as compared to the case when multi-particle symmetrization effects are neglected. These results explicitly depend on the multiplicity, providing a theoretical basis for event-by-event analysis of high energy heavy ion reactions.Comment: LaTeX, ReVTeX 3.1, 7 pages, uses 1 eps figure and epsfig.sty (shortened version

"A place where I can be me": a role for social and leisure provision to support young people with language impairment

The long-term well-being of children with language impairment is an area of increasing interest to families, educators and employers as language impairment is often life-long. Furthermore, language impairment and psychiatric difficulty are known to overlap in both populations originally diagnosed as having language impairment and those receiving mental health services. However, there are currently little data available about the wider quality of life for people with language impairment, especially from the perspective of the young people themselves. There is a dearth of information about community-based activities provided for the support and leisure of this population. The Afasic Youth Project meets once a week and is one of only a handful of such groups across the United Kingdom

A pedagogic appraisal of the Priority Heuristic

We have explored how science and mathematics teachers made decisions when confronted with a dilemma in which a fictitious young woman, Deborah, may choose to have an operation that might address a painful spinal condition. We sought to explore the extent to which psychological heuristic models, in particular the Priority Heuristic, might successfully describe the decision-making process of these teachers and how an analysis of the role of personal and emotional factors in shaping the decision-making process might inform pedagogical design. A novel aspect of this study is that the setting in which the decision-making process is examined contrasts sharply with those used in psychological experiments. We found that to some extent, even in this contrasting setting, the Priority Heuristic could describe these teachers' decision-making. Further analysis of the transcripts yielded some insights into limitations on scope as well the richness and complexity in how personal factors were brought to bear. We see these limitations as design opportunities for educational intervention

Mainstreaming domestic and gender-based violence into sociology and the criminology of violence

Sociological and criminological views of domestic and gender-based violencegenerally either dismiss it as not worthy of consideration, or focus on specificgroups of offenders and victims (male youth gangs, partner violence victims). Inthis paper, we take a holistic approach to violence, extending the definition fromthat commonly in use to encompass domestic violence and sexual violence. Weoperationalize that definition by using data from the latest sweep of the CrimeSurvey for England and Wales. By so doing, we identify that violence is currentlyunder-measured and ubiquitous; that it is gendered, and that other forms of violence (family violence, acquaintance violence against women) are equally ofconcern. We argue that violence studies are an important form of activity forsociologists