Academic literature on the topic 'Language arts – Correlation with content subjects'

Background. One of the main positions of the vocalist’s practice is to understand the recitation as a kind of interpretation of the musical text, which is fixed in the notes. In the process of performing a piece of music, be it the song, the romance, the recitative, the aria in an opera or a musical drama, one specific variant is selected each time from its many potential meanings. This is the performer’s interpretation of the declamatory intonation, because the composer usually does not indicate the tone, timbre and strength of the voice, minimally orienting a singer in the desired intonation, in the duration and location of pauses for breath and in another wide arsenal of methods of declamatory expression. The aim of this research is to study the interpretive properties of recitation in the sphere of vocal music. Discovering the nature of the interpretive properties of declamatory intonation, based on the simultaneous and consistent sound of speech and music, will help to overcome the performance difficulties in the vocalist’s work on mastering the artistic technique of this area of expression. The main results. The specificity of the combination of words and music in the structure of melodic declamation, its origins in various national cultures, both European and Chinese, the peculiarities of being in different genre conditions (musical drama, opera recitative) are considered, certain difficulties and tasks for the singer-reciter are outlined. In European art, the tradition of melodic recitation has its roots in ancient mysteries. The beginning of European secular melodic recitation was marked at the end of the 16th century, but it was developing in the works of musicians known as the “Florentine Camerata” (Vincenzo Galilei, Giulio Cacchini, Jacopo Peri, Ottavio Rinuccini, etc.), becoming one of the origins of opera. A distinctive feature of melody recitation at that time was the desire for solo recitative singing. Later, as an expressive mean, recitation was existing within the opera genre, and from the middle of the 18 century in Europe, this technique was contributing to the formation of an independent concert genre – chamber and vocal works with ballad texts, which found their place in the works of romantic composers (F. Schubert, R. Schumann, etc.). Note, that in the process of historical development, the genre of melodic declamation, on the one hand, modifies in the form of a recitative in European opera, on the other – remains independent within the musical-stage drama, still popular in various national cultures. The Chinese Suzhou musical drama, which is indicative of our study, originated more than 200 years ago, beginning with folk melodies, including xiaochang (“little songs’), tales, dance movements, gestures (khuaguden dances – “with flowers, drums and lanterns’) etc., and gradually spread at the area near the city Suzhou in the lower Yellow River. It later spread to Anhui Province, the Northern parts of Jiangsu Province, and the Southern parts of Shandong Province. The creative achievements of this art, local at the beginning, later assimilated in the national Beijing Opera. But from its origins, this kind of musical and stage action is inextricably linked with the life of the Chinese people, is based on unpretentious plots, so it remains popular to this day, capable of significant emotional impact on the recipient – the audience and listener. Note, that the genre varieties of musical drama developed from the 16–17 centuries both, in China and in the different cultures of the European, American, and Asian continents, where they exist and today. This stability of the genre is not least due to the fact that in the structure of musical drama is an artistic synthesis of several types of art: the word interacts with music, live stage action. The melodic reciter in this context faces certain difficulties. So, one of the basic means of musical expression for the singer is diction, clear pronunciation of a word, which, in close connection with the melody, is subject to the task of transmitting the artistic content of the work – from composer to listener. It is impossible to convey the musical idea of the composition, to create a certain emotional mood, to embody one’s interpretation of the poetic image of the performed music without a clear proclamation of language inversions, which contain the significance of the immanent artistic content. This requirement does not apply to technical musical constructions used for singing, for “warming up” the singer’s vocal apparatus, nor does it apply to vocals performed without words. Every artist, including a vocalist who uses a verbal word, must understand its importance in creating a unique artistic image, consciously use diction as an articulatory technique of revealing the musical text content in the poetic context of chamber, opera, or musical-dramatic genres. Conclusions. So, verbal-musical factors of declamatory intonation have the immanent possibility of various interpretations in the process of vocal performance. Recitation is based on the expressiveness of the word, perceived by the listener or theatrical spectator on several levels: 1) auditory – we hear the intonation richness of shades of musical speech; 2) mental – we understand the logical meaning of texts; 3) psycho-emotional – with the help of imagination, fantasy, we sympathize with the moods, emotions of the heroes of the work of art. At the same time, the basis of interpretation in the art of singing is the voice as a physical phenomenon: it is not only a material carrier of speech sounds, but also the main tool for expressing musical meanings: the variety of voice sound modulations is inexhaustible. Therefore, the role of breathing in the process of clear proclamation of the word, diction in the process of vocal intonation is difficult to overestimate. It is necessary to emphasize the presence of constant transitions in the part of the performer-reciter from linguistic constructions to recitative and pure vocal. Mastering the techniques of correlation of singing and recitation is relevant for any vocalist, which caused an in-details study of this problem.

Overload of the Basic Education curriculum in Nigeria led to the reduction from earlier 11 subjects to seven for Lower Basic, eight for Middle Basic, and nine for Upper Basic. Languages may not be exempt as it may affect performance adversely. For this study, the two national languages (English language and French) as well as Yoruba (the language of the Southwestern States) were examined. The curricula content of the three compulsory languages was examined based on (except for Yoruba) globally accepted objectives of language learning. Content analysis showed curriculum overload of different dimensions at the levels of the three languages.

In language performance assessment it is assumed that the best way to assess one’s proficiency is to make her/him show such proficiency in a direct way in a situation close to the reality. Such view contrasts with knowledge testing which assesses language in an indirect way. This research objective is to discuss the development and application of an interdisciplinary task connecting two school subjects – English Language and Logistics – in a performance language test, investigating the correlation between these two subjects’ scores. This study uses qualitative method in order to build the test task and criteria and quantitative one to analyze the test scores. The research was developed in a public educational institution located in São Paulo metropolitan region and the results show that there is no correlation of the mean score between English language and Logistics subjects and students face more difficulties in using English than approaching the task topic content.

On a broader scale, the aim of this paper is to examine theoretically the effects a cultural context has on the aesthetic experience of images existing in perceived reality. Minimalism in architecture, as direct subject of research, is a field of particularities in which we observe functioning of this correlation. Through the experiment with the similarity phenomenon, the paper follows specific manifestations of general formal principles and variability of meaning of minimalism in architecture in limited areas of cultural backgrounds of Serbia and Japan. The goal of the comparative analysis of the examples presented is to indicate the conditions that may lead to a possibly different aesthetic experience in two different cultural contexts. Attribution of different meanings to similar formal visual language of architecture raises questions concerning the system of values, which produces these meanings in their cultural and historical perspectives. The establishment of values can also be affected by preconceptions resulting from association of perceived similarities. Are the preconceptions in aesthetic reception of architecture conditionally affected by pragmatic needs, symbolic archetypes, cultural metaphors based on tradition or ideologically constructed dogmas? Confronting philosophical postulates of the Western and Eastern traditions with the transculturality theory of Wolfgang Welsch, the answers may become more available.

Abstract Background and Purpose. The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome–Activities and Participation Questionnaire (CFS-APQ) is a recently developed disease-specific assessment tool for monitoring activity limitations and participation restrictions in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). In this study, the convergent validity, content validity, and test-retest reliability of data obtained with the Dutch-language version of the questionnaire were examined. Subjects and Methods. One hundred eleven consecutive patients with CFS were enrolled, of whom 47 fulfilled all inclusion criteria. The subjects were first asked to rate their pain, fatigue, and ability to concentrate using 3 visual analog scales, to list at least 5 activities that had become difficult to perform due to their complaints, and to complete the CFS-APQ. Furthermore, subjects were asked to complete a modified version of the CFS-APQ at home and return it to the investigators. The content of the questionnaire was reviewed using the World Health Organization's International Classification of Impairments, Disability and Health (ICIDH) beta II draft. Spearman rank correlation coefficients (R) were used for the convergent validity analysis, and intraclass correlation coefficients were computed for the assessment of the test-retest data. Results. Overall scores on the CFS-APQ correlated with the scores from the visual analog scales for pain (R=.51, P<.001) and fatigue (R=.50, P<.001). The majority of the responses (157 out of 183 answers [85.8%]) to the request to “list difficult activities” matched the content of the CFS-APQ. Using the ICIDH beta II draft, 21 out of 26 questions were found to address activities, and the remaining 5 questions measured the participation level. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was .94, and intraclass correlation coefficients for test-retest reliability of the overall scores were ≥.95 (P<.001). Discussion and Conclusion. The results substantiate the convergent validity, content validity, and reliability of the CFS-APQ scores for patients with CFS.

Art researchers of modern literature are connected with the classical heritage.The remake becomes one of the forms of the code conversion of classics, which gives context and allows the creation of “an expressive sociocultural portrait of our time”. The remix assumes a creation of the secondary work in a more modern option and often presents the “text pieces” rearranged in any order. In the modern literature process it is possible to note the paradoxical phenomenon when the same plot is portrayed by the same author twice. The Brothers Presnyakovs create works at an interval of five years with the identical name, “Playing the Victim”, but in different genres (the play and the novel). Texts are connected by special relations: they have a distinct subject similarity, an identical system of images and are united with their correlation to Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet”. In this article, there is an attempt to understand why the authors readdress the mastered material and how the meanings of the universal language of classics based on absolute values are transformed.

Using state-representative teacher surveys in three states—Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky—we examine teachers’ implementation of college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards. What do teachers report about the specificity, authority, consistency, power, and stability of their standards environment? How does their policy environment predict standards-emphasized instruction? Do these relationships differ for those who teach different subjects (math and English Language Arts [ELA]), different grades (elementary or high school), different populations (English Language Learners [ELLs], students with disabilities [SWDs]), and in different areas (rural, urban, or suburban)? We found elementary math teachers taught significantly more standards-emphasized content than elementary ELA teachers, whereas secondary ELA teachers taught significantly more standards-emphasized content than secondary math teachers. Teachers of SWDs and rural teachers taught significantly less of the emphasized content. In all three states, we found greater buy-in (authority) predicted increased emphasized content coverage among ELA teachers but not among math teachers.

Given the acknowledged and undeniable advantages of literature in language education, it has been integrated into EFL curricula for undergraduate students as an essential subject. In the Algerian English departments before the reform introduced in the last two decades (the Licence, Master, doctorate system), literature used to have a privileged status in terms of the number of courses and number of classes or tutorials. However, after the reform, the importance of literature and the lion’s share that it used to have in the EFL Bachelor of Arts course regressed in favor of more specialized subjects. Such a reform has only worsened the state of the art of EFL literature teaching, which was already in a deplored state according to the will be cited studies. This article aims at pointing at the primary defects or malfunctioning of the first-year literature course by answering the question: what are the main flaws of the first-year EFL literature course? In order to answer this question, the article starts with a review of the whole literature course package, i.e., objective, content, methodology, and assessment. More importantly, to go beyond mere evaluation and criticism, the article ends by suggesting an alternative course that adopts task-based language teaching as a methodology. The proposed task-based literature course attempts to overcome the observed weaknesses or the inefficiencies of the actual course by matching the course objective, content, methodology, and assessment to students’ needs and aptitudes.

The theme of this thesis is a self-assessment of teachers about the linking of fine arts and mathematics in lower grades of primary school. The theoretical work defines correlation and self-assessment, science and art and their reflection on education. Correlation is the foundation of modern education, it allows creation of a complete harmonic image of knowledge. Self-assessment is one of the basic ways of assessing one’s own work, allowing teachers to recognize the advantages and disadvantages of their own work and to improve the teaching process. Science and art are important in the life of an individual, they are interdependent, and their co-existence is visible in education and upbringing. The survey was conducted on a sample of 199 teachers on the territory of the Republic of Croatia. The research has showed that teachers understand the importance of linking the content of these two subjects and that they feel competent and motivated, but they implement the correlation insuficiently. The research also suggests that the teachers were informed and educated about correlation on their own initiative.

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is an innovative educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both language and subject content. Content and Language Integrated Learning is not commonly used in South African classrooms, but its application internationally has been shown by empirical research to significantly improve overall language competence in the target language. Reports indicate increased learner motivation and support for the learning of the content subject. This study sought to consider whether CLIL intervention would improve both language and science skills amongst Grade 8 learners in a Natural Sciences classroom. The researcher used a concurrent embedded mixed method design, including both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to gather data. An experimental test design with English Home Language classes and Afrikaans Home Language classes was employed. Hypothesis Testing was used as a statistical analysis to compare the pre-test and post-test results in order to ascertain the impact of CLIL intervention. In addition, the poster-activity and an open-ended questionnaire was used to qualitatively ascertain the impact of CLIL on learner literacy skills. The results showed that CLIL intervention improved learner performance significantly when compared to learners who were not exposed to CLIL. In addition, CLIL lessons were perceived as effective and learners verified that the approach was beneficial to their learning process.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects on student writing of two separate approaches to teaching grammar - one traditional, and one non-traditional. Over the course of four weeks, the writing abilities of two high school English classes, similar in composition and academic skill, were compared.

The purposes of the study were to design an Arts Based/Language Arts curriculum in one elementary school at the K-3 level, and (1) determine whether this curriculum was effective in improving academic achievement, (2) determine whether teachers would be comfortable teaching such a curriculum, and (3) determine whether parents perceived their children as successful in learning arts and language arts. Samples of K-3 children were selected in one elementary school during 1986 and treated with an exploratory Arts Based/Language Arts curriculum for the 1986-87 school year. Pretest and posttest achievement data were collected with the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and a Student Achievement Survey instrument constructed especially for the study. Pretest and posttest cognitive and creative skills data were collected with the Silver Test of Cognitive and Creative Skills. Teacher and parent perceptions of the curriculum were measured with instruments constructed especially for the study. Analysis consisted of testing for differences in pretest and posttest measures of cognitive and creative skills, ITBS test scores, and teacher's ratings on the Arts Based/Language Arts Survey. Comparisons were made on pretest to posttest differences with the Wilcoxon T-statistic, and comparisons of the differences for male and female groups were made with the Mann-Whitney U-statistic. Statistics were tested for significance at the 0.05 level. As a result Arts Based/Language Arts curriculum student cognitive and creative skills and student achievement in language arts did not improve, however teachers perceived improvement in motivation, language arts, and the arts. Findings and conclusions support the continuance of the Arts Based/Language Arts curriculum for a longer duration during which the instrument for measuring teacher perceptions could be revised and scores correlated with standardized test scores.

With the implementation of the fine-tuned medium of instruction policy in Hong Kong in September 2010, the era of compulsory mother tongue education has come to an end. Compared with a decade ago, more secondary schools are now teaching content subjects in English, a second language to the majority of students. To ensure that this change can enhance students’ English proficiency without sacrificing their academic achievement, the educational initiative Language Across the Curriculum, or more widely known as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), aiming at simultaneous content and language enrichment has been widely advocated by Education Bureau. As CLIL is a novel approach in Hong Kong and little is known regarding its implementation, this study was conducted to fill this gap by examining the attitudes and beliefs of the major stakeholders towards CLIL. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from a secondary school practising CLIL. Questionnaire survey, classroom observations, focus group interviews with students and semi-structured individual interviews with English and content teachers were conducted to elicit (i) students’ and content teachers’ perceived benefits and challenges of CLIL, and (ii) the measures taken or to be taken to facilitate its execution. The data revealed that CLIL was perceived to bring such benefits as increasing students’ English exposure and reducing their learning anxiety; yet, factors like students’ and content teachers’ lack of English proficiency and the latter’s self-perceived identity as mere content experts seemed to hinder CLIL implementation. To overcome the hurdles, several measures were identified. A case in point is the facilitation of collaboration between English and content teachers. Drawing on the findings, some implications for schools and teachers were suggested and future research directions discussed.
published_or_final_version
Applied English Studies
Master
Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

Since in our educational system a great deal of learning is supposedly dependant upon a child's ability to read and assimilate information from textbooks, this study investigated what reading skills are required by a second language reader of English to read textbooks with comprehension and understanding in relation to the reading skills of a competent reader and how Ciskeian Standard 6 pupils perform in relation to a Geography text prescribed at that level. A test, designed to measure eight reading comprehension skills, was given to a sample of 250 children from four schools in Zwelitsha, Ciskei, to establish whether the subjects are able to: a) give the literal meaning of words; b) derive the appropriate meaning of an ambiguous word from the context in which it appears; c) find answers to questions by making direct reference to the text; d) identify the major points and details in a text; e) use the information in the text to predict what the writer is going to talk about next; f) find the referent for anaphoric terms; g) use discourse markers to predict information/meaning to come, and see the relationships between what they have just read and what they are about to read; h) activate and use the background knowledge and schemata that they have to understand the text topic.The results of this study indicate that these children are: a) unfamiliar with the structure of expository texts; b) linguistically bound to a text and that they fail to use linguistic and contextual clues even when they are explicit in the text. The study also shows that the ability to make inferences and predictions is determined to a large extent by the prior knowledge and background experience that a pupil brings with him to the text and by his ability to activate that background knowledge. The findings suggest that in the English classroom, in an English as a second language (L2) medium situation, the L2 teacher has a responsibility to prepare the child for the study, which includes reading, writing, listening and speaking, of all subjects across the curriculum through the second language, which is the medium of instruction

The purpose of this project is to provide a useful model, the Concept Attainment Model in Mathematics, which implicates the concept attainment teaching method based on adjunct content-based instruction by using visuals and manipulatives in order to help ESL students be successful for both substantive content areas.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of teaching a study strategy on the ability of fifth-grade students to read a social studies textbook. The specific strategy was survey, question, read, recite, and review (SQ3R) (Robinson, 1961). It was taught as an integral part of the social studies lesson. The effect of gender and reading level on the SQ3R strategy was studied.The subjects were 72 students enrolled in four intact fifth-grade classrooms of two schools in an urban, midwestern school district. The classes were randomly assigned to a control group consisting of 37 subjects and an experimental group consisting of 35 subjects.The instrument used was the Sequential Tests of Educational Progress III (STEP III). The ability to read a social studies textbook was measured by the social studies subtest during pre- and posttesting procedures. The reading grade level indicator was determined by the reading subtest during the pretesting procedures.An inservice session conducted by the researcher trained the teachers of the experimental group in the SQ3R strategy. Traditional teaching procedures were followed by the control group teachers for the 9-week period.An analysis of covariance was used to examine the results at the p<.05 level of significance. The pretest score of the social studies subtest of the STEP III was used as the covariant.Statistical analysis of data generated the following results:1. There was a significant difference in the preinstructional knowledge of social studies between the experimental and control groups.2. There was no significant difference in the mean scores of the social studies subtest of the STEP III of fifth-grade students taught the SQ3R strategy and those taught the traditional way.3. There was no significant difference in the mean scores of the social studies subtest of the STEP III of males and females taught the SQ3R strategy and those taught the traditional way.4. There was no significant difference in the mean scores of the social studies subtest of the STEP III of above-average, average, and below-average readers taught the SQ3R strategy and those taught the traditional way.5. There was no interaction among the mean scores of the social studies subtest of the STEP III, the gender, and the reading level of fifth-grade students taught the SQ3R strategy and those taught the traditional way.

The purpose of the study was to determine if social studies achievement and positive attitudes about social studies would increase when the traditional single textbook approach was supplemented by a related work of children's literature. Two intact classes were randomly assigned to the treatment group which received instruction based on the regularly adopted textbook and the trade book My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier. Two randomly assigned classes composed the control group and received instruction based on the textbook only.The participants in the study were filth grade students at an urban magnet school. Each of two teachers served as instructors working with one control class and one treatment class. The instruments used were the Attitudes Toward Social Studies instrument and the Macmillan test written for the unit of instruction entitled The Colonies Become a Nation. Pretests and posttests were administered to students in each group to assess differences in mean gain scores between groups in both attitude and achievement. In order to determine if the difference between mean gains between the two groups was significant, t-tests were used. An analysis of variance and the Tukey HSD multiple comparison procedure were used to determine how the four sections differed in attitude toward social studies and which differences were significant.There was no significant difference in mean social studies achievement gains between the treatment group and the control group. A significant difference in mean attitude gains between control and treatment groups was found. The results of the t test showed a significant mean gain in positive attitudes about social studies favoring the control group. Evidence from the analysis of variance and the Tukey HSD multiple comparison procedure indicated that the positive attitude gain was linked to the Hawthorne Effect.
Department of Elementary Education

The research was concerned with perceptions of language and physics in three strata of participants in a writing across the curriculum teaching course at an intermediate college. The participants were: a language teacher, two physics teachers and a class of twenty physics students - the students were studying in order to enter the Engineering Faculty at the University of Cape Town. The predominant understanding of the teachers was that of a limited interpenetration between the discourse of physics and language teaching. Physics teachers thought that language teachers would experience difficulties with both the concepts and language of physics. In actual practice however, students and the language teacher managed physics knowledge with some degree of success in the language classroom. Some students understood writing as helping them to understand physics. However, the dominant understanding of language was that of knowing the appropriate language of physics for their teachers. An appropriate language understanding was seen as potentially problematic in that it could encourage an unquestioning or monodimensional approach to physics knowledge. As a way around this problem, it was suggested that language teachers teach students to recognise and to use particular genres within science, and to develop their voice within these constraints.

Ain’t It Cool News http://www.aicn.com/ Rabid fans gossip, preview, and review movies. The Internet in microcosm: unruly, but ultimately rewarding. Arts & Letters Daily http://www.artsandlettersdaily.com/ A continuously revised collection of links to thoughtful articles on thinking subjects. AskOxford http://www.askoxford.com/ Oxford University Press offers the best answers to common language-related questions, free words-of-the-day e-mails, and tools for better writing. B3ta http://www.b3ta.com/ British site with goofy images, hilarious image-editing contests, and endless punter commentary in the forums. Babel Fish http://babelfish.altavista.com/ Translate text and web sites to and from dozens of languages. Not perfect, but as good as it gets for free. Bartleby http://www.bartleby.com/ As an impressive collection of scholarly reference works and classic literature, and a site you can quote with certainty and authority. Blogdex http://blogdex.net/ Keeps track of the most-linked new content on the Internet: memes, news, jokes, videos, whatever. BoingBoing http://www.boingboing.net/ A counter-culture group blog, presenting novel and interesting items from the front edge of pop culture.