Posts by recordari
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One million words last June, according to The Global Word Monitor.
The millionth word was, wait for it, 'Web 2.0'. Arggghhhh!
The BBC report says, that due to the existence of a review board, French only has 100,000 words. Sacre bleu! That's two down, 99,998 to go.
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Since you mentioned it, I wanted to listen to it, and others might too, so here it is... Are you payin' attention?
PS NSFW. Sorry, I forgot.
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Soufflé, surely?
Damn it, I already played my Pride and Prejudice and Zombies card, although it would have been near perfect in this case.
And to think, not even a bite from our resident Austenite.
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Islander, I really don't want to be part of any earnest hustling, but there is some truth to Gordon's 2000 word statement.
In my former life as an EFL, TEFLA, EAP, TESOL, CAE, CPE, IELTS, TOEFL, ELF teacher (did I miss anything?) we used University Word Lists, or Academic Word Lists, issued by people like Paul Nation, from Victoria Uni, as a basis for vocabulary lessons, as part of a broader preparation programme for undergraduate, and post-graduate study.
His research back in 1990 [?] established a core lexicon of 2000 words that made up 87% of Academic texts, through analysis of corpus in the Universities. Of course the need is for more, and this is well understood and acknowledged, but to start a programme, where vocabulary is then added as a part of the tertiary curriculum, between 3000-4000 is deemed adequate. In my experience this was the case, as many of our students achieved degree status in a reasonable time frame.
And before we taught the students we held an acronym test to see if they could spot the one that was just made up for the halibut.
All the best.
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Thanks for that Jolisa. What seems very clear in both this and the other thread on National Standards is that education is often, or maybe always, an individual thing. One size does not fit all, so a perfectly adaptable system would be better than just a perfect one.
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Russell, I just found your post from Jan 09 where Tolley commented on The University of Auckland asTTle assessment tool as having a 'profound influence' on the future of schooling in New Zealand. Reading Hattie's interview posted above, seems the paths have diverged somewhat.
Hattie published this on the AU FoE site today. John Hattie to run workshops on e-asTTle and national standards.
“To get the very best out of national standards they need to be used to help students to learn. They can help to provide a shared language of learning within and between schools, and having a common language for understanding progress is a fundamental skill that teachers and schools need to have.”
Professor Hattie and his team want to work with schools to get the very best out of the standards, so they become an important part of the language of the school, rather than a means to report to parents, the Board and the Ministry.
“Reporting results is important – but it’s not as important as using the standards with the students to enhance teaching and learning,” Professor Hattie says.
Looking on the asTTle information page, it was also developed in both English and Maori.
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This all sounded mad, and then I found these.
The household as an economic unit in arctic aboriginal communities
Household Production and the Household Economy
All the best.
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Um, that should have been "disinterested". The only way any "plenty of MPs" would be "disintered" (sic) is if we have a hitherto well hidden multi-party zombie caucus. Which would explain a lot, but is still implausible...
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What that guy said. Really, please, everyone read it
Read it. Was duly impressed.
Our school in Sandringham has a reputation for handling 'special needs' better than other schools. The principal seems to know what is required, and gives teachers the support and resources to deliver it. It may be because being a lower decile school it gets more funding, but all the will and money in the world cannot substitute for poor teaching and bad governance.
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So far it is difficult to work out whether this is supposed to highlight the failings in the system, or address them. Well, actually not so difficult at all. Withdraw individualised teaching support for known areas of critical need, and increase the bureaucracy. Great idea, why didn't someone think of this before?
Thought Finlay MacDonald in the Sunday Star last November was good on this point.
Obviously our school system could do better. But Tolley's updated version of the Victorian schoolroom, where children have it drummed into them as early as possible that they're either successes or failures, is recklessly retrograde.