Aristotle's Physics 2.1 Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Aristotle's Physics 2.1 - Term Paper Example y of four causes in Metaphysics with Plato’s philosophy of forms in order to illustrate the difference between the philosophies of the two, showing the important evolutionary link between the ideals. Where the fundamental rules and laws of Nature (â€Å"Physics†) operate through a logic and reason that is pre-determined in the metaphysical, we can trace this concept in Western thought to the teachings of Aristotle, viewing their reflection in the scientific method and democratic system of government as foundational to our lives, realities, and understanding. The first question I will address is ‘the conception of nature as a kind of cause in Physics 2.1’ which can be illustrated in the following quote by Aristotle: â€Å"Some of the things-that-are are by nature (phusei), but others are due to other causes [diallas aitias] [e.g. artifacts].† In Aristotle’s philosophy, which forms the basis of Greek humanism, there is a fundamental duality between â€Å"Physics,† the material world and the logic of its operation, and â€Å"Metaphysics,† what is beyond the material world and exists only in the mind- the world of ideas, concepts, and mental events- also containing a logic of operation. Aristotle treats these subjects in different works, so to focus on Physics without attending to his ideas in Metaphysics would not give us a complete view of his overall philosophy. The critical point here is to focus on how the terms are being translated from the ancient Greek, for in this case Aristotle is not intro ducing â€Å"Nature† as we understand it, meaning the natural world, the environment, creation, etc. as a kind of cause, he is introducing a type of â€Å"essence† or essential identity as cause through phusei. When we consider â€Å"nature† as cause in the sense it is posited by Aristotle, we should perhaps translate it as â€Å"natural essence† or â€Å"original essence† to come closer to the meaning the philosopher intended, which is also related to characteristic

European colonialism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

European colonialism - Essay Example gh population increase, introduction of foreign crops and materials and high per capita earning of these states while at the same time enriching Europe. (De Vries) The creation of Atlantic system traces the European industrialization process within an expanding Atlantic trade. Europe driven by coercive slave trade policies, several driven by inland transportation difficulties in these pre-industrialized propelled the trade movement into the Atlantic. To a larger extent, slave trade deprived colonized states of human labor while exporting the same towards the development of industries in wool industry, agriculture, marine insurance, social structure among others, strengthening Europe’s position as a premier in international trade and controlling treaties. (Polanyi) The dawn of 1880s saw a new interest among European nations to control as much world as possible having pioneered itself in the International trade. One major outcome was the ‘scramble for Africa’ which created conflicts among nations and individuals. While being motivated by economic rather than political interests, Europe advanced slave trade to demonstrate colonialism as a powerful tool for conquest and ‘desire’ to deliberate the world. In effect this led to massive resources transfer and acquisition for development of Europe while changing the existing cultural beliefs in colonized countries. (Curtin) Studies by Bohannan & Curtin suggests that after years of European colonization, many African and Asian countries began gaining independence from Europe. Coinciding with the Cold War period, many of these colonized states either achieved decolonization peacefully or through revolutions. In essence, the process was influenced by super power competition. The result is that many countries become independent economically and socially with their own systems of governance while also directing European international relations with their former

Use Of Determiners In Newspaper Media Media Essay

Use Of Determiners In Newspaper Media Media Essay This study aims to examine how different strategies and processes are used in sociolinguistics, as a way of adjustment of the writers manner of address, in relation to his or her perception of the addressee; focusing on the use of determiners. The hypothesis for this study is therefore: fewer determiners will be deleted from the newspapers considered up-market (Group 1), than the amount deleted from those newspapers considered mid and down-market (Group 2). This is a complex process of change within the dynamics of conversation and writing.  [1]  It is often said that convergence seems to be the rule in media language. For instance, phonological features in radio broadcasting showed that presenters use measurably more informal pronunciations in stations which primarily address lower class, less educated, and younger listeners.  [2]  As far as newspapers are concerned, the followed classic hypothesis of convergence has been made by S. Hall, who claims that there is reciprocity of producer/reader of which he called the public idiom of the media. However, this does not mean that the readers actually speak what they read or listen to, but there is evidence to suggest that a convergence takes place and that each paper makes its own convergence toward what it sees as a mode of discourse acceptable to its readership.  [3]   Background Research Bell has carried out research into determiner deletion;  [4]  that being words found within the English Language that limit the meaning of a noun and comes before a descriptive adjective modifying the same noun (e.g. the, a, an, this etc.).  [5]  Several studies show that the deletion of articles in such phrases distinguishes tabloids from broadsheet British Newspapers. These are correlationswith assumed class and education and the deletion of determiners seems to imply modernity, populism, and journalistic raciness. Ryden and Bell  [6]  both investigate the use of noun phrase name appositions in the language of newspapers, and in particular the spread of phrases like Opposition leader Neil Knock with the descriptive noun phrase without a determiner preceding the title. This format is relatively recent and is, in Britain, largely but not entirely restricted to the two categories of mid-down market papers The influence of the reader in newspaper style is supported by the research carried out by Bell  [7]  and Jucker  [8]  . Bell, in his studies on naming expressions, states that this practice was more common in papers like The Sun, The Mirror, and The Express than in The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Times. After studying the deletion of determiners Jucker divided British newspapers into three categories: up-market; The Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily telegraph, midmarket; Daily Mail, Daily Express, down-market; Daily Mirror, The Daily Star, and The Sun. He found that determiners were deleted more often in down-market papers than in mid-market papers, while there were very few deletions in style with a certain type of reader. Methodology Many considerations were taken in terms of which method would be best to use in order to carry out the investigation into the use of determiners in the media. The first decision that had to be made was which branch of the media would be used as a source for the study. The options ranged from television programs, magazines, internet websites, radio and newspapers. The choice of newspapers was made based primarily on access to previous research, mentioned in the above Background Research section of this report. The fact that a similar study had been carried out byBell et al. in the comparison of determiner usage between the different types of newspaper gave a good basis on which to base this study. Added to this is the intrigue of whether the results obtained will have a similar outcome to those obtained by these linguists twenty years ago. The next step was to realise that in order to study determiners, a content analysis was the only possible method that could be used. It was also the same method used by Bell et al. in their study. However there are many advantages and disadvantages of using this process that led to many limitations to the practical side of the study. It is fairly time consuming which can often limit the researcher to a smaller sample than a less time consuming method. The chance for a margin of error is increased particularly if relational analysis is used. This study does require a level of relational analysis; that being the assumption of what, by todays standard of English, counts as a missing determiner and what does not; which limits the validity of the results, especially if the intention is to directly compare the results found by Bell et al. It is also difficult to computerize and therefore the results obtained have to be manually automated which adds to the total time consumption that using a digital content analysis could perhaps have avoided. On the other hand there are many advantages to using content analysis such as the fact that it can combine quantitative and qualitative operations through the ability to see clearly the context of the deletion or inclusion. This method also has very few ethical issues as it is available to the public and no permission is needed in order to access it. It is also a very unobtrusive means of analysing the use of the English Language. It is also reliable as this study has been done before and can be repeated by the same or other researchers. The study therefore began firstly by selecting a number of different newspapers to compare. This was done by initially selecting an equal number of British papers that are considered up-market newspapers, i.e. The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and an equal number of mid-downmarket  [9]  newspapers such as The Daily Mail, The Sun and The Daily Star. The six papers aforementioned were picked from those available from the University Shop on campus, with each category of newspaper represented and to be used in comparison with each other. They were then grouped into the retrospective classes: Group 1 included The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian; Group 2 included The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Daily Star. The hypothesis, that fewer determiners will be deleted from the papers in Group 1 than the amount deleted from Group 2, was then decided upon. After the newspapers were selected the specific details of how this content analysis would be carried out was then agreed upon. It was decided that two articles would be analysed from each of the six papers; one regarding a political subject and the other focussing on sport. This was done in order to firstly observe if there was any difference between the uses of determiners between the papers and then secondly if there was a difference within the different papers when the subject matter was different. It was clear that in order to increase the validity of this research the newspapers analysed would have to all be taken from the same date and then the articles chosen were to be about the same topic within politics and sport. The newspapers were therefore collected for analysis on the 6th May 2010 and the similar stories of the day in the two subject areas were then analysed. It was decided that the headlines and tag lines of all the articles would be included in the study. However it was recognised that headlines in general tend to have determiner deletions as standard. After the articles were selected the exact process of working out the determiner deletion was decided upon. Firstly the article word length was counted and recorded, then the entire article was analysed and all the determiners within the article were highlighted and totalled. Then a second analysis of each article was carried out in order to locate where the determiners were missing in accordance with Standard English practice.  [10]  These would again be totalled and recorded in a spread sheet where the number of determiners which have been deleted would be calculated as a percentage of the total determiners that could have been used in the entire article. Although every measure has been taken to improve the reliability, validity and practical issues posed by any method of research, this study is not without its limitations. Firstly not all the variables can be controlled. Firstly, the sex of the journalist whom had written each article is not being taken into account. This means that the results obtained could be reduced in validity, due to the fact that gender could have an influence over the amount of determiners used within the articles. In a similar vein, the age of the journalist is also unknown, which could similarly have an impact upon the amount of determiners used or deleted. It is also a fairly subjective study and it is likely that some determiner deletions could be overlooked depending upon the researcher carrying out the study. Due to the time consuming nature of this method as aforementioned the sample size had to be kept quite small to three newspapers of the two different categories. This reduces the representativeness of the study as not all newspapers have been analysed. Added to this, only one newspaper considered mid-market has been used alongside two considered down market which means the sample is not as representative as it could be. Therefore it is probably unlikely that any generalisations can be made from this study only suggestions. Results The table of results and bar graphs for this study can be found in Appendices 1.0 2.2. Discussion As stated in the hypothesis it would have been expected that this study would produce results similar to those presented by Bell in 1991, though possibly not so polarised and extreme, with up-markets exhibiting the least amount of determiner deletion and mid-down markets the highest. When looking at the sum of the combined averages for up-market newspapers and the mid-down market newspapers it can be seen that the up market newspapers had the combined average determiner deletion of 31.9% and the mid-down market newspapers had the combined average determiner deletion of 44.17%. This suggests that the hypothesis that fewer determiners will be deleted from the newspapers considered up-market (Group 1) than the amount deleted from those newspapers considered mid and down-market (Group 2) is supported by the results found. The newspaper with the highest average deletions was the mid-market newspaper, The Daily Mail, with an average of 15.97% determiner deletion. However, very surprisingly the up-market newspaper, The Guardian, came out with the second highest average percentage of determiner deletion, at 20.78%. Not only is this unexpected because it is an up-market newspaper, but also because The Guardians politics article had the highest determiner deletion percentage within the entire study. Based on the premise that up-markets are aimed at a higher and more educated social class than mid-down markets, and also that politics articles are likely to draw a more sophisticated readership than sports articles, it was anticipated that the former type of newspaper would use a more standard form of English with a lower percentage of determiner deletion. In addition to this, it was presumed that sports articles would also have a higher percentage of determiner deletion than articles written about politics bu t this was not found to be the case with many of the newspapers. The Daily Telegraph was the paper that supported the hypothesis the most as it came in at the bottom with only 6.09% deletion for its politics article, and this is what was supposed would happen taking into account Bells study and findings. Nevertheless, it was The Daily Telegraphs sports article that actually came in with the lowest amount of deletion, with only 3.88%. This finding was unforeseen, but it may be that the journalist writing the politics article for The Daily Telegraph wished to make it snappier so as to attract a larger audience, and believed that deleting determiners would achieve this effect. The Times supports the hypothesis as its sports article contains 15.7% of determiner deletion, but only 7.34% in its politics issue. It is also relatively near the bottom of the table as would be expected, considering it is one of the chosen up-market newspapers. The Times was in fact the newspaper that Bell found had the least amount determiner deletion in 1991, with only 5%. However it has been found that as time has passed journalists from both types of papers tend to use determiner deletion as much as each other. It is perhaps now the case that they are less concerned with targeting a very specific audience and more so with selling newspapers. It seems to be mid-down market papers that have changed the most. Bell found that they all had 73% deletion of determiners or above, whereas this study has found that the highest percentage of a mid-down market newspaper is 20.48% from The Sun. Perhaps these newspapers are trying to make themselves appear less mid-market, and appeal to a more sophisticated audience. Improvements If this study was to be performed again there are a few ways in which it could be improved. Firstly, as two members of the group worked out the percentage of determiner deletion there is immediately going to be a difference in results as deciding where determiners should be and have been deleted is a subjective process. It is not always clear and so perhaps if this were to be replicated each member of the group should work out the percentage from all papers and then compare the findings, working out the average percentage of deletion. Using a larger sample would also be beneficial as one article may not be representative of the whole newspaper, and so there may have been anomalies within the results. The articles chosen were all of varied lengths and so this could have affected the results. It may be that articles tend to have the most determiner deletion at the end and therefore the longer an article is the higher percentage of deletion. It could even be possible that the journalists articles that were chosen to be analysed could have previously or aspired to be a writer for the other type of newspaper, and so arestill writing in that style. This is possibly something that could have been researched to ensure the articles used in this study were written by the same types of authors and were truly representative of the whole papers style. Moreover, there was no focus in the study on one particular sex and therefore next time a comparison between male journalists writing for up-markets and female journalists writin g for the same type of paper could be looked into and compared against mid-down market newspapers. It would be interesting to discover whether females for example chose to delete more determiners than males. Conclusion In conclusion, this study has supported the hypothesis but only to an extent. It has found a very mixed set of results; with some papers supporting the hypothesis and others challenging it. Whilst it was found that a mid-down market newspaper did have the highest average percentage of determiner deletion what was most surprising was that The Guardian has the second highest average percentage of determiner deletion, which would very much suggest that times and the styles attributed to each type of newspaper have changed drastically in the twenty years since Bell performed his study. This may possibly be due to the fact that newspaper sales are continually declining, and so both types of papers are trying to appeal to a wider audience. As suggested by Roy Greenslade, print cant compete with 24-hour news on television and radio,  [11]  and so they need to do all they can to up their sales. If up-market newspapers for example continue to focus on an upper-class audience then they are seriously limiting their number of potential buyers, and so buy removing determiners they make their articles snappier and more accessible to a larger audience. It is also possible that the complexity of the issues reported on in up-market newspapers actually makes it harder to cut out determiners, and therefore the political issues have a higher amount of determiner deletion because their authors try a lot harder to do so. Finally, the results obtained by this study imply that the percentage of determiner deletion could depend more on the journalist writing the article, as opposed to the type of newspaper they are writing for. Bibliography Allen, Robert, The Penguin English Dictionary, (London: The Penguin Group, 2001) Bell, Allen, The Language of the News Media, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) Giles, Howard and Peter F. Powesland,  Speech Style and Social Evaluation, (London: Academic Press, 1975) Holmes, Janet, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, (Essex, Pearson Education Limited), pp. 137-138 Leonhard, Joachim-Fà ©lix, Hans-Werner Ludwig, Media Science: A Manual for the Development of the Media and Communication Forms, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Co., 2002) Jucker, Andreas H, Social stylistics: Syntactic Variation in British Newspapers, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Co., 1992) Roy Greensdale, Newspaper Sales Plunge over the Decade, Monday 14th December, 2009 [accessed 19th May 2010] Appendix 1.0 A Table of Results Newspaper Type Article Subject % Deletion Average Combined Average Article Word Count No. of Determiners No. of Deleted Determiners The Guardian Up-market Politics 20.78% 15.39% 870 154 32 Sport 10.00% 795 140 14 The Times Up-market Politics 7.34% 11.52% 727 109 8 Sport 15.70% 634 121 19 The Telegraph Up-market Politics 6.09% 4.99% 31.90% 800 115 7 Sport 3.88% 827 103 4 The Daily Mail Mid-market Politics 16.03% 15.97% 799 131 21 Sport 15.91% 878 132 21 The Sun Mid-market Politics 20.48% 14.37% 767 83 13 Sport 8.25% 587 97 8 The Daily Star Down-market Politics 19.10% 13.84% 44.17% 694 115 22 Sport 8.57% 836 105 9 Appendix 2.0 A Bar Graph Depicting the Results of Determiner Deletions between the Types of Newspapers and Subject Matter Appendix 2.1 A Bar Graph Depicting the Results of Average Determiner Deletions between all Newspapers

Foster Care Essay -- Social Issues, Adoption and Safe Family Acta

There are too many children in foster care. Despite federal legislation (viz., the Adoption and Safe Family Act [ASFA], among other legislative directives) designed to reduce the number of children in care, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2010) indicates that of the 285,000 children exiting care in 2008, only 52 percent were reunified with their parents or primary caretakers. Although ASFA also has statutory guidelines designed to reduce the amount of time required for the courts to decide permanent placement for children that have been removed from their parents, children exiting foster care in 2008 spent an average of 21.8 months in state custody (U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services). These outcomes create several questions for researchers, two of which are pertinent to the current study: 1) What factors influence whether children are reunified with their families; and 2) What factors influence the timeliness with which reunification occurs? Prior research has attempted to answer these questions by focusing on demographic information such as age, race, education of parents and children (e.g., Courtney, 1994; Wulczyn, 2004), and income (e.g., Courtnety, 2004; Eamon, 2002); family composition such as single parent homes and number of adults in home (e.g., Davis, Landsverk, Newton, & Ganger, 1996; Harris & Courtney, 2003). One caveat to these examinations is that many of them look at factors like e.g., race, family composition, poverty; they did not focus on the processes and/or structures of the juvenile dependency court system itself. The present study attempts to overcome this caveat by examining a process factor—involvement of the parents and their respective legal representatives at early decision-m... ...fathers were not involved (Malm et al., 2008). Children whose non-resident fathers were highly involved also spent less time in foster care (21.4 months) than children whose non-resident fathers were not involved (25.3 months) (Malm et al.). Despite previous research examining father involvement in services and case plan development, a paucity of research remains concerning the influence of father involvement in legal proceedings on dependency outcomes. Although some analysts (such as Edwards, 2009) suggest that including the father in dependency proceedings may lead to favorable outcomes for the child, including relative placement as opposed to foster care and possibly avoiding out-of-home placement altogether, these suggestions have not been empirically tested. This study examines association between father’s involvement in legal proceedings and reunification.

Vocabulary

3 Developing Vocabulary in Second Language Acquisition: From Theories to the Classroom Jeff G. Mehring Abstract This paper examines the theories behind vocabulary acquisition in second language learning in order to put these theories into practice in a class. Learning vocabulary is an ongoing process which requires systematic repetition to help students learn, especially low context vocabulary. Students can retain the vocabulary they find useful and relevant to their subject matter by learning vocabulary through context, cooperative learning, and using technology.Results from an action research project will be reported. Introduction Until recently vocabulary had been widely overlooked in the ESL/EFL classroom. Maiguashca (1993) stated that teaching or studying grammar is based on a set of rules with a coherent structure which students follow or remember, but the same is not true of vocabulary (p. 91). Within the last few years, vocabulary has become viewed as an important aspect in s econd language learning, in fact, many believe just as important as the main skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking.Nation (as cited in Nation and Waring, 1997) explained, â€Å"Vocabulary knowledge enables language use, language use enables the increase of vocabulary knowledge, knowledge of the world enables the increase of vocabulary knowledge and language use and so on† (p. 6). This contextualized approach to learning vocabulary will help students increase their vocabulary though authentic interaction. In this paper, I will examine the theories behind vocabulary acquisition and some results when they were put into practice during my student teaching. Theoretical ConceptsBuilding vocabulary is extremely important for success in undergraduate or graduate studies. Nation and Waring (1997) reported that 5-year-old native English speakers beginning school will have a vocabulary of around 4,000 to 5,000 word families, adding roughly 1,000 word families a year until graduating from university with a vocabulary of around 20,000 word families (p. 7). Bauer and Nation (as cited in Nation and Waring) defined a word family as the base word, its inflected forms, and a small number of regular derived forms (p. 7).This means that students such as those in the English Foundations Program (EFP) at Hawai‘i Pacific University (HPU) have an enormous challenge ahead of them, considering that their previous schooling was in their L1, not English. If one uses Nation and Waring’s statement that native speakers have a vocabulary of around 20,000 word families at the time of university graduation, non-native speakers, before finishing EFP 1310, an advanced-level class in the EFP, and entering the undergraduate program, would have to increase their vocabulary from between 5,000 to 15,000 word families, depending on their previous English language studies.The good news is that according to Jamieson (as cited in Nation and Waring), once ESL students ent er a school where English is the primary language, their vocabulary grows at the same rate as native speakers, around 1,000 word families a year; however, the initial gap never closes (p. 7). Understanding where ESL students are starting from will help in providing the vocabulary needed in order for them to improve and catch up. Learning vocabulary is an ongoing process that takes time and practice. Nakata (2006) acknowledged that vocabulary acquisition requires continual repetition in order for effective vocabulary learning (p. 9). Vocabulary acquisition is not something a student can spend time learning or memorizing, like grammar, and be successful. Acquisition requires the learner to be disciplined, spending time each day working on words he/she does not know in order for 4 learners to remember high frequency words and put them into their long term memory, Nation and Waring stated that learners need to encounter the word multiple times in authentic speaking, reading, and writing context at the student’s appropriate level (p. 8).Developing lessons which allow the student to encounter new words multiple times, allowing them to put the new words into his/her long term memory can be time consuming. Developing word lists from the context of the lesson can reduce the work load, enabling the student to encounter the word multiple times through reading, listening, and speaking. Learning new vocabulary through context also helps the student understand the word’s correct usage and prevents students from making sentences from dictionary definition such as, There is a large cleavage between the rich and poor in America.Learning new words from a word list is much different from learning them in the context of a sentence or story. Yongqi Gu (2003) stated that learning new words through context is only one step students may use, and that students should think meta-cognitively and learn new words within the context of where they appear. (p. 14). To help the student learn the important words from the context of a lesson a teacher needs to focus on low context words, which necessitates a second distinction: high frequency and low frequency words.Nation (2005) defined high frequency words as words that occur quite frequently in the language, such as the, a, man, and woman. High frequency words occur so regularly in daily conversation that if students understand these words, they are able to write and speak in comprehensible English. Low frequency words, as described by Nation, are words that deal more with academic studies, words that appear throughout all academic texts and courses, but not very often in day to day speech, such as formulate, index, and modify (p. 48).This helps ease the burden a teacher has when trying to understand what words students understand; however, low frequency words are the more difficult aspect for teachers to teach and learners to understand. Creating vocabulary lists from the students’ textbooks and p resenting these words through context in the lesson should help them to retain and use the new vocabulary. It will also carry through that students learn vocabulary better when they find the items to be useful and are able to put the new words into use more often while they study.Vocabulary, like other aspects of language learning, can be facilitated when done through cooperative learning. Yongqi Gu (2003) pointed out that vocabulary acquisition is a very learner-centered activity with the effectiveness of the learner’s strategies depending on his/her attitude and motivation towards new vocabulary acquisition (p. 2). This is true because the main motivational learning factor must come from the student, but when learning vocabulary in a cooperative learning environment it allows students to learn from peers closest to them.Murphey and Arao (2001) pointed out that students felt more relaxed and learned more from peers since they saw that making mistakes is acceptable, having go als is good, and learning English can be fun (p. 2). So, even though vocabulary acquisition is a learner-centered activity in regards to studying and being disciplined to set goals, when done in collaboration with peers students may enjoy the activity more, learning more vocabulary in the end.Understanding that vocabulary learning is an ongoing process, that learning new vocabulary through context, and learning new vocabulary can be done cooperatively are what guided the classroom practices below. Vocabulary Development in Classroom Practices Context The course in which vocabulary development in line with the above theoretical concepts was implemented was EFP 1310 College Listening Skills, an advanced course in listening and note-taking. It stressed comprehension of classroom discussions and lectures, as well as a variety of other media presentations.The class was taught by two instructors: Dr. Hanh Nguyen as the lead teacher and myself as a student teacher. Together we worked to de velop the students’ vocabulary in class. In this class there were 5 eighteen students, eleven females and seven males. Of the eleven females, seven were Taiwanese, one Belarusian, one Japanese, one Chinese, and one Indonesian. Of the seven males, three were Korean, two Japanese, one Taiwanese, and one Serbian. One male student was repeating this class for the second time.For two of the males and three of the females, this was their first English language class at a university. The average number of years spent studying English in the student’s home country was 6. 2 years and in the US, just over one month. explained that Test Your Word Level is adapted for the web from Paul Nation and Batia Laufer's word levels tests, developed for learners with vocabularies of different sizes and types, with the 1,000 to 10,000 most frequent English words (p. 2). At the 1,000 word level, the items are multiplechoice and based on either pictures or short sentences.Learners check their answers and move on to a second test at a higher level, (80% or higher to move up), or moved down to a lower level, depending on their score. Assessing the student’s vocabulary level in the beginning of the semester was needed to set a starting point. It also helped students understand where they were and where they needed to go in order to do well in undergraduate studies. All of the students assessed in the EFP 1310 class scored in the 2,000 level except three students who were assessed at the 3,000 level.This means that their vocabulary level was between 2,000 and 5,000 word families, whereas their native-speaking counterparts would have around 15,000 word families. The second activity required students to learn three new words each week. The first time this class was taught each week students were required to write three new words in a journal along with a definition for each word and three example sentences using the word in context. They could pick these words from thre e sources: the next level up from the website where they had their level assessed, words from their textbook, and words from the AWL provided by the teacher.The website informed the students at what level they were assessed; then the students picked words from the level above that, studied them, and hopefully did better on the exam at the end of the semester. For example, students who were assessed at the 2,000 level would then study words from the 3,000 level to improve their vocabulary. If they did not want to do this, they could choose vocabulary words from the new vocabulary section listed at the beginning of each chapter of the textbook.Their last choice, if they did not wish to do the other two, was the AWL provided by the teachers. This list was prepared by examining the lectures in the text- Vocabulary Development Activities As mentioned earlier, Nation and Waring stated that learners need to encounter a word numerous times in order to use it properly. Building vocabulary is an ongoing process, and I believe good progress was made during the semester. The biggest obstacles encountered were the limited time and the number of words students had to learn in order to be well-prepared for undergraduate studies.Students now understood the importance of a large vocabulary and the amount of work they needed to put forth in obtaining it. In order to build the students’ vocabulary, and help close the vocabulary gap as much as possible, we carried out the following steps: (a) Students assessed their present vocabulary level, a starting point had to be determined so progresses could be assessed, (b) students learned three new words each week, getting the students motivated and changing their attitude on learning vocabulary, (c) the teachers created an academic word list (AWL) xtracted from the lectures and the textbook, developing vocabulary that the students would learn in the context of the lectures and use in the class discussions that followed, and (d) the students assessed their vocabulary at the end of the semester to see if they made any progress. To see their progress would motivate the students to continue the learning process. To begin with, the students needed to assess their present vocabulary level. To do this, students visited http://www. lextutor. a and took a vocabulary test to determine their present level. Sevier (2004) 6 book, pulling out the academic words, and putting them on a piece of paper to be given to the students. Some of the words on this list were the same as the words from the new vocabulary section of the textbook. Getting the students to learn three new words each week posed the most difficult task. Students did not have these lists checked every week, but at the mid-term and final exams, so a few students quickly created these books just before this time period.At first it was planned to have each student post his/her three new words on WebCT so they could be checked more regularly and other classmate s could learn from other student’s words. After this plan was put to a vote in class, the students decided to place their vocabulary words in a notebook and turn the notebook in before the mid-term and final exams. Learning from mistakes, we feel that it would have been better to check their vocabulary notebooks weekly, or have students post their new words on WebCT to help them acquire more low-context vocabulary, thus creating an even better activity for the class.To overcome these weaknesses, when I had the opportunity to teach the class again in the following semester (now as the sole teacher), students were required to post their three new words on WebCT instead of in a journal. They could choose the words from the same areas described above, but each week instead of writing them in a journal they needed to post them on WebCT for the teacher and classmates to see. The first reason was because the previous semester some students did not keep their journal regularly, only making the journal the day before it was due.The second reason was so classmates could learn from each other, near peer role modeling, and the teacher could use the words students were posting as part of the vocabulary section of the test. Students seemed to have taken a stronger interest in learning new vocabulary by transferring words they need to learn into a vocabulary journal or flash cards to help them study. Whether this process is successful or not will be seen at the end of the semester when the students take the vocabulary exam again to see their progress. The third activity was to provide lists of words for the AWL that appeared in the lectures in the textbook.Since EFP 1310 is an advanced course in the EFP program, and after this course most students enter undergraduate studies, the AWL is the appropriate list for this class. If it were a lower level class, lower levels of vocabulary would have been used. By pulling out the contextualized vocabulary from each lesson, we were hoping not only to increase the student’s vocabulary but also make the lectures more comprehensible. I helped with scanning and running each lecture through â€Å"RANGE† a software program developed by Nation (2005).This program allowed me to create a contextualized AWL specifically for our class, focusing on the vocabulary from the given lectures. Nation and Waring (1997) developed three levels of vocabulary lists: level 1 is the first 1,000 word families, level 2 is the second 1,000 word families, and level 3 is the university word list (UWL) or AWL (p. 14). RANGE is used to create word lists based on frequency and is useful for seeing what low frequency words are contained in a paper, technical information note, or a text aimed at foreign readers.It creates three ready-made base lists. Figure 1 shows an example of a lecture that was run through RANGE. The first includes the most frequent 1,000 words of English. The second includes the next 1,000 most frequent w ords, and the third includes words not in the first 2,000 words of English but which are frequent in upper secondary school and university texts from a wide range of subjects. All three base lists include the base forms of words and derived forms; thus, the first 1,000 words consist of around 4,000 forms or types. 7 Figure 1.An example of RANGE analysis output (see the Appendix for the sample text of this analysis) Tables Table 1 Three Base Lists Created from RANGE Software Program Types found in base list one Type a all also and bank business employees Range 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Freq 9 2 1 3 2 13 2 F1 9 2 1 3 2 13 2 Types found in base list two Type competition critical hurt lot rush Range 1 1 1 1 1 Freq 1 1 1 3 1 F1 1 1 1 3 1 Types found in base list three Type affect community factors financing investigate obtain project range require Range 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Freq 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 F1 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 11 After scanning each lecture and running it through the program, we pulled out only th e level 3 words, the AWL, and put them into a word document. Before each lecture, the teacher printed out the appropriate AWL and gave it to the students to prepare them for the lecture. This practice was inspired by the notion that new words are best learned in context, or as Sternberg claimed, â€Å"Vocabulary using context is the most effective, or even a relatively effective, way of teaching that vocabulary† (p. 89).Since students had the chance to study and understand the vocabulary before listening to the lecture, we aimed to help them to concentrate on the content of the lecture and hear the vocabulary being used in context. Extracting the high context vocabulary from the lectures was a great way to focus on the content words from the lessons so students would be using them regularly in class, hopefully committing them to long term memory. It also saved the teachers a lot of time by not having to read the lectures and pull the vocabulary out. This allowed more time to focus on presentation of the lessons and vocabulary.The final activity took place at the end of the semester when students revisited the website, http://www. lextutor. ca, and had their vocabulary assessed a second time to see if it had grown. All of the students scored at the same level from the beginning of the semester, except one student who scored higher. The use of the same exam at the end of the semester gave validity to their scores since the level of the test did not change. Even though most students scored at the same level in the end, I do not believe that the vocabulary learning activities done in class failed.One level contains roughly 4,000 word forms and types, so a student may have tested into the lower end of level 2,000 at the beginning of the semester, and tested at the same level but toward the higher end at the completion of the semester. Since the test does not show this in more detail, it is difficult to know if the students have or have not made some progress . Conclusion Vocabulary acquisition has become an extremely important part of second language acquisition, and teachers cannot rely on students acquiring the needed vocabulary just through interaction with the language.I always understood that vocabulary was important in second language learning, but understanding what words to teach and in what manner have helped me to better plan my lessons so students can acquire the necessary vocabulary. Students need to be taught vocabulary in context so that they can retain the words and use them more frequently. Learning how the computer can help to develop word lists from the student’s textbooks has enabled me to focus on the words that were necessary in each lesson. Allowing the students to use the new vocabulary during the course of the lesson should help them retain it in their long term memories.Using a computer program to assess the student’s present vocabulary level also helped me to see what words needed to be taught to help students progress or catch up. In the end, however vocabulary is presented to the students, like all materials, it must be in appropriate situations, giving them the chance to use the vocabulary and build upon their language repertoire. 9 References Cobb, T. (1999). The compleat lexical tutor (Version 4. 5) [Computer software]. University of Quebec at Montreal. Maiguashca, R. U. (1993). Teaching and learning vocabulary in a second language: Past, present and future directions.The Canadian Modern Language Review, 50(1), 83-100. Murphey, T. , & Arao, H. (2001). Reported belief changes through near peer role modeling. TESL-EJ, 5(3). Retrieved June 1, 2006, from http://wwwwriting. berkeley. edu/TESLEJ/ej19/a1. html Nakata, T. (2006). Implementing optimal spaced learning for English vocabulary learning: Towards improvement of the low-first method derived from the reactivation theory. The JALT CALL Journal, 2(2), 3-18. Nation, P. , & Waring, R. (1997). Vocabulary size, text coverage and word lists. In N. Schmitt & M. McCarthy (Eds. , Vocabulary: Description, acquisition and pedagogy (pp. 6-19). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved March 3, 2006, from http:// www1. harenet. ne. jp/~waring/papers/ cup. html Nation, P. (2005). Range and frequency instructions [Computer software]. Retrieved March 3, 2006, from http://www. vuw. ac. nz/lals/staff/paul -nation/nation. aspx Nation, P. (2005). Teaching vocabulary. Asian EFL Journal, 7(3), 47-54. Sevier, M. (2004). The compleat lexical tutor, v. 4. TESL-EJ, 8(3). Retrieved May 26, 2006, from http://wwwwriting. berkeley. edu/TESLEJ/ej31/m2. tml Sternberg, R. J. (1987). Most vocabulary is learned from content. In M. G. McKeown & M. E. Curtis (Eds. ), The nature of vocabulary acquisition (pp. 89105). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Yongqi Gu, P. (2003). Vocabulary learning in second language: Person, task, context and strategies. TESL-EJ, 7(2). Retrieved October 3, 2006, from http://www-writing. berkeley. e du/ TESL-EJ/ej26/a4. html 10 Appendix Sample text for RANGE analysis example Starting Your Own Business When starting your own business, it is important that you put a lot of thought into what you are going to do. 0-85% of all business will fail, so the first point is to start with something you know well. Study what the kind of store you want to open. If it is a retail store, then look around. Do you see someone else selling what you plan to sell? How many possible competitors do you see? The next step to plan: There are two reasons for business planning. One is that it makes the entrepreneur investigate where he will open his business and what factors could affect his business. Second, a business plan will also help the entrepreneur obtain financing from a bank.All banks will require a business to make sure enough thought and planning have gone into the project before the banks gives any money. Looking at the first point: By looking at your possible market from a business personâ €™s point of view, you may look with a more critical eye. You don’t want to rush into something where you could lose a lot of money. Possible factors that could affect your business range from employees, to possible growth of the community, to your competition.If there are not a lot of people living around your business, where will your employees come from? Is the community going to grow where you plan to open your business or is it shrinking? If it is shrinking will that hurt your business? The second point is more for the bank. They like to see that you have thought through many of the possibilities that could affect your business. They want to see that you know what your expenses will be, how well you know your product, and how much money you think you can make selling your product. (Prepared by Jeff G. Mehring, 2005)

Booker T. Washington VS. WEB DuBois Essay

Booker T. Washington VS. WEB DuBois In the days when segregation was not uncommon, there were two men that played a huge part in the fight for equality in the United States. Booker T. Washington and WEB DuBois were great leaders, who supporterted civil rights, yet also disagreed on various issues related to reconstruction, poverty, racism, and discrimination. Both Washington and DuBois worked on reforming education as well as eliminating discrimination towards Blacks, but their strategies of achieving said change varied greatly. The first leader that came along was Booker T. Washington. He believed that african americans would not make it any where in society if they focused on just equality. He told blacks to target education, trade, and financial progress in order to get an economic foothold in society as well as becoming better individuals. Washington felt that blacks could not be a in a position to improve their standing in communities until they withdrew from poverty and evolved into something that could not be denied as equals. It was understood that blacks would never be completely equal to whites and that there would always be some form of segregation and discrimination. Instead of fighting with it,Washington encouraged blacks to accept it, embrace it, and work around it. The next main leader was WEB DuBois. Contrary to Washingtons beliefs, DuBois deemed that blacks should be like whites, in the aspect of having an organized education and the same political rights. DuBois felt that blacks should not approach this indirectly like Washington, but face it head on and demand the rights that they considered to be theirs. He took the more assertive stance that african a mericans should press for full equality and use agitating, passive-aggressive tactics in hopes that the whites would reluctantly comply. In the â€Å"Declaration of the Principles of the Niagara Movement† he and other Black intellectuals outlined a list of demands in which they desired to meet the needs and interests of all African Americans. Dubois asserted that economic security was not nearly enough and blacks should become just as educated as the whites. Mainly he considered Booker T. Washington’s ideas and took them a step further, if not more. At the time, the most reasonable leader would be none other than Booker T. Washington. His understanding that blacks would never be equal and that not being his main focus, gave him the upperhand on WEB Dubois. Du Bois urged blacks to attempt to uplift themselves through educational advancement and  political rights. Although his ideas had potential, Washington’s gradualism stance gives him wide spread appeal among both blacks and whites. In today’s day and age, there are people who are still racist and don’t accept blacks because of their color/culture, but todays blacks understand that and tolerate it. In conclusion, the rivalry between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B DuBois is one well known to scholars and historians of the United States. Washington and Dubois were two great segregation leaders who offered different strategies for dealing with the problems of poverty and discrimination facing Black Americans. They both brought enthralling ideas to the table and in short, Booker T. Washington believed in civil rights through evolution whereas WEB DuBois demanded more immediate black equality.