PGCE

This study is directly influenced by the recent sudden and rapid increase in the interest and demand of Mandarin provision across schools in the UK. The shortage of teachers and a negative climate of language learning have resulted in a knee-jerk reaction in which the importation of language and language teachers is in danger of imposing unproblematised assumptions upon the notions of language, culture and pedagogy. This research looks into the ideological conceptualisation of Mandarin teaching in British schools through the eyes of teachers of Mandarin. Taking stock of TESOL methodology and my position as a Mandarin teacher, I draw on the abundant narratives of fellow teachers to investigate how their perceptions of professional self construct the world of Mandarin teaching in which an intersection of conflicting and competing discourses suggest enduring problems in teacher training for Mandarin teachers in the UK.

Deeply embedded in the current education system is assessment. Within education, assessment is used to track and predict pupil achievement and can be defined as a means by which pupil learning is measured (Ronan, 2015). The delivery of teaching and learning within schools is often predetermined by what is assessed, with pupils actively being taught how to achieve the success criteria (appendix 7a). Recognised as a key professional competency of teachers (GTCNI, 2011) and the 6th quality in the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2011), assessment can be outlined as ‘the systematic collection, interpretation and use of information to give a deeper appreciation of what pupils know and understand, their skills and personal capabilities, and what their learning experiences enable them to do’ (CCEA, 2013: 4). The aims of the current essay are to venture further into the role of assessment in teaching and learning, paying particular attention to how formative and summative forms of assessment contribute to the discipline; and what impact these have at the classroom and the school level for both teachers and learners. The paper will examine my own experiences of using formative and summative assessment in the classroom, looking specifically at the summative processes I am aware of, before evaluating the purpose of Independent Thinking Time (ITT) and Talk Partners (TP); and how formative assessment can take place within these. In addition to this, the essay will also explore the role of Closing the Gaps (CTGs) in marking, and how questioning can assess conceptual understanding. These will be evaluated against the Teachers’ Standards. The essay will endeavour to foreground some potential challenges with formative and summative assessment (including what I have learned about assessment), before identifying some areas for future development and the strategies to facilitate these.

EDITORIAL
Oľga Zápotočná:
Pedagogy, Education and Society Today

ARTICLES
Anneli Frelin, Jan Grannäs:
The Production of Present and Absent Presences in Education

Metka Mencin Čeplak:
Heteronormativity: School, Ideology, and Politics

Jana Plichtová:
Scottish and Slovak University Student Discussions about Stigmatized Persons: A Challenge for Education – Moving towards Democracy and Inclusion

Ping Wang:
Perspectives on English Teacher Development in Rural Primary Schools in China

Gilbert S. Suzawa:
The Learning Teacher: Role of Ambiguity in Education

Zuzana Petrová:
To the Relevancy of Using Vygotsky´s theoretical Framework
to Legitimize the Dialogic Teaching/Learning

That is not to say that there are no negative issues within FE colleges these days. It is my belief , based on experiences, that such colleges are perhaps not the best environments to teach HE courses. There have been times that issues of QA have occurred within courses I have been engaged with – largely because the SOW laid down by the department has been taught at an FE standard basis i.e. to assessment, rather than in the usual university way of knowledge base from which assessment arises. Students are often ‘spoon fed’ and classes made up of those who, given levels of previous learning, cannot really meet the demands of this level of scholarship  and yet are taken on it seems to make up the numbers so that the courses can run and appease both institution and government targets.

Some thirty years ago now, there was considerable concern about what curriculum should be offered in the professional training of teachers.  How to define educational ‘problems’ and identify ‘solutions’ is probably a matter of eternal debate.

Indeed, these concerns continue to demand attention even now, so perhaps this is a good time to share the paper which Waltraud Boxall and I published in the Journal of Further and Higher Education (Volume 13, Number 3) way back in Autumn 1989?

[Further info:
In a paper published in 2006 William Taylor  - link cited in document below - describes CATE in this way:

The Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (CATE) was set up in 1984 to offer advice to the Secretary of State on the approval of courses of initial teacher training. Such accreditation must be distinguished from academic validation, which is the responsibility of universities and the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA). Initial training courses must now satisfy published criteria as to qualifications for entry, length, balance of content, professional experience, and curriculum coverage. In particular, undergraduate courses must include at least two years of subject study at a level appropriate to higher education. Staff concerned with pedagogy are also required to have recent and successful experience of school teaching.]

The structural complex of D35 Field presents a variety of challenges to geoscientists and engineers. Located in the Balingian Province offshore Sarawak, it was discovered in 1983 and has become one of the major oil-producing fields in the area (Figure 1, Location Map). The structural complexity, resulting in compartmentalization of the reservoir is attributed to the collision and wrenching episodes between the Central Luconia Province to the north, and the onshore Tinjar Province and the Rajang Fold-Thrust Belt to the south (Mazlan Madon & Peter Abolins, 1999). In addition, Swinburn (1994) reported that the western part of the Balingian province, where D35 is located, was subjected to a folding, faulting, and erosion, thus affected the sedimentation processes throughout reservoir sands of Cycle I to Cycle IV. Because of this complexity, for the past 25 years, the interpretation on depositional setting of the reservoir sand has changed few times. In 1984 when with limited data; it was interpreted as coastal plain with fluvial channel reservoir. In 1988, a ‘Mississippi’ delta interpretation was introduced before it was replaced by fluvioestuarine environment in 1994. In 2003, the interpretation was revised back to a fluvial environment with a series of stacked and isolate channels envisaged. The current study in 2009, however, has established a coastal sedimentary setting as the environment to be more realistic based on these new findings are the results of the comprehensive and integrated undertaking in Geology, Geophysics, Petrophysics, and Petroleum Engineering. This paper focuses on the prolific sands of Cycle II and Cycle III reservoirs. The geological studies encompass application of sequence stratigraphy in well log correlations, and detail core analyses include sedimentological facies descriptions, ichnofacies study, coal petrology, and biostratigraphy. The Cycle II depositional setting (Figure 2) has been established as the coastal and related estuarine deposit rather than stacked channel deposits previously interpreted. The prograding units are sheet with thick and widespread as shown in figure. Cores recovered from the unit show evidence of marine influence such as burrows of Ophiomorpha and sedimentary structures typical to the coastal deposits. Analysis of the trace fossil assemblages demonstrates a variety of sub-environments, from a marine influenced lower coastal plain to a fully marine environment. The Cycle III depositional setting (Figure 2) has been established as the coastal longshore bars deposited in a transgressive system tract. Log correlations show the stacking pattern of the parasequences as retrogradational (Figure 3). As in Cycle II, cores from the unit show evidences of marine influence, as opposed to fluvial, interpretation used in previous models. Sandstone thicknesses derived from geostatistical inversion work show northwest-southeast trending sand bodies (Figure 4) consistent with the longshore bar environment interpretation. These new findings translate to widely distributed sands in the established Cycle II and Cycle III, in contrast to the channelized and stacked sand patterns in the previous model. These have given positive impacts on the current hydrocarbon volumes and potential exploration prospects. The findings also support the assessment of leads in exploration potentials in Cycle II and Cycle III.

El objetivo del presente trabajo es facilitar la aplicación del modelo económico-financiero en el análisis de las solvencia técnica empresarial, tomando como base la información suministrada por el Plan General de Contabilidad, a fin de que cualquier usuario de la misma familiarizado con la nomenclatura, estructura y contenido de las cuentas anuales pueda realizar un adecuado análisis financiero de la empresa.

The structural complex of D35 Field presents a variety of challenges to geoscientists and engineers. Located in the Balingian Province offshore Sarawak, it was discovered in 1983 and has become one of the major oil-producing fields in the area (Figure 1, Location Map). The structural complexity, resulting in compartmentalization of the reservoir is attributed to the collision and wrenching episodes between the Central Luconia Province to the north, and the onshore Tinjar Province and the Rajang Fold-Thrust Belt to the south (Mazlan Madon & Peter Abolins, 1999). In addition, Swinburn (1994) reported that the western part of the Balingian province, where D35 is located, was subjected to a folding, faulting, and erosion, thus affected the sedimentation processes throughout reservoir sands of Cycle I to Cycle IV. Because of this complexity, for the past 25 years, the interpretation on depositional setting of the reservoir sand has changed few times. In 1984 when with limited data; it was interpreted as coastal plain with fluvial channel reservoir. In 1988, a ‘Mississippi’ delta interpretation was introduced before it was replaced by fluvioestuarine environment in 1994. In 2003, the interpretation was revised back to a fluvial environment with a series of stacked and isolate channels envisaged. The current study in 2009, however, has established a coastal sedimentary setting as the environment to be more realistic based on these new findings are the results of the comprehensive and integrated undertaking in Geology, Geophysics, Petrophysics, and Petroleum Engineering. This paper focuses on the prolific sands of Cycle II and Cycle III reservoirs. The geological studies encompass application of sequence stratigraphy in well log correlations, and detail core analyses include sedimentological facies descriptions, ichnofacies study, coal petrology, and biostratigraphy. The Cycle II depositional setting (Figure 2) has been established as the coastal and related estuarine deposit rather than stacked channel deposits previously interpreted. The prograding units are sheet with thick and widespread as shown in figure. Cores recovered from the unit show evidence of marine influence such as burrows of Ophiomorpha and sedimentary structures typical to the coastal deposits. Analysis of the trace fossil assemblages demonstrates a variety of sub-environments, from a marine influenced lower coastal plain to a fully marine environment. The Cycle III depositional setting (Figure 2) has been established as the coastal longshore bars deposited in a transgressive system tract. Log correlations show the stacking pattern of the parasequences as retrogradational (Figure 3). As in Cycle II, cores from the unit show evidences of marine influence, as opposed to fluvial, interpretation used in previous models. Sandstone thicknesses derived from geostatistical inversion work show northwest-southeast trending sand bodies (Figure 4) consistent with the longshore bar environment interpretation. These new findings translate to widely distributed sands in the established Cycle II and Cycle III, in contrast to the channelized and stacked sand patterns in the previous model. These have given positive impacts on the current hydrocarbon volumes and potential exploration prospects. The findings also support the assessment of leads in exploration potentials in Cycle II and Cycle III.

The West Crocker Formation in Kota Kinabalu area in Sabah is one of the best exposed examples of deepwater sedimentary sequence in Malaysia. This paper describes and documents the detailed facies characteristics and sedimentology of outcrops, and proposes a depositional framework for the West Crocker Formation in the Kota Kinabalu area.