人教版高中英语新课程教材中,语言运用（Using Language）是每个单元必不可少的部分,提供了围绕单元中心话题的听、说、读、写的综合性练习,是单元中心话题的延续和升华.如何设计Using Language部分的教学,使自己的教学模式既不落俗套,又能真正体现新课程标准所倡导的教学理念,正是广大一线英语教师一直努力探索的问题.

打磨Using Language,倡导新理念

Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. David McNeill. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992. 416 pp.

Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought

Social robots can be used in education as tutors or peer learners. They have been shown to be effective at increasing cognitive and affective outcomes and have achieved outcomes similar to those of human tutoring on restricted tasks. This is largely because of their physical presence, which traditional learning technologies lack. We review the potential of social robots in education, discuss the technical challenges, and consider how the robot's appearance and behavior affect learning outcomes.

Social robots for education: A review

Bilingual advantages in executive functioning either do not exist or are restricted to very specific and undetermined circumstances.

According to some estimates, more than half of the world's population is multilingual to some extent. Because of the centrality of language use to human experience and the deep connections between linguistic and nonlinguistic processing, it would not be surprising to find that there are interactions between bilingualism and cognitive and brain processes. The present review uses the framework of experience-dependent plasticity to evaluate the evidence for systematic modifications of brain and cognitive systems that can be attributed to bilingualism. The review describes studies investigating the relation between bilingualism and cognition in infants and children, younger and older adults, and patients, using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods. Excluded are studies whose outcomes focus primarily on linguistic abilities because of their more peripheral contribution to the central question regarding experience-dependent changes to cognition. Although most of the research discussed in the review reports some relation between bilingualism and cognitive or brain outcomes, several areas of research, notably behavioral studies with young adults, largely fail to show these effects. These discrepancies are discussed and considered in terms of methodological and conceptual issues. The final section proposes an account based on "executive attention" to explain the range of research findings and to set out an agenda for the next steps in this field. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Bilingual Adaptation: How Minds Accommodate Experience

The benefits of being bilingual: working memory in bilingual Turkish-Dutch children.

In recent years, robots have increasingly been implemented as tutors in both first- and second-language education. The field of robot-assisted language learning (RALL) is developing rapidly. Studie...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3102/0034654318821286

Social Robots for Language Learning: A Review:

Associations between structural quality aspects and process quality in Dutch early childhood education and care settings

How do verbal short-term memory and working memory relate to the acquisition of vocabulary and grammar? A comparison between first and second language learners.

Executive function (EF) is an important predictor of numerous developmental outcomes, such as academic achievement and behavioral adjustment. Although a plethora of measurement instruments exists to assess executive function in children, only few of these are suitable for toddlers, and even fewer have undergone psychometric evaluation. The present study evaluates the psychometric properties and validity of an assessment battery for measuring EF in two-year-olds. A sample of 2437 children were administered the assessment battery at a mean age of 2;4 years (SD = 0;3 years) in a large-scale field study. Measures of both hot EF (snack and gift delay tasks) and cool EF (six boxes, memory for location, and visual search task) were included. Confirmatory Factor Analyses showed that a two-factor hot and cool EF model fitted the data better than a one-factor model. Measurement invariance was supported across groups differing in age, gender, socioeconomic status (SES), home language, and test setting. Criterion and convergent validity were evaluated by examining relationships between EF and age, gender, SES, home language, and parent and teacher reports of children's attention and inhibitory control. Predictive validity of the test battery was investigated by regressing children's pre-academic skills and behavioral problems at age three on the latent hot and cool EF factors at age 2 years. The test battery showed satisfactory psychometric quality and criterion, convergent, and predictive validity. Whereas cool EF predicted both pre-academic skills and behavior problems 1 year later, hot EF predicted behavior problems only. These results show that EF can be assessed with psychometrically sound instruments in children as young as 2 years, and that EF tasks can be reliably applied in large scale field research. The current instruments offer new opportunities for investigating EF in early childhood, and for evaluating interventions targeted at improving EF from a young age.

/pdf/psychometric-properties-and-convergent-and-predictive-mfvuq6t83y.pdf

Josje Verhagen

Papers

The benefits of being bilingual: working memory in bilingual Turkish-Dutch children.

Social Robots for Language Learning: A Review:

Associations between structural quality aspects and process quality in Dutch early childhood education and care settings

How do verbal short-term memory and working memory relate to the acquisition of vocabulary and grammar? A comparison between first and second language learners.

Psychometric properties and convergent and predictive validity of an executive function test battery for two-year-olds