Read the text to answer 

On Education, Republican Candidates Retreat From National Standards

                                                                                                  BY EMILY CADEI 8/20/15 AT 4:40 AM

           After 15 years of rising federal involvement in K through 12 schools, U.S. education policy is poised for a big shift in direction. If that wasn’t already apparent, it certainly became clear on Wednesday, when six of the Republican party’s leading 2016 contenders spoke about their views on educating America’s youth, and what their priorities would be should they make it to the White House. The consensus: national‐level reform efforts are out. Ceding control to state and local school districts is in.

     That’s always been the preference for some segments of the Republican party. But under President George W. Bush, a crop of GOP leaders interested in business‐backed education reforms banded together with Democrats eager to expand public funding for schools, particularly for underachieving schools, to carve out a more assertive federal role. That coalition helped pass the 2001 law known as No Child Left Behind, which set national standards for schools and used federal funding to create incentives to meet them.

      Though there is now broad agreement that parts of No Child Left Behind were ill‐conceived, the Obama administration has continued Bush’s muscular approach to education, prodding states to participate in national programs with offers of federal cash. But that coalition of Democratic and Republican reformers is now looking wobbly. The House and Senate have both passed updated versions of No Child Left Behind that would rein in the federal government’s role in setting K through 12 education policy, though not nearly as much as conservatives would like. The next step is reconciling differences between the bills in a way that keeps the more conservative House happy, without jeopardizing President Barack Obama’s signature. That’s going to be a tough task for Congress this fall. On the presidential trail, Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have made clear that they side with teachers’ unions who are critics of expanding charter schools and more teacher accountability, which both Bush and Obama tried to promote nationally.

      On the Republican side, meanwhile, the six candidates who spoke at the American Federation for Children’s Education Summit 2015 in New Hampshire fell all over themselves trying distance their agendas from current education policies and declare their support for local autonomy.

                                                                                (Available: http://www.newsweek.com/education)

Read the text to answer 

The nature of approaches and methods in language teaching

        Although specific theories of the language may provide the basis for a particular teaching method, other methods derive primarily from a theory of language learning. A learning theory underlying an approach or method responds to two questions: (a) What are the psycholinguistic and cognitive processes involved in language learning? and (b) What are the conditions that need to be met in order for these learning processes to be activated? Learning theories associated with a method at the level of approach may emphasize either one or both of these dimensions. Process‐ oriented theories build on learning processes, such as habit formation, induction, inferencing, hypothesis testing, and generalization. Condition‐oriented theories emphasize the nature of the human and physical context in which language learning takes place.  

        Stephen D. Krashen’s Monitor Model of second language development (1981) is an example of a learning theory on which a method (the Natural Approach) has been built. At the level of process, Krashen distinguishes between acquisition and learning. Acquisition refers to the natural assimilation of language rules through using language for communication. Learning refers to the formal study of language rules and is a conscious process. Krashen’s theory also addresses the conditions necessary for the process of “acquisition” to take place. He describes these in terms of the type of “input” the learner receives. Input must be comprehensible, slightly above the learner’s present level of competence, interesting or relevant, not grammatically sequenced, in sufficient quantity, and experience in low‐anxiety contexts.

         Tracy Terrell’s Natural Approach (1977) is an example of a method derived primarily from a learning theory rather than from a particular view of language. Although the Natural approach is based on a learning theory that specifies both processes and conditions, the learning theory underlying such methods as Counseling‐Learning and the Silent Way addresses primarily the conditions held to be necessary for learning to take place without specifying what the learning processes themselves are presumed to be.

          Charles A. Curran in his writings on the Counseling‐Learning (1972), for example, focuses on the conditions necessary for successful learning. James Asher’s Total Physical Response (Asher 1977) is likewise a method that derives from a learning theory. Caleb Gattemo’s Silent Way (1972, 1976) is built around a theory of the conditions necessary for successful learning to be realized. Many of the techniques used in the method are designed to train learners to consciously use their intelligence to heighten learning potencial.

(Richards, Jack C. and Rodgers, Theodore S. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2004. P. 22‐23. Adapted.)

Read the text to answer 

Communicative strategies

     As anyone who has tried to communicate in an L2 knows, learners frequently experience problems in saying what they want to say because of their inadequate knowledge. If learners do not know a word in the target language they may “borrow” a word from their L1 or use another target‐language word that is approximate in meaning, or try to paraphrase the meaning of the word, or even construct an entirely new word. These strategies, with the obvious exception of those that are L1 based, are also found in the language use of native speakers.

     There have been a number of attempts to construct psycholinguistic models to account for the use of communication strategies. Claus Faerch and Gabriele Kasper, for example, proposed a model of speech production which involves a planning and an execution phase. Communication strategies are seen as part of the planning phase.They are called upon when learners experience some kind of problem with an initial plan which prevents them from executing it. They can either abandon the initial plan and develop an enterily different one by means of reduction strategy (such as switching to a different topic) or try to maintain their original communicative goal by adopting some kind of achievement strategy (such as L1 borrowing).

      As Selinker has pointed out, communication strategies constitute one of the processes responsible for learner errors. We might expect, therefore, that the choice of communication strategies will reflect the learners’ stage of development. For example, learners might expect to switch from L1‐based strategies to L2‐based strategies as their knowledge of the L2 develops. It would also be interesting to discover whether the use of communication strategies has any effect on L2 acquisition. For example, do learners notice the gap more readily as a result of having to use a communication strategy? Or does successful use of a communication strategy obviate the need for learners to pick out the correct target‐language forms?  

(ELLIS, Rod. Second Language Acquisition. Oxford University, 1997. P.60‐61. Adapted.)  

Text IV

How to be an Effective EFL Teacher 

Over the short history of the ESL/EFL field various methods have been proposed. Each method has in turn fallen out of favor and has been replaced with a new one. Audiolingualism, functionalism, communicative paradigms, and now the fad is "task-based syllabuses." In his critique of the task-based syllabus Sheen (1994:127) points out, "frequent paradigm shifts in the field of second and foreign language teaching have not resulted in significant progress in language learning." Since no method has been proven to be more effective than another, many teachers have jumped on the "eclectic" bandwagon. Common sense would have this as the best available choice since variety is the spice of language.

(Source: http://www.eflpress.com/teacher/EFL_teacher.html)

Text I

CLT or a task-based approach is not a panacea to language teaching. There are numerous challenges to making communicative language teaching happen. These issues have to do with the choice of content, context, specific skill areas (e.g., vocabulary, grammar, etc.), and particular learning tasks that determine a curriculum. 

These choices are tightly linked to questions about what it means to ―know‖ a language, to be proficient in a language, and what communicative abilities entail. While the literature on language teaching has attempted to provide answers to such questions, there are no universally accepted standards. The proficiency and standards movements have attempted to provide some guidelines, but they often remain broad in learner performance descriptions. This ultimately makes assessment of individual learners‘ communicative ability challenging, and it essentially leaves judgment of learner progress up to the teachers. 

Communicative abilities cannot be simply categorized as speaking, listening, reading, or writing skills, as it was done in a traditional four skills approach. For example, when two people talk to each other, the process normally involves speaking and listening skills as well as active communicative strategies such as asking for clarification and adjusting language to make each other understood. The endeavor to teach languages in a way that encompasses all skills, based on an interactive view of language behavior, has posed many challenges on how to go about integrating the four skills effectively in a daily and long-term curriculum. 

The teaching of proficiency and communicative-based skills raises the question not only about content but also about the choice of learning tasks or best teaching practices. CLT does not promote one standardized method or curriculum, but is eclectic in its approach. Being eclectic means it promotes the best or most effective techniques or methodologies. At the same time, the choice of techniques and learning tasks is not an arbitrary decision, but is firmly grounded in principles of learning as they are motivated by research in second language acquisition (SLA) and educational psychology. Learning what constitutes effective ways of learning and teaching initially requires intensive training and in the long run staying in touch with current SLA research findings. 

As a last point, the quality of CLT also often depends on the quality of teaching materials. Unfortunately, only in the most commonly taught languages—such as English, Spanish, French, and German—does an abundance of materials exist to support the development of communicative language abilities over a wide range of skills.

(Source: <http://www.pearsonhighered.com/samplechapter/0131579061.pdf> )

The main issues of the Brazilian port system

Since the beginning of the privatization of the Brazilian ports in 1995, the lessee companies of container terminals have invested approximately USD 1 billion acquisition of modern equipment, physical infrastructure, training of manpower and infrastructure.

Particularly after the injection of resources by the Federal Government through the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), the situation at the Brazilian ports started to improve.

Part of the dredging works in the main Brazilian ports are finished. With the sea deeper along the ports’ area, it is estimated that around 30% of the vessels worldwide that could not dock in Brazil before, now can.

But what used to be an issue at the sea, now it is an issue at the land. The logistical problems of access are evident, the bottleneck of access from the cargo container terminals generate unproductive periods, which are highly detrimental to the foreign trade and financial activity of Brazil. It is a fact that the rail network and roads in the vicinity of the ports are insufficient.

Another great matter about the Brazilian ports is the bureaucracy. Besides making everything more expensive, slowness in the Brazilian ports invented a truly “congestion at sea”. Every ship that arrives in the country waits at least 5.5 days to have the goods delivered by agencies such as IRS, the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), the Ministry of Agriculture and the Docks. The world average is three days. 

In Brazil, the organs responsible for clearance of goods run only during business hours. It is the only country among the world’s major economies, which does not have these services available 24 hours.

Silicon Valley – America’s High Tech Centre

Silicon Valley is located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area. It originally got its name from the large number of companies that produced silicon chips. Today it is a general name for the high-tech industry of Northern California.

The beginning of Silicon Valley goes back to the early 20th century when the United States military and other companies started experimenting in the fields of radio, communications and electronics. The area also grew because Stanford and other universities and colleges produced a number of students who were interested in technology.

One of the first companies that started in Silicon Valley was Hewlett Packard. It was founded by two graduates of Stanford University in 1939. Today HP is the world’s largest technology company and operates in almost all countries in the world. After World War II an industrial park was built around Stanford University. Companies rented offices from the university and employed students as engineers and scientists.

In the 1950s the silicon transistor was developed and many companies started moving into the region. In the 1970s Silicon Valley became a well-known term in the United States because of the computer and software firms that were founded in the area. About a hundred new companies were established every year. Such growth was possible because people could found a company, get money and rent office space in only a few weeks. Among the well-known companies in the region are search engines Google and Yahoo!, chip producer Intel, computer and software manufacturers Apple and Adobe.

By 1992 Silicon Valley accounted for over 250,000 jobs and over 40% of California’s exports. Companies began calling in specialists from China and India because more and more high-tech scientists and engineers were needed.

When the Internet boom began in the 1990s a number of new so-called dot.com enterprises sprang up, including the online auction house eBay and others. When the boom collapsed at the beginning of the new millennium, thousands of high tech workers lost their jobs and couldn’t afford the high housing prices that the area produced. But even after the global financial crisis of 2008 Silicon Valley remains one of the top research and high-tech center in the world. 

<http://www.english-online.at/technology/silicon-valley/silicon-valley-americas-high-tech-center.html>

Text II

                               Reading Comprehension Instruction

      There are widespread and erroneous perceptions that children must know all of the words before they can comprehend a text and that they must comprehend it at the literal level before advancing to comprehension at the inferential level.

      Recognizing some words is clearly necessary and central to reading. It is important for children to acquire a set of strategies for figuring out the meanings of words and apply these strategies so that words are recognized automatically. Four groups of strategies exist: (1) common graphophonic patterns (e.g., at in cat, hat, bat), (2) high‐frequency or common words used in sentences (e.g., the, a, or), (3) word building (e.g., morphemes, as play in plays, played, playing, playful), and (4) contextual supports gathered through the meanings of sentences, texts, and illustrations. These word recognition strategies are taught as children are engaged in reading and are considered effective in fluency instruction.

      Vocabulary and reading comprehension growth occurs side by side even for beginning readers. They each require explicit instruction and lots of reading of stories including repeated readings to teach phonics, to develop sight vocabulary, and to teach children how to decode words; guided retelling using questions that prompt children to name the characters, identify the setting (place and time), speak to the problem, tell what happened, and how the story ended; repeated checking for information; and drawing conclusions. Teaching strategies to children early, explicitly, and sequentially are three key characteristics of effective vocabulary and reading comprehension instruction.

      For those who are learning English as second or foreign language, take advantage of their first language knowledge to identify cognate pairs, which are words with similar spellings, pronunciations, and meanings in English. To identify the degree of overlap between the two languages is a strategy that has been demonstrated to be effective for Spanish‐ literate children: learn the words for basic objects (e.g., dog, cat, house, car) that English‐only children already know; review and practice passages and stories through read‐alouds in order to accelerate the rate at which words can be identified and read; and engage in basic reading skills including spelling.

(PHILLIPS, L.M, NORRIS, S. P. & VAVRA, K.L. Reading Comprehension Instruction (pp. 1‐10). Faculty of Education, University of Alberta.   Posted online on 2007‐11‐20 in: http://www.literacyencyclopedia.ca)

Read the extract of the song GIVE ME LO VE by ED Sheeram and answer

Told you l ’d let them go

And TU fight my comer

Maybe tonight Til call ya

After my blood turns into alcohol

No I just wanna hold ya

Give a little time to me, we’ll burn this out

We’ll play hide and seek, to turn this around

All I want is the taste that your lips allow

Give me love like never before

‘Cause lately /Ve been craving more

And it’s been a while but I still feel the same

Maybe I should let you go