Search results for "Competence"

Promoting Leadership Skills in Teachers with Coaching

2023

Today, the acquisition of additional skills by the teacher is a central fac tor in addressing contemporary changes in educational practices. Parallel to this, teaching profession requires an identity and practical teaching skills to improve the ability to help the younger generation in their self-realization. As a result, the teacher is no longer just a disseminator of knowledge, but a professional committed to consolidating his/her profile through paths of training and cultural growth, participation in experiences that intertwine teaching activity, with multi disciplinary design, educational research and ongoing training. Taking a closer look at how coaching can support teachers’ developme…

Emotional Intelligence

2004

A commentary on the Special Issue “Innovations in measuring and fostering mathematical modelling competencies”

2021

This is a commentary on the ESM 2021 Special Issue on Innovations in Measuring and Fostering Mathematical Modelling Competencies. We have grouped the ten studies into three themes: competencies, fostering, and measuring. The first theme and the papers therein provide a platform to discuss the cognitivist backgrounds to the different conceptualizations of mathematical modelling competencies, based on the modelling cycle. We suggest theoretical widening through a competence continuum and enriching of the modelling cycle with overarching, analytic dimensions for creativity, tool use, metacognition, and so forth. The second theme and the papers therein showcase innovative ideas on fostering an…

Decreased temperature increases the expression of a disordered bacterial late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) protein that enhances natural transformati…

2021

Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins are important players in the management of responses to stressful conditions, such as drought, high salinity, and changes in temperature. Many LEA proteins do not have defined three-dimensional structures, so they are intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and are often highly hydrophilic. Although LEA-like sequences have been identified in bacterial genomes, the functions of bacterial LEA proteins have been studied only recently. Sequence analysis of outer membrane interleukin receptor I (BilRI) from the oral pathogen Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans indicated that it shared sequence similarity with group 3/3b/4 LEA proteins. Comprehensive …

New media and perennial problems in foreign language learning and teaching

2015

The book concerns the ways in which the new media shape communication along with educational expectations and practices in foreign language classrooms. Although foreign language learners have cheap and easy access to information and ways of communication, they also wrestle with problems that have always accompanied language learning. The focus of the book is two-fold. On the one hand, the authors demonstrate how using social networks, videoconferencing, mobile phones, wikis, and computer-mediated interaction contributes to the development of language skills, negotiated interaction, autonomy, and intercultural competence. On the other, they discuss “old” issues pertaining to the role of voca…

Assessing interactional skills in a paired speaking test : raters’ interpretation of the construct

2019

The operationalization of interactional competence (IC) within the paired speaking test format allows for a range of interactional skills to be tested. However, in terms of assessment, challenges are posed with regard to the co-constructed nature of IC, making investigations into raters’ perceptions of the construct essential to inform test score interpretation. This qualitative study explores features of IC that raters attended to as they evaluated performances in a paired speaking test, part of a Swedish national test of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Two groups of raters, 17 EFL teachers from Sweden, using national standards based on the Common European Framework of Reference for L…

Use your languages! : From monolingual to multilingual interaction in a language class

2015

This reflective paper presents a new course concept for multilingual interaction, which was piloted at the University of Jyväskylä Language Centre in the spring of 2014. The course, implemented as part of the centre’s action research, is the result of a development process aimed at enhancing students’ multilingual and multicultural academic communication competences along with promoting use of their entire linguistic repertoire. The course concept was inspired by the EU project Modularising Multilingual and Multicultural Academic Communication Competence (MAGICC), whose main intent is “to integrate multilingual and multicultural academic communication competences as graduate learning outcom…

Developing a conceptual framework : the case of MAGICC

2015

This paper reports the steps taken to develop the conceptual framework of the MAGICC project (2013), which aimed to provide action-oriented descriptions of multilingual and multicultural academic and professional communication competence, instructional designs to promote these in higher education language teaching, and multidimensional forms of assessment aligned with the learning outcomes established – all presented in an academic ePortfolio that expands the features of the existing European Language Portfolio (ELP) to the higher education level. “Starting with systematic desk research into the existing conceptualisations of multi/plurilingual and multi/ intercultural competences as well a…

INTERGENERATIONAL COMMUNICATION AND CONSOLIDATION OF THE METACOGNITIVE COMPETENCE

2014

Studying difficulties observed in teenagers do not appear at once, but they are the result of a process that parents and teachers do not perceive immediately. In order to gain good results in the study, teenagers should learn to reflect on the positive influence of self-regulating cognitive, metacognitive, affective and volitional processes within the learning process. If students know how to communicate effectively with their adult partner, this turns out to be a winning goal in the educational process. The risk of social exclusion and of school failure, for students that feel uncomfortable with standard education parameters, is remarkable. Diversity within the school context represents a …

Secondary school students’ collaboration during dyadic debates face-to-face and through computer chat

2009

Communicative competence needed in today's constructive learning environments both in virtual and physical classrooms requires most of all critical and argumentative thinking skills as well as abilities to use reciprocal and collaborative language. This study clarifies the quality of secondary school students' collaboration in dyadic face-to-face and computer chat debates during argumentative discussions. The speech acts produced in 24 debates were first classified into either on-task or off-task categories. The on-task speech acts were then further classified into six collaborative and two non-collaborative categories. The students commonly presented questions and made requests for clarifi…