Bibliography: leaves 211-214. / This dissertation studies the communicative competence in English of Afrikaans-speaking teacher trainees at Afrikaans medium teachers' training colleges with regard to entrance and terminal assessment standards. The literature survey indicates that since 1938 no tests to establish teacher trainee communicative competence in English have been conducted. The literature survey describes the concepts communicative competence and bilingualism. It establishes that for an Afrikaans-speaking person to be communicatively competent in English s/he needs to be bilingual, but that in the R.S.A. with a strongly entrenched (legally and politically) system of monolingual education for Whites there is no system of meaningful bilingual education which will produce the kind of bilingual teachers as required by educational statutes. Through norm-referenced testing groups of first- and final-year Afrikaans-speaking teachers' training college students have been compared to English-speaking Standard V, Vll and X pupils. The average performance of both groups of teacher trainees is comparable to that of the average English-speaking Standard V. Through a questionnaire individual teacher trainees have indicated their bilingual support system. The data have been quantified in order to provide a bilingualism index. This index correlates positively with the results obtained in the norm-referenced test. From the norm-referenced test fifteen candidates from each of the first- and final-year student groups have been elicited. They represent the top, middle and bottom five for each particular group. These candidates have sat for a multi-mode criterion referenced test. Only the top five in each group have attained an acceptable degree of communicative competence. One can thus assume that at most, approximately only one third of the teacher trainees have an acceptable degree of communicative competence in English which will enable them to teach English as a second language. Conclusion: the entrance and terminal assessment standards regarding the communicative competence in English of Afrikaans-speaking teacher trainees at Afrikaans medium teachers' training colleges are too low.

<p>This essey discuss competence development for the employees in a unit of the Swedish police authorities. The purpose with this survey has been to show an understanding for how this unit within the Swedish police authorities works with competence development and what kind of competence investments they carry out and also why competence development is important in their organisation. To answer the purpose of the survey and the questions a qualitative method has been used remaining interviews with five involved respondents working in the investigated unit. The result shows that needs for competence development are made clear during meeting for personal development and during the local educational council inventories. Competence development for the employees is prioritated for the policemen comparing to the civil employees on account of that the policemen have a demanding work and they have to develop their work all the time because of the resisting circumstances. The policemen always have to retain and develop their competence to always feel safe and secure and they have to be able to handle the situations that their profession require. According to the result it has been shown that evaluation and follow- ups after carry out an education shuld be more effective and should be performed after every education occasion. According to the investigated unit the work with evaluation and follow-ups in the unit are not taking place in the extent it should be doing. The result of the survey has further shown that a development concentrated on learning takes place in the daily work of a policeman despite their experiences about the learning within the organisation has gone from collective learning to individual learning. This unit of the Swedish police authority does an extensive work with competence development for their employees. They have a positive attitude to competence development when they think retaining and development of competence are very important within the profession of a policeman.</p>

This essey discuss competence development for the employees in a unit of the Swedish police authorities. The purpose with this survey has been to show an understanding for how this unit within the Swedish police authorities works with competence development and what kind of competence investments they carry out and also why competence development is important in their organisation. To answer the purpose of the survey and the questions a qualitative method has been used remaining interviews with five involved respondents working in the investigated unit. The result shows that needs for competence development are made clear during meeting for personal development and during the local educational council inventories. Competence development for the employees is prioritated for the policemen comparing to the civil employees on account of that the policemen have a demanding work and they have to develop their work all the time because of the resisting circumstances. The policemen always have to retain and develop their competence to always feel safe and secure and they have to be able to handle the situations that their profession require. According to the result it has been shown that evaluation and follow- ups after carry out an education shuld be more effective and should be performed after every education occasion. According to the investigated unit the work with evaluation and follow-ups in the unit are not taking place in the extent it should be doing. The result of the survey has further shown that a development concentrated on learning takes place in the daily work of a policeman despite their experiences about the learning within the organisation has gone from collective learning to individual learning. This unit of the Swedish police authority does an extensive work with competence development for their employees. They have a positive attitude to competence development when they think retaining and development of competence are very important within the profession of a policeman.

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The research comprised of three studies which examined the discussion skills of preschool children in different contexts. The first study was concerned with how frequently pre-schoolers could use complex linguistic strategies (such as giving justifications) in conflict situations, and in relation to gender, class and play activity. The second study was very similar to this but examined how complex speech acts were produced in a co-operative context. It was found that children could produce complex language relatively frequently in both conflictual and co-operative contexts. No substantial sex differences were recorded for the complexity of speech acts used but there were significant variations noted for class in Study 1, with children from the privately run nursery showing greater linguistic competence than their state-school peers. Play activity had a marked effect on the type of dialogue produced. Skilful language was associated with symbolic play whereas sand & water activities and individual pursuits were characterised by predominantly simple speech. The final study primarily built-upon the results obtained in Study 2 which had revealed that one specific pattern of dialogue often led to the production of complex speech. In order to further improve this output, this Particular pattern of speech was encouraged via a scaffolding procedure. This was successful in increasing the amount of individual complex speech strategies produced, but was less effective in frequently eliciting the required dialogue pattern. Overall, it was demonstrated that preschool children were linguistically more competent than many theorists or educational guidelines have suggested. Moreover, it appears that young children are able to engage in complex speech in both conflictual and co-operative situations, although it was also shown that the type of play activity may influence these discussion skills.

No description available.

Dissertação (Mestrado em Engenharia Mecânica) - Centro Universitário da FEI, São Bernardo do Campo, 2014

East Tennessee State University has a variety of international travel opportunities for general education within its undergraduate study abroad program. Some opportunities even exist within specific degree programs. Despite the literature purporting the benefits acquired from clinical experience abroad, the College of Nursing has yet to incorporate an international component to its BSN curriculum. This study explores College of Nursing students' interest in participating in international clinical experiences and the perceived barriers for students who are willing to travel.

This thesis analyses the application of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001) to the Canadian context, using a better understanding of the notion of competence. It begins from the observations that the functional level reached by post-immersion students is a source of anxiety and disappointment. This is an important issue in the post-immersion Canadian context as it relates to the goal of national bilingualism. We should now leave behind the reductive and obsolete functional approach to competence that is the norm in this country. This will involve the adoption of the actional approach already in place in other disciplines and in other countries. The profound paradigm shift that has taken place at the end of the 20th century, the progressive abandoning of the mechanistic worldview in the social sciences, can be seen in varying definitions of the concept of competence. The extensive literature review presented here provides a valuable perspective on the innovative principles underlying the Framework. This frame of reference does not seem wholly applicable to the post-immersion context. More specifically, it does not fully explore fundamental implications of the shift from a functional to an actional paradigm. Therefore, the suggestions of the Framework should be reinforced with a stronger focus on defining the process of linguistic competence. This can be accomplished by adding the notion of dynamic idiomaticity at various levels of the Framework scales. Thus, in order to go beyond the functional level, one must re-evaluate qualitative aspects of language. Finally, these concepts may be applied to teaching by means of the Frameworks portfolio tool. This portfolio will focus on the development of dynamic idiomaticity. It applies new training techniques developed in the business context that moved towards an actional model many years ago. The portfolio can be seen as one among many opportunities to apply a broader definition of the concept of competence.