in English Aim of the thesis: The aim of this diploma thesis is to define the term drill and depict its current use within the English lesson and also assess its role within the language school, where drill is used as a primary teaching technique. Drill is a technique which went through its greatest development when the Audiolingual method became widespread but gradually, throughout the time of the Communicative approach, it began to lose popularity. Despite this, the drill has not been completely forgotten. Not only can we see drill exercises in modern textbooks, but we also encounter drill in the classroom. Drill has been defined in the theoretical section, where its forms have also been described. In addition, the use of drill in various different methods has been further elaborated on and the reasons that led to its downfall. Theoretical part: The aim here is to answer a number of questions: Why do teachers use drill? What are the drawbacks? What do learners prefer as an alternative? Why do some learners deliberately sign up for classes in language schools where drill is mainly used and what results and experience the language school has with drill? Practical part: The author describes her own research, which is based on a questionnaire survey done in a language school where drill is used as...

The present thesis is concerned with the current trends in teaching listening as they have been presented through a number of articles in various journals and mainly in the book by John Field: Listening in the Language Classroom who urges for a process approach, and ascertaining if these new methodological recommendations are finding their way into the classroom practice nowadays through an analysis of a number of frequently used language textbooks. The approach to teaching listening has been developing as a part of many methods used for teaching foreign languages over the years and it has gone from a completely omitted skill through a position of a rather neglected one up to its today status of causing major problems to students who complain that the speakers on the recordings speak too fast or that they cannot understand every single word. It is often the case that students manage to master listening in the confines of the language classroom, learn to cope with typical textbook listening exercises and understand their teachers and classmates, but when confronted with real-life listening outside the classroom, they frequently run into a kind of glasswall and are simply not able to deal with it. The analytical part is based on the analysis of the listening exercises in the very first and newest...

Title: Pupils' problems when solving problems requiring substitution Abstract: The work focuses on 8th and 9th graders' difficulties and mistakes when solving problems using substitution. The theoretical part defines the used concepts and discusses selected results from international comparative studies and studies focusing on substitution. The main goal of the work is to identify pupils' difficulties and mistakes they make when solving problems using substitution and to discover their origin or cause. To achieve this goal the empirical part begins with an analysis of three sets of textbooks used by pupils involved in this research study. This is followed by a description of conducting and subsequent analysis of fifteen clinical interviews on problems with substitution with 14 to 15 year old pupils (9th graders from elementary schools and 3rd graders from lower secondary grammar schools). In the final part the most common mistakes are summarised and relations to their possible origin in the set of textbooks used looked for. The conclusion is that pupils do not have problems with substitution as such when substituting natural numbers into first power variables. However, this does not hold for substitution of variable in the second power. Pupils have problems when substituting for a variable with a negative...

The Israel/Palestine question, and its resonance for international peace and security, has turned into a central interest of the modern world. It also raises much controversy in the academic community. The Western support for Israel, a key factor in Israel's survival, is a significant feature of this issue. It has been revealed, through preceding studies, that Western policies towards Israel, foreign human rights policy for instance, are biased. The West appears biased, also, in what it produces about the question. Western products in the cinema and the mass media examined in this regard. How knowledge produced in the West is influenced by the pro-Israeli environment has been an academic concern. No empirical investigation, at the same time, has been made into how academic knowledge at university level treats the Israel/Palestine question. The popular belief about the scientific and impartial characteristics of Western knowledge has probably contributed to such a state of affairs. A sample of the most popular college level textbooks on the history of the Israel/Palestine question has been selected, through an extensive survey, to represent relevant Western knowledge. The selected textbooks have been analysed through a method of 'Historical Narrative Analysis' against a Zionist/pro-Israeli structure of Israel's history. The immediate context of the histories produced, the relevant historians and their background, are analysed to answer the second part of the key question of the research: ‘How the knowledge of history of the Israel/Palestine question is presented in Western academia, and why it has been presented in that particular way. The results of the first analysis, a textbook analysis, support the claim that textbook knowledge on the question is mainly pro-Israeli in bias. In relation to the question 'why', the analysis offers the 'Jewish pro-Israeli producer' as the main factor that can explain that bias in the products. Another factor is identified in this analysis as well; the relevant knowledge has been produced in a certain, American or Israeli, national and educational environment.

This Master thesis is focused on selected pollinators of our meadows and their didactic integration into education. The thesis is divided into two parts - theoretical and practical. In theoretical part, there are defined two orders (Hymenoptera and Diptera), process of pollination, plants pollination strategies and pollen grain. Practical part is focused on research of dipterans (particularly on hoverflies) of which purpose was to find out which plants are most pollinated. Subsequent section deals with analysis of secondary school Biology textbooks in terms of representation of selected pollinators. Next section contains plan of practical exercise, which deals with whether honey contains pollen grains. In final section of practical part, a worksheet is presented, which verifies pupil's knowledge about pollinators. KEYWORDS Hymenoptera, Diptera, hoverfly research, pollinators, pollen, textbook analysis

Den svenska skolan är idag en kulturell mötes­plats. Många av dagens elever har en annan kul­turell bakgrund än svensk. Det mångkulturella samhället speglas dock inte i de läroböcker som används i historieundervis­ningen. Syftet med studien att undersöka om läroböcker i historia för år 4–6, skrivna efter år 2011 överensstämmer med det mångkulturella klassrummet. Studien genomfördes med en pedagogisk texta­nalys och har det hermeneutiska perspektivet som ansats. Genom textanalysen studerades tre läroböcker i historia för år 4–6. Studien visade att läroböck­erna är eurocentriska och att repre­sentationen av de etniska grupperna som inte till­hörde Europa var väldigt liten. Läroböckerna framställer endast utomeuropeiska etniciteter när dessa grupper kommer i kontakt Europa. / Today the Swedish school is a meeting place for cultural diversity. A lot of today’s students have another cultural background than a Swedish one. The textbooks currently in use in today’s history education do not reflect the multicultural society that Sweden has today. The aim of this study is to study textbooks in history for grade 4–6, written after year 2011, to see if they conform to the multicultural classroom. The study was carried out through out a pedagogical text analysis and the theoretical approach is the hermeneutic perspective. Three textbooks for grade 4–6 were studied through the text analysis. The study shows that the textbooks were eurocentric and the representation of ethnical groups that did not belong in Europe was very small. The textbooks only presented non-european ethnicities when these groups came in contact with Europe.

The objective of this thesis was to describe how a contemporary textbook and its workbook forSwedish upper secondary English A course reflects integration of immigrants and fundamentalvalues for a society based on cultural diversity. A textual analysis of the texts in the textbook,questions and activities in the workbook, and a visual analysis of the images of the textbook werecarried out using quantitative and qualitative methods. The result of the study indicates that thethemes, texts, personalities, writers and images of the textbook appear to be selected consciouslyto avoid portraying stereotype messages and views of “them”, who are different. Although thereare a couple of stereotype messages, the textbook offers teachers and pupils of English A coursea wide range of texts and images, including activities in the workbook, which can be used to meetthe goals in LPF 94 regarding integration of immigrants and fundamental norms and values for asociety based on cultural diversity.

To give insights into cross national differences in schooling this study analyzed the initial treatment of the concept of function in three curricula: a US standards-based text--Connected Mathematic 2: Variables and Patterns, a US conventional text--Glencoe: Mathematics Applications and Concepts: Course 2, and a Chinese reform text--Shu Xue: Grade 8, first volume. This study examined content organization and problem features in the three textbooks. For content analysis, this study explored how the concept of function was introduced, defined, and developed. The results indicated both of the US textbooks introduce this concept at grade 7 whereas the Chinese text does so at grade 8. Connected Mathematics devotes more lessons than the Chinese text and Glencoe in the initial treatment of the concept of function. Connected Mathematics defines function as rule while Glencoe addresses it as relationship; the Chinese text introduces the concept of function as correspondence. Connected Mathematics pays equal an amount of attention to the four representations including tables, graphs, verbal descriptions, and equations examined in this study. In contrast, Glencoe employs the representations of tables, graphs, and equations and it focuses on the representation of graphs; the Chinese text also employs the representations of tables, graphs, and equations but it focuses on the representation of equation. The Chinese text provides many explanations and illuminations in worked-out examples to tell how the solutions are derived. Problems were then analyzed extensively with respect to three criteria: (1) contextual feature, (2) response type, and (3) cognitive expectation. Analysis results showed that all the three texts emphasize the cognitive expectation of representation. Connected Mathematics provides more real-world problems than other texts; and the problems aim at cultivating students’ mathematical reasoning. Most of the problems in Glencoe are embedded in pure math contexts to help students do procedure practice. The problems in the Chinese text emphasize problem solving. Implications for curriculum developers, teachers, and researchers have been discussed in accordance with the findings.

Drawing on the assumptions that old ideologies persist over a long period of time, impact on intercultural communication, and can be identified in texts, this study is a critical analysis of the content of an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbook, which was published between 1983 and 1988 in communist Romania. Specifically, the research questions of the present study are: 1) How do the EFL textbook‘s readings represent the relationship between Romanian and non-Romanian people?, and 2) What are the sociopolitical implications of these representations? Based on critical discourse analysis (CDA), as well as content analysis and literary theory, the method of analysis of this study builds on central concepts such as ideology and intertextuality, and delivers a multilayered framework of analysis that comprises the historical and ideological context of the texts, as well as the context of other texts. The findings show that the communist ideology was legitimated and transmitted in language textbooks, and, compared to the Romanians, non-Romanians were unequally represented.

Drawing on the assumptions that old ideologies persist over a long period of time, impact on intercultural communication, and can be identified in texts, this study is a critical analysis of the content of an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbook, which was published between 1983 and 1988 in communist Romania. Specifically, the research questions of the present study are: 1) How do the EFL textbook‘s readings represent the relationship between Romanian and non-Romanian people?, and 2) What are the sociopolitical implications of these representations? Based on critical discourse analysis (CDA), as well as content analysis and literary theory, the method of analysis of this study builds on central concepts such as ideology and intertextuality, and delivers a multilayered framework of analysis that comprises the historical and ideological context of the texts, as well as the context of other texts. The findings show that the communist ideology was legitimated and transmitted in language textbooks, and, compared to the Romanians, non-Romanians were unequally represented.