The English language is widely used throughout the world and has become a core subject in many countries, especially for students in the upper elementary classroom. While textbooks have been the preferred EFL teaching method for a long time, this belief has seemingly changed within the last few years. Therefore, this study looks at what prior research says about the use of authentic texts in the EFL upper elementary classroom with an aim to answer research questions on how teachers can work with authentic texts, what the potential benefits of using authentic texts are and what teachers and students say about the use of authentic texts in the EFL classroom. While this thesis is written from a Swedish perspective, it is recognized that many countries teach EFL. Therefore, international results have also been taken into consideration and seven previous research studies have been analyzed in order to gain a better understanding of the use of authentic texts in the EFL classroom. Results indicate that the use of authentic texts is beneficial in teaching EFL. However, many teachers are still reluctant to use these, mainly because of time constraints and the belief that such texts are too difficult for their students. Since these findings are mainly focused on areas outside of Sweden, additional research is needed before conclusions can be drawn on the use of authentic texts in the Swedish upper elementary EFL classroom. / <p>Engelska</p>

The aim of the study is to investigate how upper secondary school teachers of Swedish work with female authors writing in the period 1900–1940. The research questions concern how upper secondary school teachers work with the female authors, how their work interacts with steering documents and textbooks, whether the teachers show any similarities and differences in their work, and how female authors are treated in the textbooks and steering documents that are used. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with three upper secondary school teachers and one textbook per teacher was analysed together with the steering documents. The study reveals clear similarities and differences in the teachers’ work. The teachers work chronologically, period by period, and they deal with female authors in terms of a societal context, but they do not think that the work with women has any intrinsic value. Textbooks and steering documents have a central role to play in the teaching and are used together with other teaching material. The textbooks have an over-representation of male authors and the female authors are treated on their own, separated from the rest of the text and viewed in relation to male authors. The textbooks maintain a gender system where the man is the norm and the sexes are kept apart. The steering documents explicitly deal with female authors to a small extent and are shown to dictate of fundamental principles for what is considered valuable to consider in school work.

Our study examining how well the guidelines, from Skolverket (School Department), aboutgrades in the course "Samhällskunskap A" are implemented in the Swedish Upper SecondarySchool. The study focus on both teachers and students. To discover which knowledge the bothgroups have, we have used two different methods. The students have answered a survey,which was based on the phrases from the course plan "Samhällskunskap A" about grades. Thesurvey wanted to see how well the students could match the correct phrases with the gradesteps (the Swedish school uses three grade steps). To see the teacher’s knowledge andopinions about the implementation, we used a shorter version of the survey that the studentsgot. We also complemented the survey with interviews to get the chance to ask more openquestions about the positive and negative aspects of the implementation. Our theory is basedon Lundquist (1992) about implementation, Rothstein (red. 2008 &amp; 2010) about legitimacyand Lipsky (2010) about teachers as Street level bureaucrats. The conclusions of the study arethat the implementation, with some exceptions, works well from the top (parliament and government) to the bottom (the students). Some of the teachers also pointed out that thecourse plan "Samhällskunskap A" is formed in a bad way. / Uppsatsen har som syfte att undersöka hur välimplementerad skolverkets riktlinjer för kursenSamhällskunskap A samt betygsättning i denna kurs är hos lärare och elever igymnasieskolan. Som teoretisk grund för denna studie utgår vi dels från Lundquist (1992)som på ett för skolverksamheten mycket applicerbart sätt beskriver implementeringen somprocess samt förutsättningar för denna. Dels från Rothstein (red. 2008 &amp; 2010) som beskriverregeringens behov av likvärdig och effektiv implementering för att bibehålla legitimitet. Dettaantagande att toppen av implementeringskedjan det vill säga riksdag och regering har etttydligt intresse av att implementeringen ska vara effektiv och likvärdig har varitgrundläggande för studien då samtliga tecken på brister i implementeringen bör tolkas som ettmisslyckande av dessa. Slutligen består studiens teoretiska beskrivning av Lipsky (2010) sombeskriver närbyråkraternas (lärarna) roll för implementeringen i verksamheten och derasbehov av frihet.Studieobjekt för studien har 40 elever ur den svenska gymnasieskolan bestående av tvåklasser från två olika skolor varit. Även tre lärare från två olika skolor har deltagit i studien.Som metod för att studera eleverna användes enkäter som även i en något nerbantad formbesvarades av lärarna för att utgöra en jämförelse. Lärarna i studien intervjuades i enhalvstrukturerad intervju som spelades in och återfinns som transkriberad bilaga tilluppsatsen.Förutom en öppen fråga ställd till eleverna via enkäten, samt de frågor rörandeimplementering samt förutsättningar för denna som ställdes till lärarna i intervjuerna utgårstudien från de så kallade nyckelord som beskriver efterfrågad kunskap för de olikabetygsstegen i Samhällskunskap A. I studien görs en oförberedd kontroll på hur väl lärare ochelever känner till dessa nyckelord och kan placera in dessa i korrekt betygssteg.Slutsatserna som studien visade på är bland annat att implementeringskedjan löpte hela vägenfrån toppen (riksdag och regering) till botten (eleverna). Denna slutsats var möjlig att dra dåeleverna visade på tydliga kunskaper om betygskriterierna i Samhällskunskap A. Övrigaslutsatser vi kunde dra utifrån det insamlade materialet pekade på olika typer av brister, varoch en i olika delar av implementeringskedjan. Vi vågar även påstå att det tolkade materialetkan tolkas som så att den absolut övervägande delen av implementeringskedjan har gjort deansträngningar som förväntas av dem för att åstadkomma en effektiv implementering. Vimenar att de brister som vi trots detta har lokaliserat beror på den enligt studien stora frihetsom lärare åtnjuter och att implementeringen inte låter sig tas längre med bibehållen frihet förlärarna. I studien har det även framkommit tecken på att brister i implementeringen beror påatt det material som ska implementeras (kursplanen) är dåligt anpassat till den verklighet somär reell i skolan. Felet återfinns i detta fall i toppen av implementeringskedjan då man harförsökt att implementera något som är bristfälligt anpassat till den verklighet som det syftartill att reglera.

Master of Arts / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Lee R. Skabelund / This report presents one approach for increasing understanding, appreciation and protection of watersheds by individuals living within the urban-to-rural lands interface. The purpose of the study is to provide guidance to developing and implementing a driving tour of environmentally sensitive land around Clinton Lake and the Upper Wakarusa Watershed (UWW). Although the tour is particular to the UWW, the principles will be useful to planners and watershed advocates working to promote water quality improvement in other geographic areas. A first step in increasing community involvement to restore and protect watersheds is developing a broader public understanding of what watersheds are and their integral part in daily life. By taking a driving tour (literally or virtually), participants can see firsthand how a watershed functions and the values it provides to people and ecosystems. Two key ingredients in the planning process are public participation and clearly defined goals. Public participation begins with awareness of an issue that impacts lives. The first step in engaging the public is to develop a framework for making residents aware that watersheds are a critical part of their environment and the health of their community. The driving tour of the Upper Wakarusa Watershed should help residents and visitors experience a “sense of place” related to the watershed by achieving three over-arching goals: Develop meaningful themes that engage the residents and visitors in learning about watersheds and give insight to their relationships with the watershed. Introduce concepts that are relevant to the lives of residents and visitors and their understanding of a watershed. Generate a stronger “sense of place” as it relates to the Upper Wakarusa watershed. The driving tour in this report has been designed to serve as a broad blueprint for future implementation. The route was devised to take advantage of area resources, especially those on public land, while adhering to guidelines proven successful in promoting rural areas such as the Flint Hills and Cheyenne Bottoms. The actual implementation of the Upper Wakarusa Watershed Driving Tour is expected to be led by local coalitions, and the precise route should be adjusted as necessary.

The syllabus for upper secondary school states that interaction and communication are important for students’ oral production skills development. Also, the contemporary view on learning is that people learn a language by using it. This study examines how students and a teacher experience the ways in which classmates influence each other’s willingness to speak English in the classroom, if they believe it affects their oral production skills development, and moreover whether they think that some sort of ability grouping could support oral production skills development. The study was carried out among a total of eight students and one teacher at an upper secondary school located in Southern Sweden, using a qualitative methodology based on personal interviews. Four English 6 students belong to the natural science program, and four English 7 Cambridge Advanced English students belong to various academic programs. The teacher teaches both courses. The results showed that classmates is the factor in the classroom which affects students’ willingness to speak English the most in their different language proficiency, personality, attitude, focus, willingness to communicate in English, and relationship with each other. The students experience that these differences between them often affect their WTC negatively and thereby their oral production skills development. They want to interact with other students who are at their level or slightly above them, who want to speak English, who share the communication space, and who take the lessons seriously. Therefore, the students and teacher have a positive attitude toward some form of ability grouping in all English courses.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka i hur stor utsträckning undervisning i improvisation är ett bra verktyg för att uppnå syfte och mål för ämnesplanen i Musik i gymnasieskolan, hur lärare tolkar begreppet improvisation och hur de arbetar med det i klassrummet. Intresset för ämnet ligger i möjligheterna med improvisation som verktyg för att utveckla ett konstnärligt och personligt uttryck. I rollen som lärare upplevs att improvisation som verktyg inte används i den utsträckning som det kanske borde. Tre verksamma gymnasielärare i musik har ur ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv med kvalitativ intervju som metod intervjuats om deras definition av och arbete med improvisation. Resultaten visar att elevers musikaliska utveckling främjas av improvisationsundervisning. Resultaten visar också att lärare har en bred förståelse för begreppet improvisation, att de har insikt i hur det främjar elevernas musikaliska utveckling men att de inte helt och hållet utnyttjar improvisationsundervisningens potential. De vill införa sådan undervisning tidigare i elevernas utbildning men de vet kanske inte riktigt hur de ska gå tillväga. Slutligen diskuteras om improvisationsundervisning bör användas mer, hur undervisningen kan utformas samt när det är lämpligt att börja med improvisationsundervisning. Kopplingen i Skolverkets styrdokument mellan improvisationsundervisning och måluppfyllelse i ämnet diskuteras också. / This study aims to examine to what extent teaching of music improvisation is a good tool for achieving the purpose and objectives of the syllabus of Music in upper secondary school, how teachers interpret the concept of music improvisation and how they apply it in the classroom. The interest in the subject lies in the possibilities of improvisation when being a tool for developing an artistic and personal musical expression. In the role as a teacher improvisation as a tool is perhaps not used to that extent it should. Three music teachers have, from a hermeneutic perspective using qualitative interview as a method, been interviewed on their definition and application of improvisation. The results show that students' musical development is promoted by the teaching of music improvisation. Furthermore, the results show that teachers have a broad understanding of music improvisation and that they have an insight into how it fosters students' musical development. However, they do not fully utilize the potential of improvisation teaching. They want to introduce it earlier in students' education, but they may not quite know how to. Lastly why the teaching of music improvisation should be used more is discussed as well as how it can be designed and when it is suitable to start with. The link between improvisation teaching and attainment in the subject of music in Skolverket's policy documents is also discussed.

Educational restructuring is an international phenomenon which emphasises a voucher system, upper secondary schools’ local decision-making and pupils’ choices in contrast to previous bureaucratic governing. For this reason upper secondary programmes and courses on offer, together with the pupils’ individual choices, have a direct impact on what could be called the upper-secondary education market. In terms of teaching subject matter, upper secondary education is, at the same time, broadened by means of introducing three-year programmes for all pupils as well as core subjects. The aim of this doctoral thesis is to develop a deeper understanding of how pupils’ actions of choice create different sorts of integration and differentiation processes within the restructured upper secondary education. In the light of Jürgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action combined with Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, pupils’ actions of choice have been studied within four pedagogical practices: (i) choice of upper secon-dary school, (ii) choice of upper secondary programme, (iii) pupils’ initial time at an upper secondary school and how they cope with the specific culture within a programme as well as choice of courses and subjects, and (iv) pupils’ own sto-ries and points of view on how a core subject, namely Swedish, was taught. Some of the results demonstrate that pupils’ actions of choice can be voca-tion-oriented, career-oriented and consumption-oriented. It is argued that these different types of actions of choice are constituted within a market discourse. The market discourse demands that pupils are able to make suitable choices to achieve an individualistic qualification. From that point of view upper secondary education’s integration and differentiation processes aim at developing citizens' personal opportunities in order for them to benefit to their best ability from what society has to offer. Other results demonstrate that pupils’ group-oriented, inter-est-oriented and tradition-oriented actions of choice are built upon another type of discourse, which is about educating pupils towards active citizenship. It has an inter-subjective point of departure. Pupils are driven into the integration and dif-ferentiation process where they discuss and take a stand in favour of those educa-tional options, which are conceived as the most relevant in relation to a “self-determining ethical-cultural community”. The analysis of these two paramount discourses indicates that pupils' integration and differentiation processes are am-biguous.

BACKGROUND: Accurate prediction of electromyographic (EMG) signals associated with a variety of motor behaviors could, in theory, serve as activity templates needed to evoke movements in paralyzed individuals using functional electrical stimulation. Such predictions should encompass complex multi-joint movements and include interactions with objects in the environment. METHODS: Here we tested the ability of different artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict EMG activities of 12 arm muscles while human subjects made free movements of the arm or grasped and moved objects of different weights and dimensions. Inputs to the trained ANNs included hand position, hand orientation, and thumb grip force. RESULTS: The ability of ANNs to predict EMG was equally as good for tasks involving interactions with external loads as for unloaded movements. The ANN that yielded the best predictions was a feed-forward network consisting of a single hidden layer of 30 neural elements. For this network, the average coefficient of determination (R2 value) between predicted and actual EMG signals across all nine subjects and 12 muscles during movements that involved episodes of moving objects was 0.43. CONCLUSION: This reasonable accuracy suggests that ANNs could be used to provide an initial estimate of the complex patterns of muscle stimulation needed to produce a wide array of movements, including those involving object interaction, in paralyzed individuals.

In the early 1860s, wealthy English Montrealers began to purchase property on the shores of Lake Memphremagog to build lavish summer estates. Each year, these upper-class businessmen and their families would spend a significant part of the summer at their country houses, swimming in Lake Memphremagog, boating, playing lawn tennis and visiting fellow Montrealers. The emergence of summer residences on Lake Memphremagog was part of a broader trend towards villegiature, or tourism, in Quebec, and in North America, that largely resulted from the rise of the Industrial Revolution and the Romantic Movement. This research analyses the architecture and landscaping of the nineteenth-century summer residences on Lake Memphremagog as it seeks to understand the factors that brought wealthy Montrealers to this lake in the 1860s. It also examines how their upper-class background affected the way they experienced leisure while at the lake. Through this study, it becomes evident that Romanticism and upper-class values significantly influenced the location and styles chosen by the Montrealers for their estates. Additionally, an examination of the social and recreational activities of the summer residents on Lake Memphremagog indicates that the Montrealers re-created much of their urban social sphere in the country, associating mainly with other upper-class families and pursuing many of the same activities. Nonetheless, the primary sources indicate that the relationship between the local residents and the summer residents was generally a positive one.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / A real-time telemetry simulator of the IUS spacecraft has recently entered operation to train Flight Control Teams for the 1aunch of the AXAF telescope from the Shuttle. The simulator has proven to be a successful higher fidelity implementation of its predecessor, while affirming the rapid development methodology used in its design. Although composed of COTS hardware and software, the system simulates the full breadth of the mission: Launch, Pre-Deployment-Checkout, Burn Sequence, and AXAF/IUS separation. Realism is increased through patching the system into the operations facility to simulate IUS telemetry, Shuttle telemetry, and the Tracking Station link (commands and status message).