History of Language Learning in New Zealand

• purpose of literacy before the age of decoding
• literacy brought from England

Four discernible ages of reading theories = identified, and we´re entering the fifth. They´re the ages of reading (Turbill, 2002):

1. ~ as decoding
2. ~ of meaning making
3. ~ of reading-writing connections
4. ~ of reading for social purposes
5. ~ of multiliteracies

Decoding

1. fom late 19th century – 1940´s
2. syllabus, reading material, workbooks, etc – highly prescriptive and structured
3. focus on skills n drills: ABCs, sound/letter, rel, decoding word recog.
4. theories =>reading process emp. the graphophonic cueing system
5. techers beieved – decoding preceded comprehension – once know alphabet n how to syllabify you could read a sentence n then para. and then text
6. reading, writing, sp. n handwriting taught separately – as separate subjects
7. debates exist – history always full of change. New method appear in NZ – ´Look & Say´ method.
8. Decoding type text example: Kit the cat, sat, kit sat in a bag of rags…. // B -> Br -> Bri -> Brick, etc <= Phonic type.(note to self: look it up. look at the rhyme). Is it still relevant to the way we do things now?
9. if you look at the word long enough and say it long enough, you will remember the whole word. Method: introduce high freq, text
10. the problem is – the new method overthrow all previous methods – many disagree while others agree = debates

Meaning Making

1. from the 1960´s in NZ
2. NZers keen to develop a national identity – reflected in the first real series of books for n about NZ children, places n exp.
3. increased immi. = classes often very diverse n many children arrived at school with langs. other than English
4. language acq. models – used to inform reading n writing processes
5. teachers believed reading n writing should be child centered, lit. based n meaningful
6. reading seen not only as grapho. but also syntactic n semntic = MAKE SENSE . always in the process to make meaning
7. learning to read viewed as lifelong proces n reading to learn = goal
8. debates focused on phonics vs ´whole language´ approach this theory became known as
9. teachers prob. instructed to forget abt some decoding aspects – decoding = hinder ´whole meaning´ process.
10. whole lang. era – very lit. based era

Word of the day

Proliferate

–verb (used without object), verb (used with object), -at⋅ed, -at⋅ing.

1.	to grow or produce by multiplication of parts, as in budding or cell division, or by procreation.

2.	to increase in number or spread rapidly and often excessively.

multiliteracy – text on the computer

Integrating the sources of info. in reading n writing

Knowledge n exp, lang. structure, shapes n sound, meaning – related

A reader has to…

• use knowledge of lang. n know how it works
• translate letters into sounds (children use alphabet books, soundcards, spelling patterns (e.g:´or´ sounds like for, port, four, pour, aw, etc.
• recog. patterns in words
• have some knowledge of the topic – imp. for older readers esp. ESOL learners
• link/relate the text to own bg knowledge (schema)
• predict what the text will be about using word and world knowledge

So, um, yeah… Sorghum Stenches translates to circumstances. Sweet as. Grain murder= grandmother. Ladle Rat Rotten Hut – Little Red Riding Hood. ROFL.

Looking forward to next week. Yes, I’m actually looking forward to lectures

© 2009, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.

• Code Effects – normal lang. used and manipulated in order to achieve literary effects -> 1) Marked and Unmarked, 2) Structural Ambiguity, 3) Grammatical Elision
• Grammatical Patterning -exploitation of the units of grammar (e.g, subject, verb, objects, direct objects, etc) – thepattterns are usually seamless and repetitve
• Deviations in grammatical structure: 1) deviations from the standard code (morphological, syntactical, borrowing of grammatical rules from other dialects or languages

Just finished giving out our own interpretation of Hemmingway’s ‘Cat in the Rain’ and Causley’s ‘What Has Happened to Lulu’. As usual, I still think that the Prof. should be a little bit more open to students’ interpretation of literary works. Forcing us to agree on one interpretation is uncool in various ways.

p.s/ I totally need to look up the biography of Prof. Ellis now. He seems so fond of the Africans and African English. It´s totally cute, in a little uncute sort of way.

p.p.s/ Will not be blogging about EDUC 316. Too lazy at the moment.

© 2009, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.

Mira and Atie decided to play truant for the first time today, so here I am on my own in this class. Technically, Lyn and Fareha are with me, but well… Today’s topic for Compsci 111 lecture is.. urm… Software. Looking at the first slide, I was like “Hrm… Free stuff.”

• Software – usu. include -all data we’re working with
• Data & instruction, initially separated
• known also as programs
• loaded from secondary storage into primary memory
• runs (executes) from RAM
• Software is loaded (HDD – RAM) – Read/Write CPU executes instruction (CPU)
• Read up in CPU very rapidly
• FILE FORMATS:
• all data stored in binary numbers
• organised in chunks (of related dtaa)
• method of encoding – dep. on software, = file format
• FORMATS – define the way numbers r interpreted
• EXTs – a dot followed by letters at the end of a file
• Windows OS use ext to determine file format n decide which apps to use to open a file

Why are standards needed? (standardised agreement)

• OS – open standard – published freely to the public, free to use, maintained by a non-profit orgs (xml, html, uml)
• But open x mean all good
• Proprietary standard – intellectual prop of an entity (indivisual/comp), use is usu through license
• risk for users: vendor lock-in

Proprietary Software

Software that has restrictions on using/copying

• all rights retained by owner
• owner enforces restrictions

License:

• commercial
• freeware
• sharewre
• semi free (usu non-profit org)

Freeware

• software dist free – no agreement abt dist, access to source code
• types: loss leader (given away with loss as sales promo), adware, donationware, postcardware
• abandonware: not legally recognised (IE, iTunes, Adobe Reader)

Shareware

• on the idea of ‘try b4 buying’
• trial period: purchase license/upgrade to comm ver
• nagware: reminder messages to license software
• crippleware: softwr lacks the advanced features until licensed (word processor that can’t save of print – (HAHA! Sounds like OFFICE 2007, doesn’t it??)

Open Source/Free Software

• freedom to use n study the work
• to copy n share the work with others
• change the work
• distribute changed and therefore derivative works
• copyright prevents these acts – explicit permission is required, free software license gives permission
• Richard Stallman – free software foundation (FSF), GPL (GNU General Public License) – legal doc that gives permission , Copyleft

Kinds of Software

• App software – helps user complete task
  System software – needed to run the comp
• OS – manages all the hardware resources for apps (CPU, RAM..)
• device drivers: help OS control hardwre
• diagnostic and maintenance tools – for analysis, troubleshooting n optimisation

OS

• low-level software – allow the use of system
• default interface when no app is running
• manages the system

Continued in notebook.

© 2008, Adlina. All rights reserved. Please link back to this page if quoted.