Low Down

As is the case with a number of ID variables that turn out to be problematic under close scrutiny, learning styles can initially be defined in a seemingly straightforward and intuitively convincing manner. According to the standard definition, they refer to “an individual’s natural, habitual, and preferred way(s) of absorbing, processing, and retaining new information and skills”. The concept represents a profile of the individual’s approach to learning, a blueprint of the habitual or preferred way the individual perceives, interacts with, and responds to the learning environment.   Learning styles are an appealing concept for educationalists because—unlike abilities and aptitudes—they do not reflect innate endowment that automatically leads to success. That is, styles are not yet another metaphor for distinguishing the gifted from the untalented but rather they refer to personal preferences . These preferences are typically bipolar, representing a continuum from one extreme...

  The area worth examining and is without a doubt the motivational characteristics of the language teacher . There is   that teacher motivation is an important factor in understanding the affective basis of instructed SLA, since the teacher’s motivation has significant bearings on the students’ motivational disposition and, more generally, on their learning achievement. Furthermore, the study of teacher motivation can help us understand a looming crisis in the field of education in general: the growing disillusionment of teachers of all subject matters and the growing rate of their leaving the profession in many parts of the world. For example, a recent survey in Poland that involved more than 689 000 practicing teachers. Found that 34% of them did not expect to be a teacher in five years’ time and 56% claimed that their level of morale/motivation was lower than when they first became teachers. Not surprisingly, then, only 50% of the sample said that they would consider...

From a motivational perspective, the most important factor is self-confidence, which in general refers to the belief that a person has the ability to produce results, accomplish goals, or perform tasks competently. It has been proved that that in contexts where different language communities live together, linguistic self-confidence—derived from the quality and quantity of the contact between the members of the L1 and L2 communities—is a major motivational factor in learning the other community’s language, and determines the learners’ future desire for intercultural communication and the extent of identification with the L2 group.     The linguistic self-confidence is primarily a socially defined construct (in contrast to the cognitive nature of self-efficacy in the motivational psychological literature), although self-confidence also has a cognitive component, the ‘perceived L2 proficiency. the applicability of the self-confidence construct by showing that it is al...

Though nor usually a forensic problem, deaths associated with pregnancy (other than criminal abortions) are intensively investigated in a-number of countries. The pathologist has an important role in furthering the understanding of the causes of death in pregnancy and after childbirth. A good autopsy is essential, with full histological examination and other ancillary investigations where necessary. Only in this way can the full range of causes of death be recognized, especially amniotic fluid embolism, which is a histological diagnosis.   According to a recent estimation, about 26 million legal and 55 million illegal abortions are carried out yearly throughout the world. Forensic pathological interest in pregnancy revolves almost exclusively around deaths associated with abortion, either criminal or legally induced. The term 'therapeutic abortion' is used in many countries, including Britain, where there is no abortion on demand, as in some countries. The description 'lega...