Teaching to, with, and Against the Test: Language Teaching and Teacher Identity Under Institutional Neoliberalization

Neoliberalism has emerged as a keyword that captures some core features of global economic and educational reforms in recent years. This paper reports a linguistic ethnographic study of how a Chinese language teacher was engaged with neoliberal discourses on language education in and out of the classroom in a suburban public middle school in China, with an attempt to illuminate the complexity of language education in a neoliberal context. The analysis shows three general identity positions—as an opponent, a conformist, and a pragmatist—across the identification trajectory of the focal language teacher through the fieldwork period, in relation to neoliberal exam-oriented education and her various ways of engaging with exam discourses in her language classrooms. This inquiry argues for the perspective of unpredictability and complexity as an alternative that goes beyond the current “deterministic neoliberalism” in understanding the dynamics of neoliberalization in language education, language teaching, and teacher identity formation.

Clinical cognitive assessment

Cognitive symptoms arise from the location of brain dysfunction and are not linked directly to any particular pathology. In the early stages of disease, symptoms may be non-specific, and while certain symptom clusters are commonly seen in particular disorders, atypical presentations are not infrequent. For example, in Alzheimer’s disease, patients may present with a focal language syndrome instead of the more commonly appreciated autobiographical memory disturbance despite identical pathology. In our approach to the cognitive assessment, we maintain a symptom oriented approach. This facilitates the localisation of pathology and subsequent clinical diagnosis, which may then be supplemented by associated neurological signs, imaging or other investigations.

Some Applications of a Computer-Controlled X-Ray Spectrometer in a Steel Research Laboratory

The U. S. Steel Research x-ray spectrometric laboratory performs between 7,000 and 10,000 analytical determinations each month for alloying elements in all types of steels and raw -materials. The spectrometer is automatically controlled by a DEC PDP 8/1 minicomputer utilizing vari ations of software packages provided by Siemens Corporation. As many as 256 individual analytical measurements can be sequentially performed. The minimal interelemental effects encountered in low-alloy steel analyses are corrected in a separate program written in FOCAL language. Correction coefficients for the program were established by multiple linear regression analyses.Stainless and multialloy steels are analyzed with a two-part control and correction program. The control program controls all functions of the spectrometer automatically and stores parabolic calibration coefficients. Following a sequential determination of the alloying elements control is switched to a correction program written in FOCAL. The correction program prints a tabular listing of the elements determined, followed by a listing of the corrected concentrations of elements adjusted for interelemental effects. Orthogonal polynomial analyses were performed to determine σ values for all constituents determined.For analysis of raw materials, the samples are fused prior to analysis by use of a flux and heavy absorber technique that essentially eliminates interelement effects and permits linear calibrations up to 100 percent. Samples are ground and pelletized after fusion for better reproducibility. Single sets of calibration standards are used regardless of raw materials mineralogical history. Synthetic standards can be produced for ranges where no calibration standards exist.

Programming Concepts for the GeMSAEC Rapid Photometric Analyzer

Programming in a modified conversational interpretive language such as FOCAL provides the flexibility that is desirable when using the GeMSAEC Analyzer to develop analytical methods. Three approaches to the problems of interfacing the GeMSAEC Analyzer to a PDP-8/I computer and the modifications required to the FOCAL language are briefly summarized. The configurations of the computers and peripheral devices are: a 4K PDP-8/I with 32K disk and X-Y plotter, an 8K PDP-8/I with two 32K disks and storage oscilloscope, and an 8K PDP-8/I with cartridge tape storage and a refreshed oscilloscope display.