This article examines the role of tension in the process of instructed second/foreign language acquisition, on the basis of findings from a comprehensive ethnography of the 7-week intensive beginners' class in the summer French School of Middlebury College. This project both completes and challenges the current research paradigm on "language anxiety," as it shifts the focus on the negative (anxiety) to a study of tension, defined as an unstable phenomenon that may be generated by any situation or event and may be perceived differently by each individual experiencing it. Our findings confirm that, regardless of its cause and manifestations, tension may engender euphoric or dysphoric effects (perceived as beneficial or detrimental), but also non-euphoric or non-dysphoric effects whose salience had previously not been established. These valuations appear linked not to the allegedly objective quality of instruction, materials, and learning environment, but to personal expectations and a priori beliefs about language learning. In addition, we found it necessary to separate operationally the effects of tension in the cognitive and the affective domains, and assess these effects qualitatively, rather than quantitatively, because students reacted most productively not to the degree of difficulty and expectation in the course, or to the reduction of affective dysphoria (or "anxiety") by a nonthreatening teaching style, but to the quality of materials and activities. Their overall perception of the learning experience was ultimately bound to the opportunity to reinvent themselves successfully in the target language. Achievement of linguistic or communicative proficiency mattered less than the satisfactory development of an emerging L2 self, which had to be fostered by a curriculum and instructional method providing the best possible balance of both cognitive and affective euphoric tension. In retrospect, dysphoria under its various guises was not found to play a particularly strong role, because it was dismissed and forgotten in a remarkable "amnesty effect" triggered by the students' realization of their eventual achievements in the program.IN THE PAST 20 YEARS, THE PURPORTED anxiety of learners has become a central concern of second/foreign language (L2/FL) acquisition research, which has focused almost exclusively on the negative effects of tension (or "stress") that induce anxiety. Although their existence is occasionally acknowledged, the potentially beneficial effects of tension have not been studied to the same extent, in part because most communicative teaching methodologies strive to reduce the perceived causes of language anxiety in order to create a more relaxed-and, it is believed, more productive-learning environment. Hence several questions immediately arise: Can we dissociate anxiety and tension? What exactly is the nature of tension in a L2 learning environment? Must research primarily seek correlation between tension (or lack thereof) and achievement of certain instructional objectives?Although it has brou...
The rapid emergence of COVID-19 has had far-reaching effects across all sectors of health and social care, but none more so than for residential long-term care homes. Mortality rates of older people with dementia in residential long-term care homes have been exponentially higher than the general public. Morbidity rates are also higher in these homes with the effects of government-imposed COVID-19 public health directives (e.g., strict social distancing), which have led most residential long-term care homes to adopt strict “no visitor” and lockdown policies out of concern for their residents’ physical safety. This tragic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic highlights profound stigma-related inequities. Societal assumptions that people living with dementia have no purpose or meaning and perpetuate a deep and pernicious fear of, and disregard for, persons with dementia. This has enabled discriminatory practices such as segregation and confinement to residential long-term care settings that are sorely understaffed and lack a supportive, relational, and enriching environment. With a sense of moral urgency to address this crisis, we forged alliances across the globe to form “Reimagining Dementia: A Creative Coalition for Justice. ” We are committed to shifting the culture of dementia care from centralized control, safety, isolation, and punitive interventions to a culture of inclusion, creativity, justice, and respect. Drawing on the emancipatory power of the imagination with the arts (e.g., theatre, improvisation, music), and grounded in authentic partnerships with persons living with dementia, we aim to advance this culture shift through education, advocacy, and innovation at every level of society.
Although traditional narration that depicts relationships and cultures studied by social scientists will always be essential to qualitative research, another valuable mode of analyzing data and presenting findings is also available. "Qualitative models" simultaneously represent coexisting realities and illustrate multiple layers of meaning. Models may be either metaphoric (i.e., connotative, mcludmg metonymy) or denotative, and the mode of representation may be either iconic (based on resemblance) or symbolic (based on conventional signification). The models provide a qualitatively different grasp of phenomena by stimulating a wider variety of neural processes through spatial arrangement, color, shape, and figures. This examination of four qualitative models from a school ethnography demonstrates the complementarity of such nonlinguistic and linguistic interpretations. In this sense, qualitative models are visual representations that lead reader and researcher to construct a qualitatively different understanding from "an image/text balance" wherein the two mutually define and support one another.The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to advance a theory asserting the philosophical and practical value of creating qualitative models as a complement to traditional linguistic formulations that social science researchers use to construct meaning and represent coexisting multiple realities; second, to illustrate a study of Chicago Public School Reform with qualitative models that reflect the perceptions of legislators, teachers, theoreticians, and a researcher, and in so doing, demonstrate, through an &dquo;image/ text balance&dquo; (Harper, 1994), how visual representations facilitate an understanding of complex and conflicting views in settings such as restructured schools.
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