Education and Science

At this crucial stage, the language is being passed on to younger generations and is used among all generations for daily interactions. Once the language is used within the family, it will also likely be used for interactions in the community, thus establishing a terminology community. However, the language is used largely for informal functions, such as shopping and talking to relatives, and not for more formal functions like education or government. This stage is crucial in reversing terminology shift because maintaining the language at this stage is largely dependent on family decisions to speak the language, which are difficult to influence.At another stage the vocabulary is being used daily among all generations both at home and in the community at this stage, but more important, literacy in the minority language is also prevalent. Literacy is crucial because it raises the status of the minority language,

increases the number of functions the language can serve, and allows for communication across distance and time, which enables the minority language community to communicate its own viewpoints, beliefs, and values in the media.At this point, majority vocabulary literacy is developed through formal schooling, however minority language literacy development is supported largely through home and community efforts in several different stages:Stage One: Minority vocabulary is used in the national media, higher education, and the government.Stage Two: Local mass media is available in the minority language, along with some governmental services.Stage Three: The minority language is used both in school and in the workplace, especially where there is interaction with majority language speakers.Stage Four: Education is available through the school system in the minority lingo, and those educational programs are controlled by members of the groupy expressions community. StageFive: Literacy in the minority language is common across all generations, although it is not supported through the school system.Stage Six: The minority language is spoken by all generations and, importantly, is learned by children as a first language. It is also used in the community.Stage Seven: Speakers of the group expressions belong to the older generations. Younger generations, including those of childbearing age, do not speak the minority lingo.Stage Eight: The few remaining speakers of the group language are socially isolated. At this point, it is necessary to record and research the language for future revival.

Psychic chat readings are one of the fastest and easiest ways of carrying out psychic services. Thanks to the evolution in the area of science and technology which has improved mans ability to manipulate his environment for his overall benefit. Think of what would have happened some fifty years ago or thereabouts,Guest Posting psychic readings would be restricted to the homes of the few psychic readers who would be opportune to be known. Psychic readings would have been restricted for the rich and the affluent because only they could afford the expenses of meeting the travelling expenses especially for international clients. With the arrival of the Internet, problems like that are now consigned to the past. Psychic readings can now be conducted for the client right at his or her home via long distance.

Psychic readings readily occur only through the Internet and telephone services. The Internet is the most common means of conducting chat programmes. Psychic chat readings are conducted primarily through email chat, through yahoo messenger, Gtalk, MSN live messenger and SMS messages. Psychic chat readings are always done live with the reader and the clients exchanging messages in real time. Psychic chat is better that email readings because email readings are not done as promptly as chat readings. In chat reading the reader is online and is connected in a one on one live discussion with the reader.

Psychic chat readings through the Internet are cost effective when compared with other modes of obtaining, readings. When readings are obtained through the telephone service it entails some costs which are sometimes are beyond the reach of the ordinary man as the telephone bills have to be paid. Psychic chat is not all that expensive when it comes to Internet use. Once one who has a reliable and fast Internet connection in place, he or she can with a psychic. The major cost involved is being able to pay for the cost of Internet connection. Chat is done online and at that material point in time.

Limited choicesSince September 2004, Modern Foreign Languages are an entitlement, which means, as explained earlier, that schools must offer pupils the opportunity to study one language up to GCSE. However, in practice schools deal with this new governmental policy very differently from each other. Head Teachers of Comprehensive Schools have the possibility to implement the decision in varied ways, and for instance in Specialist Languages School the tuition of Modern Foreign Languages at Key Stage 4 is still compulsory. In School Z, where the number of options offered is limited, pupils who opt for textiles have to take a language. There are timetable constraints

, which makes any other combination impossible. Pupils are therefore often resentful, as they feel that what should have been a choice has been imposed on them.Some other Head Teachers promote the learning of a language and ensure that it is valued in the school and community, and so they manage to keep the number of candidates who decide to enter for a languages GCSE quite high. This is often the case in middle class catchment areas where the benefits of learning a language are understood and supported by families.The schools that have suffered the most from this decision are Comprehensive Schools in more deprived areas, where there is no understanding of the resource that languages can be, especially to improve Literacy skills. Some schools even withdraw pupils who have Special Educational Needs from Languages lessons, in order to provide them with extra support in English. In school Z,

(…) The existing entitlement to study a Modern Foreign Language at Key Stage 4 should be extended to 16-19 year olds.”The United Kingdom is aware of the need to raise the profile of Modern Foreign Languages. The necessity to teach pupils languages so that they become proficient users is recognised by the Government. Several business groups have expressed their concern in the last ten years about the lack of skilled employees. Although it is common knowledge, as many studies and enquiries have researched this matter, none of the current or forthcoming educational policies appear to have the potential to change durably the present situation. “Britain is Europe’s foreign languages dunce: only one in three Britons can speak a second language (…) The inquiry into exam reform by the former chief schools inspector, Mike Tomlinson,

suggested a foreign language should become a compulsory part of a new style vocational qualification such as Leisure and Tourism” (The Independent, 24/12/2004: 6). The Government strongly focuses on developing vocational studies and might integrate more specialised languages skills within the curriculum. However, the current Programme of Study for Key Stage 3 already focuses on the necessity to provide pupils with a range of appropriate transferable skills. The content of the curriculum, though, would benefit from covering a wider range of needs.CONCLUSIONTraditionally the educational system of the United Kingdom conveyed first and foremost the national language, values and traditions throughout its curriculum. Modern Foreign Languages were not a priority.The birth of Comprehensive Schools could have brought some progress. The selecting process to enter Secondary School known as the ‘eleven plus exam’ was suppressed and schools were opened to every individual, regardless of class, gender or ethnicity. Languages teaching had to be adapted to fit the new generation classrooms as the lessons were no longer attended by the elite of students. The process was not without difficulties and the exam results were not encouraging.To try to improve matters, Modern Foreign Languages became compulsory at national examination level in 1986. At the same time, business professionals and associations promoting languages, such as the Centre for Information on Language Teaching, noticed a shortage of people able to use languages in professional contexts. To research into the reasons for this, the Nuffield Foundation started an inquiry whose final results were published in 2000.

The Government was held partly responsible for the absence of coherent policies to promote languages within the United Kingdom.
The Nuffield Final Report suggested some measures which could help to develop the interest and knowledge in Modern Foreign Languages. Most government policies then followed the recommendations of the Nuffield Foundation. A National Curriculum was created in 1999. A new Strategy for teaching Modern Foreign Languages at Key Stage 3 was elaborated in 2003, alongside a Framework for teaching languages. The introduction of Modern Foreign Languages as a foundation subject within the curriculum in primary schools should be implemented by 2012. All these measures aim at enforcing the position of languages within the curriculum, as a subject that provides transferable skills and which is a valuable asset to the development of pupils’ literacy skills. However, alongside all these constructive improvements, the Government decided to change the status of Modern Foreign Languages by removing them from the core curriculum at Key Stage 4. Schools are required though to offer the option, as any student is entitled to benefit from tuition in a foreign language.The innovations in the educational system between the 1960s and the present mean that the teaching and learning of Modern Foreign Languages have had to face many changes too. The resources available to teach the subject were not suitable after the schools transferred to comprehensive schools, and so the resources had to be adapted. Changes in the examination process with the introduction of the General Certificate of Secondary Education in 1988 also led to necessary adaptations.

Publishers had to provide resources that fitted the new standardised curriculum, as Local Education Authorities lost their control in that matter in favour of the central Government. Another evolution is that the plethora of traditional resources meets new competition from the rapidly improving 21st century technology. Information and communication technology, and interactive whiteboards, are now a common feature in classrooms.Although the future of language teaching should look positive with all these developments, there are still some detractors, but also some deeply rooted beliefs which are detrimental to the progress of this school subject. In the United Kingdom, people still do not feel a sense of belonging to continental Europe as far as traditions,

culture and languages are concerned. “In every other school subject, the model of performance is one who has followed the same learning route that both pupil and teacher must take. In our subject, the model is the well educated native speaker, whose mastery neither the learner, nor most teachers, however gifted, can hope to equal.” (Hawkins, 1996: 16). Modern Foreign Languages remains a highly academic subject and the governmental decision to make it an optional entitlement leads many students to drop this subject which is both challenging and demanding. Schools in deprived catchment areas are not encouraging students to pursue the learning of this subject and some Key Stage 3 students are already showing signs of disaffection. School budgets vary tremendously according to the way Local Education Authorities allocate their funds, and if schools do not benefit from additional grants it is increasingly difficult to provide up-to-date resources.Although the quality of published material has vastly improved, House of Commons on the 14-19 White Paper on 23 February 2005: “Historically, our education system has produced a