Textbook Expectations for Performance

While for decades learning English has mostly been accompanied by learning its culture, in recent two decades due to the presence of some critical trends in the field of applied linguistics, the mere integration of target culture in English textbooks has been challenged. Not surprisingly, following this shift, the idea of integrating source culture in English textbooks has caught the researchers' attention. Since the cultural content of English textbooks used in schools and language institutes in Post-revolutionary Iran has always been a controversial issue, in this paper, through a qualitative study, it was attempted to comparatively study the attitudes of Iranian language teachers at schools and language institutes as two contrasting contexts about the issue. In doing so, the attitudes of twenty five teachers in these two sectors, including thirteen school teachers and twelve language institute teachers, selected through convenience sampling, surveyed through semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed that while there were some partial differences in the attitudes of these two groups toward the concept of culture and its representation in textbooks, due to the dominance of the mainstream ELT, known as the liberalist approach, that publicizes the inclusion of target culture and rejects the integration of local culture in English textbooks as well as the failure of English education in schools, the participants were mostly in favor of integrating target culture as an indispensable part of English textbooks. These findings may have pedagogical implications for language policy makers, syllabus designers and textbook developers.

Since the early 1990s, Melayu Islam Beraja, inspired by the national philosophy of Brunei Darussalam, has become a core subject in the national curriculum. The government of Brunei Darussalam has consistently emphasised education as an important domain to maintain and preserve the relevance of MIB philosophy in society. In the last three decades, the focus of MIB subject in schools has evolved to promote holistic development of moral characters and values. This is amid concerns over the rise of social problems and declining moral values among the younger generation. These issues have raised questions on the efficacy of MIB curriculum and pedagogical strategies to realise the national philosophy. Therefore, this chapter examines the content, the design and the strategies used to internalise moral characters and values to the students through the MIB textbook for Year 7 that marks the first stage of secondary school. This analysis reveals four key internalisation strategies used to inculcate morality and character values in the development of the MIB textbook. All four complementary character-building strategies offer pedagogical implications and opportunities for educators. Hence, despite the latest reformation of the National Education System for the 21st Century, and specifically on the new Year 7 MIB textbook, the utmost aim of MIB curriculum to nurture and to inculcate morality and character values imbued with the essence of MIB is still exist, where its pedagogical deliverance also requires serious commitment from the educators.

Our paper examines how selected research articles (RAs) reporting empirical investigations in applied linguistics proceed from first presenting results to eventually offering final conclusions or some other form of closure. After reviewing the literature on relevant aspects of RA structure and its functions, we report the findings of a genre analysis of 20 RAs in applied linguistics concerning rhetorical choices among possible Results, Results and Discussion, Discussion, Conclusion, and Pedagogic Implications sections, and identify specific organizational choices within each section. We propose a two-level account (Moves and Steps) of the separate Discussion sections in our corpus, and argue that this is able to capture general trends and specific rhetorical realizations in an insightful way.

Introduction Informing science investigates how to provide clientele with information in a form, format, and schedule that maximizes its effectiveness (Cohen, 1999; 2009). According to its general, cross-disciplinary definition, information is a feature of objects of different nature that describes their structural aspects represented by patterns attributed to their organization (e.g., Stonier, 1997). Consequently, informing could be regarded as spreading structural patterns (patterns in form) among objects of different nature (Gackowski, 2009). In case of complex information systems such as living organisms (including humans), the aim of informing has been defined as expanding their control over environment (Gackowski, 2009) or, in evolutionary terms, enhancing their chances of survival. When informing is considered at the level of human information processing, the structure and characteristics of human cognitive architecture could have significant implications for the informing process. Cognitive aspects of human information processing may critically affect both the informing (informer) and perceiving (client) ends of the informing process. The intersection of cognitive and informing sciences has been related to the area of cognitive informatics (Cohen, 2009). Cognitive load theory as a branch of instructional psychology (see Sweller, 2003; Sweller, Ayres, & Kalyuga, 2011, for recent overviews) has applied cognitive science to enhance effectiveness and efficiency of instructional design. Since the major aim of instructional design is providing instructional formats and procedures that maximize learning, this could be regarded as a specific area of application of general principles of informing science with learners as clientele. Therefore, instructional and informing sciences are inherently connected. Theoretical frameworks and recommendations of informing science should be applied to instructional design, and established principles of cognitive load theory could also be potentially generalized to advance certain aspects of informing science. This paper explores a possibility of extending the established conceptual framework and principles of cognitive load theory to broader and more general situations than those in teaching and learning with the aim of enhancing the effectiveness of informing. The paper begins with an overview of major assumptions and principles of cognitive load theory based on a recently proposed evolutionary perspective, describes a corresponding model of human cognitive architecture, followed first by general implications of this architecture to informing science, and then by specific recommendations for improving processes of informing. Human Cognitive Architecture Cognitive load theory describes educational implications of human cognitive architecture (Sweller, 2003, 2004). In its basic assumptions, the theory uses the information processing aspects of biological evolution by natural selection as analogical to basic characteristics of human cognition (Sweller & Sweller, 2006). It considers both biological evolution and human cognition as examples of a broader category of natural information processing systems. It is assumed that such systems function based on the following five fundamental principles (Sweller, 2003; for an overview, see Sweller et al., 2011): * The information store principle: natural information processing systems include large stores of information that govern their activities. In human cognitive architecture, long-term memory provides this function. * The borrowing and reorganizing principle: information in the store is mostly borrowed from other information stores; however, it is reorganized in the process rather than copied exactly. For example, humans imitate other people, listen, and read in order to build long-term memory. * The randomness as genesis principle: all truly novel (not borrowed) information is acquired by a random generate-and-test process. …