Starting to put information together -- Work Group One

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Subject: Starting to put information together

Author:
Luciano Valadares

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Date Posted: 21:12:03 08/12/10 Thu

Hello People,
My objective here is to organize all the information we have already searched and to start writing the final text that should include the answers to the questions given by the professor, and also a comment about the journal "reading matrix".
Questions to be answered (both in unit's goal section):
1) But what exactly is a refereed journal?
When an author has to publish a scholar or scientific work, he/she must submit the work to a bunch of experts in that same field of knowledge and recognized background, so they can review the work making corrections and adjustments. This procedure allows the editor to prevent publishing a work with no credibility. It is also a mechanism that foresees the relevance of the work presented.
Refereed journals are also considered scholarly because their articles are usually written by and addressed to experts in a discipline.
2) How does it differ from other common written media where one can also find scientific, specialized and discipline-specific information, such as newspapers, newsletters and magazines?
The difference between journal and other sources of knowledge such as magazine, newspaper and newsletters is the credibility.
The refereed journals are those which are submitted to several other experts for review and comment. These academics must agree on the article and testify that it is reliable and relevant. Their layouts usually have a serious look and presents graphs and charts. They also refer their source on footnotes or bibliographies.
The authors� affiliations are always listed, the language has to do with the discipline covered being, this way, more connected with the reader background. The main purpose of the refereed journal is to report original and valuable researches to the scholarly world.
The common written media, although important, serious or related to real facts is attached to general interests, and they are not always trustful as well. They can also be presented in a newspaper format. Most of times they have an attractive appearance and are heavily illustrated. The articles may be written by a member of the editorial staff, a scholar or even a free-lance writer. The vocabulary is meant to reach to any educated audience. They rarely cite their sources. They can be substantial, popular, or sensational. Being substantial, their purpose is to provide general information. Being popular, their interest is to entertain the reader and sell products with a lot of ads; being sensational, their main goal is to arouse curiosity among the readers and satisfy popular beliefs (common sense).

Comments to be written about the journal: http://www.readingmatrix.com/journal.html

1) Is it a good example of a refereed journal?
Concerning the media proposed for discussion �The Reading Matrix�, I believe, after having read some about the refereed journal, that it is, indeed, a good example peer-reviewed journal. It follows the very essential steps needed for being called so.
It seems to us that the subject of the journal is very relevant since it is related to the researches done in the field of second language acquisition and applied linguistics.The editorial board is listed on the front page as a reference.
It is also meant to be disseminated worldwide giving support to educators on L2 reading, L2 literacy and others subjects related to L2 learning and teaching.
It has a board of academics (experts) with a vast knowledge and background on the subject presented. They work together in order to review the articles before they�ll be released, supplying the spectators with a reliable work. It also provides a forum in order to get opinions and critics from all over the world. The articles are also lengthy, and covers details of a new practical application or a research in the field .It does not allow articles who have been published before. Its layout looks serious and the language used is technical. Finally, the sources are fully listed, giving more credibility to the media. For all these points mentioned above, �The reading Matrix� is a good example of a refereed journal.

2) What researchers interested in publishing in those journals should do?
Researchers interested in publishing in refereed journals should first learn about the submission guidelines of the journal of their interest. In general, a submission guideline has all information and rules to publish articles. The common rules usually are:
a) be unpublished manuscripts;
b) be relevant topic related to the subject and issues in the field of the journal;
c) be focused and written clearly to make it accessible to a large audience including those who are �not familiar with the particular subject matter addressed in the article� and the vocabulary;
d) obey the minimum and maximum length for the article and the abstract;
e) if possible, send it in electronic format and hyperlinks, hypermedia links to multimedia material.

3) Comments about a topic covered frequently in the articles published over the past twelve months.
A topic covered frequently in the articles published over the past twelve months reveals the worries about education. They are always researching methods to develop student�s abilities. They focus in troubles with students in native language in a regular school and also, second language acquisition.
Over the last years, in many countries worldwide, there has been a decline in the reading skills of upper secondary school students, and their ability to read and understand advanced literature. Seeing this as an alarming change for the worse, governments, educational bodies and interested groups have taken various measures to address the issue. Five schools in five European countries�Italy, Lithuania, Sweden, Finland and Cyprus�have decided to do something about the students� inability and unwillingness to read literature. Their 2007-2009 Comenius ALCUIN project (Active Literacy: Competence and Understanding, Internally Naturalised�From Decoding to Understanding) aimed to develop reading methods which would motivate students to develop their reading skills, make them competent readers and users of their mother tongue as well as English as a second language. It also aimed to help them address more demanding texts, and also enable them to analyse and critically evaluate literary texts of various genres as well as European perspectives, and degrees of sophistication. This evaluative article aims to establish whether the first four new pedagogical methods used in the first year of the project in the five high schools have managed to motivate students in reading literature.

Other researchers are concerned with who intends to learn one second language. Gee‟s (2000-2001) analytical framework was used to describe the constructed identities of two young Korean ELLs (English language learners) within the school context and were considered to gain insight into their academic success. The author argues that the �model minority� stereotype was influential in shaping the imposed identities created by the school community despite some contradictory evidence of the ELLs‟ developing academic performances. Findings suggested that (a) teachers viewed the participant students as model students with exceptional academic capabilities, (b) participant students were often struggling to decipher implicit classroom rules and their language learning, and (c) peer group acceptance became a crucial factor in their access to academic learning and maintenance of social standing within the group. The paper concludes with critiques of current realities of US education and instructional approaches that fail to meet the needs of ELLs, both in the academic and affective domain.
The model minority stereotype has served to isolate Asians in the US from other minority groups, and has increased tensions among minority groups. Moreover, coupled with consistent identification as a �foreigner/other,� this stereotype has effectively isolated Asian Americans from the White-Black binary that positions them in relative terms to Anglo Americans and African Americans (Kim, 1999). Hence, researchers have argued that the model minority stereotype should be critically examined instead of being internalized and accepted by Asian-American students and accepted by others (S. Lee, 1996; Park, 1997).
According to Gee, identity construction is a dynamic process that is only possible when recognition occurs (see also Taylor, 1994). A person is seen as a particular kind of individual through a �combination� of speaking, interacting, valuing, believing, and using artifacts (among others).

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Replies:

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I`m testing the forum	Luciana Maia de Menezes (test)	04:59:40 08/13/10 Fri

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