Quality Input and Sustainability in Early Immersion Classrooms:A Case Study of an Experimental School in Macao

This paper looks into the case of a school in Macao nominated as the first(and so far the only)China-Canada-United States English Immersion(CCUEI)centre in the Macao Special Administrative Region(Macao SAR)China for the experimentation and application of English immersion instruction(EI)in the K1-3 and Primary 1-2 classes.Drawing on Krashen’s Input Hypothesis(1982)and Cummins’(2000)framework of instruction for language learning and academic achievement in the formal school context,the authors report their observations by analyzing the data collected from school teachers and participation in classes and by reflecting on their experiences,and suggest improvement that can be made to teachers’linguistic and communicative competence,in terms of quantity and quality of comprehensible input and expected output,and thus the sustainability of English immersion classrooms in a Chinese context.

Spatio-temporal variation of net anthropogenic nitrogen inputs in the upper Yangtze River basin from 1990 to 2012

The net anthropogenic nitrogen input(NANI) is an important nutrient source that causes eutrophication in water bodies. Understanding the spatio-temporal variation of NANI is important for regional environment assessment and management.This paper calculated NANI in the upper Yangtze River basin(YRB), upstream of the Three Gorges Dam(TGD), from1990 to 2012, and analyzed its spatio-temporal characteristics. Over the past 23 years of the study, the average annual NANI increased from 3200 kg N km^(-2) to 4931 kg N km^(-2). The major components were fertilizer N application, atmospheric N deposition,and net food and feed N import. In the northwest high mountainous region with a sparse population, the main component was atmospheric N deposition. Fertilizer N application and net food and feed N import were concentrated in the Chengdu Plain because of the high population density and large areas of farmland. This research found that NANI increased with rapid urbanization and increasing population. The Pearson correlation results illustrated that the spatial distributions of NANI and its major components were affected by land cover/use, agricultural GDP and total population. Increasing NANI has been the major cause of the degrading stream water quality over the past 20 years and is becoming a major threat to the water quality of the TGD reservoir.

Labor Inputs and Productivity in Chinese Industries:2000-2018

Under the framework of growth accounting,this paper introduces four heterogeneity characteristics of labor,namely,educational level,age,gender and industry,constructs a cross classification matrix of employment,labor compensation and working hours,and calculates the labor input(volume)of the whole country and of 19 industries during 2000-2018.Then it decomposes the volume into quantity and quality parts to analyze the total amount of labor input and the performance of industry labor input.The results are as follows.First,during the research period,the annual growth rate of labor input was 2.5%,and 78.8%of that came from the growth of labor input quality.The growth of labor input was mainly resulted from the improvement of educational level and the optimization of industrial structure.Second,in 2018,the proportions of labor input of the primary,secondary and tertiary sectors were 13.76%,31.06%and 55.18%respectively,and the transfer speed of labor input to the secondary and tertiary sectors was higher than that of the quantity structure;the labor input volume in the new economy and related industries in the tertiary sector has been greatly increased.Third,the index method-based labor productivity(ILP)of some producer service and consumer service industries was relatively low,and the growth of total industry output mainly attributed to the increase of labor input and the expansion of industrial scale.The improvement of labor input quality has become the key to the growth of labor input in China,and the improvement of educational level is the core power to improve the labor input quality.