Symbiosis of language testing and language teaching:The journey of the 37^(th) Language Testing Research Colloquium( LTRC 2015) in Toronto,Canada

The 37th Language Testing Research Colloquium(LTRC 2015①)was held at Eaton Chelsea Hotel in Toronto Canada during March 16-20,2015.The first two days of March 16-17 were preconference workshop days with March 18-20 as the three main conference days.More than 300 participants from 27 countries and regions joined the conference.The top numbers of the

Perception and attitude of theatre staff to preoperative HIV testing at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital

Objective:To elucidate the awareness and approach to pre-operative human immunodeficiency virus(HIV) testing and emphasis on the attendant components of HIV testing.Methods: The study was conducted at the theatres of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital among 123 nursing,anaesthetic,and operating staff.A descriptive cross sectional design was adopted with stratified sampling.The study instrument was a structured,self administered pro forma.Results:All respondents were all aware of HIV infection and all had transmission through infected blood and tissues(100.0%).88.6%had infection through needle stick injuries, 62.6%through vertical transmission,and 98.4%through blood transfusion.Sixty three percent of respondents correctly knew what preoperative testing was,while 58.5%were aware of the preoperative testing policy of the hospital.All respondents favoured the policy of preoperative testing.Attitudinal values to seropositive patients were not very different as 72.4%of respondents claimed they treated every patient as high risk,and all respondents used personal protective equipment.Conclusions:Routine HIV testing now represents a conventional means providing patients with knowledge of their HIV status.Such testing should be accompanied by informed consent,counselling,confidentiality,protection,and access to treatment.

On the Relationship Between Primary School English Teachers’Personality and the Teaching Effect

Studies have shown that teachers’personality will have a direct impact on students’serious study,emotional attitude,and personality(Liu,2006).Due to the different personalities of teachers,the effect of their education and teaching work will inevitably bring differences.Therefore,school management needs to consider the problem of adjusting measures to individual conditions.This paper will analyze the influence of teachers with different personality characteristics on teaching effect and reasons and significance of individualized teaching in primary school.

Challenges and Demands for College English Teachers Raised by Training All-round Qualified Persons

The latest issue of College English Curriculum Requirements has posed challenges and demands for teachers in terms of linguistic competence, academic knowledge, language skills, professional morality, emotional and attitudinal qualifications, etc., which requires teachers to embrace and handle with active and open-minded responses. Hence, teachers ought to strive to develop and improve their own overall qualifications in collaboration with the long-term development of the subject and of the national higher education, with the need of qualified persons demanded by social development and the students＇ learning. Teachers also ought to form a notion of scientific development by keeping pace with the time, so as to discern the trend of subject development, to form appropriate judgments concerning the social development and to properly regulate their own development.

Teaching ,Learning &Testing-Reconsideratios on the Pathway for Improving College English Teaching and Learning

The persistent and indefatigable efforts of all the College English teachers have brought about great changes in colle ge English teaching and learning in t he past few years.These changes,however,may be summa rized within the framework of a shift from one form of test -oriented teaching and learnin g to another.In reality,much has yet to be done to improve the language abilities of the studen ts.Under such circumstances,nationwi de English examinations or unified e xaminations at var-ious levels,are bound to make things even worse by misleading college and university teachers in their teaching practice.In this p aper,the author claims that College English teachers and their students should be freed from t he confinement of the unified examin ations so that they will be able to build a real learner -centr ed curriculum as far as possible according to their own needs.Finally,some tentative ideas are presented on the pathway for imp roving the quality of the College English teaching and learning.

Personal glucose meters coupled with signal amplification technologies for quantitative detection of non-glucose targets:Recent progress and challenges in food safety hazards analysis

Ensuring food safety is paramount worldwide.Developing effective detection methods to ensure food safety can be challenging owing to trace hazards,long detection time,and resource-poor sites,in addition to the matrix effects of food.Personal glucose meter(PGM),a classic point-of-care testing device,possesses unique application advantages,demonstrating promise in food safety.Currently,many studies have used PGM-based biosensors and signal amplification technologies to achieve sensitive and specific detection of food hazards.Signal amplification technologies have the potential to greatly improve the analytical performance and integration of PGMs with biosensors,which is crucial for solving the challenges associated with the use of PGMs for food safety analysis.This review introduces the basic detection principle of a PGM-based sensing strategy,which consists of three key factors:target recognition,signal transduction,and signal output.Representative studies of existing PGM-based sensing strategies combined with various signal amplification technologies(nanomaterial-loaded multienzyme labeling,nucleic acid reaction,DNAzyme catalysis,responsive nanomaterial encapsulation,and others)in the field of food safety detection are reviewed.Future perspectives and potential opportunities and challenges associated with PGMs in the field of food safety are discussed.Despite the need for complex sample preparation and the lack of standardization in the field,using PGMs in combination with signal amplification technology shows promise as a rapid and cost-effective method for food safety hazard analysis.

Personalized Learning Path Recommendations for Software Testing Courses Based on Knowledge Graphs

Software testing courses are characterized by strong practicality,comprehensiveness,and diversity.Due to the differences among students and the needs to design personalized solutions for their specific requirements,the design of the existing software testing courses fails to meet the demands for personalized learning.Knowledge graphs,with their rich semantics and good visualization effects,have a wide range of applications in the field of education.In response to the current problem of software testing courses which fails to meet the needs for personalized learning,this paper offers a learning path recommendation based on knowledge graphs to provide personalized learning paths for students.

Research and Practice of Hybrid Teaching for Software Testing based on Interactive Learning

To address the problems of insufficient number of personalized exercises and cases and teachers’lack of grasp of students’weak knowledge points in the current software testing online courses,we study the strategy of establishing and updating intelligent exercise sets and case libraries and analyze the answers and dig out the weak points of knowledge through group intelligence reasoning and interactive machine learning methods.This will help teachers to make uniform and targeted explanations,reduce manual judgment,and achieve intelligent teaching quality reform,and implement the educational concepts of“keeping up with the times”and“teaching according to students’abilities”.

Investigating the Relationship Between Teaching Approach and Language Learning Motivation of College English Classrooms in China

The study was aimed at exploring the relationship between teaching approach and students'learning motivation.The participants were two college English teachers and their fixed group of students.The research lasted 16 weeks.The instruments used in the study were Attitude/Motivation Test Battery(AMTB) and classroom observation.Analyzing by the mean of the AM TB result,researchers got the popular tendencies of students'learning motivation level every four weeks.Comparing the change of students'learning motivation level and teacher participants'frequency of using the recommended teaching approach,this arti cle intends to achieve two purposes:1) Is students'learning motivation related to their teachers'teaching approach? 2) Among the approach recommended by literature,which works the best in the colleges in China?

Promoting the Personal Development of Children Through Art Education

With the arrival of the new era,the development of society changes with each passing day,innovative ability and creative thinking skills are increasingly valued by society.The development of innovative ability should start with children.The emergence of new educational concepts requires the school to cultivate students in a comprehensive way.In this case,art and music,which were once considered unimportant,are gradually changing the educational field and are returning to the public eye.Studies have shown that art education plays an important role in promoting personal development of children.Therefore,art education should not be neglected,and we should see that art education plays a certain role in improving children’s innovative abilities.However,there are still many problems in art education for children,which affects its role in promoting their personal development.Therefore,it is important to focus on how to promote children’s personal development through art education.This paper analyzes the problems faced in children’s art education and how to effectively maximize its role of art education to promote the development of children’s art education.

Cognitive impairment in patients with bipolar disorder alone versus those with bipolar disorder comorbid with borderline personality disorder

BACKGROUND Bipolar disorder(BD)is a severe mental illness.BD often coexists with borderline personality disorders,making the condition more complex.AIM To explore the differences in cognitive impairment between patients with BD and those with BD comorbid with borderline personality disorder.METHODS Eighty patients with BD and comorbid borderline personality disorder and 80 patients with BD alone were included in groups A and B,respectively,and 80 healthy volunteers were included as controls.Cognitive function in each group was evaluated using the Chinese version of the repeatable battery for the assess-ment of neuropsychological status(RBANS),the Stroop color-word test,and the Wechsler intelligence scale-revised(WAIS-RC).RESULTS The indices of the RBANS,Stroop color-word test,and WAIS-RC in groups A and B were significantly lower than those of the control group(P<0.05).Group A had significantly longer Stroop color-word test times for single-character,single-color,double-character,and double-color,lower scores of immediate memory,visual breadth,verbal function dimensions and total score of the RBANS,as well as lower scores of verbal IQ,performance IQ,and overall IQ of the WAIS-RC compared with group B(P<0.05).Compared to group B,group A exhibited significantly longer single-character time,single-color time,double-character time,and double-color time in the Stroop color-word test(P<0.05).CONCLUSION The cognitive function of patients with BD complicated with borderline personality disorder is lower than that of patients with BD.

Self-worth and psychological adjustment of obese children:An analysis through the Draw-A-Person

AIM To investigate psychopathological correlates of child obesity via the Draw-A-Person test(DAP).METHODS The participants were 50 children with a mean age of 9.74 years.Body mass index(BMI) was used as a measure of body fat.Children were divided into normal(n = 17),overweight(n = 14) and obese(n = 19).Two qualitative methods of scoring the DAP based on an integrative approach were used to assess self-concept(ESW) and overall level of children's adjustment(EAC).A procedure for judging interpretative skills of clinicians was implemented before they evaluated children's drawings.RESULTS As predicted by our hypothesis,BMI was negatively correlated with ESW,r(50) =-0.29,P < 0.05,but not with EAC,r(50) =-0.08,P = ns.To evaluate the effect of gender,Pearson correlations were re-computedregrouping the sample accordingly:BMI and EAC reached a significant negative correlation in female subjects,r(24) =-0.36,P < 0.05,and a positive correlation in male subjects,r(26) = 0.37,P = < 0.05;negative correlation between BMI and ESW became stronger in females,r(24) =-0.51,P < 0.01 but not in males,whose correlation disappeared resulting not-significant,r(26) =-0.06,P = ns.No effect of age was found.Results indicate that obesity has a negative correlation exclusively on overall adjustment and self-concept in female children.CONCLUSION It was concluded that there is a negative bias toward females that reveals how the stigma of obesity is widespread in Western society.

Effects of personalized oral hygiene management on oral health status of pregnant women

BACKGROUND The Cariostat caries activity test(CAT)was used to evaluate the effectiveness of personalized oral hygiene management combining oral health education and professional mechanical tooth cleaning on the oral health status of pregnant women.AIM To investigate whether personalized oral hygiene management enhances the oral health status of pregnant women.METHODS A total of 114 pregnant women who were examined at Dalian Women’s and Children’s Medical Center were divided into four groups:High-risk experimental group(n=29;CAT score≥2;received personalized oral hygiene management training),low-risk experimental group(n=29;CAT score≤1;received oral health education),high-risk control group(n=28;CAT score≥2),and low-risk control group(n=28;CAT score≤1).No hygiene intervention was provided to control groups.CAT scores at different times were compared using independent samples t-test and least significant difference t-test.RESULTS No significant difference in baseline CAT scores was observed between the experimental and control groups,either in the high-risk or low-risk groups.CAT scores were reduced significantly after 3(1.74±0.47 vs 2.50±0.38,P<0.0001)and 6 months(0.53±0.50 vs 2.45±0.42,P<0.0001)of personalized oral hygiene management intervention but not after oral health education alone(0.43±0.39 vs 0.46±0.33,P>0.05 and 0.45±0.36 vs 0.57±0.32,P>0.05,respectively).Within groups,the decrease in CAT scores was significant(2.43±0.44 vs 1.74±0.47 vs 0.53±0.50,P<0.0001)for only the high-risk experimental group.CONCLUSION Personalized oral hygiene management is effective in improving the oral health of pregnant women and can improve pregnancy outcomes and the oral health of the general population.

The Use of Glycated Albumin in the Diagnosis of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

Gestational diabetes mellitus is the most common endocrine disorder in pregnancy and a cause of maternal and fetal morbidities and mortalities. The oral glucose tolerance test is the gold standard for diagnosing gestational diabetes mellitus. Nevertheless, the oral glucose tolerance test is time-consuming and requires patient preparation. On the contrary, Glycated albumin does not require patient preparation or administration of any substance. Most studies on glycated albumin in pregnancy were among the non-African population, and black Americans have higher glycated albumin levels than Caucasians. This study determined the use of glycated albumin in diagnosing gestational diabetes mellitus among pregnant women. The study was a prospective study of 160 pregnant women between 24 and 28 weeks of gestation at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. The diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus was based on the World Health Organization 2013 criteria. The diagnostic value of glycated albumin was determined using the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve. The prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus was 9.4% and the mean glycated albumin was 16.91% (±2.77). The area under the receiver operator characteristic curve for glycated albumin was 0.845 (95% CI 0.733 - 0.956;p = 0.0001). The optimal cut-off value of glycated albumin in the diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus was 18.9%. Glycated albumin was useful in the diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus at 24 to 28 weeks of gestation.

An Exploration of Higher Vocational English Teachers’Professional Development on Students’Learning Ability in the Context of New Liberal Arts

The concept of New Liberal Arts,a multidisciplinary combined integrator with Chinese values at its core,has brought new challenges to the teaching methods and professional development of higher-level English teachers.Based on the evolving professional development process of higher vocational English teachers in the context of the New Liberal Arts,this article analyzes how English teachers can integrate multidisciplinary knowledge and adopt advanced educational technology in the teaching process.On this basis,it discusses the role of teachers’professional development in enhancing students’learning ability,such as through deepening disciplinary understanding,adopting innovative teaching strategies,and implementing personalized teaching.At the end of the article,based on a variety of pedagogical theories,we put forward suggestions,including continuous professional training,interdisciplinary cooperation,and the application of innovative teaching techniques,which are mainly aimed at helping higher vocational English teachers get rid of the dilemma of the new situation,adapt to the needs of the new liberal arts education as soon as possible,and then effectively improve students’abilities.

Enlightenment of the Chinese English Competence Scale on College English Teaching in Applied Colleges and Universities

CSE (China's Standards of English) is China's first English proficiency assessment standard covering all semester. Its abilitygrading reflects the correspondence between the English level of students in each scholastic school and the ability to describe thedescriptors, and it is targeted and instructive for college English teaching. As an English assessment reform that benefits allChinese English learners, the Chinese English Proficiency Rating Scale has an epoch-making significance. One of the core tasks ofthe construction of foreign language assessment system is to formulate a unified competency assessment standard, and to provide ascientific competency index system and accurate Competency Scale for various foreign language examinations. CSE provides acommon reference framework for English learning, teaching and assessment in China, and combines English learning, Englishteaching and English assessment system. Improving the quality of teaching is a concern of every English teacher. The introductionof CSE undoubtedly provides authoritative criteria and powerful impetus for the deepening and refinement of College Englishreform.

Study on the Research and Application of Network Teaching Courseware in Aerobics in Colleges and Universities

Aerobics teaching in colleges and universities is the most important part of higher education, and the important means to carry out quality-oriented education and cultivate all-round developed talents. The reform of aerobics teaching in colleges and universities should be geared to the demands of the times, and explore new innovation and continual development. In this paper, using the research methods of documentation, courseware development, teaching experiment and mathematical statistics, we study on the making and application of college aerobics network teaching courseware. It is revealed that, with the combination of modem network technology and college aerobics teaching, the resulted college aerobics network teaching courseware is the important media to not only upgrades college aerobics teaching quality, but also help develop students＇ habits of doing physical exercise, and promote physical health. Therefore, this is meaningful and practical in promoting the education of college students in physical quality development.

The Impact of Language Testing on Language Teaching

Language testing is of great value in language teaching. This paper is intended to deal with its washback effects in the following aspects. On one hand, it explores the impacts of language testing on objects invovled. On the other hand, it directs at the positive and negative washback effects of testing on language teaching.

The Developmental Movements of Language Testing and the Necessity of Communicative Approach

The relationship between language testing and language teaching is said to be inseparably interconnected and act together.Language testing has been unceasingly improving itself responding to the requirements of language teaching so as to improve testees’language ability.From the prescientific movement to the now newest communicative movement,four main approaches to testing have its pros and cons in achieving the reliability and validity of testing.By them,we can see communicative approach is of necessity to become the milestone of language

Language, Language Teaching and Language Testing

Departing from a brief presentation of the various views of language, this article elaborates the influence of views of language on language teaching and language testing. This will help us have background knowledge on language teaching and language testing.