Questões

TEXT II

Affordances and limitations of technology: Voices from EFL teachers and learners.

(Mohammad Amiryousefi)

Abstract

1. With the developments of new technologies appearing very quickly, the attention has been focused more on
2. technology than learning. English centers and institutes have mostly been busy accommodating new programs
3. and technologies and hence have not spent enough time to evaluate the CALL (Computer Assisted Language
4. Learning) programs and technologies employed to find their affordances and limitations. The present study
5. was an attempt to study the perceptions and evaluation of the Iranian EFL learners and teachers about CALL.
6. To this end, 240 students and teachers of two big institutes in Iran where CALL is used in their English
7. learning program participated in the study. The required data were collected through a mixed-method design.
8. The results of data analysis showed that CALL can enhance language learning and English listening, reading,
9. and writing skills. It can also increase students' motivation and interest in learning and their exposure to
10. language. However, it cannot improve speaking skill well. It also causes technology addiction, lacks good
11. standards and an interactive nature necessary for the development of communicative proficiency, and may
12. give the confidence to the teachers that everything is prepared by CALL courseware designers and hence they
13. may come unprepared. The present study argues that the mere focus on technological support is not adequate,
14. and a pedagogical understanding of language teachers’ and learners’ new roles and identities in CALL
15. environment should be developed.

Keywords:

Computer Assisted Language Learning; evaluation; perception; language learning;

language skills

(Source: Journal of English Language Teaching and Learning. Article 2, Volume 9, Issue 19, Winter and Spring 2017, page 1-24. Available at: https://elt.tabrizu.ac.ir/article_6252.html . Accessed on April 20^th, 2019)

Answer questions 30 to 33 according to TEXT II.

Choose the correct alternative to fill out the dialogues from 30 to 33.

TEXT 2

Innovation is the new key to survival

[…]

At its most basic, innovation presents an optimal strategy for controlling costs. Companies that have invested in such technologies as remote mining, autonomous equipment and driverless trucks and trains have reduced expenses by orders of magnitude, while simultaneously driving up productivity.

Yet, gazing towards the horizon, it is rapidly becoming clear that innovation can do much more than reduce capital intensity. Approached strategically, it also has the power to reduce people and energy intensity, while increasing mining intensity.

Capturing the learnings

The key is to think of innovation as much more than research and development (R&D) around particular processes or technologies. Companies can, in fact, innovate in multiple ways, such as leveraging supplier knowledge around specific operational challenges, redefining their participation in the energy value chain or finding new ways to engage and partner with major stakeholders and constituencies.

To reap these rewards, however, mining companies must overcome their traditionally conservative tendencies. In many cases, miners struggle to adopt technologies proven to work at other mining companies, let alone those from other industries. As a result, innovation becomes less of a technology problem and more of an adoption problem.

By breaking this mindset, mining companies can free themselves to adapt practical applications that already exist in other industries and apply them to fit their current needs. For instance, the tunnel boring machines used by civil engineers to excavate the Chunnel can vastly reduce miners’ reliance on explosives. Until recently, those machines were too large to apply in a mining setting. Some innovators, however, are now incorporating the underlying technology to build smaller machines—effectively adapting mature solutions from other industries to realize more rapid results.

Re-imagining the future

At the same time, innovation mandates companies to think in entirely new ways. Traditionally, for instance, miners have focused on extracting higher grades and achieving faster throughput by optimizing the pit, schedule, product mix and logistics. A truly innovative mindset, however, will see them adopt an entirely new design paradigm that leverages new information, mining and energy technologies to maximize value. […]

Approached in this way, innovation can drive more than cost reduction. It can help mining companies mitigate and manage risks, strengthen business models and foster more effective community and government relations. It can help mining services companies enhance their value to the industry by developing new products and services. Longer-term, it can even position organizations to move the needle on such endemic issues as corporate social responsibility, environmental performance and sustainability.

(http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ru/Documents/energy-resources/ru_er_tracking_the_trends_2015_eng.pdf)

Instruções: As questões de números 41 a 44 referem-se ao texto abaixo.

Industry gets the floor: Developing future Air Traffic Flow and Capacity Management Systems (ATFCM)

One of the key SESAR projects in the area of Air Traffic Flow and Capacity Management Systems (ATFCM) is Project 13.1.4, managed by Dominique Latgé, from Thales. He explained how the project will enable industry to contribute to future ATFCM systems through SESAR.

The project addresses the evolution of the Network Information Management System (NIMS) from a centralised regional system to a more collaborative and distributed system based on the Functional Airspace Blocks (FABs). One of its objectives is to help the transformation of the current regional CFMU system into marketable technical solutions for the subregional and local levels.

Project 13.1.4 also aims to define the collaborative decision making processes needed by this new organisation of the network. Driven by the new roles and responsibilities at the different levels (regional, sub-regional and local), the project ensures that each actor will find the right information at the right time to take the right decision.

Industry gets the floor

Project 13.1.4 is led by industry. Industry contributors will use the knowledge and experience they have developed in other parts of the world and with Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) at a local level in Europe.

Thales will use experience from work with South Africa’s air traffic & navigation system, where they helped to specify, develop and validate a sub-regional system for ...[A]... : CAMU (South Africa Central Airspace Management Unit). Indra, one of the other project partners, will use knowledge gained from work with Aena on local short term prediction tools and airspace management tools.

The project raises many questions, such as what products are needed inside Europe and at FAB level? What do we need to take into account for areas outside Europe?

The position of manufacturing industry in SESAR projects, in particular in system projects related to air traffic control (WP 10), airports (WP 12) and SWIM (WP 14), makes it a strong technical enabler for information sharing.

(Adaptado de Sesar Magazine, N. 6, Junho 2011, p. 6)

Despite the extraordinary changes of the last few years, one thing appears to remain the same. More people than ever want to learn English. The projections given in this book confirm that English learners are increasing in number and decreasing in age. As a news headline it is not much of a story. We’ve become used to the idea of English growing in popularity across the world. Far from being news, it has become one of the few enduring facts of global modern life – a trend which began in the late 19th century when English was heralded, from Europe to Japan, as the new rising world language.

But at what point do we pause, take a fresh look at what is happening and decide that what is going on now is not just ‘more of the same’. After scrutinising current trends, including those which have not yet reached the statistical yearbooks, I conclude that there has been a significant – even dramatic – qualitative change: one that may be taking the language in a very new direction.

(From Graddol, D., 2006, INTRODUCTION, ENGLISH NEXT, pages 10-11 http://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/sites/ec/files/booksenglish-next.pdf)

Neglect contributed to death of patient at community hospital

16 August 2012 | By Sarah Calkin

      A patient who choked to death at a hospital run by Somerset Partnership Foundation Trust had been neglected by staff, a coroner has ruled.

      Parkinson’s sufferer Diana Mansfield, 78, was struggling to swallow during her stay at Frome Community Hospital in September 2011. On 3 September she choked and died. East Somerset coroner Tony Williams found ..ART1... primary cause of death was ....ART2... acute upper airway obstruction and dysphagia, ...ART3... common side effect of Parkinson’s.

      Following the inquest in July he identified failings made in the nursing care received by Ms Mansfield and recorded a verdict of accidental death aggravated by neglect.

      The Care Quality Commission visited the 28-bed hospital earlier this year in response to concerns about care and welfare of patients and staffing levels arising from Ms Mansfield’s death.

      Inspectors judged the hospital was meeting standards overall. .....CONECTIVO.... it raised minor concerns about staffing levels, noting the ward had a sickness absence rate of nearly 10 per cent and cover was not always available for absent staff for a whole shift.

      The full staffing establishment on the 12-bed ward where Ms Mansfield stayed was three registered nurses and four healthcare assistants on the early shift and five staff - usually two nurses and three HCAs - on the late shift. Some nurses complained this was not always adequate to meet the needs of patients and said it was sometimes a struggle to complete all their tasks. 

THERE ARE 10 QUESTIONS OF MULTIPLE CHOICE IN YOUR TEST. EACH QUESTION HAS 4 ALTERNATIVES (A, B, C, AND D) FROM WHICH ONLY ONE IS CORRECT. CHECK THE CORRECT ONE.

Read the excerpt below and answer the questions 34 to 40.

1. The transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States formed one of those unbelievable incidents of
2. history because by 1867, Russia was nervously eager to get rid of it, while the United States still
3. recovering from the Civil War and immersed in the impending impeachment of President Johnson,
4. refused to accept it on any terms.
5. At this impasse an extraordinary man monopolized center stage. He was not a Russian, a fact which
6. would become important more than a century later, but a soi-disant baron of dubious background; half
7. Austrian, half Italian, and a charmer who was picked up in 1841 for temporary duty representing Russia in
8. the United States and who lingered there till 1868. In that time, Edouard de Stoeckl, parading himself as a
9. nobleman, although no one could say for sure how or when or even if he had earned his title, became
10. such an ardent friend of America that he married an American heiress and took upon himself the task of
11. acting as marriage broker between Russia, which he called homeland, and the United States, his adopted
12. residence.
13. He faced a most difficult task, for when the United States showed hesitancy about accepting Alaska,
14. support for the sale withered in Russia, and later when Russia wanted to sell, half a dozen of the most
15. influential American politicians led by Secretary of State William Seward of New York looked far into the
16. future and saw the desirability of acquiring Alaska to serve as America's artic bastion, yet the hard-
17. headed businessmen in the Senate, the House and the general public opposed the purchase with all the
18. scorn they could summon. 'Seward's Icebox' and 'Seward's Folly' were two of the gentler jibes. Some
19. critics accused Seward of being in the pay of the Russians; others accused De Stoeckl of buying votes in
20. the House. One sharp satirist claimed that Alaska contained nothing but polar bears and Eskimos, and
21. many protested that America should not accept this useless, frozen domain even if Russia wanted to give
22. it away.
23. Many pointed out that Alaska had no wealth of any kind, not even reindeer, which proliferated in other
24. northern areas, and experts affirmed that an arctic area like this could not possibly have any minerals or
25. other deposits of value. On and on went the abuse of this unknown and somewhat terrifying land, and the
26. castigations would have been comical had they not influenced American thinking and behavior and
27. condemned Alaska to decades of neglect.
28. But an ingenious man like Baron de Stoeckl was not easily diverted from his main target, and with
29. Seward's unflinching support and admirable statesmanship, the sale squeaked by with a favorable margin
30. of one vote. By such a narrow margin did the United States come close to losing one of her potentially
31. valuable acquisitions, but of course, had one viewed Alaska from the vantage point of frozen Fort Nulato
32. in 1867, with the thermometer at minus-fifty-seven and about to be attacked by hostile Athapascans, the
33. purchase at more than $7,000,000 would have seemed a poor bargain.
34. Now the comedy intensified, became burlesque, for although the U.S Senate had bought the place,
35. the U.S. House refused to appropriate the money to pay for it, and for many tense months the sale hung
36. in the balance. When a favorable vote was finally taken, it was almost negated by the discovery that
37. Baron de Stoeckl had disposed of $125,000 in cash for which he refused to give an accounting. Widely
38. suspected of having bribed congressmen to vote for land that was obviously worthless, the baron waited
39. until the sale was completed, then quietly slipped out of the country, his life's ambition having been
40. achieved.
41. One congressman with a keen sense of history, economics and geopolitics said of the whole affair:
42. 'If we were so eager to show Russia our appreciation of the help she gave us during the Civil War, why
43. didn't we give her the seven million and tell her to keep her damned colony? It'll never be of any use to
44. us.'

Excerpt from: MICHENER, James A. Alaska. Fawcett Books: New York, 1988, p. 369 - 370.