IFLDSS09A

IFLD Examination

Answer all questions in English.

  1. ‘‘I can take into account and assess the expectations of educational stakeholders (employers, parents, funding agencies etc.)’ (EPOSTL, Aims and Needs p16). How might this statement influence teaching aims?


It used to be the case that certain methodologists believed that it would be possible to find an ultimate method, which would work best for all students. Nowadays, very few ‘serious’ researchers would claim to know what the ‘ultimate method’ is. List three reasons why it is difficult to determine what is the ‘best’ method?
  1. What is meant by ‘value-based approaches’ to teaching? Give two specific examples of what this might entail.
  2. To what extent would you say that the Communicative Approach could be described as a ‘Theory-based’ approach?
  3. Describe what you understand by ‘communicative methodology’(in not more than 50 words).
  4. School curricula can describe language in terms of objectives and in terms of outcomes. Which approach is favoured in the Austrian curriculum (AHS-Unterstufe)? Why do you think this approach is taken? (Non-Austrian students do not need to answer this question.)
  5. Explain what is meant by ‘discourse competence’.
  6. What is meant by ‘partial competences’? Why might this term be important in language teaching?
  7. List three spoken text types, which you might practice in oral fluency activities. Briefly justify your choice.
  8. In class you tried out the speaking activity: I am unique. (see below) Explain a) the main aim of this activity b) the principles behind it c) how you would use it in class.
  1. What role does schematic knowledge play in reading? When preparing reading activities, how might you take this category into account?
  2. What is meant by ‘authenticity of process’? How might this concept influence the reading activities you give to students?
  1. Imagine you are going to use the following text for reading comprehension activities. Think of: a) one pre-reading tasks b) a skimming task c) a scanning task d) two intensive reading questions e) one meaningful post-reading task

The YouTube Martyr: How a beautiful music student has become the symbol that could help topple Iran's fanatical rulers

By Richard Pendlebury
Last updated at 3:52 PM on 24th June 2009

She is the YouTube martyr; a beautiful young woman whose dying moments have turned her into a symbol of Iran's pro-democracy protests. On Saturday afternoon, Neda Agha Soltan was talking on her phone in a Tehran street when she was hit by a bullet fired by a member of the security services.

At least two onlookers used their own camera phones to film her final seconds. They then posted the harrowing close-up footage on the internet. Subsequently copied on to hundreds, if not thousands, of video-sharing and social-networking sites or blogs and viewed by millions, it has caused outrage around the world.

Today Neda's murder - for that's what it was - presents a growing threat to Tehran's hardline Islamic regime, as it struggles to contain popular dissent caused by President Ahmadinejad's fiercely disputed election victory.

Although the Iranian state media has chosen to ignore her story and the government has banned public displays of mourning for her, Neda's face is appearing on placards and posters around Tehran. Her story is fast taking on an unstoppable momentum.

Songs are being composed for her. Protesters, in their distinctive green wrist bands, have begun to use the rallying cry: 'We are Neda!' In central Iran on Monday, crowds chanted: 'Sleep well Neda because we will get your vote back,' a reference to the 'Where is my vote?' slogan of the opposition movement.

On the streets, she is a public symbol of defiance, the face of suffering or sacrifice that every rebellion needs. It is seen as significant that her first name means 'call' or 'voice'.

But who was this so-called ' accidental martyr' and what were the circumstances of her death?Because of the restrictions imposed on the international media and reporting within Iran it is impossible, as yet, to verify independently much of what has been claimed. But it would appear that at the time of her death, Neda was 26 years old and the kind of intelligent, liberal-minded, middle-class young woman who has been at the forefront of many of the demonstrations against the Islamic hardliners in recent days.

One report stated that she was the second of three children. After studying philosophy at university in Tehran, Neda had become a music student and was learning the piano. She worked in a travel agency part-time and friends said that she had travelled abroad, as far afield as Thailand. It was on one of those foreign trips, to Turkey, that she reportedly met the man to whom she became engaged.

Caspian Makan is a 27-year-old photographer who recently held an exhibition in the capital of his pictures of Iranian folk tradition. In a series of interviews, he has provided much of what biographical and circumstantial detail about Neda there is in the public domain.

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