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Número 96 |
17 junio 2013 |
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Scoring English Language Learners the World Over by: Gwen Bloomsburg In 2011, the private education company EF Education First published its first “English Proficiency Index,” a ranking of how well English language learners all over the world are able to use English. It repeated the process in 2012, and results were published in October 2012. The EPI is based on an online test, and both the self-selective nature as well as the requirement of internet access seriously limit the pool of test-takers. Add the fact that EF obviously has an interest in convincing countries and people in those countries to improve their English. Keeping various sources of bias in mind, we can still find noteworthy details in the report and the scores. Perhaps it surprises no one that English language learners in Scandinavian countries have the highest proficiency, and those in Latin America and the Middle East the lowest. Of more interest is the finding that young adults (age 30-35) demonstrated the highest proficiency among age groups. The report enthusiastically estimates how much English proficiency contributes to economic development. True correlation is hard to establish given limitations of the study, but 1.7 million tests are not necessary confirm that English proficiency is already a key competency in the global marketplace. In case you are curious, Ecuador ranked #43 (out of 54 countries) this year, down from #36 in 2011, despite a slight increase in the average test score. You can find the full report at http://www.ef.com/epi/.
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Fechas y horas en formularios por: Gino Naranjo En el Tic anterior presentamos las nuevas funcionalidades de formularios, vamos ahora a completarlas. Como es conocido el formato de formularios permite crear cuestionarios generales, peticiones de invitaciones a servicios web, inscripciones a talleres o cursos, etc. En el nuevo formato existen dos tipos de preguntas más que se pueden incluir. Se puede seleccionar o introducir manualmente preguntas relativas a las fechas y horas. El selector está tras el texto “tipo de pregunta”. Una vez que se está creando el formulario, al pulsar en la opción “añadir pregunta” se deberá seleccionar la opción fecha, en ese momento se incluirá una ventana que incluye: día, mes y año. Quien complete el formulario tendrá la opción de respuesta más clara. Si selecciona la opción hora se incluirá en el formulario una ventana con la hora, minutos y a.m./p.m.
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Contacto: gbloomsburg@udla.edu.ec, dchauvin@udla.edu.ec, g.naranjo@udlanet.ec |