Coherence in mediation activities at B1 and B2 levels

The aim of this article is to analyze the issue of textual consistency in the context of mediation activities at B1 and B2 levels (in the context of French as Foreign Language). First, we look at the question of text coherence that we analyze from both linguistic and didactic perspectives because the latter draws a lot from the contributions of pragmatics. As our research is in the context of teaching/learning foreign languages, we treat cohesion as one of the linguistic phenomena impacting coherence. In the following, our text deals with mediation as one of the activities to be developed in the language class. We are convinced that this type of language activity requires the learner to master logical connectors, which could make the mediated text coherent and - consequently - faithful to the source text. It is in this perspective that our research is situated, which concludes the article. We analyzed students' certification exams in French (at B1 and B2 levels) to see which logical connectors they used to mediate an oral and written. To do this, we developed a corpus that was submitted for analysis. The results of our study show that the list of logical connectors to which the students used is far from being representative for the given levels (B1 and B2 in this case), which allowed us to formulate pedagogical guidelines and questions for future research.

Understanding the Challenges of Graduation Rate Faced by Two Education Preparatory Programs in the State of Mississippi

In this study, the authors described the contribution of student’s academic performance indicators as predictors of graduation rate in two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Education Preparatory Program (EPP) in the State of Mississippi. The authors interviewed two EPP chairs in summer 2019 and used qualitative inquiry to code and look for themes to provide meaning and add additional explanation to the students’ graduation rate. The main findings of the study suggest that teacher candidates’ ACT/SAT scores are predictive of graduation rates. Similarly, socioeconomic status showed a positive relationship with admission to the EPP and graduation rate. Each EPP faces the challenge of graduating a sufficient number of certified teachers to ensure its continuity. The EPP needs to ensure that students are capable of passing the state certification exams and graduating to be successful. Graduation rate is an indicator of EPP performance and its likelihood of continuity and longevity.

The problem of the authenticity of texts in testing reading comprehension skills during certification exams in Polish as a foreign language

The presented article discusses the issue of authenticity in testing Polish as a foreign language through a certificate exam. The pursuit of authenticity can manifest both in the general concept of the exam sheet (in its layout and structure), as well as in tasks testing individual skills. When testing reading comprehension, the authenticity requirement can be met by appropriate use of texts from different sources in the examination tasks. These can be both original texts that were created for purposes other than examination, and prepared texts (written specifically for the certification test by the authors of the tasks).