In bilingual streams in the Netherlands, school subjects are taught in an additional language so that pupils learn both subject content and the target language by using language meaningfully. Teachers of English in bilingual streams (TEBs) are often expected to collaborate with subject teacher colleagues (STs). In addition, they teach separate language lessons. This provides TEBs with specific challenges. This article reports on a focus group (FG) study exploring the extent to which the ideals of stakeholders in bilingual schools in the Netherlands reflect the literature on this topic, using a frame of reference developed for this purpose (Dale, Oostdam & Verspoor, 2017). Five FGs were held with TEBs and STs from Dutch schools in the network for bilingual education and with members of the network’s quality assurance panels. Each FG consisted of between three and six participants with a similar role in bilingual education; audit panel chairpersons, audit panel secretaries and STs and TEBs from different schools. Participants were asked to discuss what an ideal English teacher would do in English lessons and in cooperation with subject colleagues. Data consists of five transcripts of the FG discussions. On the basis of inductive and deductive analyses (using MaxQDA), the ideals of stakeholders are positioned in the framework to explore to what extent different types of stakeholders have complementary or conflicting views. The findings suggest that stakeholders need to develop more shared understandings and a shared language to allow TEBs to realise their ambitions. References Dale, L., Oostdam, R., & Verspoor, M. (2017). Searching for identity and focus: Towards an analytical framework for language teachers in bilingual education. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, doi:10.1080/13670050.2017.1383351
MULTIFILE
Sustainable and Agile manufacturing is expected of future generation manufacturing systems. The goal is to create scalable, reconfigurable and adaptable manufacturing systems which are able to produce a range of products without new investments into new manufacturing equipment. This requires a new approach with a combination of high performance software and intelligent systems. Other case studies have used hybrid and intelligent systems in software before. However, they were mainly used to improve the logistic processes and are not commonly used within the hardware control loop. This paper introduces a case study on flexible and hybrid software architecture, which uses prototype manufacturing machines called equiplets. These systems should be applicable for the industry and are able to dynamically adapt to changes in the product as well as changes in the manufacturing systems. This is done by creating self-configurable machines which use intelligent control software, based on agent technology and computer vision. The requirements and resulting technologies are discussed using simple reasoning and analysis, leading to a basic design of a software control system, which is based on a hybrid distributed control system
