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Showing posts from February, 2016

The Midden

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I mentioned to The Neighbour a couple of weeks ago the disgraceful nature of our mutual boundary, my former midden area, his greenhouse/potting shed. I only mentioned it because I'd have to go onto his allotment to get it clear and tidy, but, Gawd-bless-'im! he went ahead and tidied it all up and even put a nice new few fence in.You can see it there on the upper left of the photo. On the right is the increasingly big pile of rotten wood from the shed and the midden. I'm waiting for the rain to get it burnt. Also on the right is scrap iron and other rubbish for the skip. I'm blogging the rather tedious subject of a midden because I'm inordinately pleased to be getting this area cleaned up with a view to it being cultivable by the end of this growing season. The area in the middle of the photo is a thin layer of earth covering one or two courses of bricks, which themselves cover some very stony ground. The bricks I'll make into paths. The earth beneath is goin

Reading on Test Validity and Integration (Inclusivity and Exclusivity) - 4

  Goodman, 2012, notes that the novel introduction of language and cultural knowledge tests in Europe has interested scholars, but there is general disinterest in the variety of such tests from state to state. The historical shift from having to pass some kind of assessment, (and perhaps swear an oath) is Europe wide. It contrasts with the previous requirement of simply "being there", (Spiro, 2008).  Goodman notes at p663 that historically the rights of citizenship were counterbalanced by its obligations, particularly in times of war, "but the updated version is a bit more ambiguous regarding the types of duties or obligations the citizen owes the state."  [She does not spell put these ambiguous duties, but what could they be? Think of both rights and obligations: Consular protection and advice if/when abroad; voting; jury service; theoretical liability to be obliged to serve in the armed forces...  [Are any of these particularly meaningful or onerous in the

Hyacinths and Bluebells; Or, Giving a Script to a Non-Scripta

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By Kurt Stüber [1] - caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/mavica/index.html part of www.biolib.de, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3792   I've been interested in these plants since I was 7 years old: I remember hyacinths growing on the windowsill of South Farnborough Infant's School, and the scent of them takes me right back there. And I remember my dad telling me that the hyacinths we grow indoors in winter are cultivars, and they will "turn back into bluebells" if left alone. I bought a pot of 3 hyacinths from Lidl the other day, (£1.49, which felt like a bargain), almost ready to flower. With the winter sunshine pouring in this morning, the sitting room smells gorgeous as the hyacinths begin to open up. It turns out that they are cultivars of Hyacinthus orientalis , [see the photo]. Well, I say cultivars, but if you investigate their propagation, they're more like Frankenstein's monsters: scooping out the bulbs just doesn't see

Allotment levels - I'm saying no more after this

The Secretary emailed me to ask about the meeting I had with the Council Allotment Officials last week. Here's my reply: "Yes I met with two men at my plot, can't remember their names or exact roles now. Coincidentally, a few days before I had found the drain the council laid in my plot a year or two ago, and begun to use it as the overflow for my new pond. They confirmed that this ran out into the main drain in the lane outside, and it was appropriate to use it as I was. They seemed to think I was doing everything possible to manage the situation on my own plot. I think so too, but we'll need to see how it's all working over the coming growing season, and when next winter's storms come. I'm keen now to finish off the last of the levelling of beds, and get stuff actually growing again - I don't think bare earth is good for drainage. "When I let them in they commented that plot 50 (is it? the one opposite the community hut?) which was

"Family of a Settled Person Visa"

A striking detail on the webpage Apply to join family living permanently in the UK, is the fee of £956. The average monthly disposable net salary in Sudan, for example, is $227.14, (Numbeo.com, 2016).  The applicant for the FSP Visa must meet earnings requirements, starting at £18,600, and increasing for each dependent child.  A Family Reunion visa may be appropriate, (Settlement refugee, 2016) and no fee is payable. A Family Reunion visa applies to children, or to actual spouses (people who are married or or civil partners) of someone from whom they were separated when he or she was forced to leave the country, and who has been granted asylum status or 5 years humanitarian protection, but not citizenship. [The financial requirements suggest the language test, which is A1 CEFR according to Apply to join your family living permanently in the UK, would be the least of the obstacles to be overcome. But that's a consideration extraneous to valdity (?)] REFERENCES Apply

Reading on Test Validity and Integration (Inclusivity and Exclusivity) - 3

Goodman (2011) refers (p252) to "the public perception that countries are inundated with immigrants and governments are incapable of managing immigration", (and this was before the "Arab Spring" and the current Syrian "migrant crisis"). Which opens a door onto the bigger picture of xenophobia in populations, the process of "othering", and where it all comes from. It's easy enough to say it comes from a right-wing press, but that oversimplifies it: their words do seem to fall on fertile soil.  This is being thrown into sharp relief for those of us going through what is likely to become an extremely tedious UK Leave/Stay EU Referendum campaign. I can't say, objectively, how representative of any statistically apparent population of people in the UK Cllr Lisa Parker is when s he says of her own Party's Conservative government ,  "We’ve sold this country out and we’re being ruled by the European Union – by people who hate us, who

Levelling and Rotating

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The photo doesn't show much detail, and frankly the details are tedious: I've moved 20-something barrowfulls of earth from the East to West side, and another 12 or so to go. But look at that beautiful blue sky. Lovely February weather, the ground hard and frosty first thing in the morning, but by lunchtime it's Spring. And I'm beginning to think I'll be ready by Easter if not by St Patrick's day. The crop rotation plan is coming to me as I fill barrows and move them around. North at the top. Salmon (?) coloured stripe up the middle is the path. Black bit to the north east is mostly pond, to the south unexcavated greenhouse foundations, midden and shed. The red area is the North West, Blue the Midwest, and Green the South West bed. Beige on the right is the Middle East bed. To keep it straightforward, and reproducible, I'm going to follow the RHS 4 year system, here , with the beds numbered 1, 2, 3 down the Eastern side, (red, blue, green) and 4

Reading on Test Validity and Integration (Inclusivity and Exclusivity) - 2

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"Mastering the language of a country of immigration is a skill acquired over time through residence and social interaction and is therefore one of the most prevailing markers of an applicant’s personal level of integration," (Goodman, 2010). "Mastery" has a specific meaning in CEFR terms, referring to C2 level. Most EU states' language requirements are in the A2/B1 region. Many language learners will reach A2/B1 levels in the L1 of a country which they have never visited, or at any rate never resided in or had social interaction with L1 speakers, for example [get hard data] school learners of French in the UK, or English in China or the Netherlands.  At p14 Goodman (2010) refers to the Austrian requirement that learners do 300 hours of instruction. Is this an alternative to the A2 referred to in that paper's Table 4, below?  So that 300 hours of instruction can be sufficient regardless of test result? That would be a rather honest acknowledgement of the fa

Creeping Thyme and Edge Effect

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The edge of paths, edging to beds, and brick foundations are preferred by several plants, especially trees and shrubs with strong roots, but also all kinds of weeds. I've learned this as I've been working, lifting the path, excavating the old greenhouse foundations, and digging out the fruit bushes . I'm thinking of pre-empting this tendency with Thymus serpyllum, planted around the edges of all the paths, between the slabs and the bricks. It's a good bee plant, can cope with a being stood on, and should be able to take care of itself vis-a-vis the weeds. I recall a gardening programme on TV or the wireless doing a wee trial to find the best plant for a non-grass lawn, and creeping thyme won it hands down over lawn chamomile.

Level, Overflows, Ponds, Heron, Taciturn Allotmenteers Find Voice

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The bottom NE corner. This photo was taken at close of play today. The big heap of diggings from the pond are now over on the NW bed. Where you can see the barrow resting on the fence, there was a compost heap. I've moved it to the other end of the plot. It was full of blood worms from the bag of oomska I dumped there last autumn. Also today, I put a metal grid in front of the Council's drain, it's where you can see a metal rod by the pond. I filled the area in front of that with pebbles. It's now a pretty neat over-flow for the pond. Whilst working today, I took a breather and looked up, and there was a heron, flying by slowly, apparently eying my pond. The Council men came. It was nice to have a couple of pairs of ears to articulate my pond and drainage thoughts to. They were kind enough to listen, and reassure me I was doing the right things. I also learned that there's a big pond in the communal plot, just 30 yards or so from mine, hidden by trees. That&#

Reading on Test Validity and Integration (Inclusivity and Exclusivity) - 1

Bocker and Strik, 2011 present an overview of note that LTCM in Europe represent a break with the past: whereas permanent residence has become dependent on a test result, hitherto (in the 1980s and 90s) integration was thought to flow from the granting of a form of permanent status, (in the UK we would say ILR or Citizenship), with the onset of LTCM the migrant must indicate, by means of a test score, a degree of integration before being permitted permanent status. They also refer to member states of the EU requiring pre-entry tests for spouses, (Groendjik, 2011).  Boc ker and Strik show that most Europe an countries have language and other tests r e lated to leave to remain and entry of family mem bers, although there is variation in the details. However, (p165) the stated aims of the tests in all of the EU countries that use them is to facilitate integration. "The background to the introduction of the requirements was, in nearly all cases, an apparent or perceived crisis

LTCM

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One of the reasons why "in places, the submission reads like a flow of consciousness and ideas in development rather than a well-developed critique" is that, frankly, I haven't got fully engaged with it yet. I need to do more reading. I got started on the bigger picture of citizenship and language testing, but got distracted by the recent announcement of changes to spousal visas.  Maintaining consistency with this morning's metaphor , I'm cantering back almost to the starting post. There are no other horses in this race, so, you know, no competition. And I'm taking a very careful second run-up to that first fence.  The gap in knowledge is to be found floating around somewhere in the yawning void between theoretical models of test validity ( Bachman and Palmer, 2010; Kane, 2013; Chalhoub-Deville, 2015), and practical work published about the validity of (let's just say for now) language tests connected with migration. Most of the published work in this