It is very important that teaching and learning activities and assessment are designed to cater for the needs of schools and pupils. Chapter 8 looks at the connection between learning and assessment and includes approaches and strategies for both formative and summative assessment. How to plan for and manage assessment of learners’ progress is examined in detail with practical advice on how to do this in a structured way. How to use assessment for learning within a framework of formative assessment is detailed, including self-assessment and peer-assessment techniques with practical examples for use in class. The development of metacognitive strategies in learners is explored and advice is given on how to promote and develop this in learners in stages. The importance of giving regular feedback to pupils on their learning is also emphasised. Techniques and suggestions in this chapter can be adapted for different classes and year groups.

In this chapter, we consider vector spaces over a field that is either the real or complex numbers. We shall start from the most general situation of scalar products. We then consider the situations when scalar products are nondegenerate and positive definite, respectively.

The aftermath of civil wars is a fraught experience that does not end once a peaceful resolution is established. The study of civil war termination is vital to shaping our understanding of what factors dictate prospects for long-term peace once armed conflicts conclude. In particular, the types of conflict termination – from peace agreements to ceasefires and outright victories – have a strong bearing upon whether sustainable peace will be established, or violence will recur. Chapter 9 explores the relationship between the nature of civil war termination and the prospects for durable peace. It considers the factors and data provided by, for example, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program on which termination processes succeed and why long-term peace might be evasive for some conflicts. These approaches offer a ripe area of contemporary research and debate when seeking to resolve ongoing conflicts.

Chapter 2 explores economic views of sustainability, defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987). This implies the current population’s needs are met, and future generations have access to at least the same economic opportunities and well-being as today. The systems approach to sustainability optimizes goals across environmental, economic, and social systems. The economists’ capital approach treats nature as capital. Natural, physical, and human capital form a portfolio of assets representing an economy’s wealth, which determines economic opportunities and human welfare. “Weak” sustainability assumes that maintaining and enhancing the overall stock of all capital is sufficient to achieve sustainable development. “Strong” sustainability asserts that preserving essential, irreplaceable, and non-substitutable natural capital is also necessary. The “resource curse” hypothesis and the environmental “Kuznet’s curve” hypothesis (EKC) are explained. Achieving sustainable development requires addressing extreme poverty, inequality, and unsustainable resource use.

Continuing professional development (CPD) is examined, emphasising the importance of maintaining skills and keeping abreast of current research and curriculum developments in the teaching of modern languages. Examples of professional learning are given, as well as advice on how collaborative working with colleagues locally, nationally and internationally can enhance learning and teaching. In addition, links are given to sources of further information and advice on a range of opportunities available to teachers to help them with their career-long professional learning (CLPL). Finally, the chapter discusses the important area of teacher well-being and gives guidance and advice on how student teachers can build emotional resilience that prepares them for a career in the classroom, noting sources of support for their own mental health and well-being.

Understand how children direct their own learning and learn from others; describe the importance of imitation, play, and instruction; explain how children transfer what they know across different contexts.

The environments we create for the infants and toddlers in early childhood education (ECE) settings are critically important because they shape the daily lived experience of children and educators, and create the conditions for children’s interactions, wellbeing, engagement, learning and development. ECE environments are not neutral, nor are they natural. They are constructed in specific ways for specific purposes and are a representation of our philosophy that ‘speaks’ to children, educators and families about our image of the child, about the value we place on family, culture and community, and about our beliefs regarding teaching and learning. ECE environments are political because they influence the possibilities for interactions, relationships, empowerment and agency.

Chapter 14 evaluates the challenges of SDG 13: Climate Action, which emphasizes the urgent need to combat climate change and its impacts. Two global pollution problems are compared: chemical emissions deplete the ozone layer, which shields us from harmful ultraviolet radiation, and greenhouse gases trap heat, contributing to global climate change. International cooperation and action effectively addressed the emission of ozone-depleting substances. In contrast, current policies to reduce human greenhouse gas emissions are inadequate for limiting global warming to below 2°C, threatening a significant reduction in economic welfare and well-being, especially in developing regions. The social cost of carbon measures future damages associated with a ton of greenhouse gas emissions, discounted to present value, which can inform how much we should “pay” to reduce emissions today. The various policy options for combating climate change, including removing existing policy distortions and addressing prevailing market failures, are explained, and the costs and benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions through technology- and nature-based solutions are discussed.

Understand why the cross-cultural perspective is important to understanding children’s development; consolidate what you learned in Chapters 1–5; revisit the ideas you came across in Chapters 1–5 in a cross-cultural context.

Chapter 1 explains how economics plays a crucial role in sustainable development, affecting the well-being of current and future generations. Economics explores how scarce resources are allocated and distributed and analyzes the trade-offs in decision-making. The stock of capital assets, or economic wealth, in an economy determines economic opportunities and individuals’ standard of living and prosperity. Economics recognizes that the economy is embedded in nature and that natural capital contributes to economic welfare in three ways: natural resources provide inputs to production, the environment assimilates waste and pollution, and ecosystems provide essential goods and services. A pessimistic view is that environmental scarcity will limit economic growth, leading to economic collapse. An optimistic perspective is that human creativity, innovation, and technological advancements can avert environmental scarcity, allowing economies to prosper. Economics can help guide society toward a more optimistic development path by creating incentives and safeguards for sustainable use of the environment.

In recent years remote and hybrid approaches to learning, teaching and assessment have risen in prominence. Starting with the strict lockdown measures enforced during the Covid-19 pandemic when schools, colleges and universities had to find alternative ways of providing learning, teaching and assessment quickly, there has been a dramatic expansion of online teaching. This chapter looks at how and when teachers can incorporate remote learning, teaching and assessment approaches in a modern languages class and the practical implications related to doing so.