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The 4th international conference "Nation and Language: Modern Aspects of Socio-Linguistic Development" continues an eight-year old tradition. The conference is organized by Kaunas University of Technology Panevezys Institute and aims to bring scientists and researchers together for a general scientific discussion on new trends in sociolinguistic, language research, teaching and learning. The general goal of the conference is to present an overview of the most current approaches to language attitudes and motivation, to illuminate the sociolinguistic and educational significance of the topics. It is necessary to understand how teachers and scientists can carry out their charge while respecting the languages and language varieties that students bring to school or universities and using existing language skills to build new ones, how teachers can enable students to achieve the linguistic mastery that would allow them to have more than grammatical competence in order to be able to communicate effectively in a language. Current theory and research have provided clear indications that the relationships between a person's prior linguistic and academic experience, the social context of instruction, and the results of formal language instruction have complex and reciprocal connections with each other. Positive attitudes about language and language learning may be as much the result of the success as the cause. The conference pays special attention to different aspects of languages and cultures, language contact and change, language maintenance, shift and loss, language and social inequalities, language learning and teaching and language planning and policy. The conference covers wide range of topics like: (1) Theoretical and practical aspects of language education; (2) Good practice and innovations in higher education language teaching; (3) Socio-linguistic aspects in language teaching and learning; (4) Applying new technologies in language teaching; (5) Research of language peculiarities and their integration into the teaching process and lexicographical practice; and (6) Problems of terminology and translation; international communication. The following papers are included in the proceedings: (1) Why Standard Spoken Language of Students Gets Poorer? (R. Bartkeviciene and N. Petniuniene); (2) On Foreign Language Teaching and Learning Conditions in Moldovan Higher Education Institutions (M. Fuciji); (3) Identity and Languages - Results of a Local Research (T. Hrivikova); (4) Computer Linguistics and Pragmatics (G. Klimoviene and J. Korsakas); (5) Social and Cultural Contexts in Teaching Foreign Languages of Young People (J. Kida); (6) Responsibility Development in Practical Foreign Language Classes (I. Kildiene and R. Lazauskiene); (7) Terms of Computer Science in Professional Environment, Texts and Dictionaries (I. Klijunaite and K. Karklius); (8) Developing Student Responsibility in the Process of Foreign Language Acquisition (G. Klimoviene, R. Barzdziukiene, and N. Vaitkiene); (9) Foreign Words and Foreign Words Significance in Children's Language Development (V. Kuzina); (10) People and Language - Slovenia (J. Lipnik); (11) The Systemic Approach to Emotional Potential Development and Language Acquisition in the Context of European Linguistic Unity (T. Lobanova-Shunina and Y. Shunin); (12) Teaching of English as a Second Language in ICT-Based Learning Settings (V. Narbutas); (13) Grammatical Variables in the Speeches of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama (A. Nauseda and I. Klijunaite); (14) Understanding the Impact of Culture on Economic Development (I. Nemethova); (15) The Impact of English on the Slovak Language Culture (M. Pauleova); (16) Benefiting from a Text-Oriented EFL/ESP Course (G. Snuviskiene); (17) Shaping Modern Serbian Ethnolinguistic Nation and National State-Building in the First Half of the 19th C (V. B. Sotirovic); (18) Terminology: The Term Variance in the English and Lithuanian Special Language of Economics (V. Stankeviciene and D. Svencioniene); (19) The Grammatical Metaphor as a Sociolinguistic Marker in Horror Stories (S. Susinskiene and E. Jurkoniene); (20) Insights on Problems of Public Speaking and Ways of Overcoming It (D. Susniene, R. Virbickaite, and O. Purvinis); (21) Sociology and Society: Towards Diversity (A. Vosiliute); and (22) Disabled People: The Problems of Identity (A. Vosiliute). An author index is also included. (Individual papers contain tables, figures, references, and footnotes.) [Abstract has been modified to meet ERIC guidelines.]

Currently in Slovakia, there is a strong need to attract more students for their future career in IT or science and technology. The motivation towards these subjects is an important issue at all levels of education and isin the main focus of the national project IT academy. One of its goals at upper secondary level is the introduction of classes with focus on informatics where teaching informatics and science is strengthened a great deal. Except from extra lessons on informatics a new interdisciplinary subject Informatics in science and mathematics is designed. Its main goal is to show interesting problems that can be solved using informatics concepts. For the physics part, we have designed teaching and learning materials on the concept of modeling. Developing models in the physics research cannot be conducted without knowledge of coding in a programming environment. Our main goal is to show students a similar modeling approach on situations that are simple and understandable to them. Students proceed similar way as researchers do, i.e. they get a problem, develop a model, manipulate with it, test the model and improve it to get better correspondence with experimental results. The modeling is conducted in dynamical modeling software where variables are represented by icons that can be a first step to coding in professional programming environment. In the paper we introduce a set of modeling activities designed for the purpose of the presented teaching subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]