Discussion on the Transformation from “Want Me to Learn” to “I Want to Learn” in English learning

<正>With the reform and opening up and internationalization,English has become the main language of international communication,and more and more people pay great attention to English learning.However,in the actual learning process,many students are lack of interest in English learning.In this paper,I take my personal experience as an example to discusses how     

Listening to ‘the thick bunch’: (mis)understanding and (mis)representation of young people in jobs without training in the South West of England

Young people in jobs without training are ubiquitous but invisible, working in shops, cafes, and other low‐waged, low‐status occupations. Commonly elided with young people who are not in education, employment or training, they are positioned as the ‘thick bunch’ with empty and meaningless working lives. The main purpose of the research was to explore the experiences of this group of marginalised and socially disadvantaged young people through a deeper understanding of their interests and enthusiasms inside and outside work. These young people have been (mis)understood and (mis)represented. A more holistic and nuanced approach that is not uncritically founded upon a set of neo‐liberal stereotypes and assumptions, and instead recognises the complexity of their lives, would offer new opportunities for understanding and representation of their interests. Our findings challenge the conflation of identity with work and the notion that only certain forms of employment create meaning.     

“Tell me about”: a logbook of teachers’ changes from face-to-face to distance mathematics education

Educational Studies in Mathematics - In 2020, the emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic brought a drastic and sudden change in teaching practices, from the physical space of the classrooms to the...     

Preservice teachers’ attitudes toward Web 2.0 personal learning environments (PLEs): Considering the impact of self-regulation and digital literacy

Education and Information Technologies - Web 2.0 Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) have been proposed as a new method to promote the use of Web 2.0 tools for learner-centered personal learning....     

From “Who I Want to Be” to “Whom I Am” A Review of the Empirical Research on Motivation and Identity of L2 Learners

This paper synthesizes and evaluates the empirical studies on the relationship between motivation and identity construction of L2 learners in the process of SLA.It begins with the explorations of the definitions of identity and then its relevant research in the field of SLA.After that,the article explores the empirical studies from perspectives of both within and outside China Mainland.Based on comparison and contrast,some implications on both future research and instructions are offered.     

Making the connection: Examining the relationship between undergraduate students’ digital literacy and academic success in an English medium instruction (EMI) university

The transition through the first year of university study is challenging for the majority of students. For students from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds, commencing studies in an English-Medium Instruction (EMI) university program presents a number of specific challenges. These students are faced with meeting both language demands as well as learning expectations of the institution, which often differ markedly from their previous formal learning experiences. Developing CALD students’ digital literacy practices has been shown to lead to improved academic performance, success and retention in some higher education settings. This paper focuses on the digital literacy practices of undergraduates at a national public university in a Gulf State. Results from a survey and focus groups are analysed to identify the students’ access to and use of digital technologies, in order to better understand how their academic success can be enhanced through digital literacy development. The study identifies a disconnect between students’ perceptions of their digital capabilities and the institutional requirements for study. The research recommends that providing integrated, institution-wide digital literacy development focused on accessing, assessing and incorporating online resources in their work, will help improve transitioning CALD students’ preparedness for undergraduate study in this and other EMI universities.

     

“I Want to Feel That I Live in China”: Imaginaries and Hospitality in International Students’ (mis-)Encounters at a Top Chinese University

Research on international students’ experiences abroad has tended to rely on models of adjustment, integration and/or acculturation to describe their (mis-)encounters with different kinds of people (e.g., co-nationals, locals and other international students). This paper proposes to use the more fluid concepts of imaginaries and hospitality, leaving behind stages and phases of adaption and acculturation, and focusing on the influence of the Structure on their experiences. Based on a discursive pragmatic analysis of interview data with 20 international students at a top Chinese university, the authors review how the students describe the kind of hospitality experienced at this institution and the influence that it has on their (mis-)encounters. Culturalist, differentialist and essentialist imaginaries (static and fixed views of Chineseness) are often used to justify the lack of encounters and the “segregation” and somewhat “positive discrimination” that they experienced. However, the paper shows that, amongst others, the institutional hospitality management for international students leads to closed contexts of encounters and feelings of exclusion. Although the study serves as a case study and cannot be generalized to the many and varied experiences of international students in other universities in China, some recommendations are made to solve, at least in part, misconceptions about what interculturality and hospitality entail in the internationalization of higher education.     

Labour market intermediaries: a corrective to the human capital paradigm (mis)matching skills and jobs?

The orthodox supply-side human capital theory (HCT) paradigm is inadequate for understanding and adjusting to labour market volatility in UK regional economies like Wales. This article explores the role of regional labour market intermediaries (LMIs) in matching supply (skills) and demand (job opportunities) in regional labour markets. Some LMIs emerge because the HCT paradigm is failing. One Welsh LMI, Shaping the Future (StF), is explored empirically using qualitative methods. StF mainly adopted HCT tenets, but with some emergent demand-side focus. Despite helping workers adjust to labour market shocks, LMIs are not equipped to fix the structural demand-side problem of finite quality job opportunities in deindustrialized regions that accentuate skill use. A broader ‘skill eco-system’ paradigm is required, emphasising the foundational economy.     

“Yes …, But I Was Drunk”: Alcohol References and the (Re)Production of Masculinity on a College Campus

In residence halls on college campuses, one may hear a (male) student say, “Yes I did vandalize the wall, but I was drunk,” or “I ‘had a few’ before I kissed that ‘butter face’.” Researchers and university administrators could point to these as examples consistent with the problems of student drinking. They could also read these utterances as problematic performances of masculinity. Both groups would be correct. Ethnographers would seek to understand the underlying patterns of these statements, and ethnomethodologists the usefulness of these statements for actors in situ. This ethnography reports the findings of a study of student ways of speaking on a residential college campus. Data show that students’ patterned ways of speaking, especially when making references to drinking, mitigate problematic student behaviors, such as urinating in a corridor of a residence hall. Although such mitigating statements are, at times, by themselves problematic, they (re)produce a much more troubling masculinity.     

“I Want to Do Things With Languages”: A Male Karenni Refugee’s Reconstructing Multilingual Capital

This article discusses how a male Karenni refugee in the United States has constructed multilingual capital along the way of his multiple movements across national borders. As a member of an ethnic minority group in three different countries (Burma, Thailand, and the United States), he has invested in learning multiple languages throughout the movements. Based on a two-year ethnographic study on the participant’s multilingual practices, I argue that being multilingual is a fundamental part of his transnational identities, economic security, and agentive acts. His roles outside formal classroom settings as a language broker, refugee, and an ESL tutor have been shaped by a continuum, or horizontal relationship of languages. The study suggests the inclusion of adult students’ transnational identity and multilingual practices outside a language classroom. In addition, a career that requires multilingual skills and transnational knowledge should be encouraged and created for newcomers.     

Beginning teachers' conceptual understandings of effective history teaching: examining the change from “subject knowers” to “subject teachers”

This article reports the investigation of change in preservice teachers' conceptions of effective history teaching across a secondary history methods course in a postgraduate diploma of education program. Using concept mapping to plot shifts in their expressed reflections, data were obtained that indicate personal constructs of effective history teaching based around participants' map structures, curriculum understandings, knowledge of subject matter, knowledge of learners, knowledge of pedagogies, and pedagogical content knowledge. The purpose of this article is twofold: to present the findings of research exploring the growth in conceptual understandings of early career history teachers promoted through the use of concept maps, and to discuss the participants' response to tangible opportunities to reflect on their own conceptual understandings of history teaching.     

“I am in a constant struggle:” The challenges of providing instruction to incarcerated youth in southern California

This paper examines the challenges of mandatory educational instruction in the California correction system. Current scholarship on youth education in incarceration focuses on the challenges faced by youth and teachers. Our study adds to this scholarship by demonstrating that the context of teaching in centers of incarceration, specifically center of incarceration that have adopted a wraparound service strategy, prevents teachers from disentangling their teaching practices from practices of managing and disciplining youth who are in incarceration. Using semi-structured interviews, we interviewed 15 teachers who work in four juvenile detention facilities in Southern California. We found three primary challenges: one, low level of education; two, the emotional labor required of teachers; three, negotiating the interactions with administrators, correctional officers, and other on-site personnel. Thus, our findings demonstrate that the three challenges highlighted macro-institutional barriers which individual teacher and students are able to navigate but are unable to fundamentally change.     

“I Just Want to Be Myself”: Adolescents With Disabilities Who Identify as a Sexual or Gender Minority

Abstract

Adolescents with disabilities who identify as a sexual or gender minority are at high risk for negative school experiences and poor outcomes, including peer rejection, bullying, and dropping out. Using an intersectionality framework, this study examined how multiple marginalized identities influence sense of self and school experience for this population. Findings reveal a complex picture of lived experiences and support the need for important changes in school practices.     

“Racism just isn't an issue anymore”: Preservice teachers' resistances to the intersections of sexuality and race

Through year-long focus group interviews with members of a secondary English Education cohort this paper considers both 1) participants' understandings of sexuality and race and 2) how participants' understandings of sexuality and race shaped their interactions with one another. Themes established through data analysis suggested that 1) participants maintained positioned racism as an historical issue that contrasted with the contemporaneity of LGBTQ issues; 2) participants resisted intersecting race and sexuality; 3) participants silenced Andy, the only queer student of color, when she argued for the intersectionality of race and sexuality.     

“Tjaa,I Do Have Ears,But I Do Not Hear”: New Literacy Studies and the Awakening of a Hearing Teacher

To address the low literacy achievement of minority students, the sociocultural movement of the New Literacy Studies (NLS) encourages us to expand on current understandings of literacy. Instead of thinking of literacy as a neutral set of skills transferable from one setting to another, NLS researchers encourage us to contextualize literacy within individuals’ social and cultural realms. In this view, there are multiple literacies. As a literacy teacher of students who are deaf, I have witnessed students struggling with school-based literacy learning. As I began to examine what I was doing within the classroom, I realized that my assumptions about literacy instruction were the main source of students' struggles. In this study I explore how I used the theoretical perspective of the NLS to expand my understanding of literacy. The findings suggest that, in order to base literacy instruction on students' resources, teachers need to learn to negotiate conflicting educational Discourses on reading and writing, to create a space within the classroom for students to bring in their literacy practices, and to recognize and preserve students' agency and identity in their learning. Findings also indicate the vital role of writing in deaf students' learning of Icelandic.     

“Women and the environmental are together”: using Participatory Rural Appraisal to examine gendered tensions about the environment

Environmental education research (EER) rarely includes women’s perspectives. This means that in environmental education research, an entire knowledge source is largely ignored. This study employed a methodology called Participatory Rural Appraisal, a methodology new to the field of EER, of Kenyan teachers from the Maasai Mara region to understand the tensions around environmental views. The purpose of this work was to examine, through the use of a participatory methodology, the conceptions of the environmental of these teachers and to uncover gendered tensions. The analysis included a continuous, thematic review that included the participants during the analysis. The findings included the following themes: Why are people doing what they are doing? Who is or is not acting? How do we move forward? This research documented gendered tensions such as the burdens of responsibility, the power imbalance disadvantaged women feel regarding solving environmental issues, and the blame that is directed at both men and women as a result of these burdens and power imbalances. This methodology provided a way for participants to understand each other’s viewpoints in layered ways, and pointed to gender issues throughout that sometimes caused blame. However, it also helped the participants think about how to work together.