Children's discourse patterns and power relations in teacher‐led and child‐led sharing time

This study investigates children's language and interaction patterns during sharing time in a first grade classroom. When sharing time shifted from a teacher‐led to a child‐led event, corresponding changes appeared in children's language, including in discourse routines, style, content, and frequency of verbal interactions. In child‐led formats, peer culture flourished. Several linguistic routines were developed and used by children as a means of social control, as an agent for group bonding, and as expressions of care and concern. Two different child‐led formats revealed how the event's structure regulated participation and length of turn during sharing sessions. We suggest that teachers create speech situations that children are allowed to control. Such occasions encourage children's language development, learning through language, and the kind of collaboration essential for growth of peer culture.     

Hypertext and collaboration: Observations on Edward Barrett's philosophy

In a departure from the view that characterizes hypertext as a new writing paradigm based on old associationist ideas, Edward Barrett has proposed a model for hypertext that rejects cognitive and associationist language as both unnecessary and inaccurate. In this view, knowledge, reality, and even facts are community generated, “linguistic entities,” and hypertext supports the “social interface” rather than the “deep structure” of thought. This essay considers some of the premises of Barrett's proposal. A central issue is the rejection of the “authorial imperative” of structured information in favor of a view of writing as an open‐ended ever‐changing conversation in which readers and writers collaborate to discover—or generate—reality.     

An Investigation of the Language Demands in Content Assessments for English Language Learners

The purpose of the present study is to examine the language characteristics of a few states' large-scale assessments of mathematics and science and investigate whether the language demands of the items are associated with the degree of differential item functioning (DIF) for English language learner (ELL) students. A total of 542 items from 11 assessments at Grades 4, 5, 7, and 8 from three states were rated for the linguistic complexity based on a developed linguistic coding scheme. The linguistic ratings were compared to each item's DIF statistics. The results yielded a stronger association between the linguistic rating and DIF statistics for ELL students in the “relatively easy” items than in the “not easy” items. Particularly, general academic vocabulary and the amount of language in an item were found to have the strongest association with the degrees of DIF, particularly for ELL students with low English language proficiency. Furthermore, the items were grouped into four bundles to closely look at the relationship between the varying degrees of language demands and ELL students' performance. Differential bundling functioning (DBF) results indicated that the exhibited DBF was more substantial as the language demands increased. By disentangling linguistic difficulty from content difficulty, the results of the study provide strong evidence of the impact of linguistic complexity on ELL students' performance on tests. The study discusses the implications for the validation of the tests and instructions for ELL students.     

“Areas of Instruction”—A Tool for Assessing the Quality of Instructional Situations

A model for analysing the nature of the dyadic teacher–student interplay in instructional situations including one teacher and one student is described. The “teacher” may be a regular teacher, a parent, or any other person who is in the position of teacher. The “student” may be a student of any age. The model may discern (a) if the teacher merely asks for information preknown to the teacher and the teacher evaluates the student's answer according to the teacher's preknowledge, (b) if the teacher asks for information preknown to the teacher, the teacher then scaffolds the student's learning by giving clues to the correct answer and then evaluates the answer according to the teacher's preknowledge, or (c) the teacher asks for information not preknown to her/him and the teacher is genuinely interested in the student's answer. This last scenario (c) is thought to give optimal conditions for cognitive development for the student.     

What is the purpose of this experiment? Or can students learn something from doing experiments?

Historically there have been many claims made about the value of laboratory work in schools, yet research shows that it often achieves little meaningful learning by students. One reason, among many, for this failing is that students often do not know the “purposes” for these tasks. By purposes we mean the intentions the teacher has for the activity when she/he decides to use it with a particular class at a particular time. This we contrast with the “aims” of a laboratory activity, the often quite formalised statements about the intended endpoint of the activity that are too often the “opening lines” of a student laboratory report and are simply the “expected” specific science content knowledge outcomes—not necessarily learnt nor understood. This paper describes a unit of laboratory work which was unusual in that the teacher's purpose was to develop students' understanding about the way scientific facts are established with little expectation that they would understand the science content involved in the experiments. The unit was very successful from both a cognitive and affective perspective. An important feature was the way in which students gradually came to understand the teacher's purpose as they proceeded through the unit. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 655–675, 2000     

Multilingualism in democratic South Africa: the over-estimation of language policy

The article focuses on the increasing mismatch between South Africa's stated official policy on language and its gradually evolving linguistic realities. Whereas the country's institutional documents (the Constitution and the national policies being developed) proclaim linguistic pluralism to be the national objective the country seems to be regressing to its pre-apartheid situation of monolingual practice—a situation of “English only”. This phenomenon is illustrated with reference to language-in-education, particularly the issues of language of learning and teaching (“medium of instruction”), language study and language and certification. The article then debates three possible reasons for the inability of the Government of the country to take positive steps towards policy implementation, concluding with the view that language planning is not enough, and that the lack of a meaningful political will in the political (and educational) leadership of the country is the chief obstacle to giving substance to multilingualism in South Africa.     

Understanding higher education-based teacher educators’ identities in Hong Kong: a sociocultural linguistic perspective

While teacher educator identities have received increasing attention over the past decade, there is a lack of research on teacher educators’ professional identities in the complex and shifting higher education contexts. Informed by the sociocultural linguistic perspective, this study investigates two language teacher educators’ professional identities in Hong Kong universities. The findings show that the participants discursively constructed their identities, such as “accidental teacher educator,” “teacher educator-researcher,” “struggling researcher,” “teacher of teachers,” and “inactive researcher” in their professional work. By drawing on the three interrelated processes of identity formation (i.e. adequation/distinction, authentication/denaturalisation, and authorisation/illegitimation), the study adds to our knowledge of the complex and contested nature of teacher educator identity in relation to the ongoing restructuring and reform in higher education. The study concludes with some implications for teacher education and higher education.     

Unifying cognition,emotion, and activity in language teacher professional development

Emotions in the learning-to-teach experience are often ignored or downplayed by teacher educators. Using content and discourse analysis of a novice language teacher's journals, we demonstrate that the pervasive emotional content, reflecting individual teacher's perezhivanie, is a motivated, structural component of teachers' processes of cognitive development. Emotional content indexes dissonance between the ideal and reality, offering potential growth points. We apply a SCOBA of language teacher learning that unifies the dynamic, dialectical relationship among emotion, cognition, and activity, in order to orient teacher educators in mediating novice language teachers' professional development responsively.     

我国幼儿园教师教育研究学术史:70年回顾与展望

我国幼儿园教师专业发展观经历了理智取向、实践取向和精神取向的三次转变,由此带来了幼儿园教师职前教育课程从关注知能到关注实践再到关注精神的变革。随着幼儿园教师教育的深化发展,研究术语从“教师培训”改为“教师专业发展”,进而被“教师学习”所替代。这一转变凸显了幼儿园教师是自主的终身学习者,体现了幼儿园教师培训观从外铄论转向内发论,自主取向的幼儿园教师发展观得到了普遍认同。同时,这一转变还催生了个人和集体的教师文化之间的相互调适,营造合作共生、带有学习共同体特征的幼儿园教师文化生态成为共识。在方法论层面,哲学思辨范式、科学实证范式、人文诠释范式、社会批判范式等研究范式呈现出齐头并进、互取所长的横向格局,但在当前大数据和人工智能的时代背景下,同时也存在着过度推崇“基于证据”的实证研究的倾向。研究范式的多元化是幼儿园教师教育研究发展的内在要求,基于“复杂性思想”,从多元整合的视角开展研究应是未来幼儿园教师教育研究发展的重要趋势。     

Ideology and Morality in Host Language Learning: American Protestants in the Former Yugoslavia

ABSTRACT

American Protestants serving overseas must learn their host communities’ “heart” language from the twin moral imperative to minimize their burden on host partners and to embody their faith through their language practice. Language learning thus has moral consequences; not merely proficiency attainment, but faithfulness and calling are at stake. The author, a Protestant himself, conducted an ethnography of Americans serving in a Protestant organization at field sites in Bosnia and Slovenia. Two ideologies emerged from this study and were analyzed as a polycentric system exerting moral authority. These were (a) a dogmatic ideology of using the “right” language, the “national” or “heart language” corresponding to a people group, and (b) a pragmatic ideology of using “whatever” linguistic resources available to convey their gospel. These ideologies overlapped and shifted over time, with consequences for fieldworkers’ longevity, the linguistic ecology of host communities, and Christian understandings of language learning.     

Zur Theorie Und Praxis Des Gesteuerten Zweitsprachenerwerbs Im Vorschulalter

In 1968 a teacher exchange between France and some West German Länder was initiated. Experiments on teaching French as a foreign language were conducted in several German kindergartens. This paper is based on unsystematic observations of 5–6 year old children in a Munich kindergarten during 1972/73 who were taught French by a structured, direct method, controlling thematic, lexical and structural aspects. The data collected confirms the model of “meaningful concept learning” as against that of “audio-lingual habit”. Moreover, the use of the mother tongue in second language teaching is recommended as, not only does it help slow learners, but it also has a positive influence on personal and linguistic development as the experiencing of semantic universals is an important pre-condition for communication skills and long-term language learning motivation.     

荷兰莱顿大学教师发展工作运行机制探析

荷兰莱顿大学的教师发展工作,以教学研究院为核心,协同人力资源管理部与教师委员会形成了“发展对话-教师研究-活动落实-质量评估”循环作用的教师发展工作运行机制:对话学校与教师发展需求,形成教师个性化发展契约与发展共识;研究教师发展规律,在教师理论基础上指向具体学科与教学法,提高研究的实践指导价值;落实教师发展项目,严格把好大学教师资格关卡,配套个性化可选择性发展项目;评估教师发展质量,在“校内评估、校外评估和政府监督”质量监控框架下,改进教师发展工作。在扩展国际研究视野基础上,借鉴莱顿大学有效的教师发展工作运行经验,反思中国高校教师发展的工作实践,有必要在“学校与教师对话”“教师研究主题”“活动设计落实”“发展质量监控”等方面进一步精细化相关工作,从而促进高校高质量教师队伍建设,推进高等教育内涵式发展。     

Analysing argumentative writing

This article presents a framework which has proven helpful in analysing senior secondary academic writing from a linguistic and cognitive perspective, revealing a connection between those two aspects, consistent with a Vygotskian view of the development of thinking through language. It involves a close examination of linguistic and cognitive features of students' writing for features of intentional design, which are borrowed from Design Theory, namely Contingency, Complexity and Specification. Writers' means of inserting their views into their writing is also investigated. The framework is given at the end of the article and annotations for its application and several illustrations are given in the body of the article. Its use is intended to assist teachers in identifying, very specifically, which particular aspects of a student's writing need attention.     

The art of redirection

Joey and Mary, along with three other children and the teacher, are seated at one of several tables having their snack. Mary's plate has no crackers. Giggling, Mary begins poking at Joey's plate, which still has crackers, as if she intends to snatch one. The teacher asks, “Mary, would you like more crackers?” Mary continues the poking action during the interchange and responds, “Yes.” The teacher directs Mary, saying, “Get a package of crackers from the supply table and see if other tables need additional crackers. If you would like more, then get three crackers for yourself”.     

“I've got to do this in a Southern”: Stylized spoken literary quotation in the ELA classroom

This article investigates whole‐class discussions of literature in the English classroom and the pragmatics of teacher interpretation in and through the voices of characters. In particular, it focuses on the whole‐class oral reading and discussion of the Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire in an ethnically and linguistically diverse rural Canadian classroom, and the teacher's stylized “Southern” oral performances of significant characters as part of her responses to student answers in whole‐class talk. Using extensive audio data from a 12th‐grade English class and drawing from the analytic tools of the linguistic anthropology of education, this article raises questions of the potential functions of stylized characters' voices in literary critical talk. This research contributes to ongoing conversations regarding the pragmatics of voicing, stylization, and the intersections of teacher talk and literacy learning in classroom discourse, with specific attention to the pedagogic work of enregistering bundles of linguistic features with particular teacher‐driven interpretive perspectives on literary characters.     

An Assessment of Pronouns as Linguistic Cues for Predicting Work Attitudes

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (Reich, 1993) proposed that the pronouns employees use to describe their organization reveal information about their levels of engagement and affective commitment at work. In particular, he predicted that employees who describe their organization using the pronoun “we” are more engaged and committed than those who use the pronoun “they” in describing their organization. Reich's proposal has intuitive appeal and has been repeated in popular press accounts, but the accuracy of his prediction has not been empirically evaluated. In this article, we systematically examine the “Reich test” and find that the gender of the respondent is an important boundary condition to Reich's prediction. That is, our findings suggest that use of the pronoun “we” may serve as a predictor of work engagement and affective commitment for men, but not for women. We discuss the implications of these findings and the promise of exploring employees' linguistic indicators to understand social, affective, and cognitive psychological processes.     

论日本保育思想的形成、发展及其现状

近代以来,日本的保育事业逐步发展,保育思想也不断发展。今天其《幼儿园教育要领》和《保育所保育指针》的基本思想,就是重视孩子自身的各种感受,重视孩子的嬉戏和生活体验。从"健康"、"人际关系"、"环境"、"语言"和"表现"五个领域规定了比较具体的目标和内容,以确保孩子在各个方面都能够"体验"、"感受"和"享受"各种各样的事情。嬉戏作为孩子的自发的活动,是培养其身心协调发展的基础的重要的学习。日本学前教育机构的工作就是从五个领域指导孩子通过嬉戏和生活体验逐步形成生存的基础,逐步为生存能力的形成奠定基础。     

第二语言习得与双语教育最佳时机研究述评

对于儿童第二语言习得的关键期学术界尚未有定论,一般认为2岁至青春期前后特别是学前阶段是儿童学习第二语言的最佳时机。随着脑科学的发展以及对儿童认知发展规律的进一步认识,越来越多的实验研究表明在儿童早期阶段学习两种语言存在着明显的优势,更有利于儿童的语言、认知、智力、心理能力等方面的发展。在实施双语教育的地区,第二语言学习与双语教育要抓住最佳时机,家庭环境要尽早支持幼儿自然习得双语,正规学校系统要在学前阶段尽早开展双语教育。     

Language as “soft power” in bilateral relations: the case of Indonesian language in Australia

Since Joseph Nye introduced the concept of “Soft power” in his 1991 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, analysts have discussed states' efforts to exercise their influence by attracting and co-opting rather than coercing or using force. This paper will examine enrolments trends in Indonesian language in Australian universities, in the context of Indonesia's public diplomacy and Australian government educational policy. Enrolment data and trend analysis updates the 2012 National Report on Indonesian in Australian Universities: Strategies for a stronger future. Then, using statistics provided by a recent Newspoll commissioned by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the article explores Australian attitudes to Indonesia in the context of Indonesia's limited linguistic “soft power”. It concludes that the fluctuations in Indonesian language learning in Australia and Australian attitudes to Indonesia generally appear more influenced by Australian government policy than any conscious efforts by Indonesia to exercise “soft power”. It concludes that it is to the advantage of both countries that Indonesian language learning be better promoted and supported.     

莫言小说《蛙》的“前景化”偏离策略

"前景化"修辞是莫言小说的一大特色。"前景化"是指通过变异将所要表达的语言从常规背景中"突出"出来,包括"偏离"和"平行"两种手段,"偏离"即打破语言规范,集中表现在对语义、语法常规的反叛。同时莫言具有很强的感觉意识,极力追求语言上的超验感知,善于结合语境制造出新奇陌生的感觉描写。笔者从"偏离"手段出发,探讨莫言代表作之一《蛙》词语层面与视听感觉描写层面的"偏离"及其"前景化"修辞效果。