Unfolding lives in digital worlds: digikid teachers revisited

In this paper, I describe ongoing research exploring ways in which young teachers’ digital lives unfold inside and outside classrooms. I first interviewed teachers in 2006, and identified three different routes into digital worlds: serious solitary self‐taught, serious solitary school‐taught and playful social. A number of teachers agreed to be interviewed again in 2010. I outline ways in which I compare and contrast interviews over time, using analytic markers developed in ‘Inventing Adulthoods’, a Qualitative Longitudinal Research project. I also describe ways in which I set my analysis in Adam's concepts of time: ‘biographical time, generational time and historical time’. Case studies are outlined of three teachers, one serious solitary and two playful social. All three were language coordinators in 2006, and already experienced, innovative teachers of literacy. I argue that in 2010, the serious solitary teacher is able to bring new competences to the classroom, but fitting existing ways of teaching. In contrast, the playful social teachers bring new ways of knowing about digital worlds into classrooms, but these new ways are realised only if competences are recognised, communities are supportive and traditional ways of knowing about teaching and the curriculum do not block new ways of thinking.     

Incorporating creativity into teachers practice and self-concept of professional identity

The study explores what happens to teachers practice and professional identity when they adopt a collaborative action research approach to teaching and involve external creative partners and a university mentor. The teachers aim to nurture and develop the creative potential of their learners through empowering them to make decisions for themselves about their own progress and learning directions. The teachers worked creatively and collaboratively designing creative teaching and learning methods in support of pupils with language and communication difficulties. The respondents are from an English special school, primary school and girls secondary school. A mixed methods methodology is adopted. Gains in teacher confidence and capability were identified in addition to shifts in values that impacted directly on their self-concept of what it is to be an effective teacher promoting effective learning. The development of their professional identities within a team ethos included them being able to make decisions about learning that are based on the educational potential of learners that they proved resulted in elevated standards achieved by this group of learners. They were able to justify their actions on established educational principles. Tensions however were revealed between what they perceived as their normal required professionalism imposed by external agencies and the enhanced professionalism experienced working through the project where they were able to integrate theory and practice.     

Creating contexts for talk: the influence of school-based creative arts projects on children's language

This article draws on data from two recent research studies of children's language and literacy development in the context of their work in school‐based creative arts projects. Using observations of children (ages 3 to 11) and teachers at work, the article examines the ways in which the activities in such projects open up opportunities for children to talk with each other and with adults by generating a ‘workshop’ atmosphere. Children's authentic and wide‐ranging talk in creative arts projects encompasses personal, social, imaginary and real‐world themes which, we argue, is rare in other curriculum contexts. As schools are encouraged to develop ‘creative partnerships’ with artists and arts organisations, the article highlights the role of the teacher in observing and promoting these experiences as occasions for children's language development.     

谈高职英语专业学生英语演讲能力的培养

社会经济发展越来越要求高职英语专业学生拥有良好的英语演讲能力。培养高职英语专业学生的英语演讲能力,应充分利用课堂教学阵地和校园文化平台,从提高英语语言水平、强化演讲心理素质、增强创新思辨能力三个方面着手。     

初中学生生活作文导写研究

初中作文教学应立足于学生的生活实际。生活作文的基本概念是通过以学生生活世界为对象的写作,在培养学生语言表达能力同时,在作文活动中,促进学生主体的人格形成。学生生活作文导写是运用作文表达方法而展开的教学活动,其本身就是一种作文教学法。学生作文导写包括:引导学生写好校园生活、家庭生活、社会生活,写好学生的个性成长。学生生活作文导写是基于《初中语文课程标准》的基础上,以新课程的教学目标、教学内容依据的作文教学创新。     

Ecologies of Heritage Language Learning in a Multilingual Swedish School

The field of heritage language (HL) education is a rapidly growing area of educational linguistics research and pedagogy. While considerable research has looked at identity in relation to HL learning in adolescents and adults, this article focuses on the identities and language attitudes of young HL learners of Arabic and Somali at an elementary school in Sweden. Analyzed through an ecology of language framework, data reveal that students regard HL as a tool to foster belonging within their multilingual communities, and resist pressures to assimilate within the context of immigration. Findings also suggest that learners’ agency and language use influenced classroom pedagogies, and indicate the promise of a dynamic conception of HL education that affirms the creative use of language to support students’ linguistic and cognitive growth. This article fills a gap in theory and pedagogy, addressing the role of HL learning for the learner, the family, and the local and global community.     

顺应理论视角下的英语导游词创作

从顺应角度出发,指出英语导游词的创作过程是一个基于语言内部和语言外部的原因,在不同的意识程度指导下不断做出语言选择的过程;通过分析顺应理论及英语导游词的创作特点,在创作英语导游词时需要顺应不同的旅游者、交际的物理语境、社交语境以及旅游者的心理语境。     

Approaching methodology creatively: problematizing elite schools’ ‘best practice’ through a film about perfection and imperfection

Elite schools around the world aspire to produce perfect students and yet there are always obstacles to this perfection being achieved. In this paper, we suggest that this process of perfectionism and obstruction can best be understood using a methodology that looks to the creative arts, rather than the usual social science orthodoxies. Our focus in this paper is therefore not on methodology as a technique, but rather methodology as a resource for thought. Using Lars Von Trier’s film The Five Obstructions as a point of departure, we suggest that the quest for perfect students, or indeed perfect humans, is one that ignores the inherent obstacles that block pathways to perceived perfection. Our research draws on ethnographic fieldwork from six elite secondary schools in Argentina, Australia, Barbados, England, Hong Kong, and South Africa. We posit a creative methodology permits a coming to terms with the abstractions required when analyzing and interpreting large amounts of data from a multi-sited ethnographic study. This approach makes it feasible to draw some conclusions about a common characteristic – perfectionism – among elite schools around the globe.     

Talking about science: An interpretation of the effects of teacher talk in a high school science classroom

This paper builds on research in science education, secondary education, and sociolinguistics by arguing that high school classrooms can be considered speech communities in which language may be selectively used and imposed on students as a means of fostering academic speech community identification. To demonstrate the ways in which a high school teacher's language use may encourage subject area identification, the results of an interactionist analysis of data from a 2-year ethnographic study of one high school chemistry classroom are presented. Findings indicate that this teacher's uses of language fell into three related categories. These uses of language served to foster identification with the academic speech community of science. As a result of the teacher's talk about science according to these three patterns, students developed or reinforced particular views of science. In addition, talking about science in ways that fostered identity with the discipline promoted the teacher as expert and built classroom solidarity or community. These results are discussed in light of sociolinguistic research on classroom competence and of the assertions of science educators regarding social and ideologic implications of language use in science instruction.     

Ethnographic approach to second life in education: a focus on technological difficulties

This paper moves from the data collected during an ethnographic research conducted in Second Life, which focuses on the observation of different technological difficulties in educational experiences. The main research interests focused on the social dynamics of educational experiences in Second Life and the opportunity to develop a proper research methodology. The main goal is to evaluate the educational experience in such a particular context through the stories of participants; therefore, the most appropriate methodology for researching the subject has been considered to be ethnography. As result of the research, it is observed that an appropriate use of the available tools and the adoption of innovative teaching strategies can promote the improvement of the educational experience in online worlds. This paper suggests interesting elements from the analysis of the data collected, which may help to adopt an innovative point of view on ethnographic research in an online world in education.     

Challenging the knowledge‐transfer orthodoxy: Knowledge co‐construction in technology‐enhanced learning for children with autism

Experimental intervention studies constitute the current dominant research designs in the autism education field. Such designs are based on a ‘knowledge‐transfer’ model of evidence‐based practice in which research is conducted by researchers, and is then ‘transferred’ to practitioners to enable them to implement evidence‐based interventions. While these research designs contribute important knowledge, they lead to a gap between what the research evidence may prescribe and what happens in practice, with a concomitant disparity between the priorities of researchers and practitioners. This paper discusses findings from the ESRC‐funded ‘SHAPE’ project, which adopted a different model of evidence‐based practice, focusing on knowledge co‐construction. Pupils (N = 8), teachers (N = 10), a speech and language therapist and a parent in three different school communities investigated creative ways in which children's social communication skills could be enhanced through technology use. Through a participatory methodology, digital stories were used as a method to enable engagement with the practical realities of the classroom and empower practitioners to construct and share their own authentic narratives. Participants articulated precise knowledge about the learning opportunities afforded to them and their pupils through quality interactions that were mediated by the technologies, as evidenced through digital stories. The SHAPE project shows that it is feasible to develop methodologies that enable genuine knowledge co‐construction with school practitioners, parents and pupils. Such co‐construction could offer realistic opportunities for pedagogical emancipation and innovation in evidence‐based practice as an alternative to the currently dominant and narrow model of knowledge transfer.     

调适教科书:使用教科书的实然与应然取向之间的中庸之道

依赖教科书是全世界中小学教师在教学中都普遍存在的现象,这一取向对教师以及学生产生了诸多负面影响,但在短时间内教师很难实现根本转变。创造性使用教科书体现了新课程的理念,但在现实情境中是一种难以实现的应然取向。调适教科书是一种合理又可行的取向:教科书具有存在的价值,使用教科书具有合理性;教师使用教科书对于教师更好地实施新课程具有积极意义;调适教科书是多数中小学教师应该努力追求又可以做到的方向。     

Language play in a second language: Social media as contexts for emerging Sociopragmatic competence

The aim of this study is to gain insights into students’ language use on social media as part of the specific linguistic activities of second language (L2) learning, including development of sociopragmatic competence. Two Facebook groups were introduced in different English-as-L2 classes that were part of an international collaborative project comprising secondary schools in Colombia, Finland, Sweden and Taiwan. The study is theoretically grounded in sociocultural perspectives on learning, and the methods involve logging the students’ linguistic interactions in the social media groups. The analysis of the empirical material explored how the students framed the activities by different types of keying in their choice of linguistic repertoires. The findings show that the social media context offered a casual space for communication in which the students, by attentively attuning to the local coordinated framing, used diverse linguistic repertoires to play with the language. In instances of upkeyed framings, the language play was not only used with pragmatic intentions, but also as a means for various socializing purposes. In conclusion, it is suggested that language play on social media can be seen as a valuable activity in developing sociopragmatic competence to prepare students for L2 use outside of school.     

Promoting children’s participation: the role of teachers in preschool and primary school learning sessions

The aim of this study is to provide insights into the social construction of participation in joint activities in Finnish preschool and primary school classrooms. The article deals with two issues: How do teachers promote participation in a preschool classroom as compared with a primary school classroom? What similarities and differences are found? It also considers the question of how the similarities contribute to the continuity from preschool to primary school in terms of participation. Based on observation data insights are provided into the interactions between teachers and children by using extracts from teacher‐led learning sessions. The teachers used a diversity of strategies to promote participation in both contexts. In the preschool the focus was on participation and interaction as such, whereas in the primary school the emphasis was more clearly on academic learning. The findings suggest that teacher support of active participation and friendly relationships, together with creative and playful activities in the preschool, enrich children’s curiosity, and nourish children’s motivation for and interests in academic learning.     

委婉语的语用交际功能

委婉语是世界上各个民族都有的语言单位和语言现象,由于社会习俗的不同和生活习惯的差异,在不同的语言文化背景下,为避免在社会交际中的尴尬或不愉快,产生了诸多不同的社会禁忌语,即委婉语。文章通过一些具体的实例分析了特定的语言环境下英语委婉语的各种社会交际功能及其使用方式,从而达到成功地进行语言交际的目的。     

Playful talk: the interspace between home and school discourse

The paper reminds readers of the importance of ‘playful talk’ in bridging home and school discourses. Through a number of excerpts of bilingual and monolingual children drawn from homes and classrooms over the past decade, it illustrates how school discourse may be taken home and transformed into ‘home talk’ through play. During this transformation, children take ownership of both the language and cultural practice of the classroom. Similarly, it shows the importance of providing the interspace for children to bring home talk into classrooms during socio‐dramatic play. The paper also illustrates the role of family members, particularly siblings and grandparents, in enabling young children to construct bridges between home and school during play activities. Finally, the paper stresses the importance of teachers in recognizing children's different linguistic and cultural resources in their classroom practices and provision.     

Creative Risk‐Taking: Developing Strategies for First Year University Students in the Creative Industries

This article reports on the findings of a study investigating creative risktaking behaviours of the commencing university students enrolled in three units across three disciplines: Interactive and Visual Design, Fashion Design, and Film, Screen and Animation. The study employs an action research methodology in order to help students develop confidence and competence in creative risk‐taking. Upon analysis from relevant literature three key provisions for the study are proposed, being: P1 An open and playful learning environment that encourages sharing and challenging multiple perspectives; P2 An adequate period of time for students to develop and revise creative concepts; and P3 Opportunities to assess their own performance in developing creative risk‐taking capacities. The study draws on the students’ written self‐reflections to identify the key challenges and opportunities in encouraging creative risk‐taking among first year students, which are challenges of collaboration; creative resilience and self‐efficacy; and balancing creativity with technical competency. The article suggests several ways that educators can encourage students to take creative risks within higher education in preparation for careers in the creative industries.     

From the playful to the profound: What metaphors tell us about gifted children

Although some metaphors have lost their novelty through overuse, the unexpected quality of other metaphors appeal to creatively gifted children given their proctivity for language and imagination. The unexpected connections that comprise metaphor manifest the creative process and can give rise to innovative expressions and concepts. Creatively gifted children have an extraordinary facility with metaphor, using these expressions in ways that reveal advanced metalinguistic ability. In addition, the metaphors they create reflect a wealth of ability from profound emotional and spiritual dimensions to playful and humorous insights into the human condition.

A range of metaphors composed by children are presented and discussed in terms of what they indicate about the personal worlds, special talents, and emotional insights that are often typical of the gifted. Moreover, some of these metaphors appear to play a cathartic role for their authors whereas others seem to provide an engaging vehicle for creatively gifted children's delight in the world of language and ideas. The approach to creative writing described in this article also has the potential to assist with the identification of those with linguistic talent.