Negotiation as a criterial factor in learning to read in a second language

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Abstract Being a ‘stranger’, new to the language and culture of the classroom need not put a child at a disadvantage. In this paper, I propose that negotiation may play a key role in enabling a five year old Bangladeshi child step into reading in a new language and suggest ways in which being ‘a stranger’ might facilitate this. I argue that although we may learn much from cultural studies and studies on child and language development, their parameters do not include a focus on the special role of negotiation as a criterial factor in the reading process for young minority group children in school. I then go on to outline what negotiation in discourse might mean and the different forms it might take through data collected in a British Infant school.