Language Use In Classroom Research Articles

Researching classroom processes of inclusion and exclusion

The aim of this paper is to discuss processes of inclusion and exclusion in compulsory classrooms where both Norwegian and Norwegian Sign Language (NSL) are used. The Norwegian Education Act 1998, section 2–6, gives deaf pupils who have acquired sign language as their first language ‘the right to tuition in the use of sign language and through the medium of sign language’. At the same time, participation in the local school is a key principle in the national policy documents for education. This introduces elements of uncertainty into classrooms where deaf pupils are educated together with hearing pupils. The paper uses data from an evaluation study of deaf education in Norway. Making use of interval observation, fieldnotes, interviews and video recordings of interactional situations, the study makes an explorative description of everyday activities in classrooms where pupils are taught according to s.2–6 of the 1998 Act. The paper analyses interactional patterns and language use in some of the observed classes, specifically, where deaf pupils are taught according to s.2–6 at local schools. Using the concepts framing and classification and internal frames, the article examines how ‘frames’ create opportunities or constraints for classroom interactions and language use and, therefore, for learning.

Second Language Acquisition for All: Understanding the Interactional Dynamics of Classrooms in Which Spanish and AAE Are Spoken

Understandings of the ways home and school languages shape classroom dynamics and influence development, identity, and subsequent school success are important for teachers of both bilingual and African American students. This article builds a link between these complementary bodies of research by analyzing interactions in a second grade mainstream classroom in which the language development of bilingual and African American children were simultaneously relevant. We focus on two qualitatively different kinds of classroom language use: when instruction was solely in English, and when Spanish became a tool for instruction. Our findings suggest that the latter language practice subsequently marginalized the participation of English monolingual students; this especially affected the African American students in the classroom, who were interactionally delegitimized as participants in bilingual interaction despite their desire to participate in both languages. This study suggests the need to ensure that multilingualism is brought into the classroom as a resource for all students. Recognizing this need, however, necessitates interdisciplinary research that crosses the fields of second language acquisition, bilingual education, and sociolinguistics. Such disciplinary boundary crossing can usefully inform teachers and researchers looking for new understandings of language learning in contemporary classrooms.

Social interaction and language use in Irish infant classrooms in the context of the revised Irish Primary School Curriculum (1999)

AbstractThis article concerns the gap between government intention and classroom outcome. The author examines the treatment of spoken language in the Revised Irish Curriculum, which came into effect in 1999. He finds much to be commended in the recognition of its central role in learning. He then examines the implementation of this curriculum with children of 5 to 6 years, in fifteen Senior Infant classrooms. Extensive observations and interviews lead him to the view that pupil talk is still seen by most of the teachers observed as a distraction from the essential business of education, namely listening, reading and writing. The interviews revealed that these teachers did not seem to understand the important role of dialogue and discussion in developing learning or recognize the need to promote sustematically opportunities for oral interactions. He concludes that educational change cannot be achieved simply by producing new curriculum statements.

A contextualised examination of target language use in the primary school foreign language classroom

AbstractThis article discusses an issue which is of longstanding and central importance to foreign language teachers in a variety of contexts, namely teacher use of classroom language. It uses detailed qualitative case study data to explore how and why an expert practitioner uses English in her Hong Kong Primary school language classroom. Through the interplay between teacher beliefs, experiences and classroom transcript data, the paper develops a contextualised picture of classroom language use with young foreign language learners. The paper suggests that it is not necessarily the language proficiency of the learners which plays a major role in the quantity of target language use, but the teachers’ own proficiency, experience and beliefs.

"This Is Active Learning": Theories of Language, Learning, and Social Relations in the Transmission of Khmer Literacy

This article examines the role language ideologies played in the changing instructional and social organization of Khmer literacy classes in Long Beach, California. Language and language use in classrooms have been carefully examined over the years, but analysis of how language attitudes influence pedagogical theory and practice has been largely neglected. This article reveals one way in which language ideologies engage with local theories of learning to shape not only pedagogies informing instruction but also social relations within classes.

Classroom Language Use in a Multilingual Community--the Indo-Fijians in Fiji 1

This paper reports on language use patterns in eight primary schools in Fiji. It looks specifically at the schism between policy and practice in vernacular language use in the classroom for Indo-Fijians, who form nearly half of Fiji's population. Forty-eight Indo-Fijian children and their teachers were observed in multi- and mono-ethnic (Indo-Fijian) schools and in city, small town and rural schools. Indo-Fijians know Fiji Hindi as their mother tongue, English as the lingua franca and official language, learn Shudh Hindi/Urdu (SH/Urdu) at school and pick up Fijian from their neighbours and friends. SH/Urdu is the educationally acceptable mother tongue for use as the 'vernacular' language of instruction in the first 3 years of primary school. Indo-Fijians have limited proficiency in this language. The study looked at how each language was used in the classroom and for which functions as well as current student proficiencies in each language.

Classroom language use in multilingual settings: Mathematics lessons from Quebec and Zimbabwe

This article is concerned with language use in mathematics lessons in settings where the language of instruction is a second language for all or most of the learners. Four lessons taken from primary schools in Montreal and in Zimbabwe are compared, illustrating ways in which teachers in each setting couple development of the target second language with teaching of subject content. By doing so, we believe that instruction is effective in helping children to make the shift from the primary school emphasis on computing numbers to the secondary level emphasis on solving problems; in the long term children are also better prepared for the language-related demands of higher education.

Critical language awareness and language use in multilingual classrooms : a social-interactionist perspective

Critical language awareness and language use in multilingual classrooms : a social-interactionist perspective

Projecting classroom language use in a group of bilingual graduates of a BATESL course

Forty‐eight graduating native Cantonese‐speaking students on a BA Honours course in Teaching English as a Second Language responded to a questionnaire about their ability in English, their use of English — including code‐switching and code‐mixing — in their daily life and their practice teaching on the course, and their view of the appropriateness of dual‐language use in the English classroom for different purposes. Responses indicate that the students are moderately confident in their English ability, with writing ability rated higher on average than speaking ability. In their language use with Cantonese‐speaking friends, the students report that they often employ mixed‐code Cantonese‐English but rarely code‐switch. Responses further indicate that this group of future English teachers, while supporting the use of English in the classroom, also believe that the mother tongue is appropriately used in the English class for both compensatory and strategic purposes.

Who's Talking How?: Language Use in Xhosa Mother-tongue Higher Primary Mathematics and Science Classrooms

Who's Talking How?: Language Use in Xhosa Mother-tongue Higher Primary Mathematics and Science Classrooms

A Sociolinguistic Perspective on Second Language Use in Immersion Classrooms

This paper cites observational and interview evidence indicating that immersion students in the U.S. and Canada increasingly avoid using their second language in peer‐peer interactions as they move into higher primary grade levels. Systematic research is called for to explore this reported phenomenon. It is suggested that the phenomenon is actually predictable if one takes a sociolinguistic perspective on immersion classrooms, viewing them as speech communities that become increasingly diglossic over time. The paper ends with a summary of discussions with immersion teachers about possible implications for teaching in immersion settings.

A Sociolinguistic Perspective on Second Language Use in Immersion Classrooms

A Sociolinguistic Perspective on Second Language Use in Immersion Classrooms

ESL versus Mainstream Classes: Contrasting L2 Learning Environments

Language minority students are often placed in mainstream, English-medium classrooms long before they develop the degree of language proficiency necessary to compete on an equal footing with native speakers of the school language. With the ever-increasing presence of such students in U.S. schools, ESL and content-area educators are working to better integrate their respective curricula and instructional roles. In order to accomplish this integration, significant instructional differences in these two contexts must be identified, and systematic comparisons must detail how L2 learners fare in each of these instructional environments. What do students lose and gain in their transition from ESL to the mainstream? This question was addressed in a 3 ½ year ethnography of the L2 learning experiences of newcomer students attending a high school in northern California. The study, which followed 4 Chinese ethnic immigrant students as they made the transition from ESL to mainstream classes, contrasted patterns of spoken and written language use in classrooms, identified significant differences in the content and goals of the ESL versus mainstream curricula, and documented language instruction and feedback in both contexts. Both contexts were also evaluated in terms of the socializing features of schooling, such as counseling and peer networks. As in many other U.S. public schools, the isolated and marginalized position of the ESL program in an institution that otherwise made no adjustment for nonnative speakers produced a makeshift system in which there was no appropriate instructional environment for learners of the school language.

Lexical Phrases and Language Teaching

Cummins, J. (1989). Empowering minority students. Sacramento: California Association of Bilingual Education. Ellis, R. (1990). Instructed second language acquisition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Faltis, C. (1990). Classroom language use and educational equity: Toward interactive pedagogy. In H. P. Baptiste, J. Anderson, J. Walker de Felix, & H. C. Waxman (Eds.), Leadership, equity, and school effectiveness (pp. 109-126). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury Press. Long, M. (1987). Native speaker/non-native speaker conversation in the second language classroom. In M. Long & J. Richards (Eds.), Methodology in TESOL (pp. 339-354). New York: Harper & Row. Scarcella, R. (1990). Teaching language minority students in the multicultural classroom. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wong Fillmore, L. (1982). Instructional language as linguistic input: Implications of research on individual differences for the ESL teacher. In L. Cherry Wilkenson (Ed.), Communicating in the classroom (pp. 283-296). New York: Academic Press.

The Sociolinguistic Environment of a Bilingual School: A Case Study Introduction

Abstract Currently, much of the literature on school reform and renewal cites the need to look at reform from the level of the school as unit. Therefore, it is necessary to study programs such as bilingual programs in the context of the larger school environment in which they exist. The larger school context can greatly impact what goes on in bilingual classrooms within the school. This study reports the results of a case study of a school that labels itself as a “bilingual school”. The study examines and describes language use in bilingual classrooms in the school and language use in the larger school environment outside of the classroom. The study asserts that if bilingual programs are to be places where children truly become bilingual and biliterate, then the environment outside of the classroom must encourage and support the use of two languages with the same enthusiasm as the environment inside bilingual classrooms. Further, each language must have the same status outside the classroom in a bilingual...

What teachers say: language use in the primary classroom

What teachers say: language use in the primary classroom

Bilingual education success, but policy failure

ABSTRACTIn 1977, a bilingual education project began in rural areas of Puno, Peru, as a direct result of Peru's 1972 Education Reform. This paper presents results of an ethnographic and sociolinguistic study comparing Quechua language use and maintenance between: 1) a bilingual education school and community, and 2) a nonbilingual education school and community. Classroom observation indicated a significant change in teacher–pupil language use and an improvement in pupil participation in the bilingual education school. Community observation and interviews indicated that community members both valued and used their language. Yet the project has had difficulties expanding or even maintaining its implementation. (Quechua; Puno, Peru; Peru; Andes; bilingual education; classroom language use; ethnography; sociolinguistics; community development; language planning; language maintenance; educational policy)

Who's Talking How?: Language Use in Xhosa Mother-tongue Higher Primary Mathematics and Science Classrooms

Who's Talking How?: Language Use in Xhosa Mother-tongue Higher Primary Mathematics and Science Classrooms