L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature
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Co-elaboration of meaning in peer-led literature circles in secondary school: The interplay between reading modes, quality of talk, and collaboration modes.
Get PDFThis study investigated the interplay between reading and social variables in peer-led literature circles at seventh grade school level, wherein students read a novel by themselves and discuss it without any teacher assistance. Specifically, this in-depth study of one classroom activity sought to answer the five following questions: 1) In what proportions do students use and vary the different reading modes in this type of peer-led literature circle? 2) To what extent do they elaborate their talk? 3) To what relative degree do they use different modes of collaboration and types of interaction? 4) Are there any linkages among these several variables? 5) Are there differences between the two regular and two “fast track” groups? The 20 participants (4 peer-led groups) belonged to a multiethnic school in a middle-class, urban environment in Canada. Quantitative and qualitative content analysis methods have been used to analyze transcripts of the discussions. Results show that in this type of peer-led group: 1) The literal reading mode is dominant; 2) by contrast, when students adopt an aesthetic or a textual mode of reading, the quality of their talk tends to be superior; 3) modes of collaboration centred on feedback and management greatly support this type of shared interpretation; 4) a microanalysis of excellent episodes would seem to demonstrate that fast-track groups adopt a more divergent means of co-elaborating meaning. Future research should better examine the many intellectual tools that are required to support peer scaffolding in this specific mode of peer-led discussion
Culture, language, knowledge about nature and naturally occurring events, and science literacy for all: She says, he says, they say
Get PDFPauline Chinn and Brian Hand, both well-established science educators interested in the role that language plays in doing and learning science but with distinctly different stances, provide a glimpse into an ongoing conversation and deliberation over 18 months about what does it mean to come to know in science and how does this concept of science translate into pedagogical practices. Larry Yore moderates and promotes these conversations and deliberations to help identify intersections and shared understandings and to contrast areas of differences and disagreements. These professional reflections on their critical thinking and fundamental assumptions about culture, language, and knowledge about nature and naturally occurring events demonstrate the necessary and essential processes required to move the science literacy for all agenda forward. They share their fundamental stances and perspective about sociopolitical issues, postcolonial stances, science, and schooling without being sidetracked from their purpose to inform and increase awareness about the critical issues in science literacy for all. Their conversations and insights may well be equally informative and empowering to students from majority and minority cultures, since all learners appear to be second language learners when it comes to science language, linguistic devices, and discourse patterns
Community and classroom contexts for understanding nature and naturally occurring events in rural schools in Mexico: Community and classroom contexts for understanding nature and naturally occurring events in rural schools in Mexico
No full textIn this study, we develop a portrait of how teachers in two, rural Mexican, multi-age classrooms (grades 1-6) deliberately situate science instruction within the local community and teach social discourse practices to mediate their students’ transitions between science, school, and community settings. One important means of social mediation was the teachers’ commitment to constructing authentic contexts for instruction. In addition, both teachers facilitated the learning of three sets of social discourse practices that are integral to science teaching and learning: responsibility and autonomy, cross-age interaction and collaboration, and public performance. The social discourse practices that we observed in these classrooms can be seen as potential foundations for engaging in culturally responsive, inquiry-based, science instruction grounded in the ways of learning science that many Mexican immigrant students are likely to have encountered
Disciplines, language activities, cultures: Perspectives on teaching and learning in higher education from France and the United States (Introduction)
Get PDFThis issue offers a preliminary yet in-depth introduction to research about the teaching and learning of literate activity across the disciplines in higher education in France and the United States: its academic values, educational principles, and genres. The contributing authors represent the forefront of research in each culture; the contributions identify history and evolution, current frames and questions, and a glossary of relevant terms. The issue thus foregrounds convergences across the cultures in terms of the rejection of a “transmission” model of literate activity and a symbiosis between language and disciplinary content. It foregrounds divergences in terms of theoretical frames, disciplines informing the research, and degree of attention paid specifically to higher education. The contributions lay out valuable future research paths
\u27Coming to know\u27: Weaving Aboriginal and Western science knowledge, language, and literacy into the science classroom
No full textFollowing the work of contemporary thinkers, we propose that every culture has its own science and that both indigenous and western science knowledge systems are valuable and have been useful to the cultures developing them. Because a valid interpretation of scientific literacy must be consistent with a prevailing image of science and rapid changes taking place in society, we propose more inclusive definitions and metaphors of science literacy. Science literacy for Aboriginal people must reflect a broad cultural approach that recognizes the unique way Aboriginal people live and present their experience and knowledge. Literacy programs from an Aboriginal perspective must go beyond reading, writing, and numeracy to include oracy – stories, songs, dances, symbols, ceremonies. Science literacy from an Aboriginal perspective involves being knowledgeable about the extensive examples and applications of Aboriginal science knowledge, as well as western science knowledge, and science discourse about the nature of science. Literacy also includes the wisdom component of Aboriginal science, which brings the discussion of values and ethics to science and technology and requires sustaining both community and environment. Aboriginal languages serve as storehouses of experience and perspectives that help maintain cultural identity, resist assimilation, and interpret the relationship between society and environment
Poetry reading and writing: Enhancing literacy in less proficient readers of five to eight years
Get PDFThis article sets out to demonstrate the possible links between poetry and the acquisition of literacy skills, especially in less proficient learners. First we examine poetic and psychological theory to show how poetry responds to both requirements of learning to read: becoming other and connecting with the function of language by adopting a semi-objective position. Lacking somewhat in support from the official programmes in France, we have tried to collect data from expert and less-expert teachers as well as from children in difficulty, and to relate this to the reality of students’ oral or written poetic compositions, which are far richer than they might appear. The first comparisons are encouraging, despite the fact that poetic didactics is, to a large extent, neglected in this country
Language, culture, ontological assumptions, epistemological beliefs, and knowledge about nature and naturally occurring events: Southern African perspective
Get PDFAfrican students enter the classroom with a rich heritage of traditional beliefs that, if handled sensitively and with understanding, can play an important role in enabling learning of science. Recent developments in the understanding of how students acquire this knowledge may assist in promoting this process. This paper investigates studies situated within the worldview theory that examine the learning of science concepts within a Southern African sociocultural environment by looking at (a) the problems and solutions for students in such settings when they learn through a medium of instruction (L2 and L3) that is different from their first language (L1), (b) the nature of the worldview presuppositions held by African students on selected natural phenomena, and (c) the nature of cognitive border crossing exhibited by students from a Southern African traditional worldview to a western scientific worldview that forms the basis of a Cognitive Border Crossing Learning Model (CBCLM). Two important issues are explored in relation to the language issue: using a discourse-based model to show how accessing either spoken or written mixed discourse may facilitate learners’ comprehension of scientific discourse and allow a teacher to assist in its production, and how code switching is a useful strategy to assist border crossing in the science classroom. The CBCLM is presented as a feasible way of describing how, when, and in what contexts a student shifts from one worldview to another during the learning process
Science literacy for all: Influences of culture, language, and knowledge about nature and naturally occurring events
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Trends in American research on college composition, 1960-2005
Get PDFAny overview of the topic of American Research on College Composition for the forty-five year period 1960-2005 is bound to be at a high level of generality and not comprehensive. What follows is a quick guide to some of the main themes that animated this era of composition research, with particular emphasis on the gap between college professors in newly-formed and rapidly growing composition programs who focused upon college-level writers, and more traditional researchers based in colleges of education who focused upon primary and secondary school students. As my survey will show, these two groups of researchers once talked to each other, but over forty-five years gradually drew apart, much to their mutual loss. The college professors of composition studies have tended to conduct qualitative research, while scholars in colleges of education have tended to conduct quantitative research. In one sense, then, my survey is of a loss of coherence, a parting of the ways in which two rich traditions of research flourished but inevitably grew apart