L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature
Not a member yet
461 research outputs found
Sort by
Videogames and (language) education: Towards a critical post-videogaming perspective
Get PDFThere is a productive discussion concerning the use of videogames in (literacy) education, focusing on their unique pedagogic potentials and on their interconnection with contemporary developments in textual and semiotic issues. Our main aim is to extend this discussion towards a more critical post-videogaming perspective, in the sense that videogames have to be considered as part and parcel of the contemporary, complex socio-cultural and historical context. Therefore, we focus on highlighting indicative aspects of this complexity, and we adopt concepts from the field of critical sociolinguistics, such as scales, strategies, and orders of literacy. We analyze a combination of quantitative (1.185 questionnaires) and qualitative data (6 ethnographic case studies) originating from children 11-15 years old. Our analysis reveals that, although videogaming tends to be a common youth practice, the other important differences/inequalities permeating parenting strategies, school practices, and children’s literate identities remain unchanged, posing serious questions in terms of the promising educational use of videogames. We propose a historically sensitive perspective in order to connect videogames with schooling and especially L1 teaching
Teacher and student perceptions of L1-oral language lessons in Dutch secondary education
Get PDFLittle is known about contemporary L1-oral language lesson practices in secondary education. In The Netherlands experts work on an upcoming L1-educational reform. In this study, we investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions of contemporary L1-oral language lesson practices as well as the underlying rationales of these lessons. Eleven L1-teachers were interviewed and 212 of their students completed a digital questionnaire. Both teachers and their students mentioned L1-oral language education is important, even though in most cases it forms a rather small part of the L1-curriculum. In general, both groups reported that in L1-oral language lessons attention is paid to cognitive (such as rhetoric and argumentation theory), linguistic and presentational content elements. Teachers also reported that they teach their students how to use feedback and how to give constructive peer feedback. Both teachers and students considered practising and receiving feedback as mutually reinforcing for developing oral language skills. However, due to shortage of time in the lessons, teachers and students in particular, expressed concerns about having insufficient opportunity to practise oral language skills. The teachers reported two other hindrances for good L1-oral language teaching: difficulties with organizing a safe learning environment and valid assessment procedures. These barriers have to be taken into account when designing educational innovations for L1-oral language lessons
Going off the rails with Sally Jones: Promoting literary understanding in character-focused read-aloud discussions
Get PDFAlthough discussion-based approaches to literature have been researched extensively, there has been little qualitative research on read-aloud discussions focusing on specific aspects of literature. Moreover, considering the current bias towards comprehension and analytical skills in language arts curricula, an on-going discussion about different dimensions of literary understanding in classroom practice is necessary. Therefore, the present study seeks to contribute knowledge about possibilities for literary understanding in character-focused classroom discussions. Data, comprised of field notes and transcribed audio recordings, were collected throughout 12 lessons in a Swedish Grade 4 during the reading aloud of the picture book Legenden om Sally Jones (The Legend of Sally Jones). The analysis was guided by thematic content analysis and reader-response theories, enabling a broad view of literary understanding. The result shows that character-focused discussions promoted evaluating the characters, making inferences, and considering important events. Occasionally, the students made analytical remarks about how the story worked. In addition, the students were encouraged to empathise with the characters while making connections between the text and their lives. Furthermore, the students drew on intertextual knowledge to use the text in creative expressions involving pleasurable narrative deaths. Implications for teaching and language arts curricula are discussed.
 
Swedish (L1) and English (L2) Argumentative Writing of Upper Secondary Students with Reading Difficulties
Get PDFWriting has been identified as a challenge for students with reading difficulties. This study contributes to previous research by exploring argumentative writing in L1 (Swedish) and L2 (English) in a group of students with reading difficulties in upper secondary school. Participants were 19 students with typical reading, 19 students with poor decoding, and 9 students with poor comprehension. A majority of students attended vocational programmes. Written text quality was assessed by using an adapted version of Jacobs et al.’s (1981) analytic scoring scheme including content, organisation, cohesion, vocabulary, language use, spelling, and punctuation. Students with reading difficulties (regardless of reader subgroup) were found to perform poorly in all categories in both L1 and L2, with spelling being particularly challenging in L1, and cohesion, language use, spelling, and punctuation in L2. Significant differences were found between students with poor comprehension and students with typical reading in cohesion, language use and spelling in L2. Few other significant differences were identified possibly due to an overall poor writing outcome also for students with typical reading. This general poor outcome in writing is discussed in relation to previous studies on writing among students with reading difficulties and writing in vocational programmes
“The stone from another mountain can help to polish jade”: Imitation as a Chinese L1 composition pedagogy
Get PDFIn L1 writing instruction, imitation pedagogy is potentially practiced in different parts of the world, yet there has been very little communication among practitioners and researchers on this topic. In the study to be reported in this paper, we aimed to answer the question “How is imitation recommended as a writing pedagogy in a sample of books on Chinese L1 composition?” Discussions of how to use imitation as a writing pedagogy were extracted from a sample of 41 books on Chinese L1 composition to form a dataset of 68,700 Chinese characters. Qualitative content analysis was applied to the dataset in NVivo 12 using a data-driven approach and resulted in a coding structure. In the paper we focus on elaborating two dimensions of our coding structure that addressed the research question in a practical light: “Implementing the imitation pedagogy” and “Going beyond imitation to achieve innovation.” Our findings point to similarities between Chinese and Western practices in using imitation as a writing pedagogy, and highlight a distinction between imitation and plagiarism made in the dataset as well a range of strategies recommended for going beyond imitation to achieve innovation. It is hoped that our paper would contribute to exchanges on L1 writing education between China and the rest of the world
The new words kids hear from translated picturebooks.
Get PDFThis study shows how the language in translated picturebooks is enriched by the use of rare words. We document how the translation of picturebooks from English to Portuguese results in the use of rare words in Portuguese. Evidence indicates that children learn new vocabulary through readings of picturebooks (Noble et al., 2019) and that translators make choices that contribute to the use of rare words (Ketola, 2018). The sample of 86 picturebooks was selected from a list recommended by the Portuguese national reading plan for 3-5-year-olds. The identification of rare words was done using a frequency analysis in both Portuguese, using ESCOLEX, and English, using the ChildFreq tool. Findings indicate that translated picturebooks use rich and varied lexicon and include an average of 6.6 rare words. Twenty-two percent of these words originate from literal and non-literal translations and are not rare in the original texts. This indicates that the process of translation contributes to increasing children\u27s exposure to rare words
Complex characters of many kinds? Gendered representation of inner states in reading anthologies for Czech primary schools
Get PDFL1 literacy instruction in Czechia largely relies on reading anthologies, i.e., textbooks containing short excerpts of literary texts from the 19th to 21st century. Focusing on current Year 3 anthologies (N = 13), we have developed a simple, scalable and transferable analytical procedure examining what types of characters (male, female, animal, other) are represented in the narratives included (N = 530), what experience dimensions (cognition, emotions, bodily engagement) these characters are attributed, and on what levels of complexity. We found that female characters overall are strongly underrepresented in the anthologies, including excerpts from the most recent children’s literature which is predominantly authored by women. Further, female characters show lower complexity than male characters in emotions, bodily engagement, and especially cognition. In a concluding case study of one particular text, we demonstrate how even excerpts with relatively complex characters of both genders may tend to perpetuate deeper imbalances. Our approach provides an experientially nuanced alternative to traditional content analysis yet its more basic steps remain easy to use for practitioners in selecting literary texts for teaching. It can be applied in research anywhere but also in designing classroom activities exploring diversity in stories, whether the focus is gender, ethnicity, or other
JUSTIFICATIONS FOR TEACHING LITERATURE : A survey study among teachers of Norwegian L1
Get PDFThe role and importance of imaginative literature in L1 education is a topic of continuous debate. In Norway, working with imaginative literature in several genres, and from various linguistic origins, is only one of several components in the L1 subject. In this article, we present the results of a survey aiming to investigate what literature can and should do in school, according to teachers. Using a qualitative hermeneutic content analysis, we analyze and categorize the survey results. We are guided by an affirmative approach to teachers’ competences, discussing the extent to which respondents demonstrate subject matter content knowledge.
Our analysis enables us to isolate eight categories of justification, many of which show significant overlap with central tenets in literary theory, the curriculum, and L1 scholarship. However, we also find indications that critical literacy is undervalued. Furthermore, the Norwegian curriculum arguably motivates an instrumental use of literature as a way of developing general literacy or adding perspectives to topics addressed in other subjects.
We propose visualizing the justifications teachers express in a model taking into account two dimensions: 1) whether they imply a primary focus on the text, the reader, or the context including the author; and 2) whether their goal is benefitting the student (e.g., in terms of skills) or promoting societal change. This model is intended to provide a flexible typology which literary educators at any level can use in order to critically assess their practice
Teachers’ framing and dialogic facilitation of Minecraft in the L1 classroom
Get PDFA fairly large body of research has documented how digital games can be used in L1 education. However, there is still a lack of detailed studies on how literacy teachers go about teaching with games as multimodal texts in the classroom. Revisiting earlier empirical work on the use of the sandbox game Minecraft in primary school, the aim of this paper is to explore how a specific game challenge is enacted in practice as seen from a dialogic perspective. Drawing on theories on games and literacies, dialogic education, and teachers as professional practitioners, the paper presents the Game as Educational Challenge (GEC) model in order to understand how L1 teachers frame specific game challenges and facilitate dialogue with the students in relation to their game experiences. The model is used to reanalyse empirical examples of how teachers from three primary schools adopted a teaching unit with Minecraft through different pedagogical approaches. The findings show not only how the teachers’ framing of the game challenges reflected their familiarity with the game, but also how they taught and related the game challenges to curricular aims in different ways. Moreover, it is found that the teachers negotiated authorial positions quite differently when facilitating classroom discussions with students about their game experiences