Becoming Teacher Researchers

Author(s):  
Aria Razfar ◽  
Beverly Troiano ◽  
Ambareen Nasir ◽  
Eunah Yang ◽  
Joseph C. Rumenapp ◽  
...  

Drawing on three years of data, we show how an embedded university research team and eleven K-8 educators reorganized learning and negotiated innovative curricular activities for English learners (ELs) in spite of restrictive curricular mandates in an urban Midwestern district. We analyze how participating teachers appropriated theoretical constructs such as cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), third space, funds of knowledge, as well as using discourse analysis to design curriculum aimed at improving language learning through mathematics, science, and community-based problem solving. The learning of teachers was purposefully designed to develop new professional identities. The learning was also designed to move teachers from deficit views of multilingualism to dynamic stances grounded in polyglot language ideologies. We examine the challenges and opportunities of participants' movement from resistant, procedural, and ethnographic identities towards teacher researcher identities.

Author(s):  
Aria Razfar ◽  
Beverly Troiano ◽  
Ambareen Nasir ◽  
Eunah Yang ◽  
Joseph C. Rumenapp ◽  
...  

Drawing on three years of data, we show how an embedded university research team and eleven K-8 educators reorganized learning and negotiated innovative curricular activities for English learners (ELs) in spite of restrictive curricular mandates in an urban Midwestern district. We analyze how participating teachers appropriated theoretical constructs such as cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), third space, funds of knowledge, as well as using discourse analysis to design curriculum aimed at improving language learning through mathematics, science, and community-based problem solving. The learning of teachers was purposefully designed to develop new professional identities. The learning was also designed to move teachers from deficit views of multilingualism to dynamic stances grounded in polyglot language ideologies. We examine the challenges and opportunities of participants' movement from resistant, procedural, and ethnographic identities towards teacher researcher identities.


Author(s):  
Aria Razfar ◽  
Beverly Troiano ◽  
Ambareen Nasir ◽  
Eunah Yang ◽  
Joseph C. Rumenapp ◽  
...  

Drawing on three years of data, we show how an embedded university research team and eleven K-8 educators reorganized learning and negotiated innovative curricular activities for English learners (ELs) in spite of restrictive curricular mandates in an urban Midwestern district. We analyze how participating teachers appropriated theoretical constructs such as cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), third space, funds of knowledge, as well as using discourse analysis to design curriculum aimed at improving language learning through mathematics, science, and community-based problem solving. The learning of teachers was purposefully designed to develop new professional identities. The learning was also designed to move teachers from deficit views of multilingualism to dynamic stances grounded in polyglot language ideologies. We examine the challenges and opportunities of participants' movement from resistant, procedural, and ethnographic identities towards teacher researcher identities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Banister

This study describes a teacher-researcher’s experience of scaffolding his business English learners in identifying, formulating, and exploring language learning puzzles using the principles of exploratory practice. Adopting both qualitative and quantitative methods, the teacher-researcher reflected upon the learner-initiated and learner-centred inquiry as it played out in his UK university setting. Learners’ perspectives revealed an enthusiasm for puzzling, especially when connections were established with their wider world. However, tensions also emerged, including the opaqueness of the scaffolding role and the mind-set shift required from learner-researchers and the teacher-researcher alike. Practical recommendations for teacher-researchers in similar contexts are provided: the need to highlight connection-building between learner puzzles and learners’ wider lives and the importance of recognising distinctions between puzzles and problems.


1982 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Fitch ◽  
Thomas F. Williams ◽  
Josephine E. Etienne

The critical need to identify children with hearing loss and provide treatment at the earliest possible age has become increasingly apparent in recent years (Northern & Downs, 1978). Reduction of the auditory signal during the critical language-learning period can severely limit the child's potential for developing a complete, effective communication system. Identification and treatment of children having handicapping conditions at an early age has gained impetus through the Handicapped Children's Early Education Program (HCEEP) projects funded by the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped (BEH).


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-129
Author(s):  
Asti Gumartifa ◽  
◽  
Indah Windra Dwie Agustiani

Gaining English language learning effectively has been discussed all years long. Similarly, Learners have various troubles outcomes in the learning process. Creating a joyful and comfortable situation must be considered by learners. Thus, the implementation of effective learning strategies is certainly necessary for English learners. This descriptive study has two purposes: first, to introduce the classification and characterization of learning strategies such as; memory, cognitive, metacognitive, compensation, social, and affective strategies that are used by learners in the classroom and second, it provides some questionnaires item based on Strategy of Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) version 5.0 that can be used to examine the frequency of students’ learning strategies in the learning process. The summary of this study explains and discusses the researchers’ point of view on the impact of learning outcomes by learning strategies used. Finally, utilizing appropriate learning strategies are certainly beneficial for both teachers and learners to achieve the learning target effectively.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Clifford ◽  
Deborah S. Reisinger

Multilingua ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Semiramis Schedel

Abstract This contribution treats “language immersion” as a linguistic ideology and explores narratives, practices, and subjectivities pertinent to that notion in the context of language-motivated voluntourism. Voluntourism programs offer short-term sojourns abroad, which combine voluntary work with holidays while promising “immersion” as an efficient alternative to classroom language learning. In the Mediterranean island state of Malta, whose population is mostly bilingual in English and Maltese, voluntourism has become an attractive product for the booming English language travel industry. Since there is a lack of critical sociolinguistic and second language acquisition research on the language learning trajectories of voluntourists, this piece examines the promise of immersion through the example of a hostel that figures as a workplace. Drawing on ethnographic data, it investigates how learning English through immersion while working abroad is imagined and promoted, whether or not it occurs, and what gains (linguistic or otherwise) it generates and for whom. The article argues that the voluntourism industry appropriates the discourse of immersion to responsibilize English learners for their linguistic self-skilling, thereby constituting them as neoliberal subjects that can easily be exploited as a cheap workforce.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Judith Anthony

This article provides an overview and critical analysis of The English Language Learning Progressions (ELLP) (Ministry of Education, 2008). Identifying main themes through critical policy analysis, this review seeks to place ELLP in context through a comparison with The English Language Learning Framework: Draft (Ministry of Education, 2005) and English Language Learning Progressions (ELLP ) Pathway Years 1–8 (Ministry of Education, 2020a). Within this review, the structure of ELLP is explored along with key ideas and claims. It is argued that there are both challenges and opportunities in ELLP. Finally, the key issues are summarised and suggestions are made for future research.


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