Development of Authentic Assessment Instruments Oriented Reading Skills Based Language Literacy through the Scaffolding Model

This research aims to develop an authentic assessment instrument product based on language literacy with a scaffolding model that is oriented towards reading skills. This research method uses research and development methods. The research results show that the preliminary research phase describes the results of curriculum analysis and student analysis. At the product development stage and validation by experts, the percentage of authenticity instrument eligibility consisting of three indicators is 82%. It can be concluded that the instrument is suitable for use in learning activities. The practicality stage given to 20 students in one of the Manyak Payed Public High Schools, Aceh Tamiang District, consisted of four alternative answers, 25% were declared practical. Thus, high school teachers are advised to use the scaffolding model as a solution to improve reading comprehension and language literacy skills.

Ways of improving language literacy of law enforcement officers

The article is devoted to considering the ways of improving language literacy of law enforcement officers. The experience of the existing researches concerning this issue is analyzed and summarized. The ways of improving language literacy of law enforcement officers are formulated. Some recommendations both on teaching the Russian language within the professional training of law enforcement officers and organizing their self-training are provided. Such concepts as professional speech culture, literacy, functional literacy, language literacy are considered in the article. It is noted that modern society makes higher demands on the professional developing level of specialists in various fields: a competent specialist must have both a set of professionally significant knowledge and skills and high level of professional speech culture, which implies a high level of literacy. It is indicated that the level of developing the professional speech culture is regarded as one of the main indicators of the law enforcement officers’ professionalism. Literacy implies the ability of a person to read and write according to the standards of his native language. The concept of functional literacy is interpreted as the level of knowledge, skills and abilities that ensure the normal individual’s functioning in the system of social relations. Language literacy, being a component of functional literacy, implies the ability of a native speaker to comply with the norms of the literary language in the process of oral and written communication. Some recommendations on teaching the Russian language to law enforcement officers are provided. Various ways of improving the language literacy of this category of specialists are described. It is concluded that the main ways of improving the language literacy of law enforcement officers are the following: teaching the Russian language to law enforcement officers; organizing the research activities of trainees; organizing the self-training of the officers during off-duty hours (using the educational Internet-resources and mobile applications). The urgency of the problem of improving the literacy level of native speakers at the present stage of the society development is emphasized.

Linguistic Justice on Campus

This book supports writing educators on college campuses to work towards linguistic equity and social justice for multilingual students. It demonstrates how recent advances in theories on language, literacy, and race can be translated into pedagogical and administrative practice in a variety of contexts within US higher educational institutions.

Incomplete Acquisition, Attrition and Maintenance of Heritage Speakers’ Family Language: Iranians in New Zealand

<p>This dissertation is composed of a quantitative investigation of Incomplete Heritage Language Acquisition and Attrition in heritage speakers’ vocabulary knowledge. This portion is followed by a qualitative investigation of Heritage Language Acquisition and Maintenance in which the immigrant parents’ attitudes towards heritage language acquisition and maintenance for their children are explored. Three groups of participants took part in this study. One group consisted of thirty 6-18 year old Persian-English simultaneous and sequential bilinguals in New Zealand. To obtain benchmark data, a control group was recruited, comprised of thirty monolingual speakers of Persian in Iran who were matched with the heritage speakers in terms of age, gender, number of siblings and their family’s socio-economic status. The third group of the participants consisted of twenty-four parents of the heritage speakers. Information about the bilinguals’ demographic and socio-linguistic factors was collected through semi-structured interviews with their parents. The quantitative investigation commences with a study that examines young heritage speakers’, either simultaneous or sequential bilinguals, vocabulary knowledge in their family language compared to the matched monolingual counterparts, and the factors that account for a difference, if there is any, are investigated. These factors include current age, age at emigration, length of emigration, frequency of heritage language use and parents’ attitude towards heritage language acquisition and maintenance. The results of productive and receptive vocabulary knowledge tests showed that the heritage speakers were outperformed by the monolinguals, but the gap was wider in the case of the simultaneous bilinguals. Additionally, the parents’ attitude was found to be a strong predictor of the simultaneous bilinguals’ vocabulary knowledge, while the sequential bilinguals’ vocabulary knowledge was associated mostly with age at emigration. The second study in the quantitative investigation examines whether the simultaneous and sequential bilinguals differ from monolinguals with regard to lexical richness, according to measures of lexical diversity and lexical sophistication, in their family language. It also weighs the influence of the demographic and/or sociolinguistic factors on the difference between these sub-groups, if there is any. A film-retelling task was used to collect free speech samples. As expected, the monolinguals’ narratives tended to manifest greater lexical richness according to both measures, but did most markedly so according to the lexical sophistication measure, suggesting that the latter is a better parameter in detecting the differences between heritage speakers and monolinguals. Of the factors investigated, the simultaneous and sequential bilinguals’ lexical richness was predicted by age, showing that the older the children were when they moved to the second language environment, the better their family language vocabulary tended to be. The sociolinguistic variables (i.e. Persian use and parental attitude) were not found to play a significant role in the results of the two quantitative studies. This might have been due to the fact that the demographic variables (i.e. age and age at emigration) were so strong that they overrode the influence of the sociolinguistic variables. Alternatively, the Likert-scale items used in the questionnaire-based interview may have been too blunt an instrument to discern subtle and yet relevant sociolinguistic differences among families. This raised a need to conduct a qualitative investigation in case a more in-depth analysis of the interview data might reveal a clearer picture of their influence. The qualitative portion of this dissertation begins with an exploration of the immigrant parents’ attitudes towards their children’s development and maintenance of their heritage language by utilizing Spolsky’s (2004) model of language policy as a methodological framework. The data consist of the same semi-structured interviews with twenty-four parents of the heritage speakers as used in the quantitative investigation. The findings reveal that although the parents hold positive beliefs about family language acquisition and maintenance, there are discrepancies between their language ideologies and family language practices and efforts. In light of these inconsistencies, this study suggests that analyses of parental language attitudes towards heritage language maintenance should not only consider their beliefs towards minority language acquisition and maintenance, but also their language practices and management. It was also found that the majority of Iranian parents in this study were satisfied if their children had good conversational skills in Persian. This finding led me to look into the parents’ attitudes towards their children’s acquisition and maintenance of Persian literacy. Following the first part of this investigation, the parents’ beliefs, practices and management strategies were explored to see how they reflect their attitudes towards their children’s heritage language literacy acquisition and maintenance. The findings revealed that it was very uncommon for the heritage speakers to have high literacy skills, which the parents attributed largely to the lack of community-based heritage language schools in the host country. Furthermore, parents’ efforts in heritage language literacy development and maintenance can be explained through the concept of investment (Norton, 2000). It seems that the parents choose not to promote investment in heritage language literacy, when they do not see it as a part of their children’s imagined identities. Additionally, while conversational fluency and cultural knowledge were continuously positioned as being extremely important for the heritage language speaking children by the parents, it was not seen as connected to traditional literacy. Investigating the different aspects of heritage speakers’ lexical knowledge, the quantitative portion of this dissertation furthers our understanding of incomplete acquisition and attrition of family languages in simultaneous and sequential bilinguals. Additionally, the qualitative portion illustrates that positive parental beliefs do not guarantee heritage language acquisition and maintenance. This investigation also raised immigrant parents’ awareness of the role literacy can also play in heritage language maintenance. Taken together, this dissertation draws the attention of researchers, educators, immigrant parents and communities to various social and linguistic aspects of young heritage speakers’ acquisition and maintenance of their family language as they grow up.</p>

Incomplete Acquisition, Attrition and Maintenance of Heritage Speakers’ Family Language: Iranians in New Zealand

<p>This dissertation is composed of a quantitative investigation of Incomplete Heritage Language Acquisition and Attrition in heritage speakers’ vocabulary knowledge. This portion is followed by a qualitative investigation of Heritage Language Acquisition and Maintenance in which the immigrant parents’ attitudes towards heritage language acquisition and maintenance for their children are explored. Three groups of participants took part in this study. One group consisted of thirty 6-18 year old Persian-English simultaneous and sequential bilinguals in New Zealand. To obtain benchmark data, a control group was recruited, comprised of thirty monolingual speakers of Persian in Iran who were matched with the heritage speakers in terms of age, gender, number of siblings and their family’s socio-economic status. The third group of the participants consisted of twenty-four parents of the heritage speakers. Information about the bilinguals’ demographic and socio-linguistic factors was collected through semi-structured interviews with their parents. The quantitative investigation commences with a study that examines young heritage speakers’, either simultaneous or sequential bilinguals, vocabulary knowledge in their family language compared to the matched monolingual counterparts, and the factors that account for a difference, if there is any, are investigated. These factors include current age, age at emigration, length of emigration, frequency of heritage language use and parents’ attitude towards heritage language acquisition and maintenance. The results of productive and receptive vocabulary knowledge tests showed that the heritage speakers were outperformed by the monolinguals, but the gap was wider in the case of the simultaneous bilinguals. Additionally, the parents’ attitude was found to be a strong predictor of the simultaneous bilinguals’ vocabulary knowledge, while the sequential bilinguals’ vocabulary knowledge was associated mostly with age at emigration. The second study in the quantitative investigation examines whether the simultaneous and sequential bilinguals differ from monolinguals with regard to lexical richness, according to measures of lexical diversity and lexical sophistication, in their family language. It also weighs the influence of the demographic and/or sociolinguistic factors on the difference between these sub-groups, if there is any. A film-retelling task was used to collect free speech samples. As expected, the monolinguals’ narratives tended to manifest greater lexical richness according to both measures, but did most markedly so according to the lexical sophistication measure, suggesting that the latter is a better parameter in detecting the differences between heritage speakers and monolinguals. Of the factors investigated, the simultaneous and sequential bilinguals’ lexical richness was predicted by age, showing that the older the children were when they moved to the second language environment, the better their family language vocabulary tended to be. The sociolinguistic variables (i.e. Persian use and parental attitude) were not found to play a significant role in the results of the two quantitative studies. This might have been due to the fact that the demographic variables (i.e. age and age at emigration) were so strong that they overrode the influence of the sociolinguistic variables. Alternatively, the Likert-scale items used in the questionnaire-based interview may have been too blunt an instrument to discern subtle and yet relevant sociolinguistic differences among families. This raised a need to conduct a qualitative investigation in case a more in-depth analysis of the interview data might reveal a clearer picture of their influence. The qualitative portion of this dissertation begins with an exploration of the immigrant parents’ attitudes towards their children’s development and maintenance of their heritage language by utilizing Spolsky’s (2004) model of language policy as a methodological framework. The data consist of the same semi-structured interviews with twenty-four parents of the heritage speakers as used in the quantitative investigation. The findings reveal that although the parents hold positive beliefs about family language acquisition and maintenance, there are discrepancies between their language ideologies and family language practices and efforts. In light of these inconsistencies, this study suggests that analyses of parental language attitudes towards heritage language maintenance should not only consider their beliefs towards minority language acquisition and maintenance, but also their language practices and management. It was also found that the majority of Iranian parents in this study were satisfied if their children had good conversational skills in Persian. This finding led me to look into the parents’ attitudes towards their children’s acquisition and maintenance of Persian literacy. Following the first part of this investigation, the parents’ beliefs, practices and management strategies were explored to see how they reflect their attitudes towards their children’s heritage language literacy acquisition and maintenance. The findings revealed that it was very uncommon for the heritage speakers to have high literacy skills, which the parents attributed largely to the lack of community-based heritage language schools in the host country. Furthermore, parents’ efforts in heritage language literacy development and maintenance can be explained through the concept of investment (Norton, 2000). It seems that the parents choose not to promote investment in heritage language literacy, when they do not see it as a part of their children’s imagined identities. Additionally, while conversational fluency and cultural knowledge were continuously positioned as being extremely important for the heritage language speaking children by the parents, it was not seen as connected to traditional literacy. Investigating the different aspects of heritage speakers’ lexical knowledge, the quantitative portion of this dissertation furthers our understanding of incomplete acquisition and attrition of family languages in simultaneous and sequential bilinguals. Additionally, the qualitative portion illustrates that positive parental beliefs do not guarantee heritage language acquisition and maintenance. This investigation also raised immigrant parents’ awareness of the role literacy can also play in heritage language maintenance. Taken together, this dissertation draws the attention of researchers, educators, immigrant parents and communities to various social and linguistic aspects of young heritage speakers’ acquisition and maintenance of their family language as they grow up.</p>

Υπερεθνικές πολιτικές γλωσσικού γραμματισμού και εθνικά αναλυτικά προγράμματα για τη διδασκαλία της νεοελληνικής γλώσσας στη δευτεροβάθμια εκπαίδευση

Η παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή διερευνά, από την οπτική της Κοινωνιολογίας της Εκπαίδευσης και της Εκπαιδευτικής Πολιτικής, τις πραγματώσεις (enactments) των υπερεθνικών πολιτικών γλωσσικού γραμματισμού (language literacy) και των εθνικών αναλυτικών προγραμμάτων για τη διδασκαλία της νεοελληνικής γλώσσας σε δημόσια σχολεία υποβαθμισμένων αστικών περιοχών. Η προβληματική της διδακτορικής διατριβής συνοψίζεται στη θέση ότι οι μορφές παιδαγωγικής πρακτικής που αναπτύσσονται κατά την πραγμάτωση του αναλυτικού προγράμματος σε συγκεκριμένα σχολικά πλαίσια αποτελούν κρίσιμο παράγοντα ενίσχυσης ή άμβλυνσης του αναπαραγωγικού ρόλου της εκπαίδευσης, δημιουργώντας συνθήκες συμπερίληψης ή αποκλεισμού των μαθητών/τριών, ιδιαίτερα αυτών που προέρχονται από κοινωνικά μειονεκτούσες ομάδες. Για τη διερεύνηση του συγκεκριμένου ζητήματος πραγματοποιήθηκε μια εμπειρική έρευνα σε τέσσερα δημόσια Γυμνάσια υποβαθμισμένων περιοχών του κέντρου της Αθήνας, με υψηλό ποσοστό μαθητών/τριών με χαμηλό κοινωνικοοικονομικό οικογενειακό υπόβαθρο. Τα εμπειρικά δεδομένα συνελέγησαν κατά τη διάρκεια των σχολικών ετών 2017-2018 και 2018-2019 με τα ακόλουθα ερευνητικά εργαλεία: α. 26 ημι-δομημένες κύριες συνεντεύξεις με 20 φιλολόγους, τους διευθυντές/τις διευθύντριες των σχολείων και με 2 Σχολικές Συμβούλους, β. 25 διδακτικές ώρες παρατήρησης στη σχολική τάξη του μαθήματος της Γλωσσικής Διδασκαλίας, και γ. 14 συμπληρωματικές ημι-δομημένες συνεντεύξεις με φιλολόγους στις οποίες σχολιάζουν τα κριτήρια με τα οποία αξιολόγησαν 28 γραπτά μαθητικά κείμενα (παραγωγές γραπτού λόγου). Η ανάλυση των εμπειρικών δεδομένων βασίζεται στην «εννοιολογική γραμματική» της θεωρίας του παιδαγωγικού μηχανισμού του Basil Bernstein, καθώς και στην περαιτέρω ανάπτυξή της από σύγχρονους/ες συνεχιστές της παράδοσής του. Με τα συγκεκριμένα θεωρητικά εργαλεία επιχειρείται η διεύρυνση της έννοιας του «ρυθμιστικού λόγου» («regulative discourse») του Bernstein, καθώς και η επαναπροσέγγιση της έννοιας του «σχολικού πλαισίου» («school context») την οποία προτείνουν ο Stephen Ball και οι συνεργάτες του. Απώτερος σκοπός αυτής της θεωρητικής ανάπτυξης είναι η παραγωγή εργαλείων περιγραφής και ανάλυσης των τοπικών πραγματώσεων των πολιτικών για τη σχολική (γλωσσική) γνώση και των δυνητικών συνεπειών τους για τις ακαδημαϊκές επιδόσεις των μαθητών/τριών, στις σύγχρονες συνθήκες ρύθμισης της εκπαίδευσης. Η ανάλυση των εμπειρικών δεδομένων κατέδειξε ότι οι εκπαιδευτικοί πραγματώνουν τα εθνικά αναλυτικά προγράμματα για τη διδασκαλία της νεοελληνικής γλώσσας σε ιδιαίτερα απαιτητικές συνθήκες εργασίας και με ποικίλες μορφές παιδαγωγικής πρακτικής. Ωστόσο, οι παιδαγωγικές πρακτικές που αναπτύσσονται στη σχολική τάξη διαμορφώνονται υπό την επίδραση ενός ισχυρού ρυθμιστικού λόγου ο οποίος επικεντρώνεται στη συμπερίληψη (inclusion) των μαθητών/τριών στις εκπαιδευτικές διαδικασίες. Ο συγκεκριμένος ρυθμιστικός λόγος, αν και ανομοιογενής, συνήθως διαμορφώνει μορφές πρακτικής που τείνουν να αναπαράγουν τις εκπαιδευτικές ανισότητες. Η ανάλυση των δεδομένων ανέδειξε ακόμη τον λιγότερο επιδραστικό ρυθμιστικό λόγο της «επιτελεστικότητας» («performativity»), ο οποίος κατασκευάζει το παγκόσμιο πρότυπο «του καλού/της καλής εκπαιδευτικού». Ο συγκεκριμένος λόγος διαμορφώνει μορφές πρακτικής οι οποίες, αν και χαρακτηρίζονται «σύγχρονες», συνήθως αδυνατούν να συνδέσουν αποτελεσματικά την παιδαγωγική με το αναλυτικό πρόγραμμα. Συνεπώς, τα ευρήματα της μελέτης εγείρουν ερωτήματα σχετικά με τις νέες μορφές επαγγελματικής γνώσης που παράγονται και διαχέονται στα διάφορα επίπεδα της εκπαιδευτικής διακυβέρνησης (governance), ρυθμίζοντας την εργασία των εκπαιδευτικών, στο συγκεντρωτικό και γραφειοκρατικό ελληνικό εκπαιδευτικό σύστημα, το οποίο, κατά την περίοδο διεξαγωγής της εμπειρικής έρευνας, δε ρυθμιζόταν –τουλάχιστον ρητά- από τον ηγεμονικό λόγο της «επιτελεστικότητας», όπως συμβαίνει σε πολλά εκπαιδευτικά συστήματα.

L’acquisition de la langue orale par l’entremise de tâches de centres d’apprentissage de littératie dans des classes d’immersion française

This qualitative exploratory study examined the language/literacy tasks performed by elementary students from six elementary French Immersion (FI) classrooms. Various literacy tasks were performed as students rotated through different literacy centres/stations which had been pre-planned by their teachers. Specifically, researchers investigated students’ oral production and opportunities for extended oral output when working at independent learning centres/stations in order to identify key principles for creating literacy-enhancing tasks suitable for developing language literacy skills within second language (L2) contexts. Data were collected through classroom observations ( n = 23) to identify the types of literacy/language tasks proposed to L2 students, the nature of communicative functions, the targeted learning outcomes, and principles of effective L2 learning tasks. Results demonstrate the importance of adapting pedagogical practices, such as literacy centres/stations, borrowed from the first language teaching contexts to maximize L2 literacy/language learning and meet the specific needs of FI students. Results also highlighted the importance of ongoing professional learning opportunities for FI teachers specific to their L2 teaching contexts. Researchers propose principles for creating literacy/language tasks that promote oral language learning in FI contexts.