| 1. |
- Benson, Carol
(författare)
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How multilingual African contexts are pushing educational research and practice in new directions
- 2010
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Ingår i: Language and Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0950-0782 .- 1747-7581. ; 24:4, s. 323-336
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A strong case can be made for developing more flexible and relevant multilingual strategies for teaching and learning within the field of bilingual education. This paper aims to demonstrate how current linguistic and educational practices in countries like Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Ethiopia suggest new directions for research and practice. A practical approach is proposed to illuminate the gap between actual language competence on the part of primary students and teachers and the language competence to which their education system aspires. By applying known language and learning principles, policies and practices can be more realistically directed towards reducing this gap in the short, medium and long terms. This involves a reconstruction of multilingual pedagogy to capitalise on the strengths of learners, teachers and linguistic communities. Meanwhile, there is a need for more research on the following: (1) effective ways to assess multiple language competencies on the part of teachers and learners; (2) the relationship between learners' multilingual oral competence and literacy; and (3) methodologies that facilitate transfer of skills and knowledge between languages. The implications are that language-in-education policy should be based on what is possible in each sociolinguistic situation and should be flexible enough to offer equitable opportunities for all.
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| 2. |
- Sert, Olcay, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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The interactional management of claims of insufficient knowledge in English language classrooms
- 2013
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Ingår i: Language and Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0950-0782 .- 1747-7581. ; 27:6, s. 542-565
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper primarily investigates the interactional unfolding and management of claims of insufficient knowledge’ (Beach and Metzger 1997) in two English language classrooms from a multi-modal, conversation-analytic perspective. The analyses draw on a close, micro-analytic account of sequential organisation of talk as well as on various multi-semiotic resources the participants enact including gaze, gestures, body movements and orientations to classroom artefacts. The research utilises transcriptions of 16 (classroom) hours of video recordings, which were collected over a six-week period in 2010 in a public school in Luxembourg. The findings show that establishing recipiency through mutual gaze and turn allocation practices have interactional and pedagogical consequences that may lead to claims of insufficient knowledge. Furthermore, the findings illustrate various multi-modal resources the students use (e.g. gaze movements, facial gestures and headshakes) to initiate embodied claims of no knowledge and to show specific exchange structures. Finally, we suggest that certain interactional resources, including embodied vocabulary explanations and Designedly Incomplete Utterances (Koshik 2002), deployed by the teacher after a student’s claim of insufficient knowledge may lead to student engagement, which is a desirable pedagogical goal. Our findings have implications for the analysis of insufficient knowledge, for teaching, teacher education and in particular for L2 Classroom Interactional Competence (Walsh 2006).
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| 3. |
- Wedin, Åsa, 1955-
(författare)
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A restricted curriculum for second language learners : a self-fulfilling teacher strategy?
- 2010
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Ingår i: Language and Education. - Oxfordshire, United Kingdom : Routledge. - 0950-0782 .- 1747-7581. ; 24:3, s. 171-183
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The focus of this article is on relations between classroom interaction, curricular knowledge and student engagement in diverse classrooms. It is based on a study with ethnographic perspective in which two primary school classes in Sweden are followed for three years. The analysis draws on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics. The results indicate that language use in the classrooms is on a basic everyday level and that high teacher control results in low demanding tasks and low engagement among students. Interaction in the classrooms consists mainly of short talk-turns with fragmentised language, frequent repairs and interruptions while writing and reading consists of single words and short sentences. Although the classroom atmosphere is friendly and inclusive, second language students are denied necessary opportunities to develop curricular knowledge and Swedish at the advanced level they will need higher up in the school system. The restricted curriculum that these students are offered in school thus restricts their opportunities to school success. Thus, I argue for a more reflective and critical approach regarding language use in classrooms.
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| 4. |
- Wedin, Åsa, 1955-
(författare)
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Letters, authority and secrecy : the case of Karagwe in Tanzania
- 2013
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Ingår i: Language and Education. - London : Taylor & Francis. - 0950-0782 .- 1747-7581. ; 27:1, s. 44-58
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper aims to show how letters, as a genre of literacy, are used in Karagwe in Tanzania, in relation to authority and secrecy. It is shown that literacy, in the form of letters, plays an important role in the negotiation of authority. Authorities as well as ordinary people use letters according to official norms to claim or manifest authority, while grassroots forms of literacy, dominated forms, are used to resist authorities. Through secret messages and letters people find opportunities to resist that are less dangerous than open rebellion, although the effects may be limited because of the secrecy. It is also shown how children are socialized into this pattern of secrecies through literacy as they are used as messengers. When delivering secret letters and messages, they may be said to exercise a passive voice through literacy.
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