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"World language instruction"
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The Decolonial Option in English Teaching: Can the Subaltern Act?
2016
In this reflective article that straddles the personal and the professional, the author shares his critical thoughts on the impact of the steady stream of discourse on the native speaker/nonnative speaker (NS/NNS) inequity in the field of TESOL. His contention is that more than a quarter century of the discoursal output has not in any significant way altered the ground reality of NNS subordination. Therefore, he further contends, it is legitimate to ask what the discourse has achieved, where it has fallen short, why it has fallen short, and what needs to be done. Drawing insights from the works of Gramsci (1971) on hegemony and subalternity, and Mignolo (2010) on decoloniality, the author characterizes the NNS community as a subaltern community and argues that, if it wishes to effectively disrupt the hegemonic power structure, the only option open to it is a decolonial option which demands result-oriented action, not just \"intellectual elaboration.\" Accordingly, he presents the contours of a five-point plan of action for the consideration of the subaltern community. He claims that only a collective, concerted, and coordinated set of actions carries the potential to shake the foundation of the hegemonic power structure and move the subaltern community forward.
Journal Article
Teaching Foreign Languages in an Era of Globalization: Introduction
Through its mobility of people and capital, its global technologies, and its global information networks, globalization has changed the conditions under which foreign languages (FLs) are taught, learned, and used. It has destabilized the codes, norms, and conventions that FL educators relied upon to help learners be successful users of the language once they had left their classrooms. These changes call for a more reflective, interpretive, historically grounded, and politically engaged pedagogy than was called for by the communicative language teaching of the eighties. This special issue will explore how we are to conceive of such a pedagogy.
Journal Article
Science and Language for English Language Learners in Relation to Next Generation Science Standards and with Implications for Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics
by
Lee, Okhee
,
Quinn, Helen
,
Valdés, Guadalupe
in
Academic Standards
,
Bilingualism
,
Common Core State Standards
2013
The National Research Council (2011) released \"A Framework for K—12 Science Education\" that is guiding the development of the Next Generation Science Standards, which are expected to be finalized in early 2013. This article addresses language demands and opportunities that are embedded in the science and engineering practices delineated in the Framework. By examining intersections between learning of science and learning of language, the article identifies key features of the language of the science classroom as students engage in these language-intensive science and engineering practices. We propose that when students, especially English language learners, are adequately supported to \"do\" specific things with language, both science learning and language learning are promoted. We highlight implications for Common Core State Standards for English language arts and mathematics.
Journal Article
The Foreign Language Classroom: Current Perspectives and Future Considerations
2016
The Modern Language Journal has long been an important venue for the publication of research and reflection on the teaching and learning of foreign languages (FL) in classroom contexts. In this article, we offer a perspective on the contemporary FL classroom, informed by a descriptive survey of all studies that took place in FL classes that were published in The Modern Language Journal (MLJ) between 2001 and 2014 inclusive (N=97). This yielded a profile of FL classrooms in terms of geographical locations, languages being taught, the amount and distribution of instructional time, and the age and language backgrounds of the students. The findings revealed that FL environments benefiting from research investigations in the MLJ typically involve older learners in on-site (rather than virtual) classes that afford limited exposure to the FL, which was typically English (in non-English-speaking countries) and French, German, or Spanish (in English-speaking countries). We consider the implications of these findings for the study of FLs in the future and identify aspects of FL classrooms that merit greater research attention as the MLJ moves into its second century.
Journal Article
Re-Envisioning the Roles, Tasks, and Contributions of Language Teachers in the Multilingual Era of Language Education Research and Practice
2016
This article lays out the proposition that the rapid changes in 21st-century society, in which multilingualism is the norm, have presented new challenges, questions, and resources with regard to the roles, tasks, and contributions of language teachers. In line with recent research developments and in keeping with tradition, we believe it helpful to think of language teachers' broader identity role as that of moral agent. We examine implications that such a re-envisioning has for the knowledge base of language teachers and for the purposes and practices of language teacher education and professional development. Drawing on research in language teacher education, language teacher cognition, second language acquisition, and applied linguistics more broadly, we highlight the need to go beyond traditional notions of teachers' knowledge of language, language learning, and language learners. We also subject to critical scrutiny the notions of effective pedagogies and reflective practice as the desired outcomes of language teacher preparation and development. Instead, we introduce critical alternatives that offer creative possibilities for educating teachers able and willing to serve student populations with diverse language learning needs across interlinguistic, sociopolitical, and historical contexts of language teaching.
Journal Article
Culture in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Textbooks: A Semiotic Approach
2013
This article problematizes current, quantitative approaches to the analysis of culture in foreign language textbooks as objectifying culture, and offers an alternative, semiotic framework that examines texts, images, and tasks as merely engendering particular meanings in the act of semiosis. The authors take as a point of departure developments within the social sciences that have questioned monolithic conceptualizations of culture as well as recent arguments that stress intercultural citizenship and global cultural consciousness as key goals of (foreign) language learning. The authors argue that such transformative pedagogic agendas require a more dynamic understanding of how culture figures in teaching materials and of the processes through which learners engage with those materials. Through excerpts from two English as a foreign language textbooks written by and for Hungarians, the authors illustrate a semiotic analytic approach that underscores two key insights: (1) that learners' meaning making in the classroom tends to be heavily guided and (2) that images and texts, even those with supposed cultural meaning or focus, seem to foster mainly linguistic competence. The article makes the case that images and texts should be harnessed more explicitly to develop a critical and reflexive understanding of culture, self, and other.
Journal Article
Reconceptualizing the Nature of Goals and Outcomes in Language/s Education
by
Leung, Constant
,
Scarino, Angela
in
Aesthetics
,
Communication
,
Communication (Thought Transfer)
2016
Transformations associated with the increasing speed, scale, and complexity of mobilities, together with the information technology revolution, have changed the demography of most countries of the world and brought about accompanying social, cultural, and economic shifts (Heugh, 2013). This complex diversity has changed the very nature of communication within and across languages, in society in general, and in education. These changes in turn require a reconceptualization of our approach to language/s education in ways that recognize a diversity of goals for people from different backgrounds, people who are learning a variety of languages in diverse settings and who may be interested in developing different capabilities and achieving different outcomes. In this article, we address the reconceptualization of the goals and outcomes of learning additional languages and processes for their formulation and realization. We will make explicit the educational values that underpin our position. Recognizing the immense diversity that the learning of additional languages in diverse contexts encompasses, our consideration is necessarily conceptual. The point of departure for our discussion is communicative language teaching, the dominant paradigm for language teaching for the past 40 years. We briefly trace its historical development and provide an account of some of the conceptual and theoretical expansions since its initial formulation. In light of this expansion we then discuss goals for learning additional languages by: (a) reaffirming the multilingual character of communication and learning to communicate, focusing on the exchange of meaning, (b) (re-) inserting the importance of personal development and aesthetics, and (c) recognizing the centrality of reflectivity and reflexivity in communication and learning to communicate. We conclude with a set of principles that are intended to capture the expanded nature of goals and their rendering for the purposes of teaching and learning.
Journal Article
Geopolitics and the Changing Hierarchies of the Chinese Language: Implications for Policy and Practice of Chinese Language Teaching in Britain
2014
Chinese has been the fastest growing modern foreign language in British schools and universities in the last decade, due largely to the perceived growing importance of mainland China as a global economic and political power and the substantial investment in Confucius Institutes (CIs) and Classrooms (CCs) by the Chinese government. This article focuses on how China's geopolitical strategy of promoting Chinese as a global language has been received and implemented in the UK and how different groups of learners of Chinese have been differentially affected by the implementation of the policies of the Chinese National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, commonly referred to as Hanban. Based on conversations with key stakeholders of the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, including managers, teachers, and students, as well as observations in these settings, we investigate the different motivations and ideologies of the different interest groups. We also examine the cultural elements that are being taught in the CIs and CCs. A particular focus is on how ethnic Chinese learners in the CIs and CCs react to the teaching of Chinese culture. The effect of promoting Putonghua on ethnic Chinese students who speak other varieties of Chinese and how 'foreignness' is constructed in the CIs and CCs are specific concerns of the present study. The study contributes to the wider discussions of language ideology, language attitudes, motivations for language learning, and learner identity vis-à-vis modern foreign language education.
Journal Article
Facts Are More Important Than Novelty: Replication in the Education Sciences
2014
Despite increased attention to methodological rigor in education research, the field has focused heavily on experimental design and not on the merit of replicating important results. The present study analyzed the complete publication history of the current top 100 education journals ranked by 5-year impact factor and found that only 0.13% of education articles were replications. Contrary to previous findings in medicine, but similar to psychology, the majority of education replications successfully replicated the original studies. However, replications were significantly less likely to be successful when there was no overlap in authorship between the original and replicating articles. The results emphasize the importance of third-party, direct replications in helping education research improve its ability to shape education policy and practice.
Journal Article