articles+ search results

Parent Child Relationship, Native Language, Second Language Learning, Child Language, Kindergarten, Preschool Teachers, Second Language Instruction, Language Usage, Books, Story Reading, Family Environment, Educational Environment, Computational Linguistics, Preservice Teachers, Guidelines, Professionalism, Classroom Communication, Semiotics, Nonverbal Communication, French, English, Longitudinal Studies, Foreign Countries, Sociocultural Patterns, Teacher Student Relationship, and France

In teacher training curricula, books are presented as an ideal material for building and enriching young children's language. Yet, the routine of reading at home with children is hardly ever mentioned. In this chapter, the author proposes analyses of story-reading activities from a usage-based and first language acquisition perspective. The goal is to raise methodological questions for the professionalization of future kindergarten teachers who engage in L2 teaching with children aged three to six. This paper questions the links between the home and school environments in a context of L2 learning with beginners. The link between L1 and L2 acquisition is pertinent, as parents' practices and language use when interacting with children who do not master their mother tongue might inform the design of training programs for kindergarten teachers who teach a foreign language to pupils from three to six. The chapter is organized as follows. First, the author presents a review of Shared Book Reading (SBR) activities and the use of books during adult-child interaction at home and in class. Second, the author presents an analytical approach to language use and development and its application to children's linguistic and interactional competences: the author presents results from her own projects on reading at home and propose qualitative multimodal analyses of the data to account for the participation framework and content of SBR activities. Corpus-based analyses of parent-child SBR activities at home will contribute to show how the parents in the corpus naturally and spontaneously engaged in SBR activities with their children. Third, based on the analyses of the author, she draws some guidelines for the professionalization of preservice teachers who are trained in universities, keeping in mind that the ecology of reading books at home significantly differs from that of reading books in class. In this chapter the author aims to theorize parents' spontaneous behavior in order to provide professional guidelines for teachers in the context of story-reading activities in a second language in class with children who cannot read yet. The analyses focus on how meaning is co-constructed by the adult, the child, the story in the book, and the surrounding environment by taking into consideration all the semiotic resources that the speakers have at their disposal (vocal productions, words, actions, gestures, and facial expressions). To analyze how meaning is constructed in this context, particular attention is paid to the book itself, its written and visual contents, as well as how it is manipulated by the participants. [For the complete volume, "Language Learning and Professionalization in Higher Education: Pathways to Preparing Learners and Teachers in/for the 21st Century," see ED608931.]

Literary Genres, Authors, Awards, Case Studies, Guidelines, Rating Scales, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Reading Skills, Performance Based Assessment, Electronic Publishing, Undergraduate Students, Foreign Countries, Receptive Language, Expressive Language, Reading Comprehension, Formative Evaluation, Student Projects, Barriers, Educational Benefits, Creative Writing, and United Kingdom (Liverpool)

Using a contemporary short story by the award-winning German writer Roman Ehrlich as a case study, in this paper we will offer ideas for engaging students at CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for languages) B1+ and B2 level in German in reading as well as encouraging them in creative writing tasks through formative assessment and coursework. More specifically, we will argue that literature in the classroom is a means of practising reading comprehension. This opens up opportunities for students to create their own literary texts, with receptive skills becoming productive skills. Introducing two projects we carried out with students in their first and second years at the University of Liverpool as examples, we will discuss process and practice. We will show how reading and writing projects can be linked to aspects of authentic assessment and its forms. We are then going to explore the possibilities for further embedding literary assessments in coursework, highlighting their benefits and challenges, including the process of publishing them on a student-led WordPress site. [For the complete volume, "Literature in Language Learning: New Approaches," see ED608008.]

Italian, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Rating Scales, Guidelines, Cultural Awareness, Literature, Teaching Methods, Immigrants, Travel, Language Skills, College Students, Foreign Countries, and United Kingdom (England)

This paper explores how a transnational approach to university language classes may help develop students' intercultural competence. Researchers have shown that the integration of literature in the language class has the potential to raise intercultural competence (Deardorff, 2006), especially when migrant and travel literatures are used (Matos, 2012, Paran, 2008). I present an empirical case study of the use of migrant literature in Italian in a Learning Unit (LU) for final-year undergraduate students of Italian language -- Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR) C1/C2 (Council of Europe, 2001). After describing the context of the LU, I explain the rationale behind its design, outline its contents, and observe that the LU helps students to improve all canonical linguistic skills as well as intercultural abilities. [For the complete volume, "Literature in Language Learning: New Approaches," see ED608008.]

Counselor Role, School Counselors, Student Diversity, Multicultural Education, Elementary School Students, Middle School Students, Junior High School Students, Counselor Client Relationship, Counseling Techniques, Guidelines, and Professional Development

School Counselors' roles have changed with the challenges of today's population. School counselors are support staff with high student-to-counselor ratios. School counselors need to be aware of the demographics of the changing student populations and resources in order to provide multicultural guidance and obtain needed skills. This discussion includes revised research, familiarity with the demographics of the changing student populations, and resources to provide multicultural guidance and obtain needed skills. [For the original version, see ED498819.]

School Closing, School Safety, Disease Control, Distance Education, Best Practices, Conventional Instruction, Elementary Secondary Education, Guidelines, Sanitation, Hygiene, Planning, Classroom Environment, Foreign Countries, Comparative Education, School Schedules, Electronic Learning, Online Courses, Blended Learning, Grouping (Instructional Purposes), Data Collection, Class Size, COVID-19, Pandemics, Massachusetts, Finland, Denmark, South Korea, Japan, and Florida

Individual teachers, administrators, and parents made tremendous efforts to continue educating the Commonwealth's children between March and June of this year. But no amount of dedicated individual effort could have overcome fundamental challenges: weak guidance to districts from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) against a backdrop of deficient knowledge and sophistication statewide with regard to virtual learning. Digital education has been empirically proven to be most successful when schools prepare and follow best distance learning practices. However, the Commonwealth lacks even the minimum technological infrastructure for virtual learning, as exemplified by districts scrambling to obtain electronic devices and internet connections during the school closure. It is encouraging that Governor Baker and the DESE have described a fall 2020 return to brick-and-mortar schooling--with appropriate health measures to maximize safety--as a significant priority. The present challenge is how to implement this much-needed return to school, optimally balancing the importance of in-person schooling with the countervailing importance of protecting against the virus. The following paper contributes important insights, based upon careful review of other countries that have already successfully reopened their schools. [Foreword written by David S. Clancy and Dr. John G. Flores.]