Accommodating multiculturalism and biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: implication for language education.

The field of language education in Aotearoa New Zealand, as elsewhere, has developed significantly since its early and almost exclusive focus on the acquisition of English literacy in schools. As the field has expanded, so too has the range of language education sectors addressed and the theoretical approaches and understandings employed in relation to language and literacy education. Both developments have resulted in a more coordinated literacy education policy - exemplified to date most clearly in the New Zealand Literacy Taskforce - and a more situated, less monolithic understanding of the widely different literacies available to learners. Despite these developments, however, one area still remains noticeably under-theorised and marginalized in relation to the ongoing development of language and literacy education policy in Aotearoa New Zealand - the place of second language learners within it. This paper explores this lacuna and the potential policy implications of addressing and integrating first and second language educational concerns within an evolving national literacy education policy. This has particular implications for the further development of bilingual education - both for Maori and, possibly, other minority groups - and for the related possibilities of multicultural education. It also requires a wider and clearer recognition of minority language education rights, as developed within both international law and political theory, in order to apply these rights appropriately to an Aotearoa New Zealand context which is currently witnessing rapid and extensive demographic (and linguistic) change

English language in rural Malaysia: situating global literacies in local practices

This paper claims that underlying the naturalisation of teaching and learning of English in the Malaysian education system are ideological pressures and political dogmas, often emerging from colonial, urban/rural and even local ethnic conflicts and hierarchies. It suggests therein lie the inherent difficulties of teaching and learning English in rural communities in Malaysia. Three paradigms frame this view in the paper: the overarching view of literacy as a situated and variable social process; the use of an ethnographic perspective in investigating English language and literacy education in Malaysia; the stance on the need for Malaysians to acquire English as an additive rather than as a deficit philosophy

The use of evidence in language and literacy teaching

Literacy education deserves evidence-based decisions. Low literacy costs the British economy between £1.73bn and £2.05bn per year (KPMG 2006) and the social and emotional costs are equally high. Yet we know that children who struggle with literacy can make fast progress when the instructional content and pedagogy closely match their needs. This chapter describes some of the paradigms and problems associated with the use of evidence in language and literacy education with examples from specific interventions and programmes. It raises issues about how literacy teachers are professionalized to attend to evidence, both the evidence in front of them and the research evidence 'out there'. It argues that to support teachers in using evidence effectively, we need to frame the research evidence about effective content, pedagogy and learning in ways that recognize the power and limitations of different evidence paradigms. To ensure that all children make fast progress, we need to appreciate how teachers develop broad and diagnostic understandings of literacy and literacy learning and of how policy and curriculum frameworks impact on the classroom decisions they make

Exploring the front end of New Zealand curriculum in student teacher education: an example from language and mathematics education.

This paper reports on two components of a collaborative project conducted by members of the language and literacy education, mathematics education and social studies teaching teams at the Faculty of Education, The University of Waikato. The teams decided to research the implications of the front end of The New Zealand Curriculum document [NZC] (Ministry of Education, 2007). The front end of the document includes key competencies and a statement describing each learning area. The language and literacy team chose to explore student teacher understandings of the English essence statement and the way in which that learning area is structured. The mathematics education team explored student teacher understandings of and implications for the "thinking" key competency for the teaching and learning of mathematics. Data were collected through in-class observations and tasks, and the analysis of aspects of student assessment work. The findings highlighted the value of an explicit focus on a particular facet of the NZC along with the challenges student teachers experience in envisaging how this might play out in practice

COMMUNICATIVE STRATEGIES IN INTERLANGUAGE

The concept ‘communicative competence’ covers four main aspects: grammatical competence traditionally dealing with syntax; sociolinguistic competence dealing with social appropriateness of communication; discourse competence dealing with cohesive and coherence in discourse; and strategic competence focusing on pragmatic function of communication. Those aspects of communicative competence have received great attention in language and literacy education, particularly in second language learning. However, little attention is given to the ability to employ different tactics by language users in achieving this goal. This paper examines this neglected area of communicative strategic competence and their implications for research and teaching

DECONSTRUCTING STANDARD ENGLISH IDEOLOGY: ELEMENTS OF EQUITABLE AND INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE AND LITERACY EDUCATION FOR OUR TIMES

ABSTRACT This thesis argues for the deconstruction of the standard English ideology, which holds that standard English is inherently superior to other English varieties. It examines the ideology’s detrimental effects on those who speak and use nonstandard English varieties, mostly minorities and people of color, who are linguistically profiled and marginalized because of the ways they speak. The ideology can also generate intensified reactions to perceived grammar and usage errors in those who subscribe to its prescriptivist views, and can promote judgments and stereotypes which impede communication and connection between people. To help dismantle the standard English ideology, the author reviews the work of scholars in linguistics, sociolinguistics, and various English fields that provide support for the essential equality and legitimacy of all English varieties and ultimately, their speakers. Critically informed by linguistic fact, socio-historical analyses of the origins of standardization, and the ways the ideology feeds racism, language and literacy instructors can then implement balanced pedagogies that are inclusive and take students’ home language into account while simultaneously teaching standard English to help close the achievement gap between linguistically diverse students and more privileged groups. Such critical language awareness entails knowledge of seminal U.S. court cases and education policy which have sought to redress social justice, language, and education concerns in a society that continues to be segregated along racial and poverty lines. Studies show that current trends in language educational policy reveal a shift away from discourses of achieving equity and toward rhetoric that reflects more privileged student groups. Specifically, the new era is anti-bilingual education and in favor of foreign language enrichment programs, which benefit more students, but permit educational inequalities to remain unchallenged. Studies also show that language practitioners’ attempts to be inclusive can result in an attitude of avoidance in which the explicit teaching of standard English is evaded. Such contradictions and complexities of shifting conceptual grounds are reflected in Writing Center scholarship which details how an attitude of avoidance has left many multilingual and even monolingual students nowhere to go for sentence-level instruction, making it even more difficult for many students to access structures of privilege. The author finds theoretical and practical guidance in writing centers’ shifts towards transformative language and literacy praxis that is truly inclusive and aims to leave no one out

Mapping the literate lives of two Cameroonian families living in Johannesburg : implications for language and literacy education

Abstract: The language and literacy practices of two French-speaking Cameroonian families living in South Africa are the focus of this paper. Since its democracy, there has been an influx of immigrants from all over the world into South Africa. This influx has inevitable consequences for education. The aim of this research was to map the language and literacy practices of two immigrant Cameroonian families residing in Johannesburg, South Africa. The case study utilised interviews with the parents and children, as well as home observations. The research findings reveal that little linguistic congruence exists between the home and school, and that the parents and children serve as language brokers at different points. The study concludes that, if South Africa wants to live up to its democratic status, inclusive to all who live in it, teachers need to be versed in the multiple layers of literacy practices of learners from diverse backgrounds and consider initiatives such as family and community literacy programmes. This is vital not only for immigrant children, but for the South African education system as well

The Departed Girl

This poem is inspired by a participant in Sunde-Peterson’s (2014) case study that explored how a gifted youth faced adversity. The participant who inspired the subject of this poem faced much trauma; Sunde-Peterson was interested in how this impacted her development, while this poem attempts to imagine her escape beyond the data collection period. Like Sunde-Peterson, the speaker of this poem also posits that how gifted youth respond to trauma warrants more attention. Amber Moore is a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia studying language and literacy education with the Faculty of Education. Her research interests include adolescent literacy, trauma literature, and exploring gender and sexualities issues in school. She also enjoys writing poetry and creative nonfiction

Heteroglossia : a space for developing critical language awareness?

This paper reports on research into the challenges of implementing a critical writing pedagogy within a teacher education program in Australia. Participants in this study are student teachers enrolled in a compulsory subject, &ldquo;Language and Literacy in Secondary School&rdquo;, a subject requiring them to develop a knowledge of the role of language and literacy across the secondary school curriculum and to show personal proficiency in literacy as part of graduate outcomes for teacher education dictated by the State Government of Victoria. To develop an understanding of the way that language has shaped their lives, students write a narrative about their early literacy experiences &ndash; a task which they all find very challenging, especially in comparison with the formal writing of other university subjects. Rather than simply reminiscing about their early childhood, they are encouraged to juxtapose voices from the past and the present, and to combine a range of texts within their writing. Later in the semester they revisit these accounts of their early literacy experiences and, in a separate piece of writing, endeavour to place these accounts within the contexts of theories and debates they have encountered in the course of completing this unit. The students&rsquo; writing provides a small window on how they are experiencing their tertiary education and their preparation as teachers, including the managerial controls that are currently shaping university curriculum and pedagogy. We argue that such heteroglossic texts (Bakhtin, 1981) prompt students to stretch their repertoires as language-users, enabling them to develop a socially critical awareness of language and literacy, including the literacy practices in which they engage as university students.<br /