Lessons learned in multilingual grounded language learning

Recent work has shown how to learn better visual-semantic embeddings by leveraging image descriptions in more than one language. Here, we investigate in detail which conditions affect the performance of this type of grounded language learning model. We show that multilingual training improves over bilingual training, and that low-resource languages benefit from training with higher-resource languages. We demonstrate that a multilingual model can be trained equally well on either translations or comparable sentence pairs, and that annotating the same set of images in multiple language enables further improvements via an additional caption-caption ranking objective.Comment: CoNLL 201

Design principles for professionalizing primary school teachers on promoting reading motivation

Studies show that teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) is essential for educational quality, and moreover, when it comes to reading, key for students’ success in education and participation in our 21st century society. Most of the research investigating professional development programs on improving teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching reading and in particular on fostering students’ reading motivation, however, fails to include clear and detailed descriptions of the design principles underlying the programs. Therefore, the present study provides a comprehensive description and operationalization of the design principles of a CPD program for primary school teachers focusing on promoting students’ reading motivation combining Desimone’s (2009) framework for effective professional development with Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Consequently, the CPD program’s core features as distinguished by Desimone (i.e., content focus, coherence, active learning, collective participation and duration) and the need for autonomy, competence and relatedness as put central in SDT are analytically described and elaborated on. In view of reporting on the implementation check of the CPD, we further provide insight into whether these operationalized design principles were also perceived as such by the teachers participating in a first iteration of the CPD intervention. information

Symbolic inductive bias for visually grounded learning of spoken language

A widespread approach to processing spoken language is to first automatically transcribe it into text. An alternative is to use an end-to-end approach: recent works have proposed to learn semantic embeddings of spoken language from images with spoken captions, without an intermediate transcription step. We propose to use multitask learning to exploit existing transcribed speech within the end-to-end setting. We describe a three-task architecture which combines the objectives of matching spoken captions with corresponding images, speech with text, and text with images. We show that the addition of the speech/text task leads to substantial performance improvements on image retrieval when compared to training the speech/image task in isolation. We conjecture that this is due to a strong inductive bias transcribed speech provides to the model, and offer supporting evidence for this.Comment: ACL 201

Further exploring the dynamicity, situatedness, and emergence of the self: The key role of context

Drawing on theoretical insights from a complex dynamic systems framework, this work explores the ways that learner selves, as they relate to learning and using languages, manifest across different contexts and timescales and emerge in interaction with various factors. First, a broad overview of dynamically-oriented L2 motivation research is provided before critically considering the need for research that aligns with conceptual advances made under the dynamic turn in SLA. In particular, this critical overview highlights a crucial need for more research employing dynamic methods capable of revealing how learner perceptions of self emerge in relation to their interlocutors and in interaction with external factors, including language ideologies that may uniquely characterize sociocultural contexts where target languages other than English are learned. The chapter concludes by discussing ways to implement dynamically oriented methodology that can provide much needed insights into the inherent dynamic, emergent, and contextually and socially embedded nature of learner selves

New Languages of Schooling: Ethnicity, Education and Equality in Nepal

Mother-tongue education has remained a controversial issue in Nepal. Scholars, activists and policy-makers have, on the one hand, favored mother-tongue education from the standpoint of social justice. Against these views, others have identified this as predominantly groupist in its orientation and not helpful in an imagination of a unified national community. Taking this contention as a point of inquiry, this paper aims to explore the contested space of mother-tongue education to understand the ways in which people position themselves within the polarizing debates of ethnicity-based claims on education in Nepal. Drawing from the ethnographic fieldwork in mother-tongue education school, in this paper, I illustrate that the students made meaning in their everyday world by maintaining the multilingual repertoire that included their mother tongue, Nepali and some English; multilingualism was used as a strategy for mother-tongue education. I propose a notion of simultaneity to explain this attempt to seek membership into multiple groups and display of apparently contradictory dynamics. The practices in these schools, on the one hand, display inward-looking characteristics through the everyday use of mother tongue, the construction of unified ethnic identity and cultural practices. On the other hand, there were outward-looking dynamics of making claims in the universal spaces of national education and public places. The salience of these processes is the simultaneous membership to multiple groups, claims over public spaces and in the spaces of nationalism, hitherto associated with Nepali. This paper illustrates that contrary to the essentialist categories espoused in both nationalist discourse and ethnic activism, students in these school display affiliation to multiple languages and identities that were seen as neither incompatible nor binary opposites

Reading Recovery Teacher Understandings About Language and Early Literacy Acquisition

This study investigated Reading Recovery teacher understandings about language and early literacy acquisition by applying a constructivist grounded theory design. Participants were Reading Recovery teachers working across three varied districts in Massachusetts (N=33). The purpose of the study was to engage Reading Recovery teachers in surveys, focus groups, interviews, and observations to understand the degree to which Reading Recovery teacher participants value varied student language patterns. Addressing biases faced upon school entry by children who speak differently than their teachers is essential. When students are identified for early literacy intervention, an asset-based frame is critical to ensure accelerated growth. The guiding question was, “What do Reading Recovery teachers understand about using language/linguistic diversity as an asset in early literacy acquisition?”. What might be learned, in terms of Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Practices (CLSP), from Reading Recovery teachers was also discussed. The theory that emerged is that engaging in reflective processes, communicating theoretical understandings regarding reciprocity, working to expand oral language flexibility, and fostering the growth of collective expertise specifically to support linguistic diversity were all necessary. The observation portion of this study found evidence of Reading Recovery teachers working to be culturally and linguistically responsive to all children including multilingual, multidialectal, and monolingual students. Five examples included in the discussion are 1. Daily explicit instruction around literary structures 2. Personalized instruction 3. Positioning the child as a writer: allowing the syntax and meaning of a child to drive conversations and determine the written message 4. Never invalidating a child\u27s syntax or semantics while fostering syntactic flexibility 5. Embedding a Told and then restating that unknown word in a meaningful phrase. Implications for pedagogical practice included working within a CLSP framework to deepen educator understandings of how to honor and teach into linguistic diversity as a strength and develop more robust theoretical and practical collective expertise on the matter. Implications for further research include deepening the connection between Reading Recovery and CLSP. Finally, in the larger field of education the work of culturally sustaining practices and linguistically sustaining practices may need to be discussed as both individual and intertwined issues

Science education on the U.S./Mexico border: Field-based studies for future teachers in bilingual/binational schools

The University of Texas at El Paso’s field-based program of studies for future teachers provides opportunities for powerful learning through a dialectical union of reflection and action. Methods courses in academic disciplines are linked with seminars and coursework on community partnerships, dual language education and culturally responsive education. This article illustrates the processes of planning, implementation and evaluation of this approach, highlighting the impacts of forging connections among schools, communities and university personnel to improve education on the U.S./Mexico border and in communities with culturally/linguistically diverse student populations. Parents, students and future teachers interact in bilingual workshops that center on pupil achievement and conceptually correct science education. Preliminary outcomes indicate that two-way dual language (TWDL) bilingual programs (i.e., validating native language literacy along with English language acquisition) with a strong parental engagement component provide a strong framework for teaching/learning that can help improve educational outcomes for ELL/immigrant children and deepen future teachers’ skills and knowledge. Focusing on academic enrichment for all students, these field-based experiences enable future teachers to learn strategies that integrate students’ and families’ linguistic and cultural experiences as a resource for learning. The co-authors highlight qualitative data findings from the Science in Our Homes – Ciencia en Nuestras Casas field-based project in a multilingual, multicultural K-8 school on the U.S./Mexico border, providing insights for educators in diverse communities whose efforts focus on closing the achievement gap for English language learners and/or immigrant students

Response: An Invitation to a Too-Long Postponed Conversation: Race and Composition by Octavio Pimentel

Octavio Pimentel’s “Racism and Composition: Redesigning the Composition Classroom to be more Culturally Inclusive” critically provokes pedagogical and programmatic questions by focusing on pressing issues of race and language within a historical context relevant to the field of rhetoric and composition