Developing metaphoric competence through schemata-building for English learners in Japan

The purpose of this project is to propose teaching methods that facilitate the development of English vocabulary knowledge and metaphorical concepts for students in Japan

Facilitating Conversations on Difficult Topics in the Classroom: Teachers’ Stories of Opening Spaces Using Children’s Literature

For this edition of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, we invited educators to share stories from their practice: times when they utilized children’s literature and conversations to address real life; the difficult topics that children experience through the mirror of their own experiences or the windows of their peers, communities, or world

Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning

Edited by a diverse group of expert collaborators, the Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning is a landmark volume that brings together cutting-edge research examining learning as entailing inherently cultural processes. Conceptualizing culture as both a set of social practices and connected to learner identities, the chapters synthesize contemporary research in elaborating a new vision of the cultural nature of learning, moving beyond summary to reshape the field toward studies that situate culture in the learning sciences alongside equity of educational processes and outcomes. With the recent increased focus on culture and equity within the educational research community, this volume presents a comprehensive, innovative treatment of what has become one of the field’s most timely and relevant topics

Investigating the effect of spaced versus massed practice on vocabulary retention in the EFL classroom

The expression ‘spacing effect’ refers to a commonly observed finding that spacing learning over a period of time leads to better retention than massing learning in a single session. The present study for the first time experimentally compared the relative effectiveness of spaced practice and massed practice on vocabulary learning in authentic EFL classroom settings at tertiary level. This thesis examined the difference in initial learning and longer-term retention between massed and spaced practice at four strength levels of knowledge of vocabulary meaning, namely receptive recognition (easiest), productive recognition, receptive recall, and productive recall (hardest) (Laufer & Goldstein, 2004). Furthermore, this thesis examined the difference in initial learning and retention between word classes, the role of individual factors in spaced learning compared with massed learning, and whether the four levels of vocabulary strength additionally constituted an implicational scale. With these aims, year-one Saudi EFL university students were taught the meaning of 30 new words in a massed learning condition and 30 other new words in a spaced learning condition. In the massed learning condition, each target word was practiced four times in one classroom session. In the spaced learning condition, each target word was practiced once in each of four classroom sessions. The same vocabulary tests were administered immediately after the intervention and four weeks later. Questionnaires were additionally used to gather self-reported individual data. The findings revealed that scores for items that were learnt in the massed condition were not only lower than scores for items that were learnt in the spaced condition but also yielded a greater fall between the immediate and delayed post-tests, although that fall was not significant at the easiest strength level. The benefit of spaced learning over massed learning applied equally to nouns and verbs, with the former’s scores being higher regardless of the time when the test occurred. Vocabulary learning with spaced practice was beneficial to all learners irrespectively of whether they preferred it or not over massed practice. The study agrees with Laufer and Goldstein’s (2004) finding of an implicational scale across the same four degrees of knowledge strength. In addition to further results, implications for second language acquisition and vocabulary learning theory, and English as a foreign language pedagogy are presented

Essential Speech and Language Technology for Dutch: Results by the STEVIN-programme

Computational Linguistics; Germanic Languages; Artificial Intelligence (incl. Robotics); Computing Methodologie

Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning

Edited by a diverse group of expert collaborators, the Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning is a landmark volume that brings together cutting-edge research examining learning as entailing inherently cultural processes. Conceptualizing culture as both a set of social practices and connected to learner identities, the chapters synthesize contemporary research in elaborating a new vision of the cultural nature of learning, moving beyond summary to reshape the field toward studies that situate culture in the learning sciences alongside equity of educational processes and outcomes. With the recent increased focus on culture and equity within the educational research community, this volume presents a comprehensive, innovative treatment of what has become one of the field’s most timely and relevant topics

International teachers in the American classroom : deposing the myth of monolingualism

An international graduate teaching assistant‘s way of speaking may pose a challenge for college students enrolled in STEM courses at American universities. Students commonly complain that unfamiliar accents interfere with their ability to comprehend the IGTA or that they have difficulty making sense of the IGTA‘s use of words or phrasing. These frustrations are echoed by parents who pay tuition bills. The issue has provoked state and national legislative debates over universities‘ use of IGTAs. However, potentially productive debates and interventions have been stalemated due to the failure to confront deeply embedded myths and cultural models that devalue otherness and privilege dominant peoples, processes, and knowledge. My research implements a method of inquiry designed to identify and challenge these cultural frameworks in order to create an ideological/cultural context that will facilitate rather than impede the valuable efforts that are already in place. Discourse theorist Paul Gee‘s concepts of master myth, cultural models, and meta-knowledge offer analytical tools that I have adapted in a unique research approach emphasizing triangulation of both analytic methods and data sites. I examine debates over IGTA‘s use of language in the classroom among policy-makers, parents of college students, and scholars and teachers. First, the article Teach Impediment provides a particularly lucid account of the public debate over IGTAs. My analysis evidences the cultural hold of the master myth of monolingualism in public policy-making. Second, Michigan Technological University‘s email listserve Parentnet is analyzed to identify cultural models supporting monolingualism implicit in everyday conversation. Third, a Chronicle of Higher Education colloquy forum is analyzed to explore whether scholars and teachers who draw on communication and linguistic research overcome the ideological biases identified in earlier chapters. My analysis indicates that a persistent ideological bias plays out in these data sites, despite explicit claims by invested speakers to the contrary. This bias is a key reason why monolingualism remains so tenaciously a part of educational practice. Because irrational expectations and derogatory assumptions have gone unchallenged, little progress has been made despite decades of earnest work and good intentions. Therefore, my recommendations focus on what we say not what we intend

Primers, Commentaries, and Kanbun Literacy in Japanese Literary Culture, 950-1250CE

This project seeks a new perspective on issues of literacy, literary language, and cultural contact in the literature of premodern Japan by examining the primers used to study Chinese-style literature in the Heian and early medieval periods (c. 900-1250CE). Much of Heian literary production was centered on kanbun: "Chinese-style" writing that resembled classical Chinese and mobilized allusive connections to classical Chinese texts, but was usually read based on classical Japanese vocabulary and syntax. The knowledge gleaned from introductory kanbun education forms an important and little-researched common thread linking readers and writers from a wide range of backgrounds - from male and female courtiers to specialized university scholars to medieval monks and warriors eager to appropriate court culture. While tracing the roles of commonly-studied kanbun primers and commentaries in shaping Heian literary culture and its medieval reception, I consider key aspects of premodern Japan literacy - from the art of kundoku ("gloss-reading") to the systems of knowledge involved in textual commentary and the adaptation of kanbun material. Examining the educational foundations of premodern Japanese literary culture demonstrates that kanbun and other literary styles functioned as closely entangled modes of literacy rather than as native and foreign languages, and that certain elements of classical Chinese knowledge formed a valued set of raw material for literary creativity. Chapter 1 outlines the diversity of premodern Japanese literacy and the key primers and encyclopedic reference works involved in kanbun education. Chapter 2 focuses on a primer for learning written characters, the Thousand Character Classic (Qian zi wen), discussing its varied reception in the contexts of calligraphy practice, oral recitation, and commentarial authority and offering translations from the tongue-in-cheek literary showpiece Thousand Character Classic Continued (Zoku Senjimon, 1132). In Chapter 3, I examine the role of kanbun knowledge in Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book (Makura no soshi, early 11th century), which foregrounds the social and creative roles of introductory kanbun material as a vocabulary of conversational quotation among both men and women. Chapter 4 turns to Condensed Meaning of the New Ballads (Shin gafu ryakui, 1172), a ground-breaking anecdotal commentary on Bai Juyi's poetry, to discuss the way that kanbun texts were interpreted and reinvented through commentary. Chapter 5 discusses an innovative poetic adaptation of a kanbun primer, Waka Poems on the Child's Treasury (Mogyu waka, 1204), which makes use of poetic topics and historical anecdotes as effective ways of organizing kanbun knowledge and also suggest the potential for introductory education to spark literary creativity across genre boundaries. I conclude with a brief look at the relevance of premodern Japanese kanbun education for broader questions about literary language and for comparisons involving other transregional classical languages like Latin. By illustrating the processes by which elements of Chinese literary culture were adopted and adapted throughout East Asia, this project provides fertile ground for exploring issues of literacy and cultural interaction that underlie all forms of literature

Hidden in history : examining Asian American elementary teachers’ enactment of Asian American history

Compared to other groups of color, Asian Americans are arguably the most invisible ethnoracial group in the traditional narrative of U.S. history that pervades K-12 schooling. In contemporary scholarship about teachers of color, Asian Americans are also largely ignored. This qualitative case study examined how three Asian American elementary teachers enacted Asian American historical narratives in their classrooms through an Asian Critical Race Theory (AsianCrit) framework, with particular attention to their understanding of the dominant narrative of history, their use of Asian American children's literature, and their conceptualizations of citizenship. The teachers' racialized and hybrid experiences as 1.5 and second generation immigrants deeply informed their approaches to teaching Asian American history through multiple interpretations of resistance to the dominant narrative. This study revealed the complexity of teaching more critically conscious histories of groups that have long been excluded from social studies textbooks while demonstrating the transformative possibilities of such work with diverse young students.Curriculum and Instructio