The Evolution of a Practicum: Movement Toward a Capstone

In this reflective piece, we discuss changes made to the practicum at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), a professional graduate school that offers MA degrees in TESOL and TFL. We begin by providing a historical perspective of the practicum as it has evolved in relation to other exit mechanisms. Then, we provide a rationale for moving toward a Dual Capstone Model, in which the former practicum was elevated to capstone status. Finally, we reflect upon the new Practicum Capstone in relation to ongoing issues of washback, rubrics, and feedback, providing our particular disciplinary perspectives on these aspects. Throughout the piece, we highlight how teacher identity can be fostered through a balanced approach to both structure and agency. This discussion of practicum- and program-level changes highlights the importance of responsiveness to evolving student needs through thoughtful deliberation about curricular changes over time

Language And Gender: The Mass Media’s Portrayal Of Two U.S. Presidential Candidates

The presence of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign raised new questions about bias and sexism in the media’s portrayal of the candidates. The recent commemorative inaugural edition of Newsweek noted that “Clinton’s campaign for the presidency showed us how far we’ve come on women’s rights – and how far we haven’t come” (109). While Obama and Clinton were vying for the Democratic nomination, the March 17, 2008 Newsweek issue featured a picture of Hillary Clinton and the title “Hear Her Roar: Gender, Class, and Hillary Clinton”. Two online media sources at the time asked if “media outlets [were] biased against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton due to her gender” (www.capitolhillblue.com) and if “Hillary Clinton’s campaign [was] the victim of sexism” (www.redblueamerica.com). As Talbot (2007) notes in Media Discourse: Representation and Interaction, “[in] modern democracies the media serve a vital function as a public forum” (3). Considering the media’s effects on the nation and the public’s ideas, it is essential to analyze the language and discourse of the media during critical moments in national histories such as presidential campaigns

Language And Gender: The Mass Media’s Portrayal Of Two U.S. Presidential Candidates

The presence of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign raised new questions about bias and sexism in the media’s portrayal of the candidates. The recent commemorative inaugural edition of Newsweek noted that “Clinton’s campaign for the presidency showed us how far we’ve come on women’s rights – and how far we haven’t come” (109). While Obama and Clinton were vying for the Democratic nomination, the March 17, 2008 Newsweek issue featured a picture of Hillary Clinton and the title “Hear Her Roar: Gender, Class, and Hillary Clinton”. Two online media sources at the time asked if “media outlets [were] biased against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton due to her gender” (www.capitolhillblue.com) and if “Hillary Clinton’s campaign [was] the victim of sexism” (www.redblueamerica.com). As Talbot (2007) notes in Media Discourse: Representation and Interaction, “[in] modern democracies the media serve a vital function as a public forum” (3). Considering the media’s effects on the nation and the public’s ideas, it is essential to analyze the language and discourse of the media during critical moments in national histories such as presidential campaigns

Heritage Language Socialization Practices in Secular Yiddish Educational Contexts: The Creation of a Metalinguistic Community

This dissertation develops a theoretical and empirical framework for the model of metalinguistic community, a community of positioned social actors engaged primarily in discourse about language and cultural symbols tied to language. Building upon the notions of speech community (Duranti, 1994; Gumperz, 1968; Morgan, 2004), linguistic community (Silverstein, 1998), local community (Grenoble & Whaley, 2006), and discourse community (Watts, 1999), metalinguistic community provides a novel practice-based (Bourdieu, 1991) framework for diverse participants who experience a strong connection to a language and its speakers but may lack familiarity with them due to historical, personal, and/or communal circumstances. This research identifies five dimensions of metalinguistic community: socialization into language ideologies is a priority over socialization into language competence and use, conflation of language and culture, age and corresponding knowledge as highly salient features, use and discussion of the code are primarily pedagogical, and use of code in specific interactional and textual contexts (e.g., greeting/closings, assessments, response cries, lexical items related to religion and culture, mock language).As a case study of metalinguistic community, this dissertation provides an in-depth ethnographic analysis of contemporary secular engagement with Yiddish language and culture in the United States. The project is based upon nearly three years of fieldwork in Southern California, Northern California, and New York in over 170 language classes, programs, lectures, and cultural events, resulting in more than one hundred hours of video- and audio-recorded interactional and interview data. It has also investigated literature, print media, and online sources related to Yiddish in secular milieus. In order to capture the diversity of actors and contexts through time and space, the study examines meta-Yiddish literature in historical context, conflicted stance (DuBois, 2007; Goodwin, 2007; Jaffe, 2009) toward linguistic alternatives as socialization practice, Yiddish "endangerment" as interactional reality and discursive strategy, a person-centered ethnographic approach (Hollan, 2001) to Yiddish as a heritage language, and epistemic ecologies in intergenerational contexts. This project explores the multiple ways that metalinguistic community members engage in "nostalgia socialization" into an imagined nationhood (Anderson, 1983) of the Jewish diaspora, demonstrating the central role of language as identity maker and marker within multilingual contexts

Preservice Teachers’ Discursive Constructions of Cultural Practices in a Multicultural Telecollaboration

The study reports on a telecollaboration exchange between two teacher education classes in the United States and Turkey. In synchronous and asynchronous conversations, preservice teachers (PTs) engaged in social justice issues and made discourse choices that captured culture(s) and communities as diverse or essentialized. These choices were affected by PTs’ positionings and impacted how PTs connected to individuals only and/or to broader society.  PTs asked questions that created space for critical discussions and facilitated awareness of diversity, yet sometimes led to overgeneralizations. The study has implications for designing telecollaborations that promote language and practices to unpack the issues of social justice

Languages, Identities, and Accents: Perspectives from the 2010 Linguistic Diversity Conference

In our introduction to this special edition of Issues in Applied Linguistics we, the co-editors, discuss our motivations for organizing the 2010 Linguistic Diversity Conference in response to reports that the Arizona Department of Education had instructed districts to remove teachers who spoke “heavily accented” English from their ESL classrooms. We outline our objectives of civic engagement, advancement of public understanding, and promotion of sound research-based language policies, as well as our ultimate goals of advocacy, change, and social justice. We describe the article contributions to this special edition, organized under two main sections that primarily argue that 1) language is more than a system of signs and symbols; and 2) accents are co-constructed by speakers and hearers in interaction. We share our hope that this volume can serve as an informative resource for diverse stakeholders in language scholarship, education, and policymaking. Finally, we invite others to dialogue with us through new media and join our campaign against linguistic misinformation and intolerance

Language Assessment as a System: Best Practices, Stakeholders, Models, and Testimonials

Panel Discussio

Heritage Language Socialization Practices in Secular Yiddish Educational Contexts: The Creation of a Metalinguistic Community

This dissertation develops a theoretical and empirical framework for the model of metalinguistic community, a community of positioned social actors engaged primarily in discourse about language and cultural symbols tied to language. Building upon the notions of speech community (Duranti, 1994; Gumperz, 1968; Morgan, 2004), linguistic community (Silverstein, 1998), local community (Grenoble & Whaley, 2006), and discourse community (Watts, 1999), metalinguistic community provides a novel practice-based (Bourdieu, 1991) framework for diverse participants who experience a strong connection to a language and its speakers but may lack familiarity with them due to historical, personal, and/or communal circumstances. This research identifies five dimensions of metalinguistic community: socialization into language ideologies is a priority over socialization into language competence and use, conflation of language and culture, age and corresponding knowledge as highly salient features, use and discussion of the code are primarily pedagogical, and use of code in specific interactional and textual contexts (e.g., greeting/closings, assessments, response cries, lexical items related to religion and culture, mock language).As a case study of metalinguistic community, this dissertation provides an in-depth ethnographic analysis of contemporary secular engagement with Yiddish language and culture in the United States. The project is based upon nearly three years of fieldwork in Southern California, Northern California, and New York in over 170 language classes, programs, lectures, and cultural events, resulting in more than one hundred hours of video- and audio-recorded interactional and interview data. It has also investigated literature, print media, and online sources related to Yiddish in secular milieus. In order to capture the diversity of actors and contexts through time and space, the study examines meta-Yiddish literature in historical context, conflicted stance (DuBois, 2007; Goodwin, 2007; Jaffe, 2009) toward linguistic alternatives as socialization practice, Yiddish "endangerment" as interactional reality and discursive strategy, a person-centered ethnographic approach (Hollan, 2001) to Yiddish as a heritage language, and epistemic ecologies in intergenerational contexts. This project explores the multiple ways that metalinguistic community members engage in "nostalgia socialization" into an imagined nationhood (Anderson, 1983) of the Jewish diaspora, demonstrating the central role of language as identity maker and marker within multilingual contexts.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Los Angeles, 2012.School code: 0031