Submerged in the mainstream? A case study of an immigrant learner in a New Zealand primary classroom

Immigrant children from diverse language backgrounds face not only linguistic challenges when enrolled in mainstream English-medium classrooms, but also difficulties adjusting to an unfamiliar learning community. The culture of primary school classrooms in New Zealand typically reflects conventions across three dimensions: interactional, instructional task performance and cognitive-academic development. All three dimensions are underpinned by the culturally specific discourse conventions involved in language socialisation. New learners may be helped by classmates or their teacher to understand and successfully use these conventions, but left on their own they may sink rather than swim. This is a case study of one Taiwanese 11-year old boy, 'John', who entered a New Zealand primary classroom midway through the school year. John's basic conversational ability was sound, but he did not possess the interactive classroom skills needed to operate in the new culture of learning. Selected from a wider study of the classroom, transcript data from audio-recorded excerpts of John's interactions over several months with his teacher and classmates are interpreted from perspectives derived from sociocultural and language socialisation theories. The article concludes with a brief consideration of the extent to which John constructed, or was constrained from constructing meaningful learning experiences, and suggestions for further research and reflection

The importance of language for language development: Linguistic determinism in the 1980s

The semantic and syntactic functions of verbs are the major aspects of linguistic complexity that contribute to the cognitive requirements for learning language between two and three years of age. Several contrastive categories of verbs emerged from our studies with action/state as the largest and most general. Contrastive subcategories of action verbs were locative/nonlocative action, durative/nondurative action, and completive/noncompletive action. The subcategories of state verbs were volitional/epistemic/notice/communication states. The psychological and linguistic validity of these semantic categories rests on their being coextensive with major grammatical developments and/or their sequential development

“No, no Maama! Say ‘Shaatir ya Ouledee Shaatir’!” Children’s agency in language use and socialisation

Aims and objectives: This paper investigates how children in multilingual and transnational families mobilise their multiple and developing linguistic repertoires creatively to assert their agency in language use and socialisation, and why these acts of agency are conducive to successful maintenance of the so-called “home”, “community” or “minority” language. Methodology: Close, qualitative analysis of mealtime multiparty conversations is carried out to examine children’s agency in language use and socialisation. Data and analysis: Twelve hours of mealtime conversations within one Arabic and English speaking multilingual family in the UK were recorded over a period of eight months. The excerpts selected for analysis in this paper illustrate how agency is enacted in interaction. Findings: The data analyses of the family’s language practices reveal both their flexible language policy and the importance the family attaches to Arabic. The children in this family are fully aware of the language preferences of their parents and are capable of manipulating that knowledge and asserting their agency through their linguistic choices to achieve their interactional goals. Originality: This paper explores how Arabic is maintained as a minority language by second and third generations of Arabic-speaking immigrants in the UK through close analysis of conversations. Significance: The findings contribute to the current discussions of family language policy and maintenance by demonstrating children’s agentive and creative roles in language use and socialisation. Three factors are identified as the reason for the successful language learning, use and maintenance of Arabic: firstly, a family language policy that has a positive multilingual outlook; secondly, family relationship dynamics that connect and bond family members; and thirdly, the children’s highly developed ability to understand their parents’ language preferences

Jean Briggs's Never in Anger as an Ethnography of Experience

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66542/2/10.1177_0308275X9301300406.pd

Being Ready to Treat Ebola Virus Disease Patients

As the outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa continues, clinical preparedness is needed in countries at risk for EVD (e.g., United States) and more fully equipped and supported clinical teams in those countries with epidemic spread of EVD in Africa. Clinical staff must approach the patient with a very deliberate focus on providing effective care while assuring personal safety. To do this, both individual health care providers and health systems must improve EVD care. Although formal guidance toward these goals exists from the World Health Organization, Medecin Sans Frontières, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other groups, some of the most critical lessons come from personal experience. In this narrative, clinicians deployed by the World Health Organization into a wide range of clinical settings in West Africa distill key, practical considerations for working safely and effectively with patients with EVD

New Speakers and Language Revitalisation: Arpitan and Community (Re)formation

Today, it is uncontroversial to claim that France’s regional (minority) languages (RLs) are in decline. However, revitalisation movements have nonetheless continued to surface, and this chapter considers one by-product of such efforts: the emergence of new speakers in RL contexts. The term ‘new speaker’ refers to individuals who acquire the target language not through traditional transmission contexts (e.g. home, family), but instead as adults through language revitalisation initiatives. The chapter focuses on revitalisation efforts in the context of Francoprovençal, a severely endangered and understudied RL spoken transnationally across French, Italian and Swiss borders. A critical examination of current studies supplemented with recently collected empirical data shows new speakers to be central agents in a movement championing proto-nation-statehood across national borders, reorienting the region’s traditional sociolinguistic field