Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Resourcefulness in English Language Classrooms: Emerging possibilities through plurilingualism

Reports on refugee and migrant women in Australia show these women have low literacy in their first language, limited English language abilities, and minimal formal schooling. With major funding cuts to the adult migrant education sector and persistent public ‘deficit views’ of immigrant and refugee’s levels of literacy, approaches to teaching and learning in this sector require flexible views of language that embrace plurilingualism as a valuable resource within and outside of the socially-orientated ESL classroom. In this article, we present and discuss our findings from a study in which we co-taught English to immigrant and refugee women in a housing estate in Melbourne, Australia, and investigated the effects of a plurilingual view on the women’s English language learning experience and communication skills. Drawing on recorded classroom dialogues, observation notes, and worksheets produced by the women, we demonstrate the extraordinary plurilingual resourcefulness immigrant and refugee women bring to the challenge of learning to communicate in English. Our aim is not to promote a particular teaching approach, but to suggest the value of ongoing critical reflection on the underpinning ideas of plurilingualism for immigrant and refugee learner groups such as those we experienced in our own classroom interactions

A Compiler for a Two-Dimensional Programming Language

A visual programming language is presented. This language uses interactive graphics to convey notion such as subroutine, recursion, block structure, parallel and serial processing to school children. Currently the system is interpreter based. To overcome the inefficiency of the interpreter based system, a compiler is implemented for this language. This report gives an overview of the compiler and the details about the parser, semantic analyzer and the code generator. Finally, a performance comparison between the interpreter based system and the compiler based system is given

Tyrosine-Based Signals Regulate the Assembly of Daple⋅PARD3 Complex at Cell-Cell Junctions.

Polarized distribution of organelles and molecules inside a cell is vital for a range of cellular processes and its loss is frequently encountered in disease. Polarization during planar cell migration is a special condition in which cellular orientation is triggered by cell-cell contact. We demonstrate that the protein Daple (CCDC88C) is a component of cell junctions in epithelial cells which serves like a cellular "compass" for establishing and maintaining contact-triggered planar polarity. Furthermore, these processes may be mediated through interaction with the polarity regulator PARD3. This interaction, mediated by Daple's PDZ-binding motif (PBM) and the third PDZ domain of PARD3, is fine-tuned by tyrosine phosphorylation on Daple's PBM by receptor and non-receptor tyrosine kinases, such as Src. Hypophosphorylation strengthens the interaction, whereas hyperphosphorylation disrupts it, thereby revealing an unexpected role of Daple as a platform for signal integration and gradient sensing for tyrosine-based signals within the planar cell polarity pathway

Refiguring Refugee Resistance and Vulnerabilities : Hazara Community Publishing in the Australian Resettlement Context

This research focuses on intercultural negotiations and constructions of contemporary ethnic and cultural identity in a Western country of resettlement, through collaborative community publishing with Hazara people, a persecuted cultural and linguistic group. As a research team, primarily using interviews, we examined the multicultural children’s bookmaking project and the intercultural negotiations undertaken between 2018 and 2022 which led to the publication of an Afghanistani children’s story in three languages (English, Hazaragi and Dari) with artwork created by children. A crafted research narrative is used to present participants’ voices genuinely and respectfully as they generously engaged with our research process. We build upon Judith Butler’s analytical framework of linguistic vulnerability as the generative foundation of resistance to examine how linguistic precarity for Hazaragi speakers resettling in Australia is experienced. We found that community bookmaking and publishing involved complex processes of translation and transliteration where practical and political problems about cultural and linguistic authority were confronted. Engaging in this process of intercultural negotiation affords new possibilities for the resignification of recognisable and intelligible Hazara identities. We argue that a more liveable life for refugees in linguistically precarious resettlement contexts can be supported through culturally and linguistically responsive infrastructure that is respectful of their meaning making resources

Editorial

The prevalence of technology in all aspects of life over the past few decades has dictated that schools prepare and equip students to live and work in a world where information is produced and disseminated rapidly. Schools have a further responsibility to train students to acquire critical digital literacy so that they can consciously and responsibly use technology not only for learning but also in all other spheres of their lives. This responsibility was further accentuated when the COVID-19 pandemic significantly changed the role of instructional technology in schools. Homes became classrooms and teachers had to find innovative ways to impart knowledge and engage learners, especially in language teaching and learning classrooms. This special issue comprises five research articles and three book reviews expounding on how teachers, guided by particular pedagogical principles, have chosen and employed different technological tools in their language teaching to inspire student learning. The editors of this special issue, Dr Shashi Nallaya, Dr Julie Choi and Dr Sue Ollerhead would like to express their immense gratitude to the reviewers, editorial board members and journal coordinator Skye Playsted for their time, expertise and dedication in bringing this issue to fruition.&nbsp

Leveraging L2 academic writing: Digital translanguaging in higher education

Although the literature on computer-assisted language learning has demonstrated that digital tools such as online translators offer affordances to second or foreign language writers of English to solve lexical and syntactic issues, the extent to which digital technology supports multilingual students in producing academic texts has been underexplored. In this study we investigate what digital technology enables and does not enable students to do in communicating meaning by examining the writing experiences of two multilingual students. The data were derived through screen sharing and online stimulated recall interviews and analyzed using the concept of digital translanguaging, which focuses on meaning making using students’ entire meaning making repertoire. The findings suggest digital translanguaging afforded students to self-resolve their linguistic issues to varying degrees. However, it also became evident that these affordances hit a wall at a certain point beyond which no further progress could be made, constraining their ability to communicate intended ideas in L2. We conclude by providing insights into instructional and strategic support to effectively support multilingual students to offer greater opportunities to achieve their communication goals and create equitable higher education spaces.&nbsp

“My book ideas were spinning in my head” : Arts-rich bookmaking experiences to create and sustain multilingual children's meaning making flows and authorial voices

Important theoretical developments in TESOL education challenge the monolingual mindset, instead valuing and leveraging students' complex linguistic repertoires alongside their funds of knowledge and identity through translanguaging practices to foster literacy development. Through a case study of an arts-rich book making experience facilitated by community organization, Kids' Own Publishing, this article uses assemblage thinking to examine how children's semiotic, knowledge, and identity resources interact to support them to create and sustain meaning making flow and to express distinctive authorial voices. Employing a critical content analysis guided by assemblage thinking, we highlight the literacy skills demonstrated in five students' published eight-page books and show how the interaction of children's meaning-making resources is best understood through an “assemblage” lens, a process which is under-researched. Through this lens, we examine the facilitative role of the arts-rich experience in furnishing vibrant activities, artifacts, and an inspiring physical space that shaped how the children's meaning-making resources came together as flows. We consider implications for literacy learning, including the need to create conditions for all children's meaning making resources to be drawn upon in text creation in an approach that values what all students, whether they identify as monolingual or multilingual, bring to their learning

A Visual Language for Keyboardless Programming

A visual language Show and Tell is introduced as a programming language for home information systems, integrating the computer capabilities of managing computation, communications, and database. It is shown that keyboardless programming is possible with Show and Tell. The language is implemented on the Apple Macintosh personal computer. The semantic model of the language is based on the concepts of dataflow and completion. A Show and Tell program is a partially ordered set of nested boxes and arrows. Traditional programming constructs such as subroutine, iteration, record structure recursion, exception, concurrency and so forth, are represented by two-dimensional graphical structures of boxes and arrows. The design philosophy, conceptual model, syntax, and semantics of major language constructs are described. Various research problems in the visual programming area are discussed

Quantum dot-induced cell death involves Fas upregulation and lipid peroxidation in human neuroblastoma cells

BACKGROUND: Neuroblastoma, a frequently occurring solid tumour in children, remains a therapeutic challenge as existing imaging tools are inadequate for proper and accurate diagnosis, resulting in treatment failures. Nanoparticles have recently been introduced to the field of cancer research and promise remarkable improvements in diagnostics, targeting and drug delivery. Among these nanoparticles, quantum dots (QDs) are highly appealing due to their manipulatable surfaces, yielding multifunctional QDs applicable in different biological models. The biocompatibility of these QDs, however, remains questionable. RESULTS: We show here that QD surface modifications with N-acetylcysteine (NAC) alter QD physical and biological properties. In human neuroblastoma (SH-SY5Y) cells, NAC modified QDs were internalized to a lesser extent and were less cytotoxic than unmodified QDs. Cytotoxicity was correlated with Fas upregulation on the surface of treated cells. Alongside the increased expression of Fas, QD treated cells had increased membrane lipid peroxidation, as measured by the fluorescent BODIPY-C(11 )dye. Moreover, peroxidized lipids were detected at the mitochondrial level, contributing to the impairment of mitochondrial functions as shown by the MTT reduction assay and imaged with confocal microscopy using the fluorescent JC-1 dye. CONCLUSION: QD core and surface compositions, as well as QD stability, all influence nanoparticle internalization and the consequent cytotoxicity. Cadmium telluride QD-induced toxicity involves the upregulation of the Fas receptor and lipid peroxidation, leading to impaired neuroblastoma cell functions. Further improvements of nanoparticles and our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of QD-toxicity are critical for the development of new nanotherapeutics or diagnostics in nano-oncology

The affordances and limitations of collaborative research in the TESOL classroom

The diversity of learning needs within the TESOL field creates inherent tensions between the need for targeted professional learning for TESOL teachers, the more generalist nature of tertiary TESOL courses, and the varied research interests of teacher educators. This article describes a collaborative research project between university-based teacher educators and TESOL teachers working in an adult education centre. With a range of aims amongst the research participants, this article reports on the ‘fluid’ and ‘messy’ process of collaborative research (Burns & Edwards, 2014, p. 67) as we investigate the use of identity texts (Cummins & Early, 2011) as a mediating tool for professional learning. In acknowledging the practice of teaching as highly situated, the data presented focuses on the individual experience of each teacher, voiced through an action research frame, before we discuss the achievements and challenges which emerged through this collaborative research process. In the findings, we argue for the importance of championing the case for the messy processes of collaborative research within the broader research academy