Employing the concepts of transnational funds of knowledge and community practice, this ethnographic case study examines the experiences of preservice world language teachers in a year-long teaching methods course. It focuses on an online after-school program where preservice teachers taught languages and cultures to children from linguistically…

In this article, we describe a case study research conducted to validate a set of lesson plans specifically designed for collaborative work with children. A group of nine teachers implemented the lessons in their classes. Data were gathered by means of ethnographical notes to determine children's reactions to collaborative work. Class observations…

Prior research points to many affordances of drama and storytelling for language learning, identity exploration, and intercultural dialogue (e.g., Belliveau & Kim, 2013; McGovern, 2017; Schewe, 2013) as well as ethical risks associated with engaging multilingual learners in performative pedagogies (Cañas, 2015; Piazzoli & Kir Cullen,…

In this hybrid ethnographic case study, I explore how a cadre of Israeli-American parents in Los Angeles navigate the local Hebrew education landscape to seek linguistic resources for their children. I examine how participants envision Hebrew learning and determine the roles of Jewish, Israeli-serving, and public schools in transmitting Hebrew…

The contemporary literature regarding dialogic classroom interaction has primarily focused on the meaning-making attributes of dialogue while acknowledging but otherwise providing less emphasis to the social dimensions of the learning community and the dialogic resources that students bring to the classroom. As a result, this paper explores the…

As K-5 dual language programs gain popularity in the United States, language teaching, however, often still prioritizes discrete and decontextualized learning that is not built on students' interests and experiences or their multilingual and multimodal resources. This article reports on a classroom-based ethnographic case study and illustrates how…

This work explores how comic-based digital storytelling can support children and teachers in combining foreign language and content teaching in the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) framework. In particular, we focus on investigating three specific aspects: (1) the use of digital storytelling in terms of collaboration, engagement and…

This article draws from an ethnographic case study that examined the diverse and contradictory roles of one Korean language school in a predominantly White mid-sized Midwestern city. While the school provided ethnic and cultural affirmation and respite from racial marginalization, it also reproduced dominant notions of culture that excluded some…

Extensive listening (EL) is an approach to teaching listening which can help students develop their listening fluency in a more enjoyable way. However, unlike extensive reading which has now enjoyed widespread recognition, EL has received relatively little attention, partly because of the limited availability of suitable listening materials. Given…

This ethnographic case study aims to examine second language socialization (SLS) in a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) called Stronghold Kingdoms (SK). To explore the affordances of this community for SLS, the social dynamics in a Faction community during 4 life-time periods, namely, war, post-war peace and life in exile, end of the world,…

Recent research suggests that learners should be provided with opportunities to negotiate meanings with other cultures and critically evaluate and reflect on their own culture. Texts have a great potential to provide such opportunities, especially in contexts where learners do not have the chance to experience other cultures through real-time…

Informed by an increasing amount of research in understanding spatiality in language learning, this ethnographic case study investigates two ethnic minority university students' English language learning in urban, virtual, and classroom spaces as they relocated to an interior city for higher education in southeastern China. Data consisted of the…

This article reports on a study that investigated the effectiveness of one out-of-school activity: "China Club". China Club, an initiative of Scotland's National Centre for Languages and the Confucius Institute for Scotland's Schools, was established with the central aim of teaching Mandarin language and Chinese culture to young people…

We, as multilingual teacher-scholars, had lingering questions about what community programs were doing, operating outside of school contexts, to maintain the bilingualism of racialized, Latinx children in Philadelphia and to resist the monolingual ideologies circulating in US society. To answer those questions, we partnered with a bilingual,…

On many secular college and university campuses and in surrounding communities, Christian organizations offer international students, scholars and spouses free group study of Bible stories as well as meals and other social activities. On one hand, Bible-based content is interesting and compelling for some adult language learners and has long been…