This study examines teachers' instructional practices during seatwork in primary Norwegian Language arts classrooms. Although seatwork is a common activity in classrooms, our knowledge about what teachers actually do during this activity is limited. In this qualitative study, six teachers in third grade primary school were videotaped while pupils…

This case study explores the impact of an English language Arts Secondary methods class that focused on learning with and from Indigenous people. By participating in a number of in-class activities, taking a field trip, and engaging in a critical service-learning project that helped decentre the learner/teacher relationship, many non-Indigenous…

This article presents a reflexive and critical discourse analysis of classroom events that grew out of a cross-cultural partnership with a secondary school teacher in Singapore. I aim to illuminate how differences between researcher and teacher assumptions about what participation in classroom activities should look like came into high relief when…

Purpose: This paper, which originates in an English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classroom activity in Hong Kong, aims to explore English learners' expressive and creative potential in writing by studying their work in the literary narrative genre. Design/methodology/approach: A group of upper secondary students (15-16 years of age) with limited…

Explicit pedagogy that focuses on visual design and composition principles can affect students' responses to and understanding, interpretation and analysis of images, as well as the creation of their own visual representations. This article considers the why, the what, and the how of teaching various visual elements of art and design to students…

During a 10-week classroom-based study, 20 fourth grade students participated in a number of interdependent activities that focused on developing their visual meaning-making skills and competencies. As well as reading, responding in writing to and discussing a selection of picturebooks, graphic novels, and magazines, the students created graphic…

This article considers an exchange between pupils in response to heard poetry, approaching it through a "conversation analytic mentality" informed by the theories of Basil Bernstein. Using his terms, it describes an existing "pedagogic device" of poetry study for schools, to which responses under discussion do not easily…

Bilingual education has been a focus in Taiwan especially alter the educational reform in 2002 (Ministry of Education, 2003). With the educational reform, many teaching methods and approaches had been explored and implemented recently to enhance English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education. The traditional teaching approaches focused on the…

Discusses the language learning in "Workshop Pedagogy," an approach used in primary classrooms in Norway and Sweden, in which the instructional sequence and class activities move from the concrete toward the more abstract with concrete expressions given more attention. (SR)

This article describes Readers Theater (a form of group storytelling in which two or more readers present a piece of literature by reading aloud from hand-held scripts) and advocates its use in the classroom. The paper's seven sections are as follows: (1) What is Readers Theater; (2) Readers Theater and Its Conventions (discussing scripts,…

Using a literature-based thematic unit to teach language arts in concert with science, social studies, mathematics, and art, a Scottish teacher instilled in her 6- and 7-year-old pupils an understanding of their own lives, a love for language, and a feeling of satisfaction and pride in their accomplishments. The teacher developed a topic based on…

Story-telling is a language-learning activity providing many opportunities for students to use language spontaneously and imaginatively. As an open-ended activity, story-telling helps students to expand literate behaviors, to explore and to spontaneously stretch composing strategies into meaningful contexts before they set their pencils to paper.…

This curriculum support document, for English Language Arts, Senior Years, grades 9-12, in Manitoba, is intended to suggest general strategies along with specific formats and activities for teaching listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, and thinking skills, and for the study of literature and language. The document's nine sections are as…

Intended for elementary school teachers, this curriculum guide intends to (1) show that drama is a unique body of knowledge with a definite place in the curriculum; (2) demonstrate the use of drama as an effective teaching tool; (3) alleviate fears teachers have about introducing drama and provide experienced teachers with further rationale,…

"Viewing and Representing in the Middle Years" was a 2-year project to investigate the development of visual literacy in the classrooms of 3 Canadian middle school teachers. These teachers tried a large variety of approaches and were generally optimistic about the increased use of visual materials to make classrooms more inclusive. They…