Although decades of research attest to the importance of vocabulary teaching and learning, and recent research points to principles of effective vocabulary instruction, the small number of studies on actual classroom practice suggest that teachers continue to use the least effective approaches, often focusing on memorization of definitions.…

Our study examines the scaffolding strategies employed by secondary biology teachers to support multilingual learners (MLs) in engaging with Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs). Rooted in sociocultural theory, we focus on the integration of academic language in disciplinary practices. Data from video-recorded observations of 12 secondary…

This case study demonstrates teaching and learning activities in the school laboratory, and employs talk moves for the direct assessment of practical task effectiveness. By adopting a sociocultural linguistic approach (SCLA), learning chemistry is understood to be a discursive process in which knowledge is constructed through social interaction…

A sociocultural perspective considers science textbooks as 'cultural supportive tools' with significant cultural missions. By juxtaposing symbolic, mathematical, and visual-graphical text, textbooks present the intertexts deployed by the scientific community to convey conceptual understandings in a way that no one form can. Intertextuality entails…

The challenges involved in navigating between home, school and academic languages, especially in a low resource context, have been well documented in the literature. Processes and strategies that allow the use of students' "language as resource" have also been suggested by research. In the context of explorations, where students work…

A defining feature of honors education is meaningful engagement within and across disciplines, yet significant challenges for creating and sustaining meaningful transdisciplinary research remain. One such challenge involves a nuanced understanding of a discipline, or what educational researchers call "disciplinary literacy." This article…

Curricular reform requires Finnish schools to be language aware and promote instruction that builds on students' linguistic resources. However, knowledge about students' experiences related thereto remains scarce. To create understanding about linguistic integration in increasingly multilingual schools, this study quantitatively explores the…

Academic literacies research emphasizes the importance of social context for understanding student writing development in higher education. In particular, students' choices of textual practices are shaped by perceptions of disciplinary norms and institutional expectations. In contemporary online learning environments, however, student writing is…

Theoretically grounded in Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of mind, Dynamic Assessment (DA) provides researchers with the opportunity to investigate different aspects of learners' developmental trajectory, including the ways they overcome their errors. As a qualitative inquiry into the nature of errors reflecting learners' development in academic…

The low enrolment, lack of interest, exacerbated by the general poor performance in physical science in South Africa paints a gloomy picture about the status of physical science in the country. Despite the fact that there might be other factors at play, one factor which cannot be ignored is the discourse about the use of language in the science…

This article offers a critical interpretation of the current trends in instructional models for English language learners in California. We review key instructional models and analyze them from traditional (teacher-centered), progressive (student-centered), and critical orientations (society- and power-centered). These instructional models share…

Through using the framework of sociocultural theory, this study examined the ways in which students were initiated into an academic discourse community at a public college through the required courses of first year composition (FYC). The purpose of the study was to see how instructors assisted students to become part of the academic discourse…

This handbook presents a wide range of research on adults who have low literacy skills. It looks at the cognitive, affective, and motivational factors underlying adult literacy; adult literacy in different countries; and the educational approaches being taken to help improve adults' literacy skills. It includes not only adults enrolled in adult…