Explores lessons learned about adolescents' desire for community, how important teachers are in producing and maintaining community within classrooms, methods for teachers to include stories in their classrooms, and students' written and verbal responses to materials and methods used. (SD)

This qualitative study examined the role of discourse (verbal elements of language) and Discourse (nonverbal elements related to the use of language, such as ways of thinking, valuing, and using tools and technologies) in the process of group knowledge construction of mechanical engineering students. Data included interviews, participant…

This article examines language and literacy use in two communities in which Spanish-speaking children live and attend school, documenting the confounding of socioeconomic status, ethnic density, and access to Spanish language and print. Drawing on community observations and interviews with parents and children in a yearlong ethnographic study, we…

The objective of this paper is to make a case for the claim that exclusive focus on the rational has only helped isolate linguists and prevented them from having a say on important political issues relating to language. One important feature of the ordinary person's view of and involvement with language is that emotions play an important role in…

Conventional wisdom in the study abroad field has held that more is better; that is, the longer students study abroad the more significant the academic, cultural development and personal growth benefits that accrue. The standard assumption is that meaningful advancement in language learning and other academic disciplines using a culture-specific…

This paper reports on a study conducted with children belonging to a rarely studied minority group, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel, an extremely religious group that endorses patterns of voluntary segregation. The research population also demonstrates linguistic segregation, as they use only Yiddish for daily communication with…

As a heritage from the Soviet period (1945-1991) about 500,000-700,000 (mostly Russophone) persons (military persons, workers and others) lived in Latvia with little or no command of Latvian. During the same period, the Russian language had replaced Latvian in the public administration. Following the restitution of independence in 1991, one of the…

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) states that "Communication is an essential part of mathematics and mathematics education" (2000, p. 60). In fact, communication is one of the five process standards emphasized by NCTM. The communication standard highlights the importance of young children communicating their mathematical…

Over the last 15 years, the rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has facilitated a revolution in how we use language. Online environments have facilitated creative and variable spelling using code hybridization and stylistic use of mechanical conventions such as punctuation and capitalization, lexical coinages, new…

The educational system in a multilingual society needs to reflect the authentic patterns of language use by the individuals in that society. A person who knows three or more languages presumably uses each of these languages in different contexts, for different purposes and at varying levels of proficiency. The school curriculum should aim at…

This study investigates whether the age at which English becomes dominant for Western Armenian bilinguals in the United States affects their vowel production in Western Armenian. Participating in the study were ten Western-Armenian bilinguals who learned English before age 8, ten bilinguals who did not learn English until adulthood, and one…

This paper discusses a neglected aspect of English in China, its impact on ethnic minorities and their languages. It begins with an overview of the current situation of the minorities and their languages then, based on fieldwork conducted in Jilin and Guizhou Provinces, it shows two trends: English currently has a limited presence in minority…

Findings are presented from research in a teacher education course on diversity and the social studies that takes gender and sexuality as subject matter. Five themes emerge from five years of qualitative data related to teaching the course and following the experiences of graduates attempting to apply their learning to new teaching situations. The…

Viewing education as a complex site for endorsing and contesting knowledges and practices we explore its critical roles in feminist language planning. Many types of language planning have relied heavily on education for the implementation and spread of the particular reform agenda largely reliant on discourses of compulsory obligation (e.g.…

Managing organizations in modern societies takes place through persuasion and the seductive use of language rather than, as in past societies, through physical violence and repression. In this respect new management discourses imply a linguistic process where actors within education gradually become defined within other frames of reference. This…