Category: Language Development & Literacy
Parent-Child Dialogic Reading: A Conversation Analytic Case Study
A large body of work has addressed the positive impact of parent-child interactive reading (also referred to as dialogic reading or shared reading) for children’s language and literacy development. What has been lacking in research is how interaction takes place in a parent-child read-aloud. How interaction takes place is the domain of conversation analysis (CA), …
No Bells and Whistles: Technologically Simplified Instruction in Scholarly Reading and Writing
The Scholarly Reading eWriting Intensive was developed by an English language program in a large public university as a rapid response to the move online in the spring of 2020. Amidst the early days of the pandemic, there was concern about students’ need for “live” Zoom-style contact with other students and instructors. However, the author …
A Critical Comparison of the Lifewide and Lifelong Literacy Practices of Two Adults
The field of literacy studies has witnessed a paradigmatic shift over the past few decades — from a skills-based paradigm towards one shaped by socio-cultural practices. Informed by this social constructivist turn, this study critically compares and contrasts the lifelong and lifewide literacy practices of two adults (Daiyu and myself). Based on thematic analysis of …
A Child’s Meaning-Making during COVID-19
Situated in a bounded socio-geographical context (i.e., Vancouver, Canada), this ethnographic individual case study provides an in-depth analysis of a bilingual young girl’s home literacy practices of meaning-making established across semiotic modes (i.e., linguistic, visual, audio, spatial, embodied, kinesthetic) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Framed within multimodality as its main theoretical perspective and drawing and play …
Engaging Parents in Newcomer Children’s Language Teaching and Learning
This study examines benefits that arise from the pedagogical practice of translanguaging, which utilizes bilingual children’s full language repertoire, in a pre-kindergarten classroom where parents are invited to join their children, bringing their home language alongside the English instructional language to the classroom. Extensive research demonstrates that when parents are engaged in their children’s teaching …
Learner Autonomy and Self-regulated Learning: The Case of University – Level French as a Foreign Language (FFL) Students
French as a foreign language (FFL) is the second most popular international language in Ghana after English, but very few Ghanaians speak French, even though it is a core subject in elementary school and an elective subject in high schools. While the general aim of most language learners remains the development of communication competence, we …
Sounds and Sippy Cups: New Approaches to Pre-Literacy in Adaptive Game-Based Learning for Young Children
Decades of research from interdisciplinary fields (e.g. developmental psychology/linguistics, cognitive psychology/neuroscience, educational research) have yielded tremendous insights into the process of learning to read (i.e., Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Scarborough, 2001; Ehri, 1996; Kilpatrick, 2015). Yet, only about one-third of four graders in the United States are reading with accuracy, understanding, and fluency (NCES, 2019). …
Rethinking Research: Bridging Theory and Practice in Adult Literacy
Low literacy rates in the US are explained in research based on several factors: from literacy programs’ inability to support educator and tutor professional development to shortcomings in program evaluation such as assessment and accountability measurement error (Comings & Soricone, 2007). Research also determines that low literacy rates are exacerbated by lack of funding assistance …
Using Constructivist Pedagogies to Support Foreign Language Teaching in Remote Spaces
This paper discusses the experiences of one teacher’s experiences as she pivoted to remote teaching in response to the pandemic. In the spring of 2020, schools across the globe were thrust into emergency planning as they pivoted from face-to-face teaching in brick and mortar classrooms to remote instruction in response to pandemic-related school closures. Using …
Supporting Literacy in High Poverty Areas
This virtual presentation will focus on the affects that poverty has on literacy and literacy instruction. Literacy development can be supported by print-rich homes; however, due to the effects of poverty, especially generational, many children are growing up with limited interactions of reading materials outside of school. While the effects of poverty will be shared, …
Employing English Literature to Craft Skills: Listening Speaking, Reading, Writing
The purpose of the present study is to use English Literature to enhance Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing by the application of Outcome Based Education. The study addressed the need to develop enhanced objectivity and tame the scientific minds of mixed semester undergraduate, Engineering and Computer Science students with emotive aspects. Students comprehended aspects of …
Oral Language and Comprehension as a Predictor of School Readiness Using Preschool Early Literacy Indicators
The REDY, Set, Start: School Readiness for All! study attempts to improve school readiness for pre-kindergarten students in North Carolina by nurturing oral language development in early childhood programs. This study was designed to address the achievement gap in gifted education among underrepresented students with a special emphasis on low-income and at-risk children. There are …
New Literacy Practices: Imaginative Implications for 21st Century Literate Identities
The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the intersection of new literacy practices and literate identities. The experiences of young adolescents were examined to better understand how these experiences and their perceptions impact the development of their literate identities in multiple contexts. As such, this study sought to explore the following research …
Mandarin Language Classroom Anxiety: Basis for a Proposed Teacher Manual
This study investigated the Mandarin language classroom anxiety of the Grade 8 to 10 students from two schools in Pampanga – Don Jesus Gonzales High School, Pandacaqui, Mexico and Mabalacat National High School, Dau, Mabalacat – with 253 language learners as the respondents of the study. The Chinese Language Learning Anxiety Scale of Lou (2014) …