Emerging Pedagogies
The Sociolinguistic Functions of Language Usage During Children’s Learning Interactions
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mariana Alvayero Ricklefs
This ethnographic case study examines sociolinguistic functions of language usage during learning interactions of bilingual children in a fifth-grade English classroom of a urban public school in the USA. The study framework is formed by critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2014; Wodak, 2015) as theory and method. Focal participants are six Spanish-English bilingual students, three girls and three boys. Data were collected during a one-year period and encompassed observations of children’s interactions twice a week in the English Language Arts ninety-minute block. These interactions were audio-recorded and complemented with detailed field-notes. Data also included audio-recorded and transcribed semi-structured interviews of focal students. Data comprised documents too, such as the fifth-grade English curriculum, students’ work samples, and test scores. Data analysis consisted of open coding (sorting of patterns of language use) and analytic coding (thorough breakdown of themes and of language functions). Data findings suggested that language, English and Spanish, functioned to repair speech perceived as flawed, and to bestow or withdraw authority on the language source. Additionally, language became a site of power struggles and ideological “turmoil” in the classroom micro-cosmos embedded within society’s sociocultural and political macro-cosmos. Educational and research implications are considered.
Futures Pedagogy and Water Literacies: Connecting Students to Place and Eco Justice
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session David. G Lloyd
This paper focuses on the use of futures thinking in assisting students to connect to their local wetland and plan for its continued acceptance as integral to place. This case study with primary teachers and their classes involved a year-long curriculum, professional learning project that used action research as a method to challenge teachers to develop a curriculum for the Anthropocene through a transdisciplinary topic on a wetland near their schools.
Inclusive Education and Cooperative Learning in an EFL Classroom : A Case Study
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Leopoldo Medina Sánchez, Cristina Pérez Valverde
This study investigates the effects of the implementation of a methodology based on cooperative learning in a mainstream secondary EFL classroom in which there is a student with a mild intellectual disability. The main purpose is to describe the methodology, classroom dynamics, and teaching material employed for EFL learning, as well as to elicit the appraisal and judgment of the students’ working conditions on the part of their English teachers. To this end, we have conducted a case study in a state school during two academic years. The research instruments have been documentary analysis, in-depth interviews, and participant observation. The data gathered gives evidence of the benefits of the cooperative methodology implemented. Furthermore, the study elicits the most important challenges that teachers must face in order to meet the educational needs of students with mild intellectual disability. In this sense, the discourse of the teachers involved in the study reveals the following needs: the urgency for smaller classes, an increase of human and infrastructural resources, improving the quality and the quantity of teaching materials, promoting a close collaboration among the school’s professionals, and strengthening relationships with the students’ families.
