instructional practices are being transformed in many mathematics classrooms as a result of refor... more instructional practices are being transformed in many mathematics classrooms as a result of reform efforts in the United States and Europe, For example, students are being asked to take a more active role in explaining their problem solution strategies. In order to achieve these changes in student activity, teachers are being encouraged to restructure the communication patterns in their classrooms. The goal of this article is to examine, in detail, the discourse of one teacher and three of her middle school students during a single lesson on area measurement. Some concepts from sociocultural theory (e.g., authoritative versus internally persuasive discourse) are used to organize and interpret our analysis, The teacher observed in this study. tried to share responsibility and authority for explaining and evaluating mathematical problems with her students. We found that two of the three students initially tried to present explanations that differed from that used by the teacher on a previous day. Each time these students offered an alternative solution strategy, the teacher overlapped her speech with theirs. Eventually both students employed the teacher's explanation. The third student who used the teacher's explanation from the beginning did not encounter her overlapping speech. As a result of our analyses, we concluded that the teacher did achieve one of her goals for this lesson, the sharing of responsibility for providing explanations, but not the goal of sharing authority. The theoretical and instructional implications of our analysis for research on educational reform are addressed.
gratitude and appreciation to the two teachers who agreed to be part of this study and to Profess... more gratitude and appreciation to the two teachers who agreed to be part of this study and to Professor Ellice Forman for her comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
This article examines collaboration during small-group tasks with young language learners studyin... more This article examines collaboration during small-group tasks with young language learners studying Spanish. After five days of classroom dynamic assessment (DA) targeting WH-question formation, students worked in small groups on a collaborative writing task. This research sought to determine whether learners were able to mediate their peers during this task and if so, whether this mediation might be traced back to participation in classroom DA. Findings revealed that students drew upon collective knowledge to complete the task. While the learners did not appropriate forms of mediation used during DA, characteristics such as repetition and first language usage appeared in peer scaffolding. We conclude that classroom DA can be supplemented by small-group tasks and that assistance, albeit in different forms, emerged in these two contexts.
This article describes the implementation of a practice-based approach to foreign language (FL) t... more This article describes the implementation of a practice-based approach to foreign language (FL) teacher preparation. After briefly framing the discussion in relation to the literature on the practice-based approach in teacher education -including Phase I of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Research Priorities -we present the implementation and integration of this approach in the context of FL teacher preparation. The successes and challenges encountered throughout the implementation experience are discussed, and recommendations are made for practice-based course design in FL teacher preparation programs and for future research on the practice-based approach.
Purpose of the Study. The purpose of this study was to investigate if standards for foreign langu... more Purpose of the Study. The purpose of this study was to investigate if standards for foreign language learners can be met while at the same time addressing student motivation and interest in real-world topics and tasks so that they can be more successful in the classroom. More specifically, can curriculum be customized to student interest and still address the standards set by districts, the state, and the profession?
Although a substantial amount of professional literature argues for the potential benefits of con... more Although a substantial amount of professional literature argues for the potential benefits of content-based instruction, limited research exists on how this type of instruction actually is appropriated, understood, and carried out in practice by foreign language teachers. This study examines the role of two sixth grade Spanish teachers' discursive practices in content-based instruction, the goals of instruction, and the students' proficiency. Through classroom observations, discourse analysis, teacher interviews, and student writing assessments, this study shows the significance of teacher talk in engaging students in learning both language and content, an overarching goal of content-based instruction. Several implications for instruction in content-based instruction programs and the professional development of teachers emerge from this study.
This study investigated the discourse of class discussion in the advanced undergraduate Spanish l... more This study investigated the discourse of class discussion in the advanced undergraduate Spanish literature course. Motivating this study was the need for research to determine how discussion in advanced undergraduate literature courses provides discourse opportunities to students to develop advanced language functions, as defined in the ACTFL Guidelines. Despite claims that literature classes play an additional role in developing language proficiency, this issue has not received serious research attention. In this study, classroom transcripts were analyzed for the following features: (1) discourse structure of the literary discussion; (2) the use of teacher questions; (3) verb tense distribution; and (4) student uptake. The analysis attempted to uncover how literary discussion afforded opportunities for students to describe, to narrate in major time frames, to use extended discourse, to share opinions and arguments, to explore alternatives, and to hypothesize-all advanced and superior level speaking functions. The study also included instructor and student interviews to determine their views of foreign language literature classes and to see if what was observed could be explained by the goals the instructor and students had expressed. The findings suggest that simply having a literary discussion does not ensure that students will be pushed to use the language in advanced ways even when faced with tasks requiring critical thinking and advanced language use. One issue that this study reveals is that, for students to experience speaking in the advanced ranges of proficiency, discussions must enable complex thinking in complex language. Other findings suggest that literature instructors should be aware of the discourse opportunities that arise in literary discussions, should make speaking expectations and advanced functions clear to students, and should monitor student language use during discussions.
Adopting sociocultural theory as their conceptual framework, the authors set out to study selecte... more Adopting sociocultural theory as their conceptual framework, the authors set out to study selected features o f student discourse of three pairs o f third-semester (i.e., intermediatelevel) learners of Spanish at the university level. Specifically, they wanted to investigate how these selected features, identified in an earlier research project (Brooks and Donato 1994), developed during opportunities to engage in five different but similar jigsaw tasks. Through discourse analysis, they traced these features and found that the students indeed developed and became better at performing the tasks. Their work suggests that if the purpose and function o f learner language during problem-solving tasks are not clearly understood, learners may end up being denied strategic opportunities for language activity that can lead to their saying 'lit" right. Frank B. Brooks
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