This commentary proposes the metaphor of "languaging-as-practice" in science education as an alternative to "language-as-tool" metaphors. Describing language as a tool implicitly positions language as static and unchanging and assumes that named languages are distinct and bounded entities. In contrast, describing languaging as…

This book examines dominant discourses in values education globally. It critiques dominant discourses and debates pertaining to values education and cultural identity, set against the current backdrop of growing social stratification and unequal access to quality education. It addresses discourses concerning globalisation, ideologies and the…

Within education, the term "research" is used in a multiplicity of ways. This paper draws on my own reflection of how educational practitioners experience shifting relationships to research. It suggests that within the further education (FE) sector, professionalism in teaching is measured through observation in the form of the Ofsted…

The ideology of community college leadership dominant in the professional literature is examined using discourse analysis techniques. It is concluded that strong, often militaristic description perpetuates an image of leadership that is exclusionary, narrow, and inappropriate for community colleges, which serve diverse constituencies. Development…

A method used to help translators develop skill in understanding texts uses a grid for organizing information before it is translated into another language. The technique, which can also be used simply for notetaking, is illustrated with a text in French. (MSE)

Textual grammar provides a means of examining the relationship between the sentence and the text as a whole, and it is in that context that the problems of learning a second language become clear and that it becomes important for the teacher to understand how the text functions so as to impart it to students. (MSE)

Proposes a discourse-based approach to analysis of coherence in the teaching philosophies of language instructors. Background is provided by the reflective practice model, which highlights social ontology and personal appropriation of foreign language teaching expertise. An exploratory study confirms the utility of examining conceptual metaphors…

Models of ethnographic research in education treat context in an arbitrary way, and the theory of language used is inadequate. However, a discourse analysis framework can be useful in improving qualitative research in education by relating accounts of specific sites and events to their social contexts. (27 references) (MSE)

A series of French language classroom exercises to be used over four class sessions applies principles of semiotics to literary textual analysis. The session themes include decoding and interpreting, reconstructing meaning, sociocultural connotations in the text, and sense of time and space. (MSE)

To gain a sense of good rhetorical structure, what students of writing in English as a second language need to do is not to practice writing paragraphs and essays conforming to particular patterns, but rather to recognize and understand the resources available for indicating relationships between the propositions that make up their own, unique…

Patterns of use of the French particles "bon, (eh) ben, and enfin" were analyzed in a corpus of spontaneous multispeaker conversation. Results show that each particle marks a particular type of discontinuity in the discourse. Turn-initial and turn-medial patterns are described for each. (17 references) (Author/MSE)

For better comprehension and more communicative production among francophones, students of French should be taught the use and function of detached phrases as they are used in popular spoken French. A specific approach distinguishing between appropriate spoken and written usage is outlined. (20 references) (MSE)

This report details an exploratory study that employs qualitative methods to characterize the academic language used by teachers and students in 4th and 5th grade mainstream science classrooms. Teacher oral language, and to some degree student talk, was observed during content instruction. This type of data allows for a broad descriptive…

Linguistics can make major contributions to the undergraduate liberal arts curriculum, as exemplified in the relationship between linguistics and the English curriculum. The major points of contact between English and linguistics are the areas of stylistics and poetics. In the study of English, linguistics can enrich descriptions of texture…

Discourse competence is made up of both communicative competence and textual competence. Since each literary genre has its own typological and textual style, the study of each will help to build diverse competencies in students. (MSE)