This study focuses on an intervention programme designed to foster collectivity in classroom dialogue during sixth-grade language arts lessons, incorporating a coaching-based approach grounded in real classroom experiences. Specifically, we examine how this programme affected the beliefs and practices of a sceptical teacher in relation to…

Prominent discourses about emergent bilinguals' academic abilities tend to focus on performance as measured by test scores and perpetuate the message that emergent bilinguals trail far behind their peers. When we remove the constraints of formal testing situations, what can emergent bilinguals do in English as they engage in naturally occurring…

While social media is widely used by youth around the world, research is only beginning to document how transnational students employ these technologies. This study investigated how English-learning adolescents in the United States use social media to engage in social, academic, and identity work. Data were collected during a four-day social media…

The transgressive use of language by out-group speakers, or crossing is used in a variety of ways to achieve both affiliative and disaffiliative ends among youths. However, crossing can also be used as an affiliative resource in asymmetrical power relations between teachers and students. Reporting on the findings of a 1.5 year ethnography of an…

This paper provides a description and rationale for a performance assessment of a teaching practice--leading a classroom discussion (LCD)--included in the ETS® National Observational Teaching Examination (NOTE) assessment series. In this assessment, candidates interact with a small class of virtual students represented by avatars in a…

This report describes and provides research and scholarly support for a core practice of teaching--eliciting student thinking (EST)--that is the target for a performance assessment contributing one component of the "ETS"® National Observational Teaching Examination (NOTE) assessment series. The purpose of this report is to review the…

This report reviews the scholarly and research evidence supporting the construct labeled modeling and explaining content (MEC), which is measured via a performance assessment in the "ETS"® National Observational Teaching Examination (NOTE) assessment series. This construct involves practices at the heart of teaching that deal with how…

This paper discusses the social positioning work three Appalachian adolescents engaged in during two literacy events drawn from a year-long critical teacher-researcher ethnographic study in a twelfth-grade English class in a rural Appalachian high school. Data analysis indicates that in these literacy events, the focal students positioned…

English language arts classrooms are especially rich sites for both explicit and implicit collaborations among those who inhabit those spaces. In these venues, Bakhtinian "heteroglot voices" (Bakhtin 278) saturate the oral and written discourse that students produce as they engage in discussions and as they write in a wide variety of genres,…

Initially, many children use language with enthusiasm and apparent ease, but this lively use of language is sharply curtailed shortly after they begin school. This can be attributed to teachers' monopolizing continued discourse. A study explored the idea that increased student oral participation by more students at a higher level of thinking would…

Examined corrective feedback and learner response to feedback in four primary level immersion classes. Transcripts of classroom interactions from subject-matter and French language arts lessons were analyzed using a model comprising the various moves in an error treatment sequence. Findings reveal a strong tendency for teachers to use recasts…

According to recent U.S. census reports, while the population of the United States increased by 10%, the population speaking languages other than English at home increased by 38% between 1980 and 1990. One in six of all youth in the United States, ages 14 to 19, either speaks a language other than English at home, was born in a foreign country, or…

Drawing from a five-site multicase study, this paper examines three middle school students' perspectives on weekly classroom discussions that took place over a 6-month period in order to analyze the dynamics of classroom talk and how discussions can be affected by the teacher's interaction with the students. The three students were members of an…