This article examines everyday "International Baccalaureate Educator Certificate" (IBEC) environments in Japanese higher education through a theoretical framework of whiteness. Exploring dissonances shaped by English and constructivism at two universities, I argue that communities challenge Anglo-American and Euro-American epistemologies…

This article presents the "modus operandi" of a game, the so-called Game of Shapes, which can be used as an active learning tool to teach Constructivism to introductory International Relations courses. While sharing our own experience of the development and application of the game in a laboratory with International Relations students,…

The Russian developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky provides important theoretical underpinnings for an alternative to business ethics pedagogy. Although Vygotsky's constructivist approach has been applied to other disciplines, such as cognitive development, moral development, and network analysis and learning, its application to business ethics…

The "Muqaddimah," a massive 14th century text by Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, while primarily a history, in the later chapters deals with linguistics and pedagogy. Multiple publications on what his work contributes to the field of education exist. But surprisingly, only two papers have appeared specific to teaching English to speakers of…

The current wave of globalization aided by ubiquitous computing necessarily involves interaction and integration among people and human institutions worldwide. This has led to a worldwide awareness that professionals in academia need to have effective communication skills. Such communication-driven academic discourse puts much demand on language…

The existing literature views the phenomenon of language shift mostly on the societal, or macro, level, which takes the focus away from individual cases. This investigation provides an alternative perspective to the currently prevalent view. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to develop an understanding of the role of personal choice in…

This article argues for a more systematic and integrated approach to the cultural dimension within English language education in a globalized world, with the concept of culture taking on an affectively related and process-oriented meaning. To this end, it suggests an approach for the development of the ability to decenter from cultural norms and…

The dissertation project is a study of how childrens' increasingly skillful use of certain language forms ("stance forms") help them to more effectively perform culturally salient social identities in discourse. Although scholars have long claimed that language use helps to position speakers in terms of socially recognizable identities,…

This is a conceptual paper, based on several semesters of collaboration in which the American author interacted with students in the Taiwanese author's EFL classes in Taiwan. The best native language users are typically those who read extensively, especially reading for pleasure in their youth. This gives them a large vocabulary and an intuitive…

Differential academic language proficiency is an issue of major educational concern, bearing on problems varying from pupil performance, to social prospects, and citizenship. In this paper we develop a conception of the language-acquiring subject, and we discuss the consequences for understanding differential language proficiency in schools.…

In this article, I analyse the initiation/response/follow-up (IRF) exchanges between teachers and students in teacher-fronted instruction by using transcribed classroom data. Adopting a social constructivist position, I examine ways in which teachers construct or reduce students' learning opportunities in these communications. Furthermore, I…

The purpose of this paper is to describe an original active learning exercise that incorporates both referential and constructivist perspectives on the role of language in the social world. The exercise encourages students to view language as both a vehicle for transmitting sociologically-relevant content (e.g., attitudes, perspectives,…

This paper sets out to review 14 years of developments in language policy and practice in South Africa under its new, democratic Constitution. The paper begins with an overview of language policy developments since 1994, with particular reference to the role of English, of indigenous African languages and the learner in the classroom. It examines…

Both Vygotsky, a psychologist, and Halliday, a social linguist, argue for the central role of language in human development. Language is the principal mode of meaning making; it mediates both the communication through which thinking with others is made possible and also the inner speech through which individual thinking is brought under conscious…

Discussion of instructional design focuses on a foundation for an alternative instructional design model based on social sciences theories from the constructivist family and on an interpretivist philosophy of science. Highlights include the role of language; and the nature of truth, or alternative conceptions of reality. (LRW)