This research focused on learning conditions in preschool that support multilingual children's linguistic development. The aim of this paper was to study singing activities through the experiences of ten multilingual children in toddler groups (one to three years of age) in eight Swedish preschools. A sociocultural theoretical approach is used to…

Over the past decade, the government in Singapore has been introducing many initiatives in the early childhood sector to raise the quality of pre-school education. Educational reforms made without consideration of the perspectives and concerns of the participants in the socio-cultural milieu would only lead to superficial implementation. This…

This study looks at the discursive construction and negotiation of hybrid identities within binational couples. I analyze conversations produced by Anglophones married to German-speaking Swiss residing in central Switzerland. I employ Bucholtz & Hall's sociocultural linguistic model (2004, 2005, 2010), which views identity as emergent in…

The construct of time influences student learning in and out of school and consequently pervades educational discourse. Yet the integration of information and communication technologies into contemporary society is changing how people perceive and experience time. Traditional theoretical and methodological approaches to time research no longer…

Prior research indicates that probation programs that include efforts to change cognitive orientations and social patterns can enhance their effectiveness. This article reports an evaluation of an enhanced probation program, Changing Lives Through Literature, which uses a form of bibliotherapy to increase its rehabilitative effect. Controlling for…

In this paper, one of the goals is to highlight a disciplinary intersection between applied linguistics, psychology and gerontology. Though connections between applied linguistics and psychology, and applied linguistics and gerontology, have been made in the past, the particular intersection described offers some new insights by making use of a…

The last few decades have witnessed both an expansion and a transformation of immigration flows, which pose significant challenges with respect to how people work with differences across culture and space. Against this background, this paper explores how some Chinese immigrant engineers respond to differences in the Canadian labour market. It not…

Although there is no consensus on how to assess teacher quality, scholars do agree that the improvement of teaching is the most important step that we can take toward improving the quality of education of our students and the one that directly affects learning outcomes (Perlman & McCann, 1998). Teacher assessment has become a cornerstone issue…

Informal home education occurs without much that is generally considered essential for formal education--including curriculum, learning plans, assessments, age related targets or planned and deliberate teaching. Our research into families conducting this kind of education enables us to consider learning away from such imposed structures and to…

Unlike most studies on social cohesion, this study explores the concept as a real-life macro-level phenomenon. It assesses to what extent the conceptions of social cohesion suggested by several macro-level approaches represent coherent empirically observable forms of social cohesion. Additionally it discusses two perspectives on social…

Learning takes place in a particular social context and in interaction with others. One of the tools of mediation between the learner and the subject to be learned is talk. In a teacher training context, it is through the use of particular talk that trainers can guide and scaffold their trainees towards learning, and the basic premise is that…

This article explores the development of pedagogical content knowledge in relation to one teacher's experience in learning to engage in a Vygotskian approach to teaching second language (L2) pragmatics known as "concept-based pragmatics instruction" (CBPI). The teacher, Mrs. Hanks, was a PhD candidate in second language acquisition at…

Lev Vygotsky's revolutionary ideas have extended knowledge on the process of education--in particular, on mediating learning through language--for over 40 years. The zone of proximal development strengthened a new paradigm for learning and instruction, one which others, such as Bruner, formulated into the concept of scaffolding. Action research…

The theory and practice of formative assessment seems to be at a crossroads, even an impasse. Different theoretical justifications for the development of formative assessment, and different empirical exemplifications, have been apparent for many years. Yet practice, while quite widespread, is often limited in terms of its scope and its utilisation…

This study concerns the relationship between learning and play. On the basis of sociocultural theory, some ideas are put forward about how this relationship can be conceptualised in the context of goal-directed practice. Empirical data from primary school with children 6-8 years old are used to illustrate and discuss this conceptualisation. It is…