The role of power in an English-as-a-second-language classroom has yet to be fully explored by an action research practitioner, especially in a Malaysian higher education setting. This study aims to contribute to this gap by working within an academic literacies perspective to teaching academic writing, which propagates the understanding of…

The present study was carried out in the context of the recent (2012) introduction of Kreol in the primary school curriculum in Mauritius. The time-tabling of Kreol as an optional subject offered at the same time as the other existing ancestral languages, institutionalised Kreol as an ancestral language, despite its status as a national language.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the philosophical teaching perspectives of lecturers in teacher preparatory colleges in the Niger Delta of Nigeria as it relates to their choice of the language for classroom instruction. Specifically, the study explored the lecturers' perceptions regarding the role of Nigerian Creole in teacher…

With chapter contributions from seminal scholars in the field of comparative and international education (CIE), this book examines the ways in which comparative education is being taught, or advocated for, in teacher education within higher education institutions worldwide. A particular concern raised by the authors--in locations as diverse as…

Today, after many years of making it through new musical genres and trends, "rancheras" are not only about the appreciation of music, but also about the sociocultural issues present within the individual listening to this music. Whether it be the person who is driving down the street with the radio blaring and the car thumpin', the…

Background: Models of self-regulated learning have been used extensively as a way of understanding how students understand, monitor, and manage their own academic functioning. The regulation of motivation is a facet of self-regulated learning that describes students' efforts to control their own motivation or motivational processing. The…

Imitation requires the imitator to solve the correspondence problem--to translate visual information from modelled action into matching motor output. It has been widely accepted for some 30 years that the correspondence problem is solved by a specialized, innate cognitive mechanism. This is the conclusion of a poverty of the stimulus argument,…

Reconceptualists and poststructuralists increasingly criticize child-centered pedagogy as being overly reliant on outmoded notions of (developmentally appropriate) practices. Reconceptualists believe that developmental theories should be critically examined cross culturally, whereas poststructuralists work from a social perspective to reconstruct…

The PISA survey influences educational policies through an international competitive process which is not wholly rationally-oriented. Firstly, PISA league tables act normatively upon the definition of formal educational aims while the survey tests cannot evaluate the educational systems' relative strengths with regards to such aims. We argue that…

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), first proposed by the Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky, is frequently cited as the theoretical basis behind Dynamic Assessment (DA). However, this concept has led to varied interpretations and practices in education. This paper outlines readings of the ZPD that motivate many current approaches to DA and…

This study investigates how a group of Mexican immigrant children in the United States made sense of engaging in school and school mathematics. The research focused on a population of Latino/a middle school students who were a distinct minority, building a model that shows how a complex set of cognitive, sociocultural, and institutional factors…

In the context of the National Bilingual Program 2004-2019, currently called "Program for Strengthening the Development of Competencies in a Foreign Language," the Colombian government has implemented a series of actions to raise the level of English proficiency of teachers and students and insert the country into globalization…

Several researchers (East, 2007, 2008; Villers, Tolosa & East, 2010) have identified a shortage of language teachers in New Zealand as a main limitation in the enactment of a learning area devoted to the learning of additional languages in the New Zealand curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). Thus it is important to consider the range of…

Drawing on longitudinal data, this study explores the dynamic relationship between the development of conceptual knowledge of language and the emergence of sociostylistic variation in second language (L2) speech. Participants include eight intermediate-level US university learners of French who participated in a concept-based pedagogical…

Although a number of studies have investigated classroom-based peer interaction with adults and high school students, research pertaining to children in the elementary grades is scant. Drawing on sociocultural theory, the present study investigated how children in an intensive elementary level Grade 6 class for English as a second language (ESL)…