The sociocultural perspective of second language teacher education (L2TE) (e.g., Johnson, 2009), unlike the traditional one, values the importance of teacher development through actual teaching practice. Student teachers' (STs) initial beliefs should be challenged and reconstructed by taking into account particular teaching contexts. This…

The aim of this paper is to investigate the role and place of Hebrew within the Australian Jewish day schools' curriculum and to analyse the cultural factors, which contribute to the challenges Hebrew teachers face. Our findings show that there is a need to locate Modern Hebrew more centrally within the schools' organizational structure. A…

The purpose of this project is to enhance the counselling services offered to diverse clients by supplying counsellors-in-training with a professional development resource that combines the best available outcome evidence and applied clinical wisdom, with the most current cultural adaptation frameworks. A comprehensive literature review was…

Important to issues of writing instruction are the ways in which teachers, specifically those who teach in the discipline of language arts and English, understand and see themselves as writers. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how secondary English teachers positioned themselves and were positioned by others as writers through…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether professional development enhanced educators' use of conversational strategies during shared book reading with small groups of preschoolers. Twenty preschool educators and small groups of children from each of their classrooms were randomly assigned to the experimental or control group. The 10…

Having acquired some degree of oral proficiency but low (or non-existent) literacy, the learning of Chinese heritage learners' (CHLs) learning needs are different from those of Chinese foreign language learners (CFLs), who have learned Chinese only in the classroom setting. Although researchers have advocated for a separate curriculum for…

Through a sociocultural lens this study explored how four teachers, a reading teacher, and their principal lived literacy policy in practice in and around Maplewood Elementary School. This work grew out of three questions: (a) How do six policy stakeholders at one elementary school--four teachers, one administrator, and one reading teacher-make…

Teacher-fronted interaction is generally seen to place limitations on the contributions that learners can make to classroom discourse and the conclusion is that learners are unable to experiment with, for example, turn-taking mechanisms. This article looks at teacher-fronted interaction in the language classroom from the perspective of learner…

As the number of immigrant students increases in U.S. classrooms, so have the challenges teachers encounter as they seek to be culturally responsive. Framed by multicultural education and sociocultural theory, this qualitative study explored how 8 fifth-grade, newly arrived immigrant students ("newcomers") from 6 different countries,…

It is imperative for countries to provide quality education that would empower their people to compete and benefit from the growing socio-cultural global exchanges of the 21[superscript st] century. The Internet is expanding the global village, thereby, enhancing communication, collaboration and the cooperation of peoples with each other across…

The purpose of this mixed method descriptive study was to investigate the relationship between deaf educators' perceived efficacy of a specifically-designed curriculum and DHH learners' use and comprehension of function words in written text, and explore unknown perceptions related to the research topic. The study was conducted to…

Lev Vygotsky is no doubt one of the leading educational theorists in history. His theories have been used to guide teaching and learning in public school classrooms for over a century. Vygotsky was considered to be one of the most creative psychologists of the twentieth century. This article covers a brief accounting of his birth, life…

This study explored preschool age and gender differences in help-seeking within the theoretical framework of scaffolded problem-solving and self-regulation (Bruner, 1986; Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978; 1986). Within-subject analyses tracked changes in help-seeking among 62 preschoolers (34 boys, 28 girls, mean age 4.22 years) solving a challenging…

The narrative creation of identity by young adolescents has so far been addressed mainly from an identity-in-interaction perspective, focusing attention on the multiplicity and variability of identity negotiation as adolescents interact with others, typically with peers. In contrast, a sociocultural/dialogical perspective draws attention to the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceived challenges of attempting to integrate topics related to social and cultural issues into the coursework in graduate programs in Instructional Design and Technology (IDT). Design/methodology/approach: An open-ended online survey instrument was developed for this study for three reasons.…