In this article, the authors explore the ways in which a selection of student teachers from two universities in Canada expressed their feelings of preparedness to teach literacy in elementary classrooms. The student teachers had experienced various approaches to literacy teaching as they progressed through their teacher education program. These…

This article addresses two key challenges that globalization poses to literacy research: the need for new models of literacy and literacy education, and the stakes of adopting multiliteracies pedagogies in different contexts--that is, the tensions between competing hegemonic discourses of collective identity in the public sphere of ethnolinguistic…

Ten high-school students of English as a second language (ESL) intensively studied the modified version of "The Cay" (retold by Strange, 1997). During their study the teacher asked questions designed to elicit students' comprehension and understanding of racism and prejudice as the main themes of "The Cay". Analysis of classroom discourse data…

The aim of this article is to show that a better awareness of the relationship between written and spoken communication can help the writer to improve his/her effectiveness. The focus will be on written texts that precede (formal and informal) discussions. The analysis will start with a description of the differences between orality and literacy.…

The Linguistic Human Rights (LHRs) paradigm is motivated by the desire to combat linguistic discrimination, where speakers of discriminated languages find themselves unable to use their preferred language in society at large. However, in an increasingly globalised world where speakers may feel the need or the desire to travel across state…

This study aims at analyzing supervisory talk and student- teachers' interpretations of it in order to find out the qualities that characterize successful supervision which leads to a change in student- teachers' beliefs. To achieve this, supervisory feedback sessions with four supervisors were recorded, transcribed and then analyzed for…

This paper shows how top-down and bottom-up approaches can be reconciled in EAP writing materials through a pedagogic approach which combines discourse analysis with corpus investigation. The materials have been trialled with approximately 40 international graduates and are designed both to introduce concordancing and to raise awareness of certain…

This article presents a case study of academic language instruction in a high school "English Learner Science" course. It illustrates how a teacher's understanding of academic language affects her instruction and students' opportunities for learning. We examine a transcript of classroom discourse for the "didactic tension" that exists between this…

A critical discourse analysis of the Adult Numeracy Core Curriculum is used to expose and challenge the underlying assumptions of the Skills for Life strategy, and to examine the way in which the text constructs subject positions for adult numeracy teachers and learners. The analysis finds that presuppositions include the unproblematic transfer of…

Although a substantial amount of professional literature argues for the potential benefits of content-based instruction, limited research exists on how this type of instruction actually is appropriated, understood, and carried out in practice by foreign language teachers. This study examines the role of two sixth grade Spanish teachers' discursive…

Parent-child "everyday" conversations have been suggested as a source of children's early science learning. If such conversations are important, then it would be pertinent to know whether children from different family backgrounds have different experiences talking about science in informal settings. We focus on the relation between…

The continued lower academic attainment of Black (especially Black Caribbean) pupils is now well established. Yet, to date there has been no single coherent national Government strategy that has successfully closed the gap in educational attainment between either Black and White pupils or between Black pupils and the national average. Academic and…

Foucault's notion of "regimes of truth" (MacNaughton 2005, 30) provides an understanding of how some discourses operate and network together to reinforce a particular powerful view of the world. These can be in oral or written forms. Early childhood education practices are drawn on the discourse of a document developed by the National Association…

Many recent studies on computer-mediated communication (CMC) have addressed the question of orality and literacy. This article examines a relatively recent subgenre of CMC, that of written online sports commentary, that provides us with written CMC that is clearly based on firmly established oral genres, those of radio and television sports…

Teaching Spanish has become increasingly popular in the United States due to demographic shifts. This study focuses on a Spanish-only initiative for an existing Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES) program proposed by a southeastern public school district's school board. It analyzes discourses underlying the policymakers' rationales…