This paper investigates the discoursal strategies of four teachers in providing feedback to student responses in English classrooms in Xi'an, People's Republic of China. The findings indicate that the teachers provide positive feedback for students English learning in various ways, including using the most common strategies such as accepting,…

In this ethnographic study, I investigate heterogeneous-language peer interactions in an English-only kindergarten classroom. English Learners and English Proficient students co-created language necessary to build an argument, one discourse valued in schools. Students developed complex oral language proficiency skills but were viewed as engaging…

Teacher-student interaction in classrooms is perceived to be crucial for learning. Previous research has compared the interaction in classrooms where a second language is used as the medium of instruction (MoI) with those where the mother tongue is used. This has been done mainly via qualitative impressions. The current study adopted a mixed…

The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience of academic engagement of twelve Indonesian doctoral students attending an American graduate school during their first term and over time through demographic background surveys and semi-structured in-depth interviews. The research design was qualitative in the phenomenological approach…

In this paper, we examine some of the tenets of the current conceptualisations of communicative competence. Drawing on the empirical data collected in linguistically diverse university classrooms, we show that meaning-making in social interaction is considerably more complex and fluid than is envisaged in theoretical models of communicative…

The importance of teachers' beliefs in understanding the effectiveness of language teaching and learning is well documented. This research investigates the exact relationship between a set of beliefs and classroom practice through an example of one experienced secondary school EFL teacher in the People's Republic of China, using classroom…

Affective learning is a major focus of the national K-12 physical education (PE) content standards (National Association for Sport and Physical Education [NASPE, 2004]). Understanding how students might fit into different affective learning subgroups would help extend affective learning theory in PE and suggest possible intervention strategies for…

With dual language learners falling behind their same-age peers at the beginning of kindergarten, understanding how school experiences can enhance language learning is critical. This study demonstrates how play among preschool-aged children can foster English language learning. Using an ethnographic approach, one classroom composed of two teachers…

Repair practices used by teachers who work with children with specific speech and language difficulties (SSLDs) have hitherto remained largely unexplored. Such classrooms therefore offer a new context for researching repairs and considering how they compare with non-SSLD interactions. Repair trajectories are of interest because they are dialogic…

Online role-playing games such as World Of Warcraft represent new participatory cultures in which today's students engage every day. They are appealing to players largely because of the social aspects of game play. Some features of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) can be incorporated into classroom culture to create more…

This article reports an empirical study of an important but under-studied feature of learning practices with young children: the use of metaphors and other kinds of figurative language. The data consist of video-recordings of children (3-5 years old) and their teacher engaged in thematic work about soil. The analysis revealed that the teacher and…

How does classroom interaction support students' apprenticeship into the ways of speaking, writing, and diagramming that constitute the practice of mathematics? We address this problem through an interpretative analysis of a whole-group conversation about alternative ways of solving a problem involving percent discounts that occurred in a sixth…

Socioconstructivism has been established as a prominent and intriguing learning theory, and consequently, pedagogical practice. This study focused on the introduction of constructivist pedagogy to secondary social studies pre-service teachers. Students' engagement with each other and the course instructor was a primary concern to mitigate student…

Using a critical inquiry curriculum is about teaching children to read the word and the world. Early childhood teachers apply this theory by helping children question events and texts they interact with in their communities. For example, teachers can help children understand why certain events happened, including whose voices may have been…

We raise concerns about the current state of research and development in formative assessment, specifically to argue that in its concentration on "strategies for the teacher", the literature overlooks the "disciplinary substance" of what teachers and students assess. Our argument requires analysis of specific instances in the literature, and so we…