Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Linguistic primacy'

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates teachers' language practices in multilingual classrooms with regard to their attitudes, skills and strategies in their management of linguistic diversity among learners in their first year of primary school. Both the critical interpretive theoretical paradigm adopted and the qualitative research approach employed in the execution of the study presupposed gathering rich data, which a case study design of research assured. The data for the study was gathered from four year one classrooms purposively selected based on parameters that were deemed of interest in this study. These included, but were not limited to, the location of the school, the linguistic diversity among learners in the classrooms and the literacy traditions of the first languages spoken by the learners in the target classrooms. Although the specific context provided real input to the study, the findings may be relevant to language-in-education issues in many other African countries, and even in multilingual communities beyond. The study reveals yawning discrepancies between language policy and practice; between teachers' beliefs about linguistic diversity and their actual language behaviour in the classrooms; and between the definitions of mother tongue provided by the Ministry of Education and teachers' re-interpretations of these definitions in the various contexts studied. The study further indicates that teachers are working in an environment that is not supportive of effective policy implementation. This very limited policy implementation support is reflected in teacher training and preparation, teacher placement criteria, text book production and school examinations. This study indicates that even a sound understanding of linguistic diversity among teachers and their best intentions to give learners a sound foundation, is only the beginning of literacy development of young learners in Kenya. It recommends a new and incisive look at critical aspects of the education system in an effort to synchronise the different levels at which policy and practice need to meet. Various well-informed choices need to be made in the creation of a supportive environment for effective policy implementation. This should include among other things a change in the language-in-education policy to move away from early-exit to late-exit mother tongue education, and more first language maintenance in bilingual or multilingual classrooms. If learners are to benefit from mother tongue instruction in line with current research in the field, much needs to be done. Based on the insights gained in this study, a revision of teacher education curricula to include the management of linguistically diverse learners and improved language awareness is suggested, as is flexible curriculum delivery, scrapping of formal examinations in the early years and introduction of alternative assessment methods in these levels. In later years, bilingual (in some cases even multilingual) tests are bound to lower the drop-out rate and produce more understanding and less rote learning. The aim should be to assure multilingual, multiliteracy development and academic achievement for all learners regardless of their particular linguistic backgrounds.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie ondersoek onderwysers se taalpraktyke in veeltalige klaskamers ten opsigte van hulle houdings, vaardighede en strategieë in die hantering van talige diversiteit onder leerders in hulle eerste jaar van primêre onderrig. Sowel die vertolkende teoretiese paradigma wat gevolg word as die kwalitatiewe navorsingsbenadering wat die studie aanneem, het daarop gereken dat ingesamelde data ryk sou wees aan inligting; die navorsingsontwerp, naamlik dié van gevallestudie, verseker die verkryging van sulke data. Die studie is gebasseer op inligting wat ingesamel is in vier klaskamers van leerlinge in die eerste skooljaar. Die betrokke navorsingsterreine is telkens doelbewus gekies op grond van die parameters wat belangrik was vir die studie. Dit sluit in, maar is nie beperk tot, die ligging van die skool, die talige diversiteit van die leerders in die klaskamers en die geletterdheidstradisies van die onderskeie eerstetale van die leerders in die geteikende klaskamers. Alhoewel hierdie spesifieke konteks verseker het dat die studie in 'n werklike situasie geanker is, is die bevindinge waarskynlik relevant tov taal-in-onderrig kwessies in verskeie ander Afrikalande, en selfs ook in veeltalige gemeenskappe elders. Hierdie studie onthul gapende ongerymdhede in die verhouding tussen taalbeleid en praktyk; tussen onderwysers se oortuigings rakende talige diversiteit en hulle werklike taalgebruik in die klaskamers; en tussen die omskrywings van moedertaal wat deur die Ministerie van Onderwys voorsien word en die onderwysers se herinterpretasie van hierdie omskrywings binne die verskillende kontekste wat ondersoek word. Die studie dui verder daarop dat onderwysers in ʼn omgewing werk wat nie die effektiewe implementering van beleid ondersteun nie. Sodanige beperkte ondersteuning in die implementering van die beleid word weerspiëel in die opleiding en voorbereiding van onderwysers, die plasingkriteria van onderwysers, die publikasie van handboeke en skooleksamens. Hierdie studie toon aan dat selfs 'n goeie begrip van talige diversiteit onder onderwysers en hulle beste voornemens om aan leerders ʼn vaste grondslag te bied, net 'n eerste tree is in die geletterdheidsontwikkeling van jong leerders in Kenia. Dit stel ʼn nuwe en indringende ondersoek van kritiese aspekte van die onderwyssisteem voor as ʼn poging om die verskillende vlakke waar beleid en praktyk mekaar behoort te ontmoet, te sinchroniseer. Verskeie goed ingeligte besluite sal geneem moet word in die skep van ʼn omgewing wat bevorderlik is vir effektiewe beleidimplementering. Dit sou onder andere ʼn verandering in die taal-in-onderwys beleid insluit om weg te beweeg van die vroeë wegbeweeg moedertaalonderrig na later wegbeweeg van moedertaalonderrig, sowel as meer instandhouding van die eerstetaal in twee- of veeltalige klaskamers. Vir leerders om baat te vind by moedertaalonderrig in oorstemming met huidige insigte uit navorsing in die veld, moet nog baie gedoen word. Gebaseer op die insigte wat in hierdie studie verkry is, word onder andere hersiening van die onderrigkurrikula vir onderwysers voorgestel sodat die hantering van talig-diverse groepe leerders asook verbeterde taalbewustheid daarby ingesluit is. Dieselfde geld ontwikkeling van buigbare kurrikula, die skrapping van formele eksaminering in die vroeë skooljare en die instelling van alternatiewe assesseringsmetodes op hierdie vlakke. In die later jare sal tweetalige (in sommige gevalle selfs veeltalige) toetse beslis die uitvalsyfer verlaag, asook meer begrip en minder leë memorisering tot gevolg te hê. Die doel moet wees om veeltalige, multi-geletterheidsontwikkeling en akademiese prestasie vir alle leerders te verseker ongeag hulle spesifieke talige agtergrond.
The African Doctoral Academy (ADA) at Stellenbosch University through the Partnership for Africa's Next Generation of Academics (PANGEA), for providing the funds

Throughout the English-speaking world, minority language children (LMC) or children who speak English as an additional language (EAL) are being educated in mainstream classrooms where they have little or no opportunity to use their mother tongue. This study investigates how educators at primary schools in Merseyside, where English is usually the only language in the classroom, respond to the educational and academic needs (linguistic, cognitive) of LMC/EAL children. It addresses socio-linguistic issues, teaching strategies and instructional approaches related to linguistic development and academic achievement of LMCIEAL pupils. It outlines the background to policy and practice in relation to LMCIEAL pupils in Britain. School districts across the United Kingdom are serving increasing number of children from varied cultural and social-linguistic backgrounds in mainstream classrooms. While the population of LMC/EAL will continue to increase, the majority of teachers and those in teacher programs are mainly from a white British background with limited awareness, knowledge and understanding of linguistic needs of LMC/EAL children in mainstream classrooms. Thus, a major challenge for educators is to develop and provide resources that enable teaching such diverse populations to become more effective. The research investigates in particular, how well local authorities and schools can raise standards for all learners in mainstream primary classrooms and examines the ways in which mainstream educational policy and practice has attempted to adapt in recognising that linguistic diversity is the norm rather than the exception in modem British society. The research focuses on what instructional strategies that schools employ in order to provide the best support for language minority children in the classroom in term of the individually focused approaches to learning, closer link between school and home and resources available for schools serving LMC/EAL pupils. The focus of this research is on the experience of staff from 20 primary schools within two local authorities in Merseyside. Questionnaires, semi-structured interviews with the primary schools staff and local authority advisers and government/school policy documents were used as data sources. The results of the study showed that the institution and community (use of first language) play a role in academic achievement of LMC/EAL pupils. The study revealed that teachers within mainstream classrooms recognise the importance of bilingualism, but due to the lack of resources and support, they found it hard to put it into practice. The results indicated that most participants were from a dominant language (English) background, which lack the awareness and experience needed to be effective in multi cultural classrooms. Suggestions are made for improved content delivery and further research including bilingualism as a teaching approach should become a legitimate topic for discussion and further research.

Includes bibliographical references.
This ethnographic, sociolinguistic study describes the writing practices of teachers and students in a Portuguese-language primary school in Mozambique. In the classroom, teachers and students engage in a text-chain ritual in which the teacher copies a text from the textbook onto the chalkboard, which is then copied by the students into their notebooks. Using the theoretical framework of social semiotics, this study situates classroom writing within a range of multimodal practices which scaffold the written texts. This study employs the notion of resemiotization in order to describe the ways in which signs are transformed as they move between different sites of display. This resemiotization is framed by educational ritual with the language of instruction, Portuguese, being a second language (hereafter ‘L2’) to most of the students. Because of the linguistic constraints of the L2, rote- copying practices predominate in the classroom. Copying allows lessons to move forward despite the comprehension difficulties of the students. The text-chain is shown to be simultaneously reductive and expansive. Subsequent links tend to be reduced representations of their originating signs even while these signs serve as the basis for expansive multimodal ensembles which include speech, drawing and gesture, as well as the use of the students’ home language. This study employ s the notion of mimesis in order to account for the ways in which the resemiotization observed in the classroom is both imitative and creative. Each instance of writing imitates a previous link in the text-chain but also shows evidence of teachers and students creatively shaping their texts. In order to study these writing practices, more than 40 classroom lessons were observed during two research trips to Tete, Mozambique. This study used observation and photographic data-records to trace the movement of texts over the course of a lesson. Photographs of the chalkboard were taken as the chalkboard text grew and changed. In each classroom, six students were selected and their notebook writing photographed. The photographing of the chalkboard and notebooks allowed for the comparison of these texts as they were produced in the classroom. Additionally, teachers and educators were interviewed to provide insight on classroom writing practices. During these interviews, teachers were asked to describe their schooling experience and compare it with schooling today. Teachers and educators also provided background information on bilingual education and their use of a technique known as currículo local , ‘local curriculum’ , in which teachers use local language and culture to create connections between classroom knowledge and students’ existing knowledge. This thesis draws attention to the complexity of writing practices in L2 classrooms. Writing is shown to be a term that covers a wide range of practices including rote copying, drawing, doodling, and pseudo-writing. These writing practices take place in an environment marked by linguistic and semiotic diversity. This thesis expands the use of the term resemiotization by looking in detail at the material and social processes that occur in the classroom. Additionally, this thesis draws attention to ritual as an organizing principle for resemiotizing processes in which institutional forces and authorized language influence and shape local practices. The use of the notion of mimesis allows this analysis to account for the ways in which resemiotization involves both imitation and creativity in a text-chain that exhibits signs of semiotic reduction while simultaneously facilitating instances of profuse multimodal communication.

This dissertation presents the linguistic ecology of a Spanish-English, bilingual first grade classroom. The term linguistic ecology refers to the communicative behaviors of a group, as well as the physical and social contexts in which their communication occurs. In addition, a linguistic ecology includes the reciprocal influences of persons and environment on each other. Two questions guided this study: (1) How do the children interpret the roles of English and Spanish in their classroom environment? and (2) What resources, human and material, are made available to support the development of both languages in this bilingual classroom? Three over-arching categories were used to describe and analyze the linguistic ecology as viewed by the children: (1) the materials available in the school to support Spanish development; (2) the staffing for bilingual instruction; and (3) the dynamics of language use within the school, especially within one first-grade classroom. The results of this inquiry study strongly suggest that children of bilingual classrooms discern that (1) more time is devoted to English instruction; (2) more communication occurs in English; (3) few teachers have high levels of Spanish proficiency; (4) the personnel of bilingual schools utilize more English than Spanish in the school environment; and (5) Spanish language resource materials are fewer in number and often less appealing than their English-language counterparts. In effect, this case study documents and interprets the social and educational processes through which bilingual children in one U.S. school come to appreciate the prestige and power of English versus Spanish.

A central question in second language acquisition (SLA) is the interaction of internal and external variables, and this dissertation contributes to the field by investigating the effects of bilingualism and aging on language development under different instructional conditions. Prior research suggests that bilingual young adults generally have an advantage over monolinguals in learning a non-primary language (e.g., Cenoz & Valencia, 1994; Sanz, 2000, 2007), an advantage that is more evident in less explicit instructional conditions (e.g., Lado, 2008; Lin, 2009). In addition, research suggests that older adults are better able to learn non-primary languages under less explicit than explicit conditions (Midford & Kirsner, 2005; Lenet et al., 2011). To aid in explaining the role of bilingualism, aging, and instructional conditions on development, this study also measures attentional control (ANT and Simon task), language aptitude (MLAT), and non-linguistic implicit sequence learning (ASRT).

Ninety-four participants who were either young adults (age 18-27) or older adults (age 60+) and either monolingual English speakers or bilingual English/Spanish speakers completed the Latin Project (Sanz, Stafford, & Bowden), targeting the assignment of thematic roles to nouns in Latin, which differs in cues from that of English or Spanish. Participants completed a vocabulary lesson and quiz, a battery of four assessments as pre, immediate post, and delayed posttests, and task-essential practice either with or without previous grammar explanation (more and less explicit instruction). Language development was measured via accuracy and reaction time. Results revealed a bilingual advantage in accuracy, largely due to increased aptitude compared to monolinguals, and especially for bilinguals in the more explicit condition, a finding that differs from studies that used metalinguistic feedback as explicit instruction (e.g., Lado, 2008). In addition, older adults' accuracy did not vary by condition, suggesting that grammar explanations prior to practice are not as disruptive as is metalinguistic feedback (Lenet et al., 2011), nor did it generally differ from young adults' accuracy. Attentional control and non-linguistic implicit sequence learning predicted changes in latency rather than accuracy. These findings add to our understanding of bilingual effects on cognition, mitigate negative stereotypes of aging and learning, and have implications for foreign language pedagogy.

Motivated primarily by a cognitive approach, with consideration of interactional processes from a sociocultural perspective, the present study examined the use of linguistic assistance and peer interaction to facilitate second language (L2) writing of young ESL learners. A total of 257 Year 5 children (age 10) from twelve intact classes (from six different schools) took part in this eight-week intervention-based study. Using a quasi-experimental design, the classes were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups or the control group. Pretests, interim tests, immediate posttests and delayed posttests were administered. As the study concerned both the processes and products of L2 development, peer interaction and children's written production were taken as the two primary sources of data for this study. For the written production, four criteria were used to rate learners’ writings: Quality of ideas, Story shape and structure, Vocabulary and spelling and Implicit grammar. Partial correlation was employed to examine if there were any statistical relationships between treatment and learners’ written performance while controlling for prior attainment. Results show that the provision of enhanced and basic linguistic assistance may have a positive influence on only certain aspects of L2 writing, while opportunities for peer interaction does not appear to have an impact on learners’ L2 performance. For peer interaction, a subset of 60 learners were selected from the two treatment groups which received basic and enhanced linguistic assistance, to compare their dialogic performance. Based on quantitative analyses of their recorded interactions, the findings suggest that the provision of varying degrees of linguistic assistance may affect, not the content of peer discussions, but how peer assistance is given during task. The results also show that through the provision of linguistic assistance, peer interaction mediates the participants’ performance on Quality of ideas, Story shape and structure and Implicit grammar in their subsequent individual writing.

This thesis uses a multimodal approach to explore how three lower primary teachers manage dialogic space in their respective classrooms during the Shared Book Approach (SBA) lessons, where they read big books to their students while holding whole class discussions. Against the backdrop of recent policies and initiatives by Ministry of Education, Singapore and the aims of the 2010 English Language Syllabus, interactions between teacher and students have received much attention. The body of work on classroom discourse in Singapore mostly focuses on speech, to the exclusion of other semiotic resources that make meaning in the classroom. This study finds that during SBA lessons in the lower primary, teachers use a variety of other semiotic resources such as gestures, space, written words and images. Through a detailed consideration of these semiotic resources, the aims of this research are to investigate how three teachers manage dialogic space during whole class discussions in SBA lessons, the issues arising from their practice and insights specifically given by the use of the Systemic Functional - Multimodal Discourse Analysis or SF-MDA (O’Halloran, 2007, 2011) adopted in this study. The employment of the SF-MDA has proven to be productive in establishing the way the teachers combine the different semiotic resources of speech and gesture to expand dialogic space by asking open-ended questions while gesturing with the supine hand position; and contracting dialogic space by, for example, asking seemingly open-ended questions while pointing to the answers in the big books. This could be seen as a scaffolding technique in reducing the options available to students. Teachers are found to be less reliant on the prone hand gesture in contracting dialogic space.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD
This thesis traces the trajectories of a group of young Cameroonian learners as they engage in new social and educational spaces in two South African primary schools. Designed as a Linguistic Ethnography and using data from observations, interviews and more than 50 hours of recorded interaction, it illustrates the ways in which these learners position themselves and are differentially positioned within evolving discourses of inclusion and exclusion. As a current study in a multilingual African context, it joins a growing body of literature in Europe which points to the ways in which young people’s language choices and practices are socially and politically embedded in their histories of migration and implicated in relations of power, social difference and social inequality. The study is a Linguistic Ethnography of young school learners’ language experience, which falls outside the scope of much mainstream research. It is one of very few studies to focus on migrant children in contexts of the South where multilingualism is the reality yet where language-in-education policies tend to follow monoglossic norms. The focus is on how a group of 10-16 year old Cameroonian children use their multilingual repertoires to construct and negotiate identities both inside and outside the classroom. It also investigates in more detail the acts of identity of two individuals entering the same school with different linguistic profiles, who are positioned in differentiated ways in relation to transnational and local flows and interconnections. The context is a low socio-economic suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, where Cameroonian practices of language, class, and ethnicity become entangled with local economies of meaning. The study also contributes to an emerging body of qualitative research that seeks to develop greater understanding of the relationships between language learners, their socio-cultural worlds and processes of identity construction (Cummins, 1996; Gee, 2001; Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998). ; Rampton, 1995, 2006). Recent international and South African studies tend to focus on secondary school learners, showing how they are struggling to negotiate the currents of a complex society (Adebanji, 2010; Sayed, 2002; Sookrajh, Gopal & Maharaj, 2005), although there is a recent and rapidly growing body of Scandinavian research on primary school children (for example, Cekaite & Evaldsson, 2008; Madsen, 2008; Møller, 2009; Møller, Holmen & Jørgensen, 2012). In contrast, the children in this study are negotiating the transition between childhood and adolescence, faced with issues of race, linguistic competence and discrimination at a time when moving from one age group to the next should have been relatively unproblematic. They are thus entangled in different levels of transition: emotional, physical and spatial. These issues of transition and negotiation will be highlighted through the lens of positioning. The concepts of ‘position’ and ‘positioning’ (Davis & Harré, 1990) appear to have origins in marketing, where position refers to the communication strategies that allow certain products to be placed in a market among their competitors (Tirado & Gálvez, 2007, p. 20). Holloway (1984) first used the concept of positioning in the social sciences to analyse the construction of subjectivity in the area of heterosexual relationships (Tirado & Gálvez, 2007). Positioning here was explained as relational processes that constitute interaction with other individuals. The present study focuses on how ‘interactants’ position themselves vis-à-vis their words and texts, their audiences and the contexts they both "respond to and construct linguistically" (Jaffe, 2009, p.3). As they make use of lexical and grammatical tools available to them in interaction, it becomes apparent that the process of identity construction through positioning does not "reside within the individual but in intersubjective relations of sameness and difference, […] power and disempowerment" (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005, p. 607). Thus to interpret multilingual children’s positioning requires a recursive process, using a double perspective: it means looking at the day-to-day moments of interactional and other practices, and also the wider political discourses in which these practices may be embedded and historically rooted (Maguire, 2005) and which they index in different ways. These day-to-day moments of practice thus involve different “acts of identity” (Le Page & Tabouret-Keller, 1985) which can also be described as acts of stance-taking (Jaffe, 2009). A stance may index multiple selves and social identities. However, not all stances are open to everyone: those whose who have their social, cultural or linguistic capital (Bourdieu, 1991, 1997) recognized in a particular space will be able to position themselves more strongly there than those who do not. Moreover, stances are not successful unless 'taken up' by interactants (Jaffe, 2009): this uptake may take the form of interlocutors’ stances of alignment, realignment, or misalignment (C. Goodwin, 2007; Matoesian, 2005). Uptake in multilingual contexts is influenced by the prevailing "linguistic market" (Bourdieu, 1991, pp.55-67): day to-day acts of positioning take place in inequitable markets. These ‘markets’ are fertile grounds for social stratification where speech acts and the languages in which they are realized are assigned different symbolic values (Bourdieu, 1991, 1997). Mastery of the 'legitimate' language or languages is then often a pre-condition for claiming symbolic and material resources. New institutional spaces in South Africa become interesting here, because they are characterized by new formations of class, changes in gender roles and relations and other instances of macro-structural shifts. In such spaces, linguistic hierarchies and patterns of distribution of linguistic resources are rapidly changing (Kerfoot & Bello-Nonjengele, 2014). The school as a key institution in the distribution of social, cultural and linguistic capital is thus an important site for exploring the role of language and multilingualism in social and educational change. This thesis sets out to answer the following research questions: a) How do immigrant learners use their linguistic repertoires to construct, negotiate or contest identities in new school spaces? b) How do different spaces enable or constrain the new identities negotiated? c) What are the implications for language learning policy and practice? Data collection took place over two years between February 2010 and June 2013, and followed participants from grades 5 to 7 in the English medium and Afrikaans language classrooms. Participants were 10-16 year old Cameroonian children in two Cape Town schools, ten in each. The study contains nine chapters, with chapter 1 providing an overview of the background, rationale, and conceptual and methodological framework. Chapter 2 traces the shift towards the social in language studies, considering frameworks for understanding the differential values placed on linguistic resources as actors move across social spaces, both local and transnational. Here interaction is viewed as a crucial site for identity construction, generating a social stage through which reality is constructed, shared, and made meaningful. Chapter 3 reviews studies of interactional positioning amongst multilingual learners in social and educational contexts in South Africa and more globally. Chapter 4 focuses on the methodology used in the study, discussing the research design based on Linguistic Ethnography, a qualitative approach which is based on the two broad planks of ethnography and Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS) and which enables an analytical framework combining Conversation Analysis (CA), Discourse Analysis (DA) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Together, these analytical tools enable a multifaceted illumination of the construction of identity in discourse. The various tools used in data collection are discussed in depth followed by comment on reflexivity, challenges in the field and limitations of the study. Chapter 5 delineates the researcher’s trajectory in the field. This comprises profiles of the study schools (including the schools’ socio-economic, ethnic and linguistic make-up in relation to teachers and learners), perspectives on why the schools were chosen, the differing receptions to a research presence there, and some reflections on the researcher’s identity construction. The chapter further explores different techniques of data collection within this context: field notes and thick description, interviews, and audio recordings of interactions in and out of schools. Chapters 6, 7 and 8 present and analyse findings from classroom observation and interview data, together with audio-recordings of a group of Cameroonian learners interacting with each other and with children of other nationalities in classrooms, community and home spaces. These chapters aim to illustrate how these learners used linguistic resources to position themselves and others, to build, maintain and negotiate identities, and to assert or negate identifications. Chapters 7 and 8 build on the analysis presented in chapter 6 by focusing respectively on two key emergent themes: owning participatory spaces and defying positioning in multilingual spaces. Chapter 7 centres on the interactional and other means by which a 12 year old Anglophone learner, James, navigated his way increasingly successfully through new social and educational spaces, expanding his linguistic repertoire. Chapter 8 focuses on a 12 year old Francophone learner, Aline, and the ways in which she tried to convert her linguistic capital on new linguistic markets. Her efforts were more often than not met with negative evaluation, leading to a loss of both social and academic identities. The analysis of data thus serves as a rich point of entry for understanding the connections between linguistic repertoires, relations between ethnic groups, youth culture, and the experience of social change. Through their discursive production of selves, these adolescent learners supposed to be negotiating only the normal transition from one age group to the next) are here negotiating the currents of a complex society and dealing with issues of race, language and segregation. Findings suggest that participants had multiple identity options that were negotiated through different practices, from food choices to language and interactional norms. These different identity options were however constrained by existing norms and linguistic hierarchies in each space, allowing some to accommodate new linguistic practices and ways of doing things, while others experienced more ambivalent and contradictory processes of adaptation. In informal settings there was evidence of a third space characterized by a mélange of languages in which both formal and informal versions of English and French, along with Cameroonian Pidgin English (CPE) and other Cameroonian languages, were used. However, even in these settings there was a gradual shift to English, indicating the penetration of macrosocial and institutional discourses into private spaces. The thesis concludes with a set of recommendations for caregivers, teachers and policymakers seeking to create schools more welcoming of diversity. It is hoped, then, that this study will help families and schools to realize the variety of ways in which linguistic repertoires influence school success, both social and educational, and to find ways of using these repertoires for development and learning. In this way, they might contribute to immigrant youngsters’ ability to construct strong identities as learners and valued social beings.

This is a qualitative, interpretive study of discourse on bilingual education in two rural primary schools in Mozambique. My aim was to explore how different views about the purpose and value of bilingual education were manifested in classroom discourse practices and how these views related to historical and socio-political processes. I combined linguistic ethnography and critical, interpretive approaches to bilingualism and bilingual education. Data was collected using different techniques, mainly observation, audio recording, note taking, and interviewing. The study showed that the main official purpose of using local languages in education in Mozambique had been to facilitate pupils’ learning. There were three sets of values associated with bilingual education in the sites in this study: pedagogical, socio-cultural and socio-economic. The use of local languages in the classrooms had been creating spaces for pupil participation and learning. I also found that the beneficiaries in the local communities focussed more on the socio-cultural value of bilingual education, which they saw as prompting the development and upgrading of their languages and associated cultural practices. The study also revealed that, with the introduction of bilingual education, participants had begun to consider the potential capital value of local languages in formal linguistic markets. The general conclusion is that bilingual education is playing a role in social and cultural transformation in the sites in this study, though its potential has yet to be fully explored.

With Modern Languages in the Primary School (MLPS) to be a compulsory element of the curriculum in England from 2011, MLPS has enjoyed a recent renaissance nationally 1. Policy makers hope that by providing a positive Modern Language (ML) learning experience in the primary school, these attitudes will be carried forward by pupils to secondary school where numbers studying MLs have fallen dramatically in recent years since the removal of its compulsory subject status. However, as the MLPS initiative as a whole is still in its infancy and provision is varied, it remains to be seen how these developments will impact upon pupils' attitudes to MLs in the secondary school. This study attempts to go some way to address this question within the context of an English secondary school by surveying 181 pupils at the start of Year 7 following their MLPS experience. The aim of this research is to map out the MLPS landscape in the 70 feeder primary schools as experienced by pupils and to determine the associated attitudes to ML learning. English MLPS policy is examined as is previous research and writing on MLPS models, its impact upon pupils and potential issues. A case study approach is adopted with a mixed methodology incorporating a questionnaire administered to all pupils as well as focus groups conducted by MLPS provision type. Data is analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods. Triangulation is achieved through interviews with MLPS teachers and managers and secondary ML teachers and managers, and observations of MLPS lessons. It was found that pupils generally possess very positive attitudes to ML learning at the start of Year 7 and that no one particular MLPS model proved to be more effective in promoting positive attitudes. Elements of provision were drawn out that pupils found to be particularly enjoyable and although the results are specific to this case, the findings may especially be of interest to those managing or establishing an MLPS programme.

This thesis presents the results of a classroom experiment designed to investigate the possible transfer-of-training effects of two types of instruction on the acquisition of the past imperfective aspect, subjunctive mood, and causative constructions in French. An input-based practice, Processing Instruction is compared to an output-based practice Traditional Instruction. More specifically, this study examines primary, secondary and cumulative effects of Processing Instruction in the acquisition of three French linguistic features. The purpose of the present thesis is to address some of the issues raised in previous Processing Instruction research, and to, not only, explore further the primary effects of Processing Instruction in the acquisition of French but also and mainly to explore for the first time the possible secondary and cumulative effects of receiving Processing Instruction. The classroom experimental study was carried out with students learning French at the University of Greenwich. They were divided into three groups. The first group received Processing Information treatment, the second group received Traditional Instruction treatment and the third group, serving as a control group, did not receive any instruction on the three target linguistic items over the duration of the investigation. The students were tested in interpretation and production tasks in a pre-test and an immediate post-test.

The way Chineseness is managed by the state in ethnic Chinese majority nations is examined as a late-industrializing initiative. Using Singapore as the case study, identifications with Chineseness were studied for the key themes within late-industrializing discourse constructions. Chinese Singaporean respondents were asked for their interpretation of Chineseness in relation to their Western expatriate and Chinese mainlander colleagues. In some cases, Orientalist constructions emerged. This inquiry found the moderating factors of Orientalist discourse replications to be the respondent’s childhood socioeconomic background and linguistic primacy. The findings lent insights to the persistence of Orientalist constructions amongst individuals in late-industrializing societies. Insights as to how late-industrializing discourses constructions are moderated by factors distinctive from first-mover ones were sought. These insights enrich the theoretical framework of nation branding studies, a recent offshoot of nation studies with a marketing slant. Sociological considerations on the reproduction of late-industrializing predispositions were integrated through the concept of marcotted developmentalism. Marcotted developmentalism is advanced as the thesis’ conceptual framework. It explains the mediation of the late-industrializing landscape by two distinctive features. Firstly, ethnic management initiatives communicate the urgency of accelerated economic development amongst late-industrializing societies. Secondly, it emphasizes the presence of dual hegemony (i.e. Western dominance and Chinese ascendency) within the late-industrializing political economy.

This thesis explores the possibility of applying Scriptural Reasoning (SR) principles for promoting Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) in primary schools. It used storytelling and interfaith dialogue to encourage pupils to exercise these competences in classroom settings. It takes its philosophical position from the work of Ricoeur and combines a phenomenological and interpretive approach to Religious Education (RE) to develop pupils' understanding of both the "other" and the "self." From this theoretical position, an age-appropriate intervention was developed based on the principles of Scriptural Reasoning in collaboration with the Cambridge Interfaith Program (CIP). The resulting "Story Tent" themed day built on the established work of Julia Ipgrave's dialogic and Esther Reed's narrative approach to religious education. The underpinning work utilised Action Research (AR) methodology through a cyclical approach which took place over two iterative cycles in three different schools, each with its own distinctively-different religious ethos and demographic make-up. It was unusual in combining the contributions not only of teachers and researcher but also faith representatives from local communities. Data was collected through pupil self-assessments, group work, and research team interviews during the Story Tent Intervention day. Follow-up interviews were completed with a selection of pupils using a semi-structured interview - The Autobiography of Intercultural Encounter (AIE). The data was combined to produce pupil case study portfolios. ATLAS.ti was used to support the coding process and analysis of the data. The initial primary findings suggest that the genre of story; the pedagogic style of drama; and the process of interreligious dialogue were particularly effective approaches which provided an environment where pupils and adults could explore and exercise intercultural communication. The secondary findings indicate that the skills and attitudinal competences outlined by Michael Byram seemed to lie within a hierarchy, both cognitively and interactionally. There was evidence which suggested that pupils with a strong sense of identity and were also able to tolerate ambiguity demonstrated a range of intercultural competences including critical cultural awareness. Finally, the personal religious identity of the pupils also had an impact on the pupils' responses to the encounters, which (in combination with other factors) could be associated with particularly positive or negative outcomes.

L'obiettivo del presente lavoro è quello di esaminare criticamente le prospettive teoriche più note sul problema delle relazioni tra sviluppo concettuale del bambino ed acquisizione della prima lingua. Per quanto il lavoro si concentri in particolare sullo sviluppo della componente lessicale, ovvero sul legame tra concetti e apprendimento delle parole con cui gli stessi vengono codificati, verranno necessariamente trattati anche alcuni aspetti relativi alla competenza morfologica e sintattica. Dopo aver presentato sinteticamente le principali teorie proposte nell'ambito della linguistica acquisizionale e della psicologia dello sviluppo, procederemo ad una problematizzazione e discussione dei punti critici delle stesse alla luce dei risultati ottenuti in sede sperimentale negli ultimi anni. Partendo dalla consapevolezza che nell'ambito della linguistica, forse ancor più che in altre discipline, il contrasto tra impostazioni teoriche diverse si traduce spesso in discrepanze significative nell'interpretazione degli stessi dati empirici, abbiamo cercato di dare lo stesso spazio ai vari orientamenti teorici. L'obiettivo di questa tesi, infatti, non è quello di dare giudizi di merito sulla validità di una teoria in quanto tale rispetto ad un'altra, quanto di discutere in modo trasversale i nodi più problematici delle varie teorie e le implicazioni delle stesse. Questo intento è particolarmente evidente nelle conclusioni della tesi, strutturate intorno ad una serie di domande di ricerca.
This work provides a critical overview of the major theoretical perspectives on the relationships between conceptual development and first language acquisition. While our focus is on lexical development (ie. on the relation between learning a word and acquiring the relevant concept), we will also touch on some aspects which pertains more specifically to morphological and syntactical development. After briefly introducing the major theories developed in the field of first language acquisition and developmental psychology, we will discuss them in the light of experimental data collected in recent years. As the same empirical findings tend to be interpreted in completely different ways, in our work we tried to give voice to authors supporting different views. Our goal is not to assess the merits of these theores as such, but to take this comparison as an opportunity to discuss the implications and issues thereof. This will be particularly clear in the Conclusions of our work, which are structured as a series of research questions.

The low reading proficiency of Grade 4 learners is a major concern. The use of English (an additional language for the majority of learners in South Africa) as the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) may have contributed to the poor comprehension skills of these learners. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the use of translanguaging as a pedagogical strategy to improve the reading comprehension of Grade 4 learners in a primary school in Limpopo Province. A mixed methods design was used for the study, which was conducted in five phases. In phase 1, 70 learners in a control group and an intervention group wrote a pre-test to determine their reading proficiency level, as well as to establish the homogeneity of the two groups (research question 1). In phase 2, an intervention based on a translanguaging reading instruction programme was conducted with the intervention group. In phase 3, the learners from both groups wrote a post-test at the end of the intervention, and the intervention group completed a questionnaire on the integrated use of Sepedi and English. In addition, six Grade 4 teachers from the school completed open- and closed-ended questionnaires. In phase 4, t-test analysis of learners’ pre- and post-test results was used to determine the differences within and between the two groups. Quantitative analysis of the learners’ questionnaire responses and the teachers’ closed-ended questionnaire responses, together with qualitative analysis of the teachers’ openended questionnaire responses, were used to answer research questions 3 and 4. In phase 5, the results of the qualitative and quantitative analyses were integrated and evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. While the pre-test results showed that the learners’ reading proficiency level was below 50% for both groups, the results of the post-tests (independent and paired t-tests with effect sizes) showed that the intervention group had improved significantly more than the control group. The findings revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups. The questionnaire responses also showed benefits of the translanguaging approach, as indicated by the learners and the teachers. Based on the findings, recommendations were made for the adoption of a translanguaging teaching approach in schools. The dissertation concluded by showing the significance of the study, which lies in its finding that translanguaging can be used successfully as a pedagogical strategy to improve the reading comprehension of Grade 4 learners using Sepedi and English texts. Keywords: translanguaging, reading comprehension, reading proficiency level, Grade 4 learners’ pedagogy
Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2020.
Afrikaans
MA
Unrestricted

An extensive literature review has been undertaken to create an accurate portrayal of North American Indian Sign Language as used by both deaf and hearing American Indians. Historical accounts are stressed as the primary source for understanding the extent of signed language use among the American Indians of North American and its decline to the present status as an endangered language. This sign language has functioned in two significant ways: (1) primarily (for hearing tribal members) as an alternative to the spoken language and (2) as a primary, or first language for deaf tribal members. It is critical to bear this distinction in mind for future investigations into the linguistic status of North American Indian Sign Language. Additional historical accounts related to American Indians' encounters with the signed language use among Deaf Anglos are also included. An ongoing research project involving the preservation of old film in which North American Indian Sign Language has been documented in 1930s and the current data collection of deaf NAISL signer is discussed as a potential source for future research and as a viable access to the heritage of American Indians.

Due to economic and political changes in Poland the market for educational services has changed. A worldwide trend for an early start in foreign language (FL) instruction is reflected in the accelerated growth of numbers of younger children enrolled into various forms of FL learning in Poland. Recent changes in the new National Curriculum introduced the possibility of starting FL learning from the first grade of the elementary school. However, it seems that teacher training has not yet responded to the growing demand for qualified FL teachers of young learners (FLTYL). This study presents the results of an evaluation of how the present TT provision meets the educational needs of teachers involved in teaching FL to young children and what changes should be made in order to address those needs in a better way. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to elicit information from different perspectives: current FLTYLs, prospective Early Years (EY) and FL teachers, and academic staff from the Higher Pedagogical School of Bydgoszcz, one of the institutions providing teacher training in Poland. Moreover, the findings were supported with the results of the surveys among the elementary and language school head teachers and parents of children from grades 1-3, which assessed the current and future needs in the area of FL teaching to young children. The research findings suggest that the present TT is flawed in at least two aspects. First of all, it seems not to recognise how widespread early FL instruction has become and consequently fails to respond to a growing demand for a higher number of qualified FLTYLs. Secondly, neither FL teacher training nor Early Years Education teacher training appears to equip the teachers with the necessary competencies and qualifications. The two basic problems of acceptance and implementation of a new FLTYL training programme, or modifying the existing provision, are shortage of qualified teacher trainers and insufficient cooperation between the departments that traditionally work separately. As a result, arriving at a common policy regarding optimal FLTYL qualifications and competencies, course organisation, its content, and training methods to be used, is problematic. The study offers some solutions as to how the existing impasse might be overcome.

While research provides evidence for the educational and social value of bilingual children using and learning their home language, it also suggests approaches which support such additive bilingualism are not a common feature of English primary schools. This study sheds light on practitioner perspectives with regard to their bilingual pupils’ learning and use of their home language, the repertoires they employ when discussing their bilingual pupils’, and the extent to which practitioner talk promotes or undermines additive bilingualism. The study is based on a multi-method collection and analysis of data, consisting of a review of practitioner talk in existing literature, practitioner survey and discussion groups, and pupil survey and discussion groups to explore pupils’ perceptions of teacher perspectives. The study identifies key repertoires which represent positions both for and against additive bilingualism, and also describes how particular repertoires can support or undermine additive bilingualism depending on the starting point of the conversation. Quantitative analysis indicated differences in perspectives in relation to practitioners’ stage of career and the key stage they worked in. Structuration theory was drawn on to explain resistance to suggestions to change in practice, and make links between practitioner discourses and those in society more broadly.

This study is a classroom linguistic ethnography with a Year 4 class of 18 students, aged 9 years, in a village primary school in bidialectal South Eastern Cyprus. The research methods include a year of participant observation, in-depth interviews and fieldnotes. The study applies Hornberger’s (1989) theoretical framework of the biliteracy continuum for a critical perspective on the way this Greek Cypriot community reflects hierarchical views of Cypriot Dialect, (CD) and Standard Modern Greek, (SMG) in academic contexts which involve both linguistic varieties. The study analyses translanguaging and literacy practices in classroom talk to focus on students’ collective efforts when negotiating meanings of texts, helping them to jointly construct knowledge (Garcia, 2009; Creese & Blackledge, 2010). The analysis shows that, regardless of negative views of CD, children and teacher use CD as a learning resource. The students draw on all their available linguistic resources to understand and construct knowledge through types of talk, such as exploratory talk (Mercer, 2000; 2004) enacted through translanguaging practices. Evidence showed that learning through translanguaging can be both cognitive, such as understanding the pedagogic task, as well as social and cultural, based on and embedded in, the way students shared their ideas and reasoned together.

This study examines four aspects of teaching Chinese in English primary schools – participants’ motivations, teachers’ backgrounds and subject knowledge, the teaching of Chinese and participants’ experience – and potential relationships between them. Building on a previous survey of Chinese teaching in English primary schools (CILT 2007), it provides a more detailed picture of teaching and learning Chinese and has important implications for practitioners and policy makers. Five case studies were conducted in four English primary schools to investigate the teaching and learning of Chinese. Mixed methods were used to collect data, including a structured questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, lesson observations and field notes. The findings suggest strong relationships between teachers’ backgrounds and their subject knowledge. These impact upon their teaching as a result of their priorities and preferences in teaching Chinese pinyin, characters, culture and language. This study identifies gaps in different aspects of teachers’ subject knowledge, informing government that the training of future teachers of Chinese should involve either training English primary class teachers in Chinese or equipping Chinese heritage teachers with primary pedagogical skills. Pupils’ motivations and experience suggest that the former may be more successful, as teachers’ pedagogy seems to outweigh their knowledge of Chinese in motivating and maintaining pupils’ interest. The content of Chinese teaching is unregulated and hotly debated. Pupils’ opinions and experiences of very different teaching styles suggest that Chinese culture and written characters should be included in teaching Chinese. However, this finding has implications for teacher training and pupil study practices. In addition, this study suggests that pupil expectations constrain teachers’ teaching, and that head teachers play a very important role in the development of Chinese teaching in schools. This study informs government that there is an urgent demand for appropriate guidance for primary teachers of Chinese, as current governmental guidelines are unsuitable for and unused by teachers.

This is a study of specific aspects of classroom interaction primary school level in Kenya. The study entailed the identification of the sources of particular communication problems during the change-over period from Kiswahili to English medium teaching in two primary schools. There was subsequently an examination of the language resources which were employed by teachers to maintain pupil participation in communication in the light of the occurrence of possibility of occurrence of specific communication problems. The language resources which were found to be significant in this regard concerned firstly the use of different elicitation types by teachers to stimulate pupils into giving responses and secondly teachers' recourse to code-switching from English to Kiswahili and vice-versa. It was also found in this study that although the use of English as the medium of instruction in the classrooms which were observed resulted in certain communication problems, some of these problems need not have arisen if teachers had been more careful in their use of language. The consideration of this finding, after taking into account the role of different elicitation types and code-switching as interpretable from data samples had certain implications which are specified in the study for teaching in Kenyan primary schools. The corpus for the study consisted of audio-recordings of English, Science and Number-Work lessons which were later transcribed. Relevant data samples were subsequently extracted from transcripts for analysis. Many of the samples have examples of cases of communication breakdowns, but they also illustrate how teachers maintained interaction with pupils who had yet to acquire an operational mastery of English. This study thus differs from most studies on classroom interaction because of its basic concern with the examination of the resources available to teachers for overcoming the problem areas of classroom communication.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate word meaning and its development in primary school children (6-12 years) . It was argued that the learning and development of the meanings of words such as pain cannot be primarily explained by means of ostensive definition. Furthermore, existing theories of word meaning which deal predominantly with substantive words fail to account for the learning of non-ostensive words. The pertinent psychological, linguistic and developmental psycholinguistic approaches to word meaning are reviewed briefly. The prototype approaches to word meaning are modified to apply to non-ostensive words . The focus is on conceptual meaning, that is, the way in which the senses of a word alter in different contexts. It is argued that the meaning of the word is its use in a diversity of linguistic contexts. The term "grammar" is applied in a unique way to encompass the meaning of the word (which stems in part from the words with which it co-occurs) as well as its selective use with other words in the language. Ninety-five metalinguistically-phrased tasks comprising short questions and picture-story sequences were analyzed in depth. The tasks were administered individually. A flexible interview afforded additional probing for each question. The analysis comprised percentage scores of responses at different age levels together with verbatim transcripts and qualitative descriptions: Uniformity, variation and developmental trends were found on different tasks for any particular word. Developmental trends were noted in children's understanding of particular words (for example, same), thereby extending the findings of previous researchers. There was evidence for a progression in children's ability to take into consideration that a word alters its sense according to the linguistic context in which it occurs (for example, same as it relates to chair versus dress versus pain). A comprehensive account of the words meaning could be established when a diversity of tasks was applied for each word. Children of different age levels employed different strategies in answering the questions posed. A model is proposed to describe the development of the meaning of non-ostensive words during the primary school years. It is suggested that psycholinguistic studies on word meaning be re-evaluated and that language and reading programmes incorporate the notion of "grammar". Application of this approach to the study of substantive word meaning in preschool children has important implications for theories of word meaning and for therapeutic intervention.

The research presented in this thesis investigates the feasibility of a corpus-influenced syllabus for primary literacy education in Japan. It achieves this with reference to two aspects of the context within which such an initiative might be developed. One is the cultural context; that is,the demands of primary ELT in Japan. Therefore this research explores policy makers’ and teachers’views, the texts frequently used in primary ELT classrooms, and some aspects of teacher training. The other focus is from a linguistic viewpoint, concerned with the identification of linguistic features which pupils need to learn for the development of their English literacy. This thesis describes an innovative method for identifying such features. The cultural context was investigated by means of three surveys, the first of which was used to inform the choice of texts to include in the corpus. The surveys reveal a lack of attention to literacy teaching and teacher education in primary ELT in Japan, but also point to some potential for syllabus development. The research offers support for a corpus-influenced syllabus for teaching English literacy, while concluding that there is a need for incorporating it into teacher education and developing teaching methodologies which suit the pedagogic context of the Japanese primary school classroom.

This study explores how British children make sense of traditional Chinese stories through participatory drama, by means of physical and verbal responses. The author conducted her fieldwork through teaching identical drama schemes within two demographically and ethnically distinctive primary schools. The key underpinning methodological approach within the study is ethnographic case studies. The field work lasted one term in each school, with between 13 to 15 hours of teaching time per group. The methods for collecting data included the pre-questionnaire and interviews with children, as well as the following: drama conventions such as forum theatre and still images, visual and image evidence captured by video camera and photography, children’s writing and drawing, a post-evaluation sheet, interviews with teachers, participant observations and field notes. The analysis of qualitative data is presented in two interwoven threads. One thread follows the logic of the ethnographic approach to present the findings of each scheme of work in both schools, in chronological order. The other thread is a thematic analysis, based on grounded theory. These methods may be seen to be integral and complementary to one another. In essence, the author suggests that drama education is a practical model for the pursuit of cosmopolitan education within the modern globalised world. Some limitations and constraints in the research are nonetheless discussed, and pertinent alternatives and improvements are presented. Suggestions for future researchers who wish to conduct similar research projects are provided, and the potential for this research to be extended on a larger scale is indicated.

La storia evolutiva di una lingua è da sempre una strada affascinante da percorrere. Quando questo cammino si compie nella testimonianza viva di un uomo, la sua attrattiva diventa una storia concreta. Difficoltà, errori, correzioni, tutto fa parte della crescita personale che ogni studente deve affrontare nel lungo viaggio che è l’apprendimento linguistico. Dal lessico, alla morfologia, alla sintassi, ogni aspetto va curato e imparato e l'oggetto di questo studio non potrebbe essere un esempio più concreto. Il diario di Giuseppe Manetti mostra la verità del rapporto personale tra un uomo e la sua lingua madre.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:42:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Arquivototal.pdf: 1180446 bytes, checksum: ab14305390450b5a3863652943e78075 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-04-19
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES
The phenomenon that we propose to analyze in this work is the accent of the Brazilian Portuguese (based on PB), according to Câmara Júnior (1970, p. 63), it is characterized as a greater inspiration power, or the emission intensity, of the vowel of a syllable in contrast with other vowels . The general objective of this work is to discuss the criteria which define the Brazilian Portuguese accent pattern. In order to achieve that goal, a work was carried out based on data previously taken in several studies there are in Brazil. We understand that it is not necessary to take more data, as long as there are variation studies with true results which are worth to support our thesis and according to it, the primary accent of the Brazilian Portuguese is free, variable (on the edges), unpredictable, therefore, it can not be predicted by any rule or restriction unless stipulations are considered, what ends up bringing much stress to the Metrical phonology. We decline the Metrical Phonology as it is constituted nowadays for that theory consider the primary accent as secondary and the secondary as primary, what brings inaccurate results, not trustable enough because the criteria used in that theory sensitivity meaningful to a sort of support what characterizes the Brazilian Portuguese accent seem not to be appropriate to an analysis of that system. We postulate that the primary accent is considered as primary, as states the First Primary Accent Theory PAF proposed by van der Hulst (1997, 2006), that is the guiding of this work. According to the PAF, there are two necessary criteria for placing the primary accent: the special syllable and the dominium. Based on that theory the special syllable is the one which gets a lexical mark motivated for getting that feature. Concerning the dominium, this involves the two last syllables (right to left), being, in this case, an optional extra metrical fact. In that point, we disagree with the approach proposed by van de Hulst for we postulate the enlargement from two to three syllables next to the right end the group of three syllables is perfectly predictable by the Metrical Phonology, with a difference from that theory, so that the third part of that group is closed.
O fenômeno que nos propomos a analisar neste trabalho é o acento do português brasileiro (doravante PB) que, segundo Câmara Júnior (1970, p. 63), se caracteriza como uma maior força expiratória, ou intensidade de emissão, da vogal de uma sílaba em contraste com as demais vogais silábicas . O objetivo geral deste trabalho é discutir os critérios que definem o padrão acentual do português brasileiro. Para alcançar esse objetivo, desenvolvemos um trabalho baseado em dados previamente levantados pelos diversos estudos já existentes no Brasil. Entendemos não ser necessário levantar mais dados, uma vez que já há estudos de variação com resultados confiáveis que servem para apoiarmos nossa tese, segundo a qual o acento primário do português brasileiro é livre, variável (na subjacência), imprevisível, portanto, não pode ser previsto por qualquer regra ou restrição salvo se se lançar mão de estipulações, o que termina por gerar grande sobrecarga à Fonologia Métrica. Rejeitamos a Fonologia Métrica tal como constituída atualmente por essa teoria tratar o acento primário como secundário e o acento secundário como primário, o que gera resultados imprecisos, pouco confiáveis porque os critérios adotados por essa teoria sensibilidade ao peso e adoção de um tipo de pé como o caracterizador do acento do português brasileiro - parecem não ser adequados para a análise desse sistema. Postulamos que o acento primário seja tratado como primário, tal como defende a Teoria do Acento Primário Primeiro PAF , proposta por van der Hulst (1997, 2006), que é a teoria norteadora deste trabalho. Segundo a PAF, dois são os critérios necessários para a localização do acento primário: a sílaba especial e o domínio. Essa teoria entende por sílaba especial aquela que recebe uma marca lexical motivada diacronicamente ou por ser um empréstimo. Quanto ao domínio, este compreende as duas últimas sílabas da borda (direita ou esquerda), sendo, nesse caso, a extrametricidade opcional. Nesse ponto, discordamos da abordagem proposta por van der Hulst por postularmos a ampliação de duas para três sílabas próximas à borda direita a janela de três sílabas é perfeitamente previsível pela Fonologia Métrica, com a diferença que, para essa teoria, a terceira banda dessa janela é sempre fechada.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The decision by teachers to use a specific language for teaching in a bilingual context is influenced by a number of factors. These may include learners’ linguistic background, parental preferences on the use of language for teaching and learning, policy stipulations on language use, as well as learners’ cognitive level and their ability to comprehend lessons given in a specific language. Although policy stipulations and parental preference may emphasise the use of one particular language for teaching and learning, research shows that the classroom context and the dilemma teachers face in terms of language comprehension often play a role in the use of more than one language. Teachers often switch codes in a bilingual classroom for different reasons: clarifying subject matter, concept elaboration, encouraging leaners to participate, supporting exploratory talk, ensuring comprehension as well as switching codes as a classroom management strategy. This thesis investigates the frequency and the function of teachers’ code switching (CS) in a bilingual classroom context. The study was conducted in Limpopo Province, South Africa, in the Vhembe District Municipality. Two bilingual primary schools under Sibasa Circuit were chosen for study. A series of lessons were observed in the two schools and teachers’ interactions with learners in the classroom were recorded and then analysed qualitatively, guided by Myers- Scotton’s (1993) Markedness Model which is used to provide an account for different types of CS. This model is used to account for the motivations for every code choice in any discourse. The results of the study show that CS is a common feature in the two schools. The policy stipulations and parents’ preference do not limit teachers’ use of CS in such bilingual primary school classrooms.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: ’n Onderwyser se besluit om ’n spesifieke taal vir onderrig in ’n tweetalige konteks te gebruik word deur ’n reeks faktore beïnvloed. Dit sluit die leerders se taalagtergrond, ouers se taalvoorkeur vir onderrig en leer, amptelike skoolbeleid in verband met taalgebruik, sowel as die leerders se kognitiewe vlak en hul vermoë om klasse te verstaan wat in ’n spesifieke taal aangebied word, in. Hoewel skoolbeleid en ouers se taalvoorkeur die gebruik van een spesifieke taal vir onderrig en leer beklemtoon, toon navorsing dat die konteks van die klaskamer en die dilemma wat onderwysers in die gesig staar in terme van taalbegrip, ’n rol speel in die gebruik van meer as een taal. Onderwysers gebruik dikwels twee tale in ’n tweetalige klaskamer, om verskeie redes: verduideliking van lesmateriaal, uitbreiding van konsepte, aanmoediging van die leerders om deel te neem, ondersteuning van ondersoekende gesprekke, versekering van begrip sowel as kodewisseling as ’n strategie vir die bestuur van die klaskamer. Hierdie tesis ondersoek die frekwensie en die funksie van onderwysers se kodewisseling in die konteks van ’n tweetalige klaskamer. Die studie is in die Vhembe Distriksmunisipaliteit van die Limpopo Provinsie, Suid- Afrika, uitgevoer. Twee tweetalige laerskole wat deel uitmaak van die Sibasa-streek is gekies vir die studie. ’n Reeks klasse is waargeneem in die twee skole en die onderwysers se interaksies met die leerders in die klaskamer is opgeneem en daarna kwalitatief ontleed , gegrond op Myers- Scotton (1993) se Gemarkeerdheidsmodel (“Markedness Model”) wat gebruik word om ’n verklaring te gee vir die verskillende tipes kodewisseling. Hierdie model is gebruik om ’n verantwoording te bied van die redes vir elke kodekeuse in enige diskoers. Die resultate van die studie toon dat kodewisseling ’n algemene verskynsel in die twee skole is. Die skoolbeleid en ouers se taalvoorkeur beperk nie die onderwysers se gebruik van kodewisseling in sulke tweetalige laerskoolklaskamers nie. Onderwysers gebruik om verskeie redes kodewisseling, insluitend uitbreiding, verduideliking, beklemtoning, en teregwysing as ’n dissiplinêre strategie.

This practice based PhD project investigates the language ideologies which surround the specific multilingual context of rural primary education in Zambia. The project comprises of a creative documentary film and a complementary written submission. The fieldwork and filming of the project took place over 12 months between September 2011 and August 2012 in the community of Lwimba, in Chongwe District, Zambia. The project focuses on the experiences of a single grade one class, their teacher, and the surrounding community of Lwimba. The majority of the school children speak the community language of Soli. The regional lingua franca, and language of the teacher, however, is Nyanja, and the students must also learn Zambia’s only official language, English. At the centre of the project is a research inquiry focusing on the language ideologies which surround each of these languages, both within the classroom and the wider rural community. The project also simultaneously aims to investigate and reflect on the capacity of creative documentary film to engage with linguistic anthropological research. The film at the centre of the project presents a portrait of Annie, a young, urban teacher of the community’s grade one class, as well as three students and their families. Through the narrativised experiences of the teacher and children, it aims to highlight the linguistic ideologies present within the language events and practices in and around the classroom, as well as calling attention to their intersection with themes of linguistic modernity, multilingualism, and language capital. The project’s written submission is separated into three major chapters separated into the themes of narrative, value and text respectively. Each chapter will focus on subjects related to both the research inquiry and the project’s documentary film methodology. Chapter one outlines the intersection of political-historical narratives of nationhood and language that surround the project, and reflects on the practice of internal narrative construction within documentary film. Chapter two firstly focuses on the language valuations within the institutional setting of the classroom and the wider community, and secondly proposes a two-phase perspective of evaluation and value creation as a means to examine the practice of editing within documentary film making. Chapter three addresses the theme of text through discussing the role of literacy acquisition and use in the classroom and community, as well as analysing and reflecting on the practice of translation and subtitle creation within the project.

This doctoral research was concerned with the role of language and its implications for the learning, teaching and assessment of mathematics for children aged 4-9 years. Earlier research by the author had established language and assessment as bridges enabling learning although they had the potential to increase the divide between teacher and learner. Reflection raised the question on how children achieved in mathematics despite potential difficulties with language and assessment. Review of the literature concluded that resources and sociocultural norms were also bridges between learner and teacher. A model was established of the relationships and processes between all perceived variables that provided an external, theoretical structure to be evaluated against structuralist, pragmatic and integrational linguistic approaches and empirical outcomes. The overarching approaches adopted were institutional ethnography and case study. An appropriate methodology was devised whereby sophisticated ICT equipment captured all visual and speech events during classroom interactions. Frequency analysis at word level, content analysis at utterance level and discourse analysis at total speech level triangulated with content analysis of interviews and evaluation of documentation completed the empirical research. Data analysis revealed five registers of children’s talk. Evidence suggested that the peer-peer ‘conditioned talk’ used in focused group work was the most effective for learning as it enabled them to discern the small steps in the inferential leaps in discourse made by their teachers, work out problems together, inform their peers, share findings and reinforce each others’ learning. Learners’ language showed aspects of structural, pragmatic and integrational linguistics, confirming a conclusion of the literature review that the various linguistic approaches discussed should be used to support and not exclude each other. The contribution made to knowledge is the ethnomethodology provided by the model, ICT resource and the five registers of talk revealed by the linguistic approach to discourse analysis. Teachers would be able to understand nuances of language used by their pupils and acquire essential skills and tools to put into effect the personalised learning agenda. Peer-peer observation of teachers would be an appropriate platform for the observation of the different registers used by learners, the resources that generate those registers, and their most effective use to close the gap between natural language and the subject specific language of mathematics.

This dissertation is an analysis of two types of nominal compounds in Turkish, primary compounds and synthetic compounds within the framework of Distributed Morphology. A nominal primary compound is formed by two nouns, and its meaning is largely determined by world knowledge. A synthetic compound, on the other hand, is formed by a noun and a derverbal noun, such that the former is a true argument of the latter. The meaning of such compounds is always compositional. In many languages, the structural difference between these two types of compounds is not immediately observable. However, in Turkish, a primary compound would be obligatorily marked with the compound marker, -(s)I(n) while a synthetic compound would never be marked as such. In this dissertation, I claim that primary compounds in Turkish are underlyingly possessive phrases, a claim that has been previously made by several others. My analysis differs from those previous analyses in that it maintains that -(s)I(n) figures in a morphological component that follows syntax but precedes PF. Such a post-syntactic analysis has a number of advantages as it can account for a wide range of descriptive observations about the behavior of -(s)I(n). I claim that -(s)I(n) and an agreement marker never form a sequence at any stage in the grammar. I test this claim in an experiment conducted with Turkish-speaking individuals with aphasia, and show that only a vanishingly rare number of -(s)I(n)-agreement sequences are attested in aphasic speech. My analysis of synthetic compounds in Turkish is based on three types of nominalizers and the types of categories they can select. I show that only event-denoting nominals can form true synthetic compounds. I also show that nominals that are derived directly from roots can never form true synthetic compounds, which casts doubts on roots as projecting categories. I also consider a third group of seemingly synthetic compounds, which have an overt complex verbal stem, and yet, fail to derive true synthetic compounds. Following Marantz (2013), I claim that such pseudo-synthetic compounds, in fact, have semantically null verbalizing morphemes, and therefore, the root and the nominalizing head are semantically adjacent at LF.

Questo elaborato si propone di analizzare la propaganda svolta dalla Francia e dalla Germania durante la Prima guerra mondiale. La rivalità tra i due Stati non fu certo una novità: circa quaranta anni prima, infatti, fu combattuta la guerra franco-prussiana, il cui esito inasprì ancora di più le relazioni tra le due nazioni. Gli intellettuali svolsero un grande ruolo negli anni del conflitto mondiale, e fecero sentire le loro voci attraverso comunicazioni, appelli e dichiarazioni da loro firmate. Inoltre, entrambi i Paesi misero in atto numerosi tentativi per screditare il nemico agli occhi dell’opinione pubblica, ricorrendo anche a materiali audiovisivi come disegni, cartoline e filmati, ma anche redigendo giornali falsi. Il primo capitolo di questo elaborato si concentrerà in particolare sulla cultura europea prima del 1914. Nonostante ci fossero stati quasi quarant'anni di pace, il nazionalismo e le conseguenti ambizioni militari erano comunque molto sentite. Nel secondo capitolo, invece, verranno discusse le attività degli intellettuali negli anni della Grande Guerra e le differenti posizioni da loro assunte. Infine, il terzo e ultimo capitolo offrirà una panoramica sulla propaganda tra Francia e Germania negli stessi anni, propaganda mossa dal desiderio di rovinare la reputazione del nemico, facendolo passare spesso per barbaro, incivile e violento e cambiando così le idee dei propri cittadini riguardo agli abitanti del Paese vicino.

This study explores discourses in teachers’ talk about their teaching practice in multilingual schools, with a focus on discourses relating to language. The study adopts a Foucauldian approach to discourse and views social structures and institutions as formed in discourse specific to a social and historical context. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with teachers in schools where a high proportion of pupils spoke a first language other than English. Eight teachers were interviewed, and the data were analysed using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis. The findings indicate that in the teachers’ talk there are discourses of a monolingual education system where other languages are used to support pupils to transition to using English and for recognising culture in non-curricular activities. The discourse is contradictory, as the structures of teaching are described as suitable for all, yet as inaccessible and disadvantageous to pupils learning EAL. The discourse also excludes a number of alternative discourses including the regular use of first languages during curricular activities. Disciplinary powers are identified in the standard curriculum structures, and they are discussed in relation to how they constrain practice in multilingual schools. Lastly, there is a discussion of implications for educational psychology practice and ideas for future research.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:25:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 4763.pdf: 4984747 bytes, checksum: b42d25f380a7d3b46dceeb55c2e40069 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-12-11
This work is an investigation about the texts productions written by children of the second year of elementary school in a public school located in the city of Bauru, in order to seek in the process of construction of the sense of the texts the singularities that point to the relation of the word itself with the word another. To this end, we based ourselves on the theory and design of language of Mikhail Bakhtin, as well as on the ponziana and geraldiana theories with respect to the enunciative treaty of language. In this context, we aimed to understand how occurred the literacy process in what circumscribes the practices of texts production and reading, as well as investigate the conceptions of subject that underlie the different practices of reading and writing in literacy. In addition, we conceive the production practice of written text as a discursive activity that correlates sense (implied) and situation (life) in a unique and singular event. We had as goal, also, think about the senses and subject formation processes in the production of language. With basis on the investigative principles of indiciary paradigm and the methodological reflections in Bakhtin Humanities, we try to highlight in a written narrative production, namely, the children's tale Little Red Riding Hood, how the child assumes a active responsive position on its re-telling. In the narrated discourse there are displacement movements that point to a emotive-valuation work, in which stands out the uniqueness of the child; in the meeting between reported word and word that reports, the child's production is characterized as a translation work.
Este trabalho é uma investigação acerca das produções de textos escritos por crianças do 2° ano do Ensino Fundamental, de uma escola pública do município de Bauru, tendo em vista buscar, no processo de construção do sentido dos textos, as singularidades que apontam para a relação palavra própria com a palavra outra. Para tanto, fundamentamo-nos na teoria e concepção de linguagem de Mikhail Bakhtin, bem como nas teorias ponziana e geraldiana no que tange ao tratado enunciativo da linguagem. Nesse contexto, objetivou-se compreender como se deu o processo de alfabetização no que circunscreve as práticas de produção e leitura de textos, bem como investigar as concepções de sujeito que subjazem as diferentes práticas de leitura e escrita na alfabetização. Além disso, conceber a prática de produção de texto escrito como atividade discursiva, que correlaciona sentido (subentendido) e situação (vida) em um evento único e singular. Foi objetivado, ainda, refletir sobre os processos de constituição de sentidos e sujeito na produção da linguagem. Com base nos princípios investigativos do paradigma indiciário e nas reflexões metodológicas em ciências humanas bakhtinianas, procuramos evidenciar em uma produção escrita de narrativa, a saber, o conto infantil Chapeuzinho Vermelho, o modo como a criança assume uma posição responsiva ativa no seu reconto. No discurso narrado há movimentos de deslocamento que apontam para um trabalho emotivo-valorativo, em que sobressai a singularidade da criança; no encontro entre palavra reportada e palavra que reporta a produção da criança se caracteriza como um trabalho de tradução.

Lo scopo della presente tesi dal titolo "Testimonianze sulla DDR: approfondimento sulle Ostfrauen prima e dopo il 1989" è capire com’era, dal punto di vista dei cittadini di allora, vivere in una dittatura socialista governata da un'élite sovietica patriarcale, prendendo in considerazione gli aspetti positivi e negativi di essa; in aggiunta, è inoltre presente un approfondimento sulla situazione e il ruolo della donna nella Germania Est e sulla sua evoluzione fino ai giorni nostri. L’organizzazione strutturale della presente tesi si compone di quattro capitoli. L’obiettivo del primo capitolo è quello di riassumere brevemente lo scenario storico che ha condotto alla divisione della Germania nazionalsocialista e successivamente alla costruzione del Muro di Berlino da parte dell’Unione Sovietica. Il secondo capitolo, invece, vede come oggetto di analisi e confronto diverse testimonianze di ex-cittadini della Repubblica Democratica Tedesca. In seguito, il terzo capitolo riguarda il tema dell’emancipazione femminile nella DDR e le sue implicazioni sociali nella società attuale tedesca. Infine, nel quarto capitolo vengono tratte le conclusioni.

This study investigates the use and occurrence of talk during the implementation of the key approaches of Shared Book Reading and Class Dictated Story in three Primary Two classrooms in Singapore. These approaches are based on a constructive perspective of literacy where children make meaning from texts read with the teacher through joint exploration and connection with their respective background knowledge and experiences. Central to this joint exploration and meaning-making is the teacher-pupil talk. The occurrence and use of talk in the implementation of these approaches in three primary two classrooms was recorded, transcribed and analyzed. Teachers' and pupils' experiences and practices of talk at home were also obtained through interviews, pupil logs and observations and audio recordings of shared reading and shared writing done in the classroom and in some homes. These would show the teachers' and pupils' orientation to talking to learn and consequently, the cultural congruence of the two major approaches currently being used in the classroom. The theoretical rationale informing the study is a sociocultural perspective. The relationship between language and culture is emphasized because use the learning of English in Singapore has been based on the second language paradigm for a long time. Given the cultural heterogeneity in the classroom and the learning of English as a first language in Singapore, this paradigm needs to be replaced. The different cultural scripts that Singaporeans take with them into the classroom necessitate a change of paradigms and a shift towards a sociocultural perspective of literacy learning. The study found that the talk which occurred during the shared literacy lessons in the classrooms of the Chinese and Indian teachers was dominated by the teachers with the pupils participating only to answer teacher questions. Both the Chinese and Indian teachers also stated that pupil comprehension was their main concern during the Shared Book Reading and Class Dictated Story sessions. This seemed to match the home reading experiences of the Chinese and Indian children in this study. In the Malay teacher's class there was pupil-initiated talk with the pupils initiating topic change as well as plane change and responding to teacher-questions spontaneously. The study argues that literacy is culturally loaded and therefore it is important to ensure the cultural fit of pedagogic approaches implemented in the classroom. It also argues the inadequacy of only a linguistic adaptation of pedagogic approaches originating in different cultural and linguistic contexts. Pre-service and in-service training of teachers need to transcend the imparting of procedural knowledge of the approaches and instead sensitize teachers to the cultural embeddedness of the approaches, Emphasizing the sociocultural perspective of literacy so that teachers perceive the Shared Book Reading and Class Dictated Story as necessitating and encouraging social dialogue would ensure that teachers and pupils with different cultural scripts and consequently engaging in reading and writing practices for different reasons and in different ways are not marginalized and disempowered. Attending to the cultural load of learning to read and write in English in Singapore has become urgent in view of the national call to create ''Thinking Schools, Learning Nation". Pedagogic approaches are culturally loaded. They cannot be viewed as being neutral. Recognizing the cultural situatedness of English language learning and teaching and the pedagogic approaches used in the process is necessary if the government's vision is to become a reality.

The purpose of this thesis was to explore and describe how bilingual programmes are organized and implemented within the unique linguistic and socio-economic case of Qatar. Specifically the thesis explored bilingual programs offered by two types of primary schools in Qatar: international schools and independent schools. Qatar launched a new initiative for educational development in 2001 but with hardly any research linked to these changes. The study was positioned within a qualitative interpretive tradition drawing on elements of ethnography and grounded theory as tools of methodology. However, quantitative methods were also incorporated within the design. The research design is structured within two main phases: phase one included statistical analysis of secondary data investigating three variables: average teaching time in the first and the second language, students’ and teachers’ nationality. Phase two utilized a multi-case study design. One school from each type was examined in depth over a period of nine weeks. Data were collected by means of school documents, interviews, and non-participant observation of English and Arabic classes. The first phase made an initial impression of the model of bilingual education followed by international and independent schools compared to bilingual typologies found in the literature. The analysis of the two cases examined revealed various differences across the two types. Findings reveal that the international school followed a partial immersion type of programme while the independent school followed a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) type of programme. The study reveals that the Qatari bilingual schools context was one of heteroglossia, with three codes in operation: Modern Standard Arabic, Colloquial Arabic dialects and English. Findings reveal that teachers and students in the international school adopt a strict separation policy between the two languages following a monoglossic belief. Language teachers and students in the independent school were found to apply a flexible language policy inside English and Arabic classes. The study revealed a gap between claimed programme features and implementation of these features. An absence of a clear language policy in the schools was also a main finding relating to the practice of these schools. In light of these findings, adopting a clear and explicit language-in-education policy should be a priority for policy makers in Qatar. The study revealed how the diglossia situation in Qatari schools is unique and therefore schools must be aware of the languages at the disposal of students and teachers. Schools must also concentrate on developing academic language skills needed for success in L2 schooling.

La situation des langues régionales pose aujourd’hui de nombreuses questions, et particulièrement dans des zones linguistiques charnières et transitoires, telles que le département de la Drôme. À l’épreuve du contact de deux domaines linguistiques gallo-romans, l’occitan et le francoprovençal mais également à celui du français, la Drôme est un territoire riche de sa pluralité, tant linguistique que culturelle. Pourtant, à l’heure où la transmission familiale et les pratiques de l’occitan deviennent sporadiques et isolées, il était nécessaire d’établir un état des lieux général de la langue au sein des institutions, scolaires notamment, mais également au sein de la communauté linguistique. Identifier les divers profils de locuteurs, estimer la vitalité des pratiques, évaluer le changement linguistique et faire émerger les représentations linguistiques ont ainsi permis d’exposer une image globale du département. À l’image du territoire, le visage linguistique de la Drôme est tout aussi complexe et pluriel : entre conflits d’identités, de langues et volontés de sauvegarde par l’enseignement
Nowadays the situation of regional languages raises many questions and more particularly in border and transiting linguistic areas such as the Drôme area. Being in contact with two Gallo-Roman linguistic estates, the Occitan and the Franco-Provencal but also with the French language, Drôme territory is rich from its plurality, both linguistic and cultural. Though at a time when family transmission and use of Occitan has become sporadic and isolated, it is necessary to draw out an overall state of the art of the language within institutions, especially at schools, but also within the linguistic community. Identifying the speakers’ various profiles, measuring the liveliness of the language use, evaluating linguistic shifts and bringing out the linguistic representations did set out a holistic picture of the area. The linguistic representation of the Drôme area is just the same as the territory itself, as complex and manifold: with both an identity and language encounter and the desire to save it through teaching

Doctor of Education
With the heightened profile of language learning in a global community, language education is exploring a new model of intercultural language learning. The goal of intercultural language learning is to produce language users equipped with explicit skills in understanding connections and differences between their own culture and the culture of the target language. The research literature suggests that language learners’ resulting intercultural competence will encompass a range of characteristics. There have been few empirical studies, however, to provide illustration of intercultural competence, in order to assist teachers’ understanding of desired outcomes and student development. This case study investigates the characteristics of intercultural competence in young language learners in one Australian primary school. The learners have been engaged in an immersion language program for up to eight years, in one of three languages: French, German or Japanese. The study also investigates the behaviours and understandings in their language teachers which may facilitate the development of learners’ intercultural competence. It explores in summary what may be the nature of intercultural competence in the case study language learners. The study is relevant to research of both intercultural language learning and of immersion language classrooms. Using a case study design, the study incorporates qualitative data in the form of student focus group interviews, teacher interviews, and classroom observations. Data were collected at the case study school, in Sydney, Australia, over a school semester, and involved 49 Year 6 students and four teachers. Results of the study suggest a number of indicators of the case study students’ development in intercultural competence – that is, through understanding of language culture and identity. The student is and sees him or herself as a purposeful interactive communicator. The student understands the target language itself to be the vehicle of the target culture, and often displays metalinguistic curiosity and skills. Some students are able to critically reflect on their (multiple) linguistic and cultural memberships, and to negotiate their identity as a non-native language user. The study found that teachers provide a model of interculturality to their students. The teachers’ interculturality is enacted in their relationships and pedagogical choices, in their design of experiential learning tasks, and their facilitation of linguistic and cultural connections for their students. The study also found that the nature of the immersion language classroom itself facilitates intercultural competence in students. The study provides a case study illustration of intercultural competence in language learners which is relevant to research in intercultural language learning, immersion pedagogy and the emerging related pedagogy of content-based language learning.