Joe Rumenapp University of Illinois at Chicago

4th International Language and Education Conference Bangkok, 6-8 November, 2013

As the increase of English Learners increases, so are top-down policy mandates

Teachers are losing the ability to create meaningful curricula for their classrooms

In urban districts where there is a high amount of cultural and linguistic diversity, the curriculum is becoming more standard

• Gee, 2011 • Cazden, 2001 • Psathas, 1995

Discourse Analysis

• Lave & Wanger, 1991 • Engeström, 2007 • Wood, 2007

Community of Practice

• Vygotsky, 1987 • Johnson &

Golombek, 2011

Professional Development

Introduction to the Project Teacher Research

Data Collection

Warner Elementary School K-8 public school located in city’s south side, just a

few miles south of down town. In 2011: 704 students. Approximately 93% of the students were Asian

(mostly Cantonese Chinese), 6% African American, and 1% other.

About 26% were reported as bilingual and 95% on free or reduced lunch (district data).

Locate meta-lingual speech acts

Match classroom example with teachers’ analysis

Identify the common tools and themes

“Use Engli::sh”

“What is smoke? What smoke mean”

“I’m in this class…I’m not

Chinese!”

“COULD YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?”

Transcripts indicating the order and structure of talk

Transcripts that focused on student meaning making

Transcripts of speech events that occurred during shifts in student interaction or uptake

Jan: Normative practice of student

group based on home language

Study of "use Engli:::sh"

Reorganized groups realizing some did not

have the "right" to speak the home

language

Allison: Normative practice of student

group based on home language

Study of "CAN YOU SPEAK ENGLISH"

Noted shift in confidence in the home

language, contesting dominant policy

Lee: Normative practice of whole group facing the

teacher

Study of "What is smoke?"

Recognized need for peer assistance and

reorganized group into a circle

Leah: Normative practice of classroom

discoussion

Study of "I'm not Chinese"

Recognized the metalinguistic nature of

writing audience, and the cultural values

contested in the classroom

Teacher Professional Development

Subverting Top-Down Policies

Developing in the absence of administrative support

Creating new pedagogy in the absence of “best practices”

Cazden, C. (2001) Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning (2nd ed). Portsmouth: Heinemann.

Engeström, Y. (2007). From communities of practice to mycorrhizae. In J. Hughes, N. Jewson & L. Unwin (eds.), Communities of practice: Critical perspectives. London: Routledge.

Gee, J.P. (2011). How to do discourse analysis: A tool kit. New York: Routledge. Johnson, K.E., & Golombek, P.R. (eds). (2011). Research on second language teacher

education: A sociocultural perspective on professional development. New York: Routledge.

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Psathas, G. (1995). Conversation analysis: The study of talk-in-action. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Vygotsky L.S. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wood, D. (2007). Teachers’ learning communities: Catalyst for change or a new

infrastructure for the status quo? Teachers College Record, 109(3), 699-739.

Please contact:

jrumen2@uic.edu