Language as a Tool in Diverse Forms of Learning

Elsevier. 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, FL 32887-4800. Tel: 877-839-7126; Tel: 407-345-4020; Fax: 407-363-1354; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://www.elsevier.com

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15

Curriculum Design; Discourse Analysis; Video Technology; Language Usage; Fathers; Learning Processes; Urban Areas; Immigrants; Records (Forms); Parent Child Relationship; Communication Strategies; Males; Classroom Environment

10.1016/j.linged.2012.09.001

0898-5898

In this manuscript we report on a curriculum design project in which we worked with students in an urban immigrant community to study their own language practices in different contexts. We gathered videotaped data of students in the classroom as well as videos they took of their language practices in other settings. We focus on one student's engagement in this project, and ask how he uses language as a communicative tool in two different activity settings: filling out a form at home with his father, and filling out a form at school. We illuminate variations in this boy's use of language as a communicative and meaning-making tool across these activity settings, finding that he drew on a broader set of communicative tools in interactions with his father at home, including multi-modal communicative strategies, than he did in a similar activity in school. We use these data to complexify discussions of continuities and discontinuities in everyday and school language practices. We conclude with suggestions for how schools can support students' use of language as a tool for thinking and acting in diverse contexts. (Contains 5 tables and 3 figures.)

As Provided

2012

EJ987280