International students entering postgraduate courses in Australian universities encounter numerous challenges in their new environments. Many relate to the academic literacy and pedagogical practices in the English-speaking academic environment, which international students time and again have reported assume local linguistic and cultural…

Michel Foucault's discourse theory and Pierre Bourdieu's critical sociology are used to reexamine early literacy training. The resulting model is used to describe educational discourse, particularly in a series of literacy events in an Australian first-grade classroom. Implications for pedagogy are discussed. (70 references) (Author/MSE)

Imposition of English in Torres Strait and Cape York Peninsula (Australia) schools led to the development of Torres Strait Creole (TSC), now widely spoken. Common formal errors that TSC-speaking students make in written English are described and related to linguistic transfer. Cultural vocabulary, core cultural values reflected in TSC, and the…

This workbook and videotape kit invites teachers to explore the fundamental concepts of language and culture in universal terms and in relation to their teaching of languages and cultures in their classrooms. Comparing and contrasting cultural phenomena and their associated linguistic meanings across cultures offers teachers the opportunity to…

Presents an ethnomethodological study of how Australian high school geography teachers and students rely on common sense knowledge and reasoning to facilitate learning. Analyzes portions of transcripts from a class activity in which students built a scale model of a city. Explains location categorization devices, illustrating how learning involves…