Despite an increased interest in academic language in recent years, critical and sociopolitical perspectives in this area of scholarship remain scarce. This paper presents brings such perspectives to the study of academic language by proposing a framework that highlights its situated social meanings through a focus on social identities and…

Pronunciation is challenging for many international students, but particularly important for those going onto college and university level studies where they need to do professional presentations. According to the Institute of International Education [IIE] (2020), California hosted 160,592 students in 2019/2020, and is one of the top destinations…

Many U.S. adult schools currently aim to create academic and career pathways by implementing higher order thinking and metalinguistic application in their ESL curriculum. However, this 'ability to reflect on and manipulate the structural features of language' poses a significant hurdle to adult ESL learners newly learning to read and write, as…

This article extends two conversations in the heritage language (HL) scholarship: 1) the need to strengthen the linguistic self-confidence among receptive bilinguals (who are typically associated with beginning-level HL students); 2) the need for more critical explorations of receptive bilinguals' self-reported, albeit minimal, spoken Spanish in…

Background: Classroom discourse featuring meaning making supports students achieving discipline-specific learning. However, moving beyond recitation requires developing beliefs, skills, structures, and practices. Any theorizing we do about developing discussion practice must attend to realities of culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms.…

Introducing a distinction between language of ideas and language of display as a means of reconceptualizing what counts as "academic" language, I examine one brief stretch of talk by a small group of linguistically diverse 7th grade students in a U.S. mainstream social studies classroom designed to maximize academic and language…

This article draws on scholarship in educational and linguistic anthropology to explore awareness of Spanish-English code-switching among bilingual Chicana/o and Latina/o students in a sixth-grade English Language Arts classroom. Analysis of qualitative data gathered via participant observation, video/audio recording, and semistructured interviews…

Bilingual prospective teachers of color may possess experiences and knowledge particularly suitable for teaching linguistically diverse students but may need guidance and support to leverage such resources for teaching. In a class of 76 undergraduates, with a focus on bilingual students of color intending to teach, this study used self-reflexive…

This article reports on two studies using "Language Muse[superscript SM]" (LM), a web-based, teacher professional development (TPD) application designed to enhance teachers' linguistic awareness and to support teachers in the development of language-based instructional scaffolding for English language learners (ELL). In Study 1,…

Using a sociocritical approach to the study of language and literacy and discourse analysis, this article examines student initiated challenges in a sheltered English course with two types of English learners: native+, ESL students; and, recently, arriving ESL students. The analysis draws on 19 hours of video-recorded observations of…

Past studies in language teaching have addressed the issue of whether the benefits of formal instruction outweigh those of naturalistic instruction, or vice versa. This study examined 1 aspect of naturalistic instruction closely: the conversation partnership. There were 3 conversation partnerships (English/Mandarin, English/Arabic, and…

This article reports findings from a qualitative study of Spanish-English code-switching--or "Spanglish"--among bilingual Latina/Latino sixth graders at a middle school in East Los Angeles. Analysis of the data revealed significant parallels between the skills embedded in students' everyday use of "Spanglish" and the skills…