The article concludes that pupils appreciate being stretched, and learn more when challenged and when they feel their opinions are valued. They were supported through scaffolding.
This article describes a longitudinal ethnographic research project in a Grade 1 classroom enrolling L2 learners and Anglophones. Using a community-of-practice perspective rarely applied in L2 research, the author examines three classroom practices that she argues contribute to the construction of L2 learners as individuals and as such reinforce traditional second language acquisition perspectives. More importantly, they serve to differentiate participants from one another and contribute to community stratification. In a stratified community in which the terms of stratification become increasingly visible to all, some students become defined as deficient and are thus systematically excluded from just those practices in which they might otherwise appropriate identities and practices of growing competence and expertise.
Wyatt-Smith, C. and Kimber, K. (2009) ‘Working multimodally: challenges for assessment’, English Teaching: Practice and Critique, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 70–90.
Pauline Gibbons (2008) Research to investigate what 'intellectual quality' is, and how this is reflected in classroom activity and practise, with reference to students learning through the medium of English as an L2. Based on SCLA, with emphasis on considering how pedagogy can be redefined in terms of sociocultural conceptual frameworks and analytical tools.
Gibbons, P. 2008: Abstract: This paper reports on some of the findings from research that investigated how
the notion of ‘intellectual quality’ is played out in schools where there are large
numbers of students who are learning through the medium of English as a second
language (ESL). Starting with the premise that high challenge, high support
classrooms benefit all learners, the paper discusses and illustrates the recurring
intellectual practices identified in five linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms,
where the teachers were involved in action research projects. The paper also
discusses the collaborative process by which the research was undertaken, and the
teacher learning that resulted. It concludes with a brief discussion of the implications
for pedagogy, and suggests that the ‘apprenticeship’ approach that broadly
describes the pedagogy adopted by the teachers has the potential to be particularly
significant for ESL learners’ engagement and participation in curriculum and
language learning.