1. Developing Learning Communities
Language and Learning Style
Chapter 8
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2. Characteristics of a Learning Community
It is organized for activity.
Everyone in the school participates in this activity-oriented environment.
There is a sense that everyone belongs to the community: students, teachers, parents, administrators, support staff, volunteers, and other members of the broader community outside of the school.
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3. Rationale for Learning-Community Classrooms
Need to prepare students to be citizens of a democracy. . .
Through learning to negotiate differences in the context of a common curriculum
Through learning citizenship by practicing democracy
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4. Pedagogies: Old and New
Old methods with new names:
Dialogue (Plato)
Discovery learning (Abelard)
Critical pedagogy, inquiry learning, feminist pedagogy, and collaborative learning (Comenius)
What is new:
That these should exist at the same time and be used by both children and adults
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5. Roles: Old and New
Traditional roles of students and adults are expanded:
Teacher as “teller” expanded to teacher as guide, coach, cheerleader
Other adults assume teaching and learning roles
Students may be “teachers” as well as learners
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6. Place of Content Knowledge: Old and New
Disciplinary knowledge serves a dual role:
Sometimes it is learned as an end in itself
Sometimes it serves as a means to another end (e.g., problem solving or discovering a new way to see and understand the world)
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7. Assessment: Old and New
There is still a use for paper-and-pencil testing, standardized or teacher-written.
General use for such tests is diagnostic.
Alternative forms of assessment also play a part:
Peer evaluation
Portfolios
Group tests
Self-evaluation
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8. Institutional Aspects of Language
Language is the first institution encountered by a child; it structures the world by objectifying, interpreting, and justifying reality.
Language has several characteristics in common with other social institutions.
It is external.
It is objective.
It has the power of moral authority.
It is historical.
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9. Perspectives on Language Variation
All language sounds have symbolic meaning.
Within any language, however, the meaning of elements may differ widely:
Vocabulary
Pronunciation
Syntax (grammatical structure)
Semantics (the meaning of words)
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10. Verbal Communication
Accents: differ from standard language only in pronunciation
Dialects: differ from standard language in pronunciation, word usage, and syntax
Black English (Ebonics)
Rural, or mountain, English
Standard English
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11. Bidialectalism: the ability to speak two (or more) dialects and to switch easily between or among them
Sign Language: a form of nonverbal language of signs spoken by the deaf
Used instead of a spoken language
American Sign Language (ASL) is considered an “official” language
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12. Nonverbal Communication
Accounts for 50-90% of the messages we send and receive
Functions to convey message, augment, contradict, or replace verbal communication
Proxemics (social space): refers to the “normal” distance considered appropriate between two people speaking
Kinesics: body language (e.g., gestures, facial expressions, eye contact)
Paralanguage: vocalizations that are not words (e.g., sighs, laughter, crying)
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13. Culture, Language, and Learning Style
These three are inextricably intertwined.
Language shapes and is shaped by culture.
Culture shapes and is shaped by language.
Learning style originates and accounts for variations in patterns of learning, and is shaped by both language and culture.
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14. Components of Learning Style
Field Dependence: individual perceives globally or holistically; orientation is social; is good at observation
Field Independence: individual perceives discrete parts; is good at abstract thought; tends to be individualistic; prefers working alone
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15. Additional Components of Learning Style
Preferred sensory mode for learning (e.g., sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, movement)
Response to immediate environment
Emotionality
Social preferences
Psychological dimensions (global/analytical, right/left brain, reflective/impulsive)
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16. Multiple Intelligences
The idea (proposed by Howard Gardner) that human beings not only have preferred learning styles, but also preferred ways of expressing intellectual ability, and thus, of thinking
Visual/Spatial
Verbal/Linguistic
Logical/Mathematical
Bodily/Kinesthetic
Musical/Rhythmic
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
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17. The Significance of Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles
The importance of these qualities for teachers lies in their ability to identify preferred modes of learning and to adapt instruction so that all students get to practice learning in multiple ways.
No one recommends that students learn only in their preferred mode or that teachers teach in more than one mode.
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18. Origins of Learning Style
Still a matter of conjecture
Appear to be a combination of:
Biological factors
Psychological factors
Sociocultural factors
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19. Relation of Language & Learning Styles to Culture
Language determines vocabulary, which sets the “correct” meaning of words and of cultural ideas.
Language plays a critical role in the maintenance of subgroups within a larger culture.
Language reflects the thought processes of a culture.
Learning style is developed in the context of what we attend to (perception) and how we attend to it—both culturally shaped adaptations to the physical and social environment.
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20. Bilingual Education: Social and Legal History
Bilingual education in the U.S. has its roots in the 19th century; Ohio passed a bilingual education law in However, nativist fears after WWI led to English-only laws in a majority of states.
The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 authorized bilingual programs for students whose first language was not English.
The 1974 Supreme Court decision Lau v. Nichols declared that school districts must provide students an education in languages that meet their needs.
Castenada v. Pickard (1981) established the need to develop programs for limited English proficient students and to train special staff. 
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21. The Bilingual Education Backlash
Since the 1990s, a backlash has grown against teaching students in any other language but English.
Two significant cases in California were the opposition to the Oakland schools' attempt to recognize the use of Ebonics among some of its students, and the 1998 passing of Proposition 227, which required CA public schools to teach LEP students in special classes taught almost entirely in English.
Opponents of bilingual education programs argue that students may be hampered by never learning to speak, read, and write English, and that the difficulty of learning in two languages at once may impact achievement.
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22. Limited English Proficiency (LEP)
Defined by the 1984 Bilingual Education Act as:
those students not born in the United States
those whose native language is not English
those from environments in which English is not the dominant language
those Native American groups where languages other than English are commonly used
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23. Stages in Second-Language Acquistion
Silent/receptive or preproduction stage
Early production stage
Speech emergence stage
 Intermediate language proficiency stage
Advanced language proficiency stage
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24. Other Concepts in Second-Language Acquisition
"Affective fiber hypothesis" suggests that emotions are a factor in the ease or difficulty of learning another language.
Other factors include the linguistic distance between two languages, the student's level of proficiency in his or her first language, the dialect of the first language, the relative status of the student's first language in the community, and social attitudes toward the student's first language.
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25. Ethical Issues: Local and Global
Debates about language in the schools are likely to be as much about issues of cultural domination as they are about language itself.
Assessment measured by culture-biased tests may favor students already fluent in standard English.
Language provides the keys to understanding other peoples in an increasingly interdependent world.
 The increasing prevalence of English in worldwide modes of communication—especially television and the Internet—may mean that many "small" languages are disappearing.
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