28Th Annual Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies Colloquy

28th Annual Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies Colloquy

February 19th, 2015

Invited Speakers:

YếnLê Espiritu

University of California, San Diego

They Certainly Don’t Teach It In School!”: The Vietnam War and Refugee Postmemories

1:00 – 2:30 UA Bookstore

Arnetha Ball

Stanford University

5:30 – 7:00 College of Education Kiva

Schedule of Events

11:00 – 12:00 Registration and Community Booths

World of Words, College of Education

1:00 – 2:30 Invited Speaker: YếnLê Espiritu, UA Bookstore

2:45 – 3:45 Concurrent Student Session I, College of Education

Classrooms

4:00 – 5:00 Concurrent Student Session II, College of

Education Classrooms

5:00 – 5:30 Poster Session, World of Words

5:30 – 7:00 Invited Speaker: Arnetha Ball, College of EducationKiva Auditorium,

Community Presenters: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM World of Words

Tucson Chinese Cultural Center, The Dunbar African -American Cultural Center, TUSD’s Culturally Relevant Studies, & Arabian Oasis Cultural Center

Concurrent Session I: 2:45-3:45 PM

EDUC Room 312

Faculty Discussion- Q&A session about the Job Search and Interview Process

Carol Brochin, Norma González & Erin Turner

EDUC Room 455 Moderator: Leisy Wyman, Associate Professor, TLS

Panel Discussion- Confronting the Reproduction of Consciousness: Applying a Processual Approach in Multicultural Education

Alexa Rodriguez, Alejandra Arroyo, Alyssa Martinez, Breanna Lindner, Danissa Gil, Sarah Bigler, Jesus Jaime-Diaz

EDUC Room 257

Panel Discussion- Non-Native Speaking Language Teachers: Issues of Identity and Language Diversity

Hope Anderson, Rachel LaMance, Janelle Moser, Chelsea Steinert

EDUC Room 102: Moderator: Eliane Rubinstein-Avila, Associate Professor, TLS

Zahra Karimi- A Study of Two Persian Language Classrooms: How Language Teaching Methodology Affects Learners’ Motivation and Learning

Mariia Khorosheva- A Comparative Study of Two Writing classes: Teaching Approaches and Influence on Students’ Writing Development

Junko Sakoi- Meeting Pocket Monsters and Ninja Turtles in the Classroom: Responses of Fifth Graders to Japanese Pictorial Texts

EDUC Room 530

LaToya Hinton- Miskitu vs. Plurilingualism: A Discourse Analysis on the Language of Two Pro-Miskitu Activists in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua

Lisa Fetman- The Enactment or Arizona's Language Policy

Ellen Vujasinovic- Language Planning and Policy: The Case of Catalonia, Spain

Concurrent Session II: 4:00 – 5:00 PM

EDUC Room 257

Panel Discussion- Voices de la Calle/Voces of the Street:

Symbols, Sounds, and Steps as Transformation

Eliza Butler, Lamonte Tales Goode, Anton Smith, María Jose, Jaca Zulu, DJ Alias, Johanna Martinez,Tere Fowler Chapman, & Cristina Cardenas

EDUC Room 312

Workshop- Writing Your ‘Testimonio’ in Honor of Dr. Richard Ruíz

Tamara MC

EDUC Room 102Moderator: Walter Doyle, Professor, TLS

Sheila Rocha- Community Service or Education: The Teaching Dilemma on Pine Ridge Reservation

J Carmen Tirado-Paredes- NahuiMitl (Four Arrows Journey): Introduction and Understanding of the Mexica/Aztec Origins and Culture

Nayalin Feller- What can children teach us? The role of peer relationships and translanguaging in the development of bilingual and biliterate young Indigenous children in the TekoáMarangatu, Brazil

Joseph Kevin Spink- Legitimacy of Cultural Critique: A Reconsideration

EDUC Room 530

Mariia Khorosheva- The Development of English Writing Skills and International Student Identity Through Feedback and Student Collaboration in an ESL Freshman Writing Course

Veronika Williams- Concept of Learner Autonomy through Sociocultural Lens

SibeleVolpi Schafer- Immigrant Parents Confronting Acculturative Stress in the Educational System: A Case Study of a South American Family

Poster Session: 5:00-5:30 PM, World of Words

• Michelle Albertson- Teacher Talk: Teacher Voice, Affect, and Identity in Present Day Managerialist Institutions
• Melody Buckner- Digital Storytelling as an Assessment Practice in Study Abroad Programs
• Danlei Chen- Building a Nurturing Language Learning Environment: From inside the Class to Outside the Class
• Casey Richardson- Culturally-Respectful Approach: Funds of Knowledge and other Factors
• Sherrie Stewart- AVATAR: Teaching Stereotypes and Reification Through Film
• Frank Zadroga- Creating a Sustainability Learning Discipline for Youth

Hope Anderson, Rachel LaMance, Janelle Moser, Chelsea Steinert

Panel Discussion- Non-Native Speaking Language Teachers: Issues of Identity and Language Diversity

One issue of diversity in language teaching is the increasing prevalence of non-native speaking (NNS) teachers. In the past twenty years, this issue has primarily been researched in relation to English (e.g., Canagarajah, 1999; Medgyes, 1994; MoussuLlurda, 2008). This panel seeks to bring the voices of NNS teachers of languages other than English into this discussion. An additional task for NNS teachers of languages other than English is being able to meet the needs of heritage language learners, who may have more home experience with the language than their teachers. Helping students value their home variety of the language (in accordance with Carvalho, 2012; Villa, 2002) while they develop an academic variety is one of the challenges of teaching heritage students. This issue can be more difficult for NNS teachers, due to their differing linguistic backgrounds. The panel features educators of Arabic, French, German, and Spanish, drawing on their personal experiences as non-native speakers in the language classroom to highlight themes of identity, credibility, language diversity, role reversal, and acceptance.

This panel is dedicated to Dr. Richard Ruiz, whose work with a colleague of the participants inspired this topic.

Michelle Albertson

Teacher Talk: Teacher Voice, Affect, and Identity in Present Day Managerialist Institutions

Teacher talk is one of the most salient features of the teaching profession. This literature review surveys several studies of teacher talk and includes elements of teaching that are con-veyed in teacher talk such as teacher voice, identity and affect. A common denominator of numerous articles presented here is that of teacher narratives, or story-telling, which is fea-tured as being instrumental in the creation of teacher identity, agency, and transformation in the context of present-day education reforms that strongly adhere to policy mandates of managerialist professionalism that has dominated the state of education for the past three decades. As part of this discussion, commentaries presenting teacher identity as affective in nature will be discussed in order to bring to light mechanisms by which teachers cope with institutional change, while maintaining, or preserving, a certain level of agency. The results of my analysis indicate that teachers, being deeply caring and responsible individuals are highly proficient in positively navigating difficult waters created by nationalized education policies.

Melody Buckner

Digital Storytelling as an Assessment Practice in Study Abroad Programs

This poster session will visually portray the findings of a recent research study conducted at the University of Arizona related to the implementation of digital storytelling as an assessment practice for measuring academic learning outcomes in several summer study abroad programs. This research study was focused upon ways students could effectively demonstrate their learning through digital engagement. The study explored if the method of digital storytelling through the use of multimodal tools, including Voice Thread was an effective way for students to accomplish this task. The researcher will be sharing the results through the digital stories of students who participated in the study. The topics covered in this poster will include: digital storytelling, digital literacy, assessment practices and the introduction of digital engagement in study abroad programs.

Eliza Butler, Lamonte Tales Goode, Anton Smith, María Jose, Jaca Zulu, DJ Alias, Johanna Martinez, & Tere Fowler Chapman

Panel Discussion- Voices de la Calle/Voces of the Street: Symbols, Sounds, and Steps as Transformation

This collaborative piece explores the perspectives of a range of visual artists as they reflect on their processes of becoming. Together, the voices of graffiti artists, disk jockeys, dancers, and poets provide a glimpse into the complexities of the transformative potency of artistic creation. This multimedia production provokes reflection considering the constraints of our built environments and mental borders, with the intention of identifying the dynamic richness of visual spaces and soundscapes as a response to daily oppression. Our becoming pivots on this potential for transformation. This multimodal grassroots project connects a wide range of artists in reflection upon the importance artistic creation has had on their identity formation and issues of social justice. Through storytelling and video production, artists responded to two questions of inquiry.

1. How has your art form affected your identity?

2. Do you see any connections to issues of social justice? If so, in what ways?

Each artist submitted their videos to be to be posted on social media (Facebook and YouTube).The videos were compiled into a 45-minute compilation, which was presented at by collaborating artists, Abagail Fritz (dancer) and UzoNkemNwankpa (dancer) at the Performing the World International Conference in NYC, 2014. This panel will include members from Voices de la Calle in a discussion surrounding their perspectives on how the arts have influenced their lives, with the intention to extend our understandings of the diversity and Education through a multimodal dialogue.

Danlei Chen

Building a Nurturing Language Learning Environment: From inside the Class to Outside the Class

Informed by the twofold mission of a non-native ESL teacher to create optimal environmental conditions inside the classroom and develop the students’ autonomy to extend learning outside the classroom and by drawing upon teaching fieldnotes, student written feedback and personal communications, the proposed study reflected on three themes: (1) “What is meant by understanding my students well?” (ii) “What is meant by effective tasks?” (iii) “How to develop students’ autonomy?” in a multilingual and multicultural Health Literacy ESL class for adult immigrants in South Philadelphia.

The first theme explored the obstacles towards understanding students and redefined what it meant by understanding students well, arguing that understanding students encompasses understanding of not only demographic facts but more importantly, intersections and interplays among students’ life and learning experiences, identify shifts and how these produce their language attitudes and learning expectations.

The second theme revisited the original framework deemed thorough and effective and deployed in the task design, reexamined the observed success and failure of a task and concluded by arguing that the definition of “effectiveness” of both a task and the learning process should not be decided from the teacher’s perspective and perceptions alone but also from those of students.

The third theme problematize the teacher’s perceived “lack-of-autonomy”, reexamined exercising of learner autonomy in class, distinguished between “proactive ” and “reactive” autonomy and concluded that student perception should count more in defining learner autonomy and teachers should help students develop an awareness of autonomy and feel of urgency to develop such awareness.

Nayalin Feller

What can children teach us? The role of peer relationships and translanguaging in the development of bilingual and biliterate young Indigenous children in the TekoáMarangatu, Brazil

In Brazil, researchers have only recently – in the last 15 years – started to look at the child as a capable and competent beings. This dissertation investigates the teaching and learning processes and the pedagogical practices used by and with Mbya Guarani children in the TekoaMarangatu reservation, in Imaruí, Brazil. The overarching goal of this research is to explore the role of Indigenous children’s socialization processes in the development of bilingualism, biliteracy and/or biculturalism within the school environment and how the bilingual school is or is not supporting the development of the Guarani language. Children are seen as social actors (Cohn, 2005) who transmit knowledge amongst themselves, the adults in their lives and the different contexts in which they are inserted.

In this qualitative study I used ethnographic instruments to document in depth the several literacy practices performed by first and third graders in the EscolaIndígena de Ensino Fundamental TekoáMarangatu (E.I.E.F. TekoáMarangatu). Data include fieldnotes from participant observations, video and audio-recordings, and literacy samples (in the form of photographs) collected during four months of fieldwork. Through open-coding, I delineated specific domains around the use of literacy events (Heath, 1982) and vernacular literacies (De La Piedra, 2009), following previous empirical studies on Indigenous’ children emergent literacies (Azuara, 2009). Through the use of narrative inquiry, I demonstrate how the role of translanguaging (García and Beardsmore, 2009) and the role that peers took in the socialization processes of these children are some of the important findings of this study.

Lisa Fetman

The Enactment or Arizona's Language Policy

Students speaking a first language other than English comprise more than 10% of students in U.S. public schools, and are predicted to represent 25% of all public school students by 2025. States enact language policies to address this growing demographic, and Arizona’s sheltered English-only policy (Proposition 203, 2000) is the most restrictive in the U.S. Despite scant empirical support for the efficacy of Arizona’s model, Proposition 203 passed and remains as a result of the veneer of democracy (a political strategy that projects equitable inclinations while shielding inequitable ideologies). In order to wipe away the policy’s veneer of democracy and reveal its marginalizing effects, I compare findings from an ethnographic study of one linguistically and culturally diverse high school confronting mandates from Proposition 203 with findings from a critical analysis of the policy’s text. Findings show that the policy’s veneer of democracy exudes discourses of morality, opportunity, and rationality, and these taken-for-granted macro-level political discourses conflict with and subjugate the micro-level realities of schools. The illustration of this tension provides a comprehensive understanding of how the enactment of policy is distinct from policy itself, thus implying a need to reexamine democracy in education from political and school levels.

LaToya Hinton

Miskitu vs. Plurilingualism: A Discourse Analysis on the Language of Two Pro-Miskitu Activists in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua

This discourse analysis studies the structure of the Miskitu Language in contrast with the Pro-Miskitu Language Ideology of Yatama Organization Political Activists in Puerto Cabezas, a large port town on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. Two interviews are examined, one interview by Dr. Laura Herlihy with Brooklyn Rivera, leader of the Yatama Organization, and one by the researcher, LaToya Hinton with a Yatama youth member, Gianni. This study examines the discourse of plurilingualism and language contact while highlighting the political nature of Miskitu language use in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.

Zahra Karimi

A Study of Two Persian Language Classrooms: How Language Teaching Methodology Affects Learners’ Motivation and Learning

Second language classroom is one of those contexts in which interaction helps the language learners apply their new knowledge in expressing their ideas in a new language. Heritage language teaching seeks its own materials, teaching methods, and policy which should be taken more into consideration when teachers face diverse groups of students from different linguistic and cultural background. So, this reality should affect the curriculum and instruction, since teachers should clarify the rules necessary for an organized classroom and time is set aside for the teaching of these rules (Garrett, 2008). My experience of second language learning made me do a research to explore how a heritage language like Persian is being taught to the learners in an educational context. So, the settings of this research are two Persian language classrooms. The participants of this study are teachers and learners of two classrooms. The learners in two classes are diverse based on their parents and context they have been grown up in. so there were three types of learners of heritage language including full-Iranian, half-Iranian, and non-heritage learners. I gathered the data of this study through class observation in seven sessions of sitting in the classrooms, writing field notes, interviewing with teachers and learners of class ‘A in face-to-face talk. I had to do written interview with learners of class ‘B’ through sending the questions and getting their answers, though, the information taken from written interview is not as deep and informative as oral interview.

First research question is to explain if different types of language learners based on their linguistic, cultural knowledge and different language levels are received any specific scaffolding strategies in their Persian language learning process. By asking the second research question, I wanted to discover if the concept of “funds of knowledge” has been applied in these classrooms whereas teachers in both classes did not know anything about their learners whose background knowledge could be a good resource for class material and activities. In a heritage language classroom, teacher plays an important role in providing appropriate environment for having interaction through creating some interactional opportunities between teacher and learners or among learners through which their voices would be heard and also they could be more motivated to keep learning a new language as a second language or foreign language.

Mariia Khorosheva

A Comparative Study of Two Writing classes: Teaching Approaches and Influence on Students’ Writing Development

U.S. universities are becoming more international, with students coming to study from a variety of countries. CESL (Center for English as a Second Language) is located at the University of Arizona and is mainly responsible for preparing international students for the challenges they will encounter in their studies, which includes academic writing. This qualitative and quantitative study examines the effects that different teaching methods and activities have on student attitudes. Knowledge of how student attitudes correlate with teaching practices is important in establishing instruction practices that are more effective. Issues of collaboration, grammar instruction and textbook use will serve as the basis for comparing student impressions in 2 intermediate CESL writing courses. The courses were taught by instructors with different backgrounds and goals, but the same textbook was used in the courses. Students likewise came from different countries and learning experiences. Data is collected through student interviews, instructor interviews, as well as observations and a survey. The outcomes of this study echo those of previous research data and raise important considerations regarding grammar instruction, collaboration and textbook use in writing classes that might have been overlooked. This study could be useful for researchers and teachers of ESL writing, especially at the University of Arizona, and could be generalized to other settings.