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Learning about the past and preparing for the future: a longitudinal investigationof a grade 7 'sheltered' social studies classMari Haneda a

a School of Teaching & Learning, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

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To cite this Article Haneda, Mari(2009)'Learning about the past and preparing for the future: a longitudinal investigation of a grade 7'sheltered' social studies class',Language and Education,23:4,335 — 352

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Language and EducationVol. 23, No. 4, July 2009, 335–352

Learning about the past and preparing for the future: a longitudinalinvestigation of a grade 7 ‘sheltered’ social studies class

Mari Haneda∗

Ohio State University, School of Teaching & Learning, Columbus, Ohio, USA

Drawing on interviews, observations, and videorecorded data collected in a ‘sheltered’grade 7 social studies class in a Mid-western US city, the current paper explores thelearning opportunities provided for English language learners (ELLs) and the discursivestrategies used by a teacher, consciously or unconsciously, to help her students becomeincreasingly competent members of her class. Findings indicated that (a) learning inthis class was not simply about the curriculum content, but was equally addressed tostudents’ becoming competent participants in the classroom community and developingdispositions as responsible members of society; (b) the teacher in the study effectivelyused her follow-up moves to scaffold her students’ learning and to give voice to theiropinions. Based on these findings, I argue for the importance of a broader conceptu-alization of what counts as learning and for an equity stance toward the education ofELLs, as exemplified by the case-study teacher.

Keywords: equity; identity; second language learners

This paper presents a ‘telling case’ (Mitchell 1984) of one grade 7 teacher who, withoutsubstantive English as a second language (ESL) training, voluntarily created a ‘sheltered’social studies class to provide an equitable learning space for English language learners(ELLs).1 While this is not presented as an ideal case, I hope to show how this teacherconceptualized her task and attempted to organize her teaching to meet the needs of theparticular ELLs in her care. The paper starts with a brief background regarding the educationof ELLs in US schools and a review of relevant research. Following that, the aforementionedcase will be presented through illustrative excerpts of classroom discourse and interviews.On this basis, I shall argue for the importance of a broader conceptualization of whatcounts as learning and for an equity/social justice stance toward the education of ELLs, asexemplified by the case-study teacher.

The US context

In the school year of 2005–6, ELL services were provided to approximately 5.1 millionstudents, who constitute 10.3 percent of the public school population of the United States(National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition & Language Education Pro-grams 2007). In large urban centers, such as Los Angeles and Dallas, where the ELLpopulation tends to cluster, there are schools with a higher concentration of ELLs (over 25percent of the total school population). However, nationally, most schools have just a few orno ELLs; in fact, 62 percent of the total population of public school students are in schools

∗Email: haneda.1@osu.edu

ISSN 0950-0782 print / ISSN 1747-7581 onlineC© 2009 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/09500780902954265http://www.informaworld.com

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where ELLs constitute less than one percent of the school population (National Center forEducational Statistics 2004). This, therefore, means that a high proportion of mainstreamelementary and secondary teachers in US public schools have at least one ELL in theirclassrooms, while some have many more.

At the middle and secondary school levels where there is a stronger emphasis on specificschool subjects than at the elementary level, the challenge facing newly arrived ELLs isgreater than in the elementary years. In practice, schools and school districts have generallychosen one of three program options. The first is to create ‘newcomer centers’, specif-ically designed to provide ELLs with intensive instruction in the English language and‘sheltered’ instruction in curriculum subjects. The second option is ‘partial mainstream-ing’ of ELLs; what this entails is the offering, as a transitional step, of some shelteredsubject matter classes together with one or two periods of intensive ESL instruction. Thethird is the placement of ELLs in mainstream, age-appropriate classes from the start, al-though they may attend separate ESL classes for one or two periods each day. This lastoption is particularly prevalent in schools where the total ELL population is small. Addi-tionally, where there is a high concentration of ELLs who speak the same first language,there is the option of providing some form of bilingual education; this has occurred inareas such as California and Arizona, where there is a predominance of Spanish-speakingELLs.

However, with the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 and the subsequentreduced duration permitted for ESL-specific instruction, there has been a general tendencyfor ELLs to be mainstreamed rather rapidly into grade-level classes, frequently before theyare able to cope with the linguistic demands of learning school subjects with native English-speaking peers. This phenomenon is pervasive across the K-12 spectrum, since ELLs varyin their age of entry into the country and into English-medium instruction. Consequently,it has been reported, 42 percent of teachers surveyed indicated that they had ELLs in theirclassrooms, but of these teachers, only 12.5 percent had received more than eight hoursof professional development specifically related to the teaching of ELLs (NCES 2002). Toaddress this lack of preparation, some scholars have called for ‘ESL infusion’ in teacherpreparation programs and in-service teacher training (de Jong and Harper 2005). However,in a survey of 417 institutions of higher education, it was found that fewer than one insix required any preservice training for mainstream elementary and secondary teachersregarding the education of ELLs (Menken and Antunez 2001).

Research on the education of ELLs

The body of literature devoted to the education of ELLs in North America is too largeto discuss in detail here, so, in this section, I shall only present a selective summarizingoverview. The review focuses on three strands of research grouped according to be thegoals of the research: (a) monitoring and improving students’ performance on languageand cognitive measures; (b) understanding the experiences of ELLs; and (c) bringing anequity perspective to bear on the education of ELLs.

In terms of the first strand of research, Genesee and his colleagues (2006) produceda comprehensive synthesis of ‘scientific research’ (Shavelson and Town 2001) that hasbeen conducted in the United States since the 1980s with respect to educational outcomesconcerning ELLs’ oral language development, literacy, and academic achievement. Theirsynthesizing review confirms that L2 development follows much the same progression asits L1 counterpart, and several aspects of L1 oral proficiency (e.g. phonological awarenessin L1) have a greater effect on L2 literacy development than does L2 oral proficiency

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in general. Future directions that they suggest for research include longitudinal studies;research on the codevelopment of oral language, literacy, and academic skills; and the usein research of multiple methods, such as case studies and ethnography, in addition to theexperimental and quasi-experimental designs used primarily in previous research. Becauseof the predominant focus on elementary school-age Hispanic students from low-incomefamilies, they also propose that more research on non-Hispanic ELLs is needed.

The second strand of work, ethnographic research on school-aged ELLs, goes some wayto fulfilling these recommendations. It has provided nuanced accounts of the challengesfaced by these students in their local contexts and of the very different degrees of supportthey receive (e.g. Gebhard 2005; Haneda 2008; Harklau 1994; Hawkins 2005; Olsen 1997;Toohey 2000). In doing so, it has problematized focusing solely on individuals’ languageattainments and has drawn attention to the social, institutional processes through whichELLs are allowed or denied access to desirable social positions and to the human/materialresources necessary for the development of their L2 competence. For instance, Valdes(2001) reports that the middle school Latino ELLs that she studied in California weretracked into special classes that provided neither intellectual stimulation nor language-learning opportunities. Further, in a study of secondary school ELLs, Harklau (1994)revealed that, in order to succeed academically, ELLs not only need to master linguisticand content knowledge but they also need to understand school as a cultural institutionand learn how to negotiate with its key players to their own advantage. Taken together,these and other ethnographic studies indicate that (a) ELLs’ academic success depends onaccess to academic and human resources in school; (b) such access is largely organized bykey players, teachers, and counselors; and (c) those schools’ organizational practices thatmarginalize ELLs are often treated by teachers and school staff as entirely normal.

Recognizing the inequity of the experience of students from nondominant communitiesincluding ELLs, the third strand of research investigates attempts to empower them throughvarious forms of intervention. Some scholars argue for helping these students access the‘language of power’ through explicit teaching (Delpit 1996; Martin 1992). Others, suchas Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti (2005), infuse the ‘funds of knowledge’ in which childrenare immersed at home into the curriculum (in this case linguistic and cultural practicesof Mexican families with low socioeconomic standing). Taking the funds-of-knowledgeapproach further, Gutierrez (2008) reports how participation in a summer program at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles, enabled high school students from Mexican migrantfamilies to understand their life histories in relation to societal oppression and inequity,‘to reconceive who they are and what they might be able to accomplish academically andbeyond’ (148). Along with canonical academic texts, at the core of the curriculum wasreading and discussion of critical theory, through which the students reappraised the pastand imagined different futures.

Perspective on learning and identity development

In ‘scientific research’, which uses primarily experimental and quasi-experimental designs,learning is considered to involve changes in what (or how) someone knows; the knowledgeso accumulated can be measured and evaluated against standardized norms. By contrast,from a sociocultural perspective, learning, which is an integral aspect of participationin the practices of a community, cannot be considered to be solely an individual mentalprocess, since it is only through participation in joint practices with others that one isable to encounter and appropriate the knowledgeable skills necessary for participationin a particular ‘community of practice’ (CoP) (Lave and Wenger 1991). Further, learning

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involves the construction of identity, as ‘identity, knowing, and social membership entail oneanother’ (Lave and Wenger 1991, 53). Thus, learning also involves changes in the learner’sontological status – changes in the person’s existence. In this respect, as Packer (2001) notes,schools invariably change the persons that students become since ‘coming to know is partof a larger process of coming to be a particular kind of person’ in a particular communityof practice (504). He also adds that membership in different communities can come ata cost, as there can be contradictory identities and conflicting interests. Acknowledgingthat children need to navigate many different communities, it has been asserted that goodschooling should foster ‘attitudes’ that guide one to act appropriately in different settings,and that ‘character and mind are attitudes of participative response to social affairs’ (Dewey1916, 316–317). By ‘attitude’ Dewey means an embodied understanding of one’s identity –one’s rights, obligations, and possibilities – which supports one in overcoming any conflictsencountered.

This intricate link between learning and identity has also been explored by researchersin the ethnographic and equity-oriented strands of research referred to above. For example,Toohey (2000), in her ethnographic study of children in grades 1–3, examined the posi-tioning of ELL children. She found that in one class the physical arrangement of the roomprevented young ELLs from interacting with English-speaking peers and that the teacher’senforcement of specific classroom norms that prohibited sharing either material objects orideas resulted in impoverished learning opportunities. Further, the practices of this sociallystratified classroom led to unfavorable identities being constructed for some ELLs. Tocounteract such possibilities, Gutierrez argued, from a critical, equity-oriented perspective,for the creation of a ‘Third Space’ for migrant students – a transformative space ‘wherethe potential for an expanded form of learning and the development of new knowledgeare heightened’ (2008, 152). In this space, migrant adolescents began to construct a his-toricized understanding of their own lives in the light of societal oppression, racism, anddiscrimination against nondominant groups and subsequently to reposition themselves ascompetent bilingual individuals rather than marginalized ones.

Drawing on the research reviewed in the previous paragraphs, the study to be reportedhere adopts a sociocultural view of learning; it involves both the learner’s mastery of subjectmatter knowledge and the transformation of who she/he is, and it is intimately connectedwith the construction of learner identity. Here, identity is understood not as unitary or fixedbut as ‘an ever-developing repertoire of available characteristics, viewpoints, and ways ofbeing that are both learned from and recruited through participation in discourses’ (i.e.the ways of communicating of specific CoPs) (Hawkins 2005, 61). In addition, as Wenger(1998, 51) noted, identity is ‘a layering of events of participation and reification by whichour experience and its social interpretation inform each other’. Thus, identity is formed atthe intersection of the negotiation of multiple memberships in different communities andthe interplay of the learner’s perception of who she/he is in given spaces and momentsand of others’ reification of the kinds of participant she or he is. Additionally, this studydraws on the ethnographic and equity-oriented research on ELLs, recognizing that whatare perceived to be normative classroom practices are constructed discursively throughnumerous micro-interactions over time, which in turn are embedded in larger social milieu,including schools, school districts, and society.

The context of the study

The case-study teacher, Ms. Brent (pseudonym) had taught social studies at the middleschool level for over 10 years, and had a strong reputation of being a competent and caring

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teacher. Currently, she is teaching grade 7 social studies in a suburban school district in a USMidwestern city, located in a middle-class neighborhood. Highland Middle School (HMS),where Ms. Brent has worked for the past seven years, is in good academic standing andhas a student body consisting of 602 students, of whom 67 percent are Whites, 17 percentAsian and Pacific Islanders, six percent Blacks/non-Hispanics, four percent Hispanics,and six percent multiracials. Ten percent of the students are designated ‘limited Englishproficient’. Because of the presence of a prominent Japanese automobile plant in a nearbycity, schools in this district, including HMS, have a high proportion of Japanese ELLs. Sincethe district does not endorse ability grouping (except for gifted classes in some subjects),ELLs, regardless of their English proficiency level, spend one period per day in an ESLclass and attend grade-level classes for the rest of the day. Consequently, many teachers inthe school district have incoming ELLs with a wide range of English language proficiencyin their classes. In other words, ELLs, including those with little English competency, attendmainstream classes from their first day of school, a common practice among other suburbanschool districts near HMS.

Having become keenly aware that ELLs, particularly beginners, were ‘getting lost’ inher mainstream social studies classes, in 2005 Ms. Brent approached her principal witha proposal to offer a grade 7 social studies class designed specifically for ELLs, in orderthat she could better meet their needs. With the principal’s support, she created and taughtthe class for the first time in the academic year of 2005–6. In its third year (2007–8),when the data to be reported here were collected, the class comprised ELLs of all levels ofEnglish proficiency: there were 13 Japanese, three Mexicans, two Indians, and one Korean,Vietnamese, Russian, Kurdish, and Iraqi each. At the teacher’s request, four JapaneseELLs volunteered to translate classroom instruction for those of their compatriots who hadminimal English competency. Two Mexican ELLs were also observed to do the same fora low English-proficient Mexican ELL. As a result, Japanese and Spanish were frequentlyheard along with English. While Ms. Brent did not call this special class ‘sheltered’, Iam using the term ‘sheltered instruction’ to describe her class, because it shares commonfeatures with other sheltered classes, in that efforts are made to make grade-level academiccontent more accessible to ELLs through various instructional strategies (Echevarria et al.2007).

The study: design, data collection, and analysis

The data to be reported were taken from a larger ethnographic study conducted in Ms. Brent’sclasses over two academic years (2006–8). In the first year, over one semester (September2006 to January 2007), my research assistant and I made twice-weekly visits to two grade7 social studies classes taught by Ms. Brent – sheltered and mainstream. We observed andvideorecorded these two classes and wrote extensive field notes. I also revisited the shelteredclass in May 2007 to collect additional data. In the second year, in consultation with Ms.Brent, I selected several units for intensive study in order, more precisely, to capture thecumulative nature of learning over time. I observed and videorecorded the selected units intheir entirety, which constitute the primary data for this paper. In total, the main data corpusconsisted of approximately 85 hours of video recordings of classroom interaction withaccompanying detailed field notes about each class session. Other types of data collectedincluded transcribed interviews with the teacher, students, and school personnel, as well asclassroom artifacts (e.g. worksheets, tests).2

Following were the specific questions guiding my inquiry in this paper: (a) How did theteacher discursively help ELLs to understand key concepts? (b) What did ELLs learn over

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time through their socialization into this classroom’s practices? To answer these questions,I decided to focus on the two curriculum units that were documented in their entirety: theEgyptian unit (November 2007; two and a half weeks) and the Greek unit (mid-Januaryto February 2008; five weeks). After viewing all the video recordings of the two unitsin conjunction with the accompanying field notes, I identified and categorized activitiesaccording to participant configuration, the nature of the activity, and its purpose (e.g. read-aloud, group project work, whole-class discussion; introducing new materials, reviewing). Ithen selected one key construct from each unit, ‘social hierarchy’ from the Egyptian unit and‘democracy’ from the Greek unit, for further analysis. The selected video recordings weretranscribed and analyzed using the framework of micro-ethnographic discourse analysis(Bloome et al. 2005). I also carried out a thematic analysis of the transcripts of the interviewsthat I had conducted with the teacher and the ELLs. Then, in the light of what the ELLssaid about what and how they learned and what the teacher said that she attempted todo, I revisited the whole data set (two units) and carried out a focused iterative analysis,cross-checking the identified themes in the interviews with the videorecorded data andvice versa (Maxwell 2005). Furthermore, since the classroom discourse data analyzed inthis paper did not involve cases in which students proactively initiated topics, I looked forstudent-initiated exchanges in the discourse data collected in the previous year in the same‘sheltered’ class with a different cohort of students; my purpose was to ascertain whetherMs. Brent’s discourse style remained the same regardless of the student population or not.

Findings and discussion

Discursive strategies

In 2007–8, Ms. Brent’s grade 7 sheltered social studies class, consisting entirely of ELLs,was much less vocal than the previous year’s cohort, which consisted of half ELLs andhalf native English-speaking students; it was observed that, in comparison with those inthe previous year, these ELL students asked the teacher considerably fewer questions andless frequently elaborated on their opinions. Similarly comparing the two years, Ms. Brentdescribed these ELLs as ‘really nice kids, but less intellectually curious’. Consequently,as the ensuing classroom interactional data will show, the class tended to be teacher-directed, with triadic dialogue (teacher initiation, student response, and teacher follow-up;also known as the IRF) being the dominant pattern. Nevertheless, what I wish to focuson is the discursive strategies that the teacher frequently used to engage her studentsin coconstructing the curriculum knowledge for, while the extent of the students’ oralparticipation was limited, she frequently reformulated and demonstrated uptake (Nystrand1997) of their contributions.

Despite her lack of formal training in teaching ELLs, Ms. Brent was observed to usemany of the strategies recommended for sheltered instruction, including writing informationon the whiteboard (in addition to giving an oral explanation), speaking slowly, repeatinginformation, and using visual aids (Echevarria et al. 2007). When interviewed, she explainedthat she consciously used these techniques because she thought they would help her ELLscomprehend her lessons in a better way. Another characteristic of Ms. Brent’s instruction wasthat she recapitulated important information, interweaving it throughout the unit. Typically,a unit started with a preview or an overview of key information, primarily using worksheets.She then engaged her students in focused lessons on particular topics, using readers’ theater,role-play, hands-on activities, video clips, reading, research, and class discussion. This wasfollowed by a recap of the key information, culminating in a unit review.

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This pattern was clearly in evidence in the two units to be considered below. The learningof two central concepts, ‘social hierarchy’ and ‘democracy’ in the Egypt and Greek unitsrespectively, recurred throughout each unit. The first extract to be presented is taken fromthe Egyptian unit; it focused directly on social hierarchy and included application of thisconcept to the students’ lives. In this lesson so far, the students had reviewed what they hadlearned about Egyptian society and its economy, including social class and hierarchy. Theywere then asked to take a position with respect to the necessity of hierarchy as a societalsystem and to explain their reasons in writing. Building on this writing task, the teacherled a whole-class discussion on this issue. After asking for a definition of hierarchy, shehad her students raise their hands according to the positions they adopted and nominatedstudents to justify their respective positions. The use of triadic dialogue in this excerpt isfairly typical of the teacher–student interaction in this class; the teacher poses a question,a student responds, and she acknowledges and validates student contributions and in somecases expands on them (note: speaking-turns are divided into ‘message units’ ([Bloomeet al. 2005]). (Transcription conventions are as follows: ↑= rising intonation at end ofutterance; xxx = unintelligible speech; : = elongated vowel; [ = overlap; CAPS = loudervolume; ( ) = nonverbal behavior or transcriber comments for clarification purposes.)

Excerpt 1

1 T let’s talk about ‘yes’ those of you that said ‘yes’ Initiateit IS necessary to have a hierarchy request justificationwhy did you say thatwhy is it necessary (several hands go up)Luba nominate student

2 Luba because we cannot have million pharaohs in one time Respondgive justification

3 T OK F-up, acknowledgesay that one more time InitiateI couldn’t hear because there was talking over here request repetitiona little louder

4 Luba well Respondbecause so everyone knows like where they are give justification

5 T OK F-up, acknowledgeso it’s necessary reformulateso that everyone knows where they are in societyOK good evaluatewho else said ‘yes’ it is necessary Initiatethere were five of you (several hands go up)Kenji, what did you think nominate studentwhy is it necessary request justification

6 Kenji because er- Respondso: everyone will do their job correctly give justification

7 T OK Follow-upeveryone has a job reformulateand it’s not like a peasant farmer walking around exemplifysaying ‘I’m a pharaoh! I am in charge!’ right ↑(students laugh) and you don’t have a pharaoh outsidesaying ‘so what can I dig up?’ right ↑ (students laugh)a good point evaluatealright let’s talk about ‘no’ Initiatethose of you that said ‘no,’ a hierarchy is not request justificationnecessary tell me why (a few hands go up)

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I’m a little concerned about participation here, folks Initiateyou need to raise your ha:nds urge student participationespecially if you haven’t today InitiateChul nominate student

8 Chul I’m saying ‘no’ because Respondit’s unfair to citizens give justificationto keep a body of laborers working hard but getnothing and people at the top get rich

9 T OK, F-up, acknowledgeChul says it isn’t right reformulate (expanded)it’s not necessarybecause people at the top kinda get all the good stuffand people at the bottom get nothing, but have to doall the hard workOK, a good point evaluateAkira (seeing Akira’s raised hand) Initiate

nominate a student10 Akira I am not on that side.11 T Oh, are you on the sometimes side ↑ [OK12 Akira [Yes13 T OK, so let’s talk about ‘sometimes it’s necessary, but Initiate, change of topic

sometimes it isn’t’Akira, tell me why you think [that request justification

14 Akira [I think Chul is right about the people at the bottom Respondnot being paid well agree with Chulbut like we need to have order give justificationlike you said what if somebody pretended to be apharaoh, right ↑like what if somebody pretended to be a presidentif somebody wasn’t himthey would have a big argument about who thepresident of the United States is

15 T OK, that’s a great point F-up, evaluateAkira used a really good word complimenthe said ‘we need to have order’ repeatand I think you’re right (looking at Akira)but I also think Chul makes a good point validate opposingit’s not fair that people at the bottom get nothing points of viewhow does that work

In this excerpt, in her initiating moves, the teacher nominated four students, whorepresented different positions with respect to the necessity for social hierarchy, and askedeach of them to justify their positions (turns 1, 5, 7, 13). In her follow-up moves, the teacherreformulated the students’ contributions (turns 5, 7, 9) and on some occasions expandedon them (turn 7, 9).

It is interesting to note that Luba’s initial response in turn 2, which was in favor ofsocial hierarchy, was made with reference to the ancient Egyptian period that the class wasstudying: ‘Because we cannot have million pharaohs in one time’. However, when asked torepeat what she had said, in turn 4 she changed this to a more general statement, ‘becauseso like everyone knows where they are’; in turn 5, this was reformulated by the teacher to bea more linguistically precise expression: ‘it’s necessary so that everyone knows where theyare in society’. Similarly, Kenji’s response (turn 6) was rephrased and expanded in turn 7 inlight of what she interpreted Kenji’s intended meaning to be. In her response to Chul’s verysoft-spoken response explaining why he thought hierarchy was an unfair system (turn 8),

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the teacher reformulated it in a way that made his implicit logic clearer with an appropriateuse of the connective ‘but’. Akira, in turn 14, argued that, although he agreed with Chul,it was necessary to have a hierarchy in order to keep the social order intact. To illustratehis point, Akira used the contemporary example of an American president. In response, theteacher first complimented him on his use of the word ‘order’ and then validated the otherstudents’ differing viewpoints.

Similarly, in the Greek unit, the uptake strategy of building on and amplifying the stu-dents’ contributions were also frequently observed. Excerpt 2, taken from a focal lesson ondemocracy, was one such example. After a review of four different types of governments,the class held an assembly on two issues. Two student representatives argued for and againstwhether women should be considered as citizens with voting rights in Greek city-statesand, later in the same lesson, two other students spoke in favor or against the proposi-tion that whether Greece should colonize other countries. The following excerpt occurredimmediately after Dahn, a Vietnamese ELL, gave his speech arguing for colonization.

As in Excerpt 1, the teacher elicited student contributions (turns 2, 4) and reformulatedand elaborated on them (turns 3, 5). In turn 1, after commenting that she liked Dahn’s

Excerpt 2

1 T very good, thank you Dahn Follow-upone united Greece I LIKE that commentso: let’s talk about some pluses of what Dahn did Initiatefirst of allwhat I liked about was that complimenthe used vocabulary words we have been studyingsince the beginning of the yearhe said if we went over and took other places recap what student saidwe would have surplus goods (writes the word on the board)what does the word surplus mean ↑ (many hands go up). Initiatewe learned it at the beginning of the year request definitionso everyone should know iter - Lara, what does surplus mean nominate student

2 Lara something extra Respondgive definition

3 T exactly F-up, acknowledgeextra OK ↑and surplus goods doesn’t’ necessarily mean food elaboratethat can mean foodthat can mean trading itemsthat can mean clothing and all sorts of thingsso, extra,more than you need, which makes you rich reformulateare there other positive things you want to write about ↑there are lots of positive things Initiatebut I only need a few (some hands go up) request example

4 Lara Like he said all the city-states have good things Respondgive example

5 T OK each city-state has its strength to bring F-up, reformulatevery good evaluateeach city-state has its own strength (speaks slowly asshe writes this down on the board)which goes a lot with teamwork and being unitedvery good evaluate

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proposal of a united Greece, she drew the students’ attention to one of the key vocabularywords that Dahn had used, ‘surplus’. As a daily warm-up exercise, the ELLs in this classworked on the definition of one key word related to the curricular content. When a studentused any of these selected words, the teacher often brought the students’ attention to it andused the occasion to review the meaning of the word, which was also the case here. Lara,a Mexican ELL, gave an appropriate definition of ‘surplus’ in turn 2. After acknowledgingLara’s response, in turn 3 the teacher quickly provided further explanation that ‘surplusgoods’ included more than food and concluded her turn by reformulating what Lara hadsaid: ‘So extra, more than you need, which makes you rich’. Similarly, in turn 5, theteacher again reformulated Lara’s response in turn 4 such that it was more linguisticallysophisticated and also approximated what Dahn had said more accurately.

As illustrated by these two excerpts, triadic dialogue was the staple of this class, withthe teacher mainly asking known-information questions (KIQ). However, this was clearlydifferent from the version of triadic dialogue – the IRE exchange (Mehan 1979) in whicha teacher uses a KIQ to test students’ understanding and then evaluates the accuracy of theresponse. While Ms. Brent did ask her ELLs many KIQs, her intention was, by building onthe students’ contributions, to involve them in coconstructing the curriculum knowledge;she not only validated their responses but also reformulated and expanded on them. Thisappeared to contribute to the sense of community reported by the ELLs in the interviews.

On some occasions, however, triadic dialogue gave way to more spontaneous exchangeswhen a topic opened up an opportunity for the ELLs to talk about their personal experiences,as will be shown in Excerpt 3, which is taken from the Egyptian unit. Preceding this excerptwas a class discussion about hierarchy as it occurred in Highland Middle School, whichallowed the teacher to draw attention to the difference and the similarities between theEgyptian and the school hierarchy. Her explanation involved a school principal not havingabsolute power like a pharaoh and teachers at HMS having responsibilities and duties tofulfill. She gave an example of unacceptable teacher behavior, such as hitting a student orcalling her/him names. This prompted some ELLs to voluntarily share their experiencesabout the teachers in their home countries. In Excerpt 3, as in the preceding excerpts, it canbe seen how the teacher built on students’ contributions.

In this excerpt, both Iman and Tia spontaneously commented on what the teacher hadsaid. Interestingly, Tia, who spoke up in turn 6, was one of the quiet students who rarelyvolunteered. Here, however, over four turns at talk, Tia described her sister’s experiencewith one teacher in Mexico. Since she was so soft-spoken and difficult to hear, the teacherhad to repeat part of what Tia had said, perhaps in the hope that everyone could follow her(turns 9, 11, 13). In turn 15, the teacher opened the floor to other students to share their ownexperiences. Following Tia, four more students volunteered to share their experiences withmuch elaboration. The class then engaged in a discussion about how teachers in differentcountries act according to different societal rules.

The three excerpts presented above may give the impression that the agenda for instruc-tional conversation (Tharp and Gallimore 1988) was always set by the teacher. However,an examination of the classroom interactional data from the previous year reveals that thiswas not her preferred approach. Ms. Brent’s sheltered social studies class in the previousyear did not consist solely of ELLs, but also included seven–eight native English-speakingstudents whom she considered to be slower learners. The ELLs were also ethnically morediverse, with only three Japanese students; as a whole, the class was much more vocal thanthe cohort under investigation in this paper. They asked many thought-provoking questionsand initiated discussions about social justice. To give one example, in the Egyptian unit,several students questioned the responsibilities of national leaders. When discussing the

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Excerpt 3

1 T (preceding utterances omitted)how many of you say ‘yes,’ I CAN hit my students Initiatea:nd I CAN call them names request opinioncould I actually do that and keep my job ↑how many of you say ‘no’ that I cannot do that

2 Ss no:: (and many hands go up) Respondgive opinion

3 T you’re exactly right, OK ↑ F-up, acknowledgeIF I did that, most of you would probably go home and elaboratesay,‘Oh, my god, Ms. Brent called students stupid todaya:nd she hit a student’

4 Iman you would be on the news (speaks up shyly) Initiatecomment

5 T you’re right Respond, acknowledgeI will be on the news reformulatea:nd I will get fired(seeing Tia raising her hand) Tia nominate student

6 Tia well, but in Mexico InitiateI think they do that ↑ give opinion

7 T OK, Respond, acknowledgeso, in Mexico, they do that Initiatewhat do they do request infoteachers call students stupid or they hit them ↑

8 Tia they hit them Respondwhen they don’t do their homework xxx give info

9 T when they don’t do the homework repeat10 Tia or if they do something bad Respond

give info (cont)11 T if they do something ba:d F-up, repeat

OK, learning is right here (looking at the students who Initiatewere chatting) disciplineyou’re talking during learning that’s disruptivego ahead, Tia.

12 Tia my sister didn’t do her homework Respondand like give info (cont)the teacher got a sharp pencil and stabbed her [in the hand

13 T [Oh::: F-up/initiateso the teacher got a sharp pencil request clarificationand stabbed her in the hand for not doing the homework ↑

14 Tia Yes, she still has got a mark in her hand Respondgive clarification

15 T Oh, my goodness F-up, acknowledgewowlet’s talk about in your culture and in your country Initiatewhat kind of things that teachers do differently than request infomaybe the teachers here in the United Sates

absolute power exercised by a pharaoh, Eddie, a Mexican ELL, raised the question of howfar a ruler should be allowed to exert her/his power. His argument was that rulers shouldbe compassionate and create rules that benefit the poor instead of acting like tyrants. Eddiesaid: ‘Like, my family is poor. But my father says there are even poorer people than us.So our family gives things to these people. That’s what everyone should do, right? Why

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wasn’t a pharaoh be kinder to people?’ (10 November 2006). Using Eddie’s question as aspringboard, the teacher led the class to discuss the quality of a good leader; this topic wasagain picked up when the class learned about different types of governments.

There were many cases like this example in the previous year’s classroom discussions.However, that cohort differed from the cohort under study in several significant ways.First, in addition to those already mentioned, while the 13 Japanese ELLs in the currentcohort generally had a much stronger grasp of written than spoken English, the ELLsin the previous year’s cohort tended to have stronger oral than literacy skills in English.Second, many students in the previous year’s cohort came from low socioeconomic back-grounds as opposed to the current year’s cohort, who were mostly from solidly middle-classbackgrounds. Third, the previous year’s cohort tended to question some of the normativepractices associated with a particular period of time (e.g. the code of Hammurabi) and theyalso related these practices to their personal lives and critically reflected on key notionssuch as democracy and hierarchy. Ms Brent was aware of the differences between the twocohorts, and from the three excerpts presented it is evident that, in each year, she attemptedto accommodate what she perceived to be the needs of the particular students in her carerather than having one monolithic discourse style that she used for all students.

What counted as learning

So far, I have primarily focused on the coconstruction of subject-matter knowledge. How-ever, learning in Ms. Brent’s class went beyond grasping factual information; she wasequally concerned that her ELLs should learn how to become ‘good students’ and engagedmembers of a political society. Each of these kinds of ‘social becoming’ merits furtherdiscussion.

The teacher frequently reminded her ELLs of the importance of ‘being a good middleschool student’; this idea had several constitutive components, as revealed by my analysis ofthe classroom interaction and interviews. The first component was concerned with equityand care. She emphasized the importance of making the class a welcoming place foreveryone by students being considerate of others.

I know that some people in this class that don’t feel like they’ve been able to make connectionsor friends yet. And I know that all of you are very nice people. You just need to try to includeeveryone, OK? So if you see people sitting around and looking like they don’t have anyone totalk to, let’s try to include everybody so that nobody feels left out, OK? (Social studies lesson:6 November 2007)

The second component concerned students taking responsibility for their own learn-ing; this included doing homework diligently, having an organized social studies binder,and generally being on task. Here she emphasized individual accountability. Some ELLsappeared to appropriate this ideology and discussed it during the interview. For instance,Dahn said that before they started the Greek unit where team work predominated, there wasa concentrated period of time when the students did individual work, asking for help fromthe teacher only when it was necessary. Dahn stated that the kind of independent learninghabit that he had developed during this period was helpful because he came to learn howto learn: ‘Like when I go to college, I will know what I need to do on my own. Otherwise,I will be lost’ (interview, 4 March 2008).

The third component had to do with certain ways of behaving in class: respectfullypaying attention to a speaker during discussion and writing down things when importantinformation was introduced. For instance, when some students were talking among them-selves during class, instead of asking them to stop chatting, Ms. Brent pointed out that

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they were missing opportunities to learn: ‘OK, learning is right here. You’re talking duringlearning. That’s disruptive’ (turn 11 in extract 3; 13 November 2007). As in this example,her reprimands were usually couched in terms of a missed learning opportunity not onlyfor the students who ‘disrupted’ learning but also for others who could not hear the speakerbecause of their talking. In sum, the ELLs were constantly reminded about what it meant tobe a legitimate member of this class: to be considerate of others’ feelings; to be organized,independent learners who could also collaborate well with others; and to be respectful andattentive to what was happening in class.

In addition to the socialization of ELLs as ‘good students’, another type of learningobserved in this class was the development of identity with respect to what is generallyconsidered to be one of the purposes of social studies: engagement as responsible membersof society. The ELLs vicariously experienced participation in several political systems byplaying roles in decisionmaking in different kinds of society. For instance, the Greek unitwas organized largely in terms of a competition among five city-states, to each of whichseveral students were assigned. In addition, in keeping with the ancient Greek practice ofexcluding women from public affairs (except in Sparta), the girls in the class were told atone point that they did not have any rights. This translated into their having to be escortedby the boys in order to enter the classroom because they were not citizens with rights, andtheir having to clean up after every class. Consequently, throughout this part of the unit,just before the class, there was a long lineup of girls at the door, waiting to be escorted totheir seats by the boys. In a focal lesson on democracy, however, the class held an assemblyto vote on women’s rights. In acting out both direct and representative forms of democracy,the boys voted to grant the girls equal rights, thus making it possible for them (a) to voteon the second issue in the assembly; and (b) to walk into the classroom freely on their ownand not to be solely responsible for the cleanup. Commenting during the interviews on theearlier gender-biased practice, both boys and girls commented that they did not appreciateit at all and were glad that they lived in a democratic society.

This strategy of making it possible for students to experience economic and politicalsituations vicariously was also used in many other lessons throughout the year. For instance,instead of just reading about the Egyptian hierarchy, the whole class acted it out in whatthe teacher called ‘an unfair game’. All the students were given roles to play: pharaoh,government officials, priests and nobles, farmers, and slaves. The role-play was about thedistribution of wealth, in that the female pharaoh collected all the slaves’ earnings, M & Msin this case. Later, the class discussed whether the slaves had any other option but to obeythe pharaoh. Some students said that they could have organized themselves to go on strikebut the teacher explained that such an organized labor revolt was not a feasible option inancient Egypt. The students were given 15 minutes to talk with their classmates about theirreactions to the hierarchical organization of Egyptian society and were then told to writethem down.

Similarly, in the Greek unit, the class acted out each of the four types of governmentsthey were studying, tracing their evolution. Some students were assigned powerful roles –monarch, oligarch, or tyrant – and were asked to invent classroom rules to their advantage;the rest of the class was to comply with their rules. In the interviews, some students calledthis kind of role-playing ‘interactive’ learning. For instance, Dahn said, ‘Ms. Brent doeslots of interactive stuff. She does stuff like demonstration. Like, she gets some kids to besomeone else and we all interact. That’s learning, right?’ (interview, 4 March 2008). Thisvicarious experience appeared to help the ELLs to bring abstract concepts, such as women’srights and democracy, to bear on their lives and to think about their possible ramificationsin contemporary society. Hideaki, a Japanese ELL, for example, commented on the Greek

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unit: ‘Girisha ga genzai ni nokoshitekureta isan, theater toka dorama toka kenchiku toka onaratta nowa yokatta kedo, sensoo bakarishitari, sabetsu, dorei ya isei sabutsu wa yokunaito omotta. Tokuni sabetsu sareteru hitotachi ga sore o hirugaesu kenri ga nai nowa hidoito omotta’ (It was good to learn about many Greek accomplishments such as theatre,drama, and architecture, but I didn’t think some aspects of the Greek society, includinginvolvement in many wars and discriminatory practices against slaves and women, were sogood. I particularly found it upsetting that the discriminated against had no legal rights tochange their situation) (interview, 4 March 2008).

What is particularly significant is that this quote came from a student who rarely spokein the whole-class setting. However, as shown above, despite his intermediate Englishcompetency, it was clear that Hideaki was not only able to follow the curriculum contentbut also to reflect thoughtfully on his learning experiences. According to some of thestudents, what enabled students like Hideaki to follow the lessons were certain helpfulfeatures of Ms. Brent’s teaching style, such as her packaging of new information intorelatively small, manageable chunks, her use of role play, her clear and slower speech,and her allowing students to use their first languages (L1). In fact, Ms. Brent organized theseating arrangement so that those who shared the same L1 were able to talk with each other;in this way lower English-proficient Japanese and Mexican ELLs were able to work withmore English-proficient compatriots. This arrangement seemed to work well, as revealedin Hideaki’s comment on the use of his L1: ‘Yappari nanka wakaranaitoki nihongo dehanaserukara rakudatta’ (It was really helpful to be able to sort out things in Japanesewhen I couldn’t understand something) (interview, 4 March 2008).

Further, during the interviews, the ELLs unanimously noted the sense of a welcomingcommunity that they felt in this class as well as their growing confidence in their ownabilities. Several students said that, in their ‘mainstream’ classes, they mostly remainedsilent because of the impossibility of gaining the floor in the face of much competition fromnative English-speaking peers and their occasional difficulty in understanding teachers.Akira said that he was able to take risks in speaking up in this social studies class becausehis classmates were not competitive and he experienced little difficulty in comprehendingMs. Brent. Dahn also explained that he spoke much more frequently in this class becausehe felt more comfortable:

Because other kids, like people who were born here, they don’t know how we feel, like we maynot know certain words. When I get to my next class [science], I’m quiet. But in this class,every kid is ESL. So I don’t have to feel nervous because they’re just like me. (Interview, 4March 2008)

Furthermore, they seemed to gain confidence in themselves, as Mai’s remark suggests:‘Yakushitarishitari yoku te o agetarishite jishin ga tsuita kana’ (Translating to my Japanesefriends and frequently expressing my opinions in class helped me feel more confident inmyself). Thus, learning in this class involved not only the mastery of curriculum contentbut also the students’ development as legitimate members of a classroom community andas future citizens.

Conclusions

Ms. Brent made many attempts to ensure that these ELLs felt themselves to be competentparticipants in her class, in addition to making certain that her students mastered thecurriculum content. In particular, she found many ways to incorporate what her studentswere able to bring to class, despite their limited command over English. As the transcripts

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of the lessons show, Ms. Brent exerted strong control over the flow of classroom discourse;indeed, viewed from outside, her class might appear to be overly teacher-directed. However,that was not how the students experienced it. In fact, in comparison with the ‘mainstream’classes that they had attended, they perceived it to be much more interactive. This may beattributed to a number of factors: the use of role play, in which some students were ‘animated’(Goffman 1981) to take on certain roles associated with the topic at hand; abundant instancesof teacher uptake of the students’ contributions; and many opportunities for them to workwith their classmates in small groups. Another factor may have been that the teacherencouraged them to contribute from their own experiences when these were relevant to thetopic under discussion. Additionally, she capitalized on the students’ bilingual resources byarranging for those who needed most linguistic help to work with more English-proficientpeers who shared the same L1. This was clearly helpful for those who could take advantageof this opportunity.

In terms of the discursive strategies used in the moment-by-moment interaction that Iset out to investigate, it was her uptake of student contributions that was one of the mostsignificant characteristics of Ms. Brent’s discourse style. Her strategic use of the follow-up move in coconstructing linguistic and curriculum knowledge was in accord with thefindings of other studies of L1 and L2 classroom discourses, in which effective teachers invarious settings – ESL, EFL, and English-as-mother-tongue – made good use of a varietyof functions in the follow-up move to achieve different pedagogical aims (e.g. accept,rephrase, extend, check, validate, confirm) (Gibbons 2003; Jarvis and Robinson 1997;Mercer 1995; Nassaji and Wells 2000). Ms. Brent also used one of the types of ‘revoicing’move advocated by O’Connor and Michaels (1993): making ELLs’ contributions salientby reiterating or reformulating them, thus ensuring they were noted by other students andincorporated into classroom knowledge-building. The point to be emphasized, however, isthat this resourceful use of the follow-up move was not just an isolated strategy but part ofher educational vision. She treated her ELLs as capable individuals with bilingual resourcesand unique life experiences who happened to be in the process of learning the language ofinstruction.

Many positive features of Ms. Brent’s class have been noted. Nevertheless, one particularaspect of teaching that she recognized as requiring further work was deliberate focus on thedevelopment of academic language, the language-using practices associated with differentschool subjects, including register and genres (Scarcella 2003). This is also a neglectedarea of teacher education for pre- and in-service content-area teachers in the United Statesmore generally (Schleppegrell 2004). A good starting point for social studies teachers, forexample, might be a close linguistic analysis of history textbooks and other relevant booksto see how history is construed and constructed in and through language (Coffin 2006).By becoming aware of the language-using practices characteristic of particular schoolsubjects, teachers can begin to model to their students how to talk, think, and write likehistorians, mathematicians, or scientists (Unsworth 2000). As Lemke (1990) forcefullyargued, talking science (or any other subject matter) involves enacting particular modes ofthinking through the language practices of the discipline (e.g. being able to make a claimby providing adequate warrant for it) and is an essential aspect of learning the subject. Inthe professional development of both prospective and practicing teachers, opportunities tohelp them raise their ‘language awareness’ should be deliberately planned.

Highlighted also by Ms. Brent’s class is the importance of a teacher’s epistemologyof learning, that is to say, the ways in which she or he conceptualizes what counts aslearning and knowledge in their classrooms and enact that vision in their practice (Greenand Dixson 1993). While this perspective of a classroom having its own epistemology of

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learning and its own culture has been adopted by prominent L1 researchers (Bloome et al.2005; Gee and Green 1998; Gutierrez 2008), comparable discussion has seldom taken placein the literature on sheltered instruction; there, the emphasis has tended to be placed ontaxonomies of linguistic features characteristic of different school subjects (Schleppegrell2004) and general principles and strategies to be used across the curriculum (Echevarriaet al. 2007). A few notable exceptions to this are works by Creese (2006), Gibbons (2003),and Hawkins (2005), whose analyses of classroom discourse have illuminated how thechoices that teachers make shape the cultural and linguistic norms and practices in theirclassrooms to the advantage or disadvantage of their ELLs.

However, what in my view was most significant about Ms. Brent’s epistemology –as is clear from the students’ interview responses – was that, for her, learning was notsimply about transmission of curricular knowledge but also involved the developmentof identity of various kinds (Hawkins 2005; Toohey 2000). The intended goals of suchidentity development will obviously vary according to the context and the participants,but in the current case, it was focused on the identity of being a good middle schoolstudent, which requires specific personal attributes, and of being a responsible member ofsociety, who is capable of taking a reasoned position on important societal issues. In thisrespect, Ms. Brent’s approach to history echoes Lave’s comment on the learning of mathin school, in which she rejects the ideology of math teaching that ‘supposes that arithmeticactivity is value-free, information-seeking, factual, and an end in itself ’ (Lave 1985, 176).Similarly, Ms. Brent made clear that the learning of history was centrally about developingunderstanding of the ways in which, throughout history, other humans lived and dealt withissues both specific to particular periods of time and universal to human kind.

I stated in the introduction that this was a telling case. By now the reasons for makingthis claim should be apparent. In addition to the mastery of the curriculum content, thisteacher made many attempts to engage her students in learning: becoming gradually morecompetent participants in the class and also vicariously experiencing different economic andpolitical systems so as to be able to form their reasoned viewpoints as responsible membersof society (Dewey 1916). In envisaging equitable education for ELLs, therefore, I wouldargue that it is critical for both teachers and researchers to have a broader conceptualizationof what counts as learning and to pay serious attention to their epistemologies of learningand discursive enactment, including subject-specific practices of language use.

Notes1. English language learners (ELL) or English learners (EL) are the terms that are commonly used

in the United States to refer to English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) students. Following theUS convention, I am using the term ELL in this article, while acknowledging that this term is notused in other parts of the world.

2. My interviews with Japanese ELLs were conducted in Japanese, as they preferred to be inter-viewed in their first language (L1). As a Japanese–English bilingual, this was not problematicfor me. In the body of the paper, any quotes by Japanese ELL are provided with my Englishtranslation.

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