Papers by Wendy Bokhorst-Heng
International English in Its Sociolinguistic Contexts, 2017
International Journal of Research and Method in Education,, 2018
Journal of Sociolinguistics, Mar 10, 2022
Current Issues in Language Planning, Nov 1, 2007
Page 1. 1466-4208/07/03 324-20 $20.00/0 © 2007 WD Bokhorst-Heng & L. Wee current issues i... more Page 1. 1466-4208/07/03 324-20 $20.00/0 © 2007 WD Bokhorst-Heng & L. Wee current issues in Language pLanning Vol. 8, no. 3, 2007 324 Language Planning in Singapore: On Pragmatism, Communitarianism and Personal Names ...
The Modern Language Journal, Aug 17, 2020
French second language (FSL) education, including the option of one-way French immersion, is mand... more French second language (FSL) education, including the option of one-way French immersion, is mandated for majority-language Anglophone children in New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province. Language ideological debates in the province surrounding official English-French bilingualism led us to investigate adolescent majority-language immersion students' investment in French, the co-official minority language, using Darvin and Norton's (2015) tripartite (capital, ideology, identity) model. We discuss 3 student profiles, drawing on data collected from multimodal focus groups conducted among 8th grade French immersion students. Our analysis reveals a dominance of neoliberal ideologies in these students' investment in French rendering it imbalanced and largely driven by imagined access to future economic capital. Language as cultural or social capital (Bourdieu, 1986) figures inconsistently in their investment. Drawing on our data, we conclude by proposing that Darvin and Norton's (2015) model, with a balanced focus on each kind of capital within the model, may be used conceptually PA G E 2 by educators in program development. The model used in such a way would enable educators to give equal priority to students' identity and intercultural development as to their preparation for participation in economic marketplaces, thus potentially expanding majority language students' investment in their co-official minority L2.
The Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 2016
Classroom Audio Distribution Systems (CADS) consist of amplification technology that enhances the... more Classroom Audio Distribution Systems (CADS) consist of amplification technology that enhances the teacher's, or sometimes the student's, vocal signal above the background noise in a classroom. Much research has supported the benefits of CADS for student learning, but most of it has focused on elementary school classrooms. This study investigated the effects of CADS in the postsecondary setting. Surveys and focus groups were used to elicit the perspectives of both students and professors toward CADS in university classrooms, revealing many themes and multidimensional attitudes. Teachers' and students' perspectives are considered within the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which encourages a flexible approach toward teaching in order to include as many different types of students as possible in the learning process. CADS is seen as one way to support UDL in higher education settings.
Educational Research for Policy and Practice, Aug 15, 2008
This paper is about the interaction between policy and practice, and about how competing policies... more This paper is about the interaction between policy and practice, and about how competing policies contributed to a paradoxical tension within that interaction in one school. Within a paradigm of educational renewal, the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) has initiated a number of policies designed to give schools autonomy in designing and implementing programmes to achieve optimal educational outcomes for its students. Among these are READ! Singapore, Teach Less, Learn More and the School Excellence Model. In this context, we review an MOE initiated Extensive Reading (ER) programme in one school. Despite such innovative policies, Dewey Secondary School's [The names of the school and individuals have been changed to protect their privacy.] pedagogical and literacy practices continue to be largely influenced by other dominant features of Singapore's and the school's own educational culture-an exam-oriented focus that prioritises outcome and skill-based pedagogy and the school's historical practice of restricting literacies. Competing policies as interpreted by the school and diverse stakeholders result in a morphed ER programme-an adaptation of a reading programme that reflects the programme intent overtly but one that collides at other times, and as a result, is pulled in different directions. The story is, thus, one of 'policies of promise and practices of limit'. Keywords Extensive reading • Educational policy • Literacy • Multiliteracies • Singapore Introduction: educational reform and policies of promise The intent of the Singaporean government is to give every child a top-rate education (Ministry of Education 2007). As a result, educational reform in Singapore has been ubiquitous. As J. M. Wolf (B)
Media, Culture & Society, Jul 1, 2002
Middle School Journal, May 1, 2008
Journal of Research in Reading, Aug 1, 2008
In this paper, we examine the various nuanced dimensions of adolescents' dispositions to... more In this paper, we examine the various nuanced dimensions of adolescents' dispositions towards reading in one secondary school in Singapore, where a high-stakes examination culture often threatens to colonise the practices of leisure reading. Our focus is on the better and more ...
Multilingua, Sep 1, 2005
In this paper, we aim to anticipate a potential challenge to Singapore's language policy, which p... more In this paper, we aim to anticipate a potential challenge to Singapore's language policy, which privileges a distinction between Asian 'mother tongues' on the one hand and English on the other. The challenge to this policy will arise as Singapore embarks on a foreign talent policy, where the goal is to ultimately attract talented foreigners to take up Singaporean citizenship. This other policy, if successful, could drastically change the nation's demographics, making it difficult to maintain a language policy that dichotomizes Asian and Western languages. Because policies do not occur in isolation, but are legitimized by appeals to nationalist ideologies, we make use of a framework that treats such ideologies as institutional narratives. By paying attention to how the semiotic processes of iconization, recursiveness, and erasure are manifested in such narratives, we show how Singapore's language policy may have to change Ϫ and its accompanying narrative be modified Ϫ in the light of the foreign talent policy.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, May 1, 2009
... Regarding status-related attitudes, our results differed with those from Ladegaards'... more ... Regarding status-related attitudes, our results differed with those from Ladegaards' study (2000): Our results show that the low SES group (M=2.60–2.74, SD = 0.54–0.61) tended to express more favourable attitudes ... Reading statistics and research , 4th ed, Boston, MA: Pearson. ...
Routledge eBooks, Sep 25, 2017
In Sandra Lee McKay's (2002) practical book, Teaching English as an International Language: Rethi... more In Sandra Lee McKay's (2002) practical book, Teaching English as an International Language: Rethinking Goals and Approaches, she outlines standards for teaching English as an International Language (EIL), discusses culture in teaching EIL, and suggests methods for teaching EIL, based on the requirements of an international language. In this book, McKay and Wendy D. Bokhorst-Heng go a step further by arguing that in teaching English worldwide , the particular social, political, and educational context in which English learning is taking place should be taken into account. In addition to examining the sociolinguistic contexts of presentday English use and learning, this timely book aims at exploring "how the teaching and learning of English can be undertaken in such a way as to maintain linguistic diversity while providing equal access to the acquisition of English" (p. 21). The book discusses several theoretical issues related to EIL teaching and learning and provides specific case studies from various English teaching and learning contexts.
Multilingua, Sep 1, 2005
In his encyclopedia of language, Crystal (1995) identified two main perspectives contributing to ... more In his encyclopedia of language, Crystal (1995) identified two main perspectives contributing to a nation’s decisions around language: national identity and internationalism. In the former, the nation looks within itself at its societal structure and composition, defining its needs in relation to national identity. In the latter, the nation looks outside from itself at the world and global economy, and defines itself and its needs in relation to its position within that world. In multilingual Singapore, it is the juxtaposition of these two perspectives, which I call ‘glocalism’, that form the nexus of the nation’s ‘English’-plus-‘mother-tongue’ bilingual policy. And it defines the parameters of the ongoing debate about English and Singlish, the more colloquial and home-grown variety of English in Singapore. In this article, I will unpack this ‘Singlish debate’, positioning the debate in the growing body of literature on language ideologies and the ways in which they mediate between social structure and linguistic practices.
Since the 1980s, Extensive Reading (ER), sometimes called The Extensive Reading and Information L... more Since the 1980s, Extensive Reading (ER), sometimes called The Extensive Reading and Information Literacy Programme (ERIL), has been a common feature of reading pedagogy in Singapore schools. However, while such programmes have proliferated, few have been ...
Education innovation series, 2016
Education holds the key to unlock human resources that a society needs to survive and fl ourish. ... more Education holds the key to unlock human resources that a society needs to survive and fl ourish. This is particularly salient in a borderless knowledge economy. For the past decades, the sterling performance of economies such as Hong Kong, Finland, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan in international studies (e.g., TIMSS, PIRLS and PISA) has channeled much attention away from the traditional centers of education research in America and Western Europe. Researchers, policy makers and practitioners all over the world wish to understand how education innovations propel the emerging systems from good to great to excellent, and how different their trajectories were compared to the systems in America and Western Europe. The Education Innovation Book Series, published by Springer, will delve into education innovations enacted by the Singapore education system and situate them in both the local and the broader international contexts. Primary focus will be given to pedagogy and classroom practices; education policy formulation and implementation; school and instructional leadership; and the context and interface between education research, policy and practice.We believe that the latter is critical in making education innovations come to bear. Each volume will document insights and lessons learned based on empirical research (both quantitative and qualitative) and theoretical analyses. Implications to research, policy and professional practice will be surfaced through comparing and synthesizing Singapore's experience with those of successful systems around the world. The audience of the edited volumes and monographs published in this series includes researchers, policy makers, practitioners and students in the fi elds of education and teacher education, and public policies related to learning and human resources.
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Papers by Wendy Bokhorst-Heng