FAME is the French Absorption spectroscopy beamline in Material and Environmental sciences at the... more FAME is the French Absorption spectroscopy beamline in Material and Environmental sciences at the ESRF (France), operational since September 2002. Technically speaking, the source is a 0.85T bending magnet and the main optical element is a two-crystals monochromator using either Si(111) or Si(220) monocrystals so that the available energy ranges from 4 to 40 keV. The first crystal is liquid nitrogen cooled in order to avoid the thermal bump and thus preserve the energy resolution. The second crystal is dynamically bent during the energy scan in order to focalize the beam in the horizontal plane. Two bendable mirrors are located before and after the monochromator, for a beam-collimation (to optimize the energy resolution) and a vertical focalization, respectively. During scans, the beam on the sample is kept constant in position and size (around 150×200 μm 2 , V×H). The high flux on the sample combined with the sensitivity of our 30-elements fluorescence detector allow to decrease the detection limit down to 10 ppm or around less than a monolayer. Moreover, quick-EXAFS acquisition is operational: the acquisition time may be reduced down to 30s.
Research has shown that late-arriving teen English language learners (ELLs) are deeply rooted in ... more Research has shown that late-arriving teen English language learners (ELLs) are deeply rooted in the sociocultural and educational system of their home country for a majority of their schooling time (Duff, 2001; Minichello, 2001). In their transition to a new society in North America, this group encounters sociocultural and linguistic differences in their daily lives. Through a lens entitled Critical Multiple Social Spaces, which combines the Multiple Worlds Model (Phelan et al., 1991), the concept of Third Space (Bhabha, 1994) and a sociocultural perspective on language use (Fairclough, 2001; Pennycook, 2010), this qualitative case study focuses on 10 Chinese ELL adolescents who came to Canada after the age of 15, and examines their cross-trajectory experiences of English practice in their daily lives and their language identities. At the time of this study, they were at the stage of completing high school and applying for admission to higher education institutions. Findings showed that this group's language use in daily life is full of conflicts, negotiation and consolidation, not only at school as a usual space of contested language practice, but also at home, with peers and in other spaces. At school, social division existed both in and out of class, yet such social division was not merely due to ELLs' reluctance to integrate. Participants positioned themselves differently in English Literature courses and core classes in accordance with their perceived proficiency. Home, generally regarded as a traditionally stable space of language practice, became another site of complex dynamics. Peer networks also emerged as embodying similar complications. In addition to racial and ethnic factors, age on arrival and length of residence played a significant role in social interaction, impacting both same-ethnic and cross-ethnic peer networks. Based on these findings, four categories are identified pertaining to participants' cross
Research has shown that late-arriving teen English language learners (ELLs) are deeply rooted in ... more Research has shown that late-arriving teen English language learners (ELLs) are deeply rooted in the sociocultural and educational system of their home country for a majority of their schooling time (Duff, 2001; Minichello, 2001). In their transition to a new society in North America, this group encounters sociocultural and linguistic differences in their daily lives. Through a lens entitled Critical Multiple Social Spaces, which combines the Multiple Worlds Model (Phelan et al., 1991), the concept of Third Space (Bhabha, 1994) and a sociocultural perspective on language use (Fairclough, 2001; Pennycook, 2010), this qualitative case study focuses on 10 Chinese ELL adolescents who came to Canada after the age of 15, and examines their cross-trajectory experiences of English practice in their daily lives and their language identities. At the time of this study, they were at the stage of completing high school and applying for admission to higher education institutions. Findings showed...
From sociocultural theory, language is mediational means and speech genre is a form of mediated a... more From sociocultural theory, language is mediational means and speech genre is a form of mediated action (Wertsch, 1991). Mediated actions have multiple goals, and are characterized by the tension between agent and mediational means (Wertsch, 1998). Drawing from a broader qualitative case study, this presentation will focus on ten late-arriving immigrant adolescents’ beliefs in regard to what makes ideal ESL learners, and their mediated actions in Canada. The research questions of this presentation will be: 1) What are the late-arriving Chinese immigrant adolescents’ perceptions of ideal ESL learners? 2) How do they act in response to their perceptions? 3) How do they evaluate their mediated actions? Based on the relevant data set, this presentation will first discuss the findings of the research questions, i.e., their perceptions of ideal ESL learners, their mediated actions, and their self-evaluation of the actions. A further discussion in light of the relationship between different...
ASIAN TEFL Journal of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics
While rubrics have been widely recognized as an effective instructional tool for teachers to eval... more While rubrics have been widely recognized as an effective instructional tool for teachers to evaluate students’ writing products, fewer studies explored how students use it for their writing process in an EFL university academic writing classes. This study explores the application of process-oriented rubrics in two EFL writing programs, and investigates whether English language proficiency, motivation to writing, and their previous experiences with writing programs would significantly affect the use of the rubrics. The participants (N=190) were from two student cohorts, each of which had 95 participants. The data set includes students’ self-, peer- use and the instructor’s use of the rubrics, and students’ written reflection upon peer feedbacks. The data showed that the rubrics can guide students to practice a writing process, and that the 20-item rubric was statistically reliable. The data of rubrics also showed that the participants were more critical on their peers’ writing, and...
This study looks at literacy as a site of power in which some forms of literacy practices have mo... more This study looks at literacy as a site of power in which some forms of literacy practices have more power. Such power relations is even more complicated in English as a foreign language context, where school literacy, family literacy, and English language come into the picture. Many studies have explored different research methods to examine language learners’ voices in literacy practices, while literacy autobiography (LA) is not frequently used. LA is a reflective, first-person narrative of personal engagement in literacy practices. Through the LAs from a group of third-year university students in China, this qualitative case study examines motivation to in-school writing in general, their L1 and L2 in- and out-of-school writing experiences in particular. The main dataset includes 25 participants’ LAs; critical discourse analysis was used for data analysis. The findings suggest that their motivation to English academic writing is closely intertwined with their L1 academic writing, ...
This chapter presents a comparative qualitative case study on two students’ perception of their s... more This chapter presents a comparative qualitative case study on two students’ perception of their silence in classes. The findings showed that the first participant’s silence was more passive than voluntary. Due to his limited English language proficiency, he was positioned as someone not always worthy of speaking and being listened to. The second participant maintained silence based on his evaluation of the class, of his peers, and of the course content. The findings suggest language proficiency not only shapes students’ social relations in classes but also affects students’ chances of verbal participation and decision-making processes. Therefore, silence is not necessarily a failure in oral communication, but EFL learners’ positioning of themselves, peers and teachers in EFL class contexts.
FAME is the French Absorption spectroscopy beamline in Material and Environmental sciences at the... more FAME is the French Absorption spectroscopy beamline in Material and Environmental sciences at the ESRF (France), operational since September 2002. Technically speaking, the source is a 0.85T bending magnet and the main optical element is a two-crystals monochromator using either Si(111) or Si(220) monocrystals so that the available energy ranges from 4 to 40 keV. The first crystal is liquid nitrogen cooled in order to avoid the thermal bump and thus preserve the energy resolution. The second crystal is dynamically bent during the energy scan in order to focalize the beam in the horizontal plane. Two bendable mirrors are located before and after the monochromator, for a beam-collimation (to optimize the energy resolution) and a vertical focalization, respectively. During scans, the beam on the sample is kept constant in position and size (around 150×200 μm 2 , V×H). The high flux on the sample combined with the sensitivity of our 30-elements fluorescence detector allow to decrease the detection limit down to 10 ppm or around less than a monolayer. Moreover, quick-EXAFS acquisition is operational: the acquisition time may be reduced down to 30s.
Research has shown that late-arriving teen English language learners (ELLs) are deeply rooted in ... more Research has shown that late-arriving teen English language learners (ELLs) are deeply rooted in the sociocultural and educational system of their home country for a majority of their schooling time (Duff, 2001; Minichello, 2001). In their transition to a new society in North America, this group encounters sociocultural and linguistic differences in their daily lives. Through a lens entitled Critical Multiple Social Spaces, which combines the Multiple Worlds Model (Phelan et al., 1991), the concept of Third Space (Bhabha, 1994) and a sociocultural perspective on language use (Fairclough, 2001; Pennycook, 2010), this qualitative case study focuses on 10 Chinese ELL adolescents who came to Canada after the age of 15, and examines their cross-trajectory experiences of English practice in their daily lives and their language identities. At the time of this study, they were at the stage of completing high school and applying for admission to higher education institutions. Findings showed that this group's language use in daily life is full of conflicts, negotiation and consolidation, not only at school as a usual space of contested language practice, but also at home, with peers and in other spaces. At school, social division existed both in and out of class, yet such social division was not merely due to ELLs' reluctance to integrate. Participants positioned themselves differently in English Literature courses and core classes in accordance with their perceived proficiency. Home, generally regarded as a traditionally stable space of language practice, became another site of complex dynamics. Peer networks also emerged as embodying similar complications. In addition to racial and ethnic factors, age on arrival and length of residence played a significant role in social interaction, impacting both same-ethnic and cross-ethnic peer networks. Based on these findings, four categories are identified pertaining to participants' cross
Research has shown that late-arriving teen English language learners (ELLs) are deeply rooted in ... more Research has shown that late-arriving teen English language learners (ELLs) are deeply rooted in the sociocultural and educational system of their home country for a majority of their schooling time (Duff, 2001; Minichello, 2001). In their transition to a new society in North America, this group encounters sociocultural and linguistic differences in their daily lives. Through a lens entitled Critical Multiple Social Spaces, which combines the Multiple Worlds Model (Phelan et al., 1991), the concept of Third Space (Bhabha, 1994) and a sociocultural perspective on language use (Fairclough, 2001; Pennycook, 2010), this qualitative case study focuses on 10 Chinese ELL adolescents who came to Canada after the age of 15, and examines their cross-trajectory experiences of English practice in their daily lives and their language identities. At the time of this study, they were at the stage of completing high school and applying for admission to higher education institutions. Findings showed...
From sociocultural theory, language is mediational means and speech genre is a form of mediated a... more From sociocultural theory, language is mediational means and speech genre is a form of mediated action (Wertsch, 1991). Mediated actions have multiple goals, and are characterized by the tension between agent and mediational means (Wertsch, 1998). Drawing from a broader qualitative case study, this presentation will focus on ten late-arriving immigrant adolescents’ beliefs in regard to what makes ideal ESL learners, and their mediated actions in Canada. The research questions of this presentation will be: 1) What are the late-arriving Chinese immigrant adolescents’ perceptions of ideal ESL learners? 2) How do they act in response to their perceptions? 3) How do they evaluate their mediated actions? Based on the relevant data set, this presentation will first discuss the findings of the research questions, i.e., their perceptions of ideal ESL learners, their mediated actions, and their self-evaluation of the actions. A further discussion in light of the relationship between different...
ASIAN TEFL Journal of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics
While rubrics have been widely recognized as an effective instructional tool for teachers to eval... more While rubrics have been widely recognized as an effective instructional tool for teachers to evaluate students’ writing products, fewer studies explored how students use it for their writing process in an EFL university academic writing classes. This study explores the application of process-oriented rubrics in two EFL writing programs, and investigates whether English language proficiency, motivation to writing, and their previous experiences with writing programs would significantly affect the use of the rubrics. The participants (N=190) were from two student cohorts, each of which had 95 participants. The data set includes students’ self-, peer- use and the instructor’s use of the rubrics, and students’ written reflection upon peer feedbacks. The data showed that the rubrics can guide students to practice a writing process, and that the 20-item rubric was statistically reliable. The data of rubrics also showed that the participants were more critical on their peers’ writing, and...
This study looks at literacy as a site of power in which some forms of literacy practices have mo... more This study looks at literacy as a site of power in which some forms of literacy practices have more power. Such power relations is even more complicated in English as a foreign language context, where school literacy, family literacy, and English language come into the picture. Many studies have explored different research methods to examine language learners’ voices in literacy practices, while literacy autobiography (LA) is not frequently used. LA is a reflective, first-person narrative of personal engagement in literacy practices. Through the LAs from a group of third-year university students in China, this qualitative case study examines motivation to in-school writing in general, their L1 and L2 in- and out-of-school writing experiences in particular. The main dataset includes 25 participants’ LAs; critical discourse analysis was used for data analysis. The findings suggest that their motivation to English academic writing is closely intertwined with their L1 academic writing, ...
This chapter presents a comparative qualitative case study on two students’ perception of their s... more This chapter presents a comparative qualitative case study on two students’ perception of their silence in classes. The findings showed that the first participant’s silence was more passive than voluntary. Due to his limited English language proficiency, he was positioned as someone not always worthy of speaking and being listened to. The second participant maintained silence based on his evaluation of the class, of his peers, and of the course content. The findings suggest language proficiency not only shapes students’ social relations in classes but also affects students’ chances of verbal participation and decision-making processes. Therefore, silence is not necessarily a failure in oral communication, but EFL learners’ positioning of themselves, peers and teachers in EFL class contexts.
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