>
> Hi Angel-- The least you owe us for using xmca to communicate with
> Kathleen is a summary of why her paper, "Learning English as a
> second language in kindergarten: A community of practice perspective."
>
> Sounds like just the sort of thing that ought to be published in
> Mind,Culture, and Activity, it sounds like. What does it say?
> :-)
> mike
>
Hi Mike and fellow xmca'ers,
Yes, a summary that was what I thought some of you might run after me for...
(cannot be lazy :-)
Well, I think it would be best for Kelleen to do it... (but I guess she's
been off-line for some time... appeared so in her note to me attached to
her paper...)
OK summary here: (see if I could do it in 5 minutes' of typing :-)
(1) Site: Canadian kindergarten, children about 5 years old; a mainstream
classroom of 20, 11 non-English-speaking; recent immigrant children;
Kelleen focuses on 2 children, a boy from Singapore, a girl from Hong Kong;
(2) Theme: practices, identitiy construction, and access to classroom
resources and PLAY with others (it's my key word approach :-) : the
relationship among the 3
(3) Problem facing the non-English speaking children: how to get accepted
into the mainstream English-speaking children's community
(4) Things that help:
:construct an identity that's acceptable to the
norms of the mainstream community so that this new comer can have the
role of a LPP
: if the newcomer happens to have the skills valued by the community,
e.g., making gifts, skills in using crayons and scissors, writing one's name
: an identity that is palatable to the community e.g., a quiet cute
little girl
(5) Things that may not necessarily help: English lingusitic competence
(contrary to what traditional L2 research says)
(6) Kelleen's point: SLA is embedded in the larger project of the
newcomer seeking access to the mainstream community, in her/his
relative success or failure, and involves those things that help or not
help the newcomer to enter into the COP...
Alright, does this summary help?
Angel
P.S. I have some queries that I'd like to discuss with Kelleen, mainly
around the question of "identity"... what is meant by "identity" in her
paper? The notion seems to need some more work...