Journal of Asian Pacific Communication - Volume 31, Issue 1, 2021

Researchers have investigated how family literacy practices can effectively support children’s literacy development in school. However, few studies have explored the lived experiences of Burmese refugee families in the United States. Utilizing a social semiotics multimodal perspective, this qualitative study examines how two Burmese refugee children made meaning by blending different modes. The data sources include video recordings, artifacts, and interviews. The findings illustrate three major themes that span time and space: family past experiences across global contexts, representation of current life experiences in the United States, and family beliefs carried across global contexts and Gawa’s dream for the future. The findings also show that the participants drew upon multimodal semiotic resources to create and share family storybooks. Implications include the importance of integrating multimodal perspectives into classroom learning and the possibilities of bridging home and school literacy.

This paper examines the collaborative practices of an English as an additional language (EAL) teacher and a content area teacher in meeting the needs of refugee students in a secondary science classroom. The study is based in Victoria, Australia. Drawing on a sociocultural perspective on mediated teacher work, the study gathered qualitative data primarily through two group interviews with the teachers in the middle and at the end of the school term. A secondary source of data includes relevant documents namely teaching materials, students’ work, and teachers’ notes. Content analysis of data shows two broad collaborative practices, including joint lesson planning and resources development and joint teaching. These collaborative practices were found to create structured mediational spaces that enabled them to effectively work together to meet the needs of refugee EAL students in their class. The study generates implications for content and EAL teachers in collaboratively addressing the needs of refugees in mainstream classrooms and for school leadership in supporting EAL and content teachers in this process.

Despite the growing number of cross-cultural adolescents from immigrants and families formed through international/interracial marriages in South Korea, empirical studies investigating newcomer adolescents’ identity positioning in secondary education have been scarce. Drawing upon Ruíz’s (1984) framework for language policy and planning and Cummins’ (1986, 2001) empowerment framework for minority education, this article investigates how diversity is conceptualised in South Korea through a case study of multicultural education. Specifically, the article examines how newcomer adolescents’ linguistic and cultural identities are perceived by teachers and peers in two high schools. The findings revealed that diversity is dominantly viewed as an impediment to academic success for newcomer youth and is only appreciated once students are fully assimilated into Korean society. The concept of diversity as a resource and right and the notion of multicultural and multilingual identities in the Korean educational context are absent, or hidden, at best. Although there are examples where newcomer learners see diversity as empowerment and resources for their identity construction and positionality, this orientation has not been acknowledged in educational practices. The study calls for conceptualizing diversity as empowerment and resources as ethical lenses to move away from ethnocentric and deficit orientations.

This longitudinal ethnographic case study examines, from a sociocultural perspective, how a White female English as a second language teacher of immigrant adolescents enacted agency toward culturally sustaining pedagogy in her classroom, school, and community. The teacher demonstrated her agency in her personal and professional spaces by (a) re-contextualizing curriculum and instruction with students, (b) engaging in daily conversations with students, (c) recruiting community members to participate in class, (d) constructing an ELL teacher community, (e) visiting students’ homes and involving herself in refugee communities, and (f) performing community services with students. This study provides significant implications about how teachers, who will be working in classrooms and schools and encountering deficit discourses about immigrant students and standardization forces, can create agentive pedagogical spaces where the linguistic, cultural, and community resources of immigrant students are identified, understood, centered, and can connect those resources with classroom and community practices.

With the rapid growth of Asian immigrants in American educational settings, this mixed method study examined whether a professional development program on cultural awareness and pedagogy for faculty members would impact their knowledge and skills in working with Asian immigrants to ensure these students’ retention and success. This study, therefore, assessed the effectiveness and the impact of the program designed to address the needs of Asian immigrants. Guided and supported by the constructivism learning theory (Vygotsky, 1980), the professional development program applied theories of intercultural communication training (Bennett & Salonen, 2004). A mixed method of inquiry involved surveys with ten faculty members and 16 students, in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis. Faculty members attended the workshops during the first year of students’ enrollment in their classes. The data stem from a longitudinal study conducted throughout the three years of students’ enrollment in the institution. The results established a probable relationship between the workshops and faculty members’ success in working with Asian immigrants.