English as a medium of instruction (EMI) programs are an increasing phenomenon in European universities. This paper takes an ethnographic approach to understanding the impact of EMI on pedagogy in a private university in eastern Ukraine. Fieldwork was conducted over the 2010-2011 academic year in 9 English-medium and 3 Russian-medium classes. Data indicated that EMI education posed staffing challenges, as teachers were either language experts with low content knowledge or were content experts with anxiety about their English language skills. In addition, it was at times difficult to obtain textbooks and other print resources in English. Some teachers found teaching in a foreign language necessitated adjustments to speaking pace, discipline, and general classroom discourse. Despite these issues, teachers and students saw teaching and learning in English as a worthwhile opportunity.
There has been increasing ambiguity and debate about the meaning and applicability of the terms codeswitching and translanguaging in English language classrooms. To address this issue, this article first offers a historical overview of the literature on codeswitching and translanguaging. This overview serves as the basis for an updated framework that highlights necessary areas of shift in conceptualization from codeswitching to translanguaging, and dimensions of codeswitching research that can still be integrated into a translanguaging lens. This framework is illuminated through an autobiographical narrative inquiry analysis of a teacher educator and a student‐researcher at an English‐medium university in Kazakhstan, a country that is officially bilingual and developing policies and practices to promote trilingualism. The article reinforces the argument that teachers, teacher educators, and ESOL researchers need to shift from a separate (monoglossic) view of languaging practices to a holistic (heteroglossic) view. Research on teachers’ beliefs and language practices need to be reviewed critically to identify whether they take a monoglossic or heteroglossic view of language practices. The preponderance of spontaneous rather than strategic pedagogical use of translanguaging suggests that teachers and teacher educators in English‐language classrooms need to be explicitly taught ways to incorporate heteroglossic ideologies and intentional translanguaging pedagogies into their teaching practice.
Background
Unequal HIV/AIDS distribution is influenced by certain social and structural
contexts that facilitate HIV transmission and concentrate HIV in disease epicenters.
Thus, one of the first steps in designing effective community-level HIV/AIDS initiatives
is to disentangle the influence of individual, social, and structural factors on HIV
risk. Combining ethnographic methodology with geographic information systems (GIS)
mapping can allow for a complex exploration of multilevel factors within communities
that facilitate HIV transmission in highly affected areas.
Objectives
We present the formative comparative community-based case study findings of an
investigation of individual-, social- , and structural-level factors that contribute to
the HIV/AIDS epidemic among Black Philadelphians.
Methods
Communities were defined using census tracts. The methodology included
ethnographic and GIS mapping, observation, informal conversations with residents and
business owners, and secondary analyses of census tract-level data in four Philadelphia
neighborhoods.
Results
Factors such as overcrowding, disadvantage, permeability in community
boundaries, and availability and accessibility of health-related resources varied
significantly. Further, HIV/AIDS trended with social and structural inequities above and
beyond the community’s racial composition.
Discussion
This study was a first step to disentangle relationships between
community-level factors and potential risk for HIV in an HIV epicenter. The findings
also highlight stark sociodemographic differences within and across racial groups, and
further substantiate the need for comprehensive, community-level HIV prevention
interventions. These findings from targeted United States urban communities have
potential applicability for examining the distribution of HIV/AIDS in broader national
and international geosocial contexts.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.