• Graduate Programs
  • Masters Program (MEd)
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    • Language, Literacy, and Culture Specialization
      • LLC Requirements
      • Oral Language Learning and Use
      • Early Literacy Learning
      • Learning through Literacy
      • Second Language Learning
      • Connections between Language, Literacy, and Culture
      • Literacy in Community Settings
      • Literacy and New Technologies
      • Literacy Teaching
    • LLC Requirements (PDF)
    • Development, Learning and Diversity Specialization
    • DLD Requirements (PDF)
    • Mathematics and Science Education Specialization
    • MSE Requirements (PDF)
    • Learning Sciences and Learning Environment Design
    • LSLED Requirements (PDF)
    • Teaching and Learning Graduate Students
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• Undergraduate Program
• Teaching and Learning Research
• Faculty and Staff

Oral Language Learning and Use

How do children and adults use English and other languages to learn and interact with others in classrooms?

• Talking Spaces Project: The Talking Spaces project investigates classroom talk as part of multi-modal activities such as dramatic play, classroom presentations, role-playing, and mock trials. We are studying how the diverse ways of communicating that are part of these activities (e.g., spatial relations in the classroom, the placement and movement of students' and teachers' bodies, eye gaze, gesture, and the use of classroom materials) may provide entry points to literacy for non-mainstream students. (Professors Kevin Leander and Debbie Rowe; graduate students Daneell Edwards and Shelene Waters)
• The Social Construction of Intention in Children's Early Writing: How do young children learn that writers intend and then record linguistic messages by making marks? Over the course of a school year, Debbie Rowe followed a group of 2-year-olds and their teachers as they talked, wrote, and explored markers, pens, and paper at a classroom writing center. She explored the central role of adult-child talk for defining children as writers and labeling their marks as writing.