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This paper draws on the findings of a three-year, observation-cum-intervention research project that focuses on the textual practices of middle school teachers in Singapore. Specifically, the focus here is on the teaching of suspense narratives to a class of average, lower middle school students as part of the 'text-type' syllabus adopted in Singapore's schools since 2001. The paper will reveal, through close analysis of a unit of work and two lesson transcripts, how one English teacher constructs, scaffolds and implements a series of lessons to develop her students' awareness of and competency in the construction and deconstruction of suspense in narrative writing. It argues that it is the teacher's ability to make use of connected learnings and explicit instruction to raise the overall intellectual quality of her lessons that contributes to the development of her students' textual competence. The paper closes with a critical appraisal of the lessons and a discussion of the implications this study has for writing teachers and researchers

This study focuses on teacher talk in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching in China. Framed against China's current focus on "thinking, imagination and innovation" as stated in the National English Curriculum Standards (NECS), this paper reports the findings of a qualitative study aimed at understanding how the discursive practices of EFL teachers contribute to the learning outcomes and overall goals of the NECS. The study adopts the theoretical lens of Bakhtin's concept of dialogism, which views dialogue as the principal means for meaning making and learning. It focuses on how teachers encourage dialogic interactions in the classroom through their questions and code-switching practices. The data comprises 30 hours of audio-recordings of lessons taught by eight EFL teachers at the high school level in two Chinese cities. The analysis of this data suggests that EFL teaching is still very much entrenched in the traditional practice based on word recognition and pattern drills and, despite official policy pronouncements, maintains a predominantly monologic thrust. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to how teacher talk can mediate EFL learning and, more broadly, bridge the gap between policy and classroom practice.

This study delves into ageing as it is depicted through social media videos in China. Through a critical analysis of 40 short-form videos, it compares how older people are discursively constructed by official agents and individual content creators to uncover their underlying ideological interests. Findings show that official videos tend to portray older people as socially disconnected and lonely whereas personal videos tend to showcase the jovial and inspirational aspects of growing old. They also reveal that official videos are exclusively situated in urban settings while personal videos also depict older people in rural and relatively modest settings. These findings reflect and reinforce the pathologisation and othering of older people and reveal ideologies linked to communitarianism and governmentality and the commodification of old age in the Chinese socio-political and socio-cultural ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dialogic education has become increasingly appealing due to the recognized value of dialogue for the development of students' thinking and knowledge. Yet, its appeal has not catalysed widespread adoption of dialogic education in classrooms due partly to teachers' uncertainty over the conceptualization of dialogic education and the presence of several similar yet different models in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to critically review several well-known models of dialogic education to uncover some of their shared features as well as differences. Four dialogic education models, 'dialogically organized instruction', 'Thinking Together', 'Accountable Talk' and 'dialogic teaching', are reviewed, compared and critiqued. Based on the review, a framework of dialogic education that synthesizes the features of the four dialogic education models and hinges on four components -- dialogic environment, teaching goal, classroom talk and dialogic moves -- is proposed. This will hopefully help to equip and empower teachers to translate the theoretical principles of dialogic education into actual classroom practices.

Self-promotion is a ubiquitous institutional practice of universities worldwide. It serves a variety of high-priority institutional purposes such as vying for a pre-eminent position in university league tables, recruiting students and academics, attracting governmental and private funds, and seeking university-business cooperation opportunities. Central to self-promotion is the role that language plays. Previous studies have conducted linguistic analyses to uncover universities' promotional strategies. However, few have examined how universities appraise themselves from a cross-cultural and cross-tier perspective. Drawing on a discourse analysis approach, this study examined how 160 top- and second-tier Chinese and American universities appraised themselves in the "About Us" texts on their official websites. Cross-country and cross-tier comparisons were conducted by determining the frequencies of specific appraisal resources and performing a close analysis of the functions and features of these resources. The findings revealed significant cross-country and cross-tier differences in the ways the universities project and position themselves to their stakeholders. These differences are discussed against the backdrop of particular socio-cultural, socio-political, and socio-economic factors that constitute the ecologies of higher education.

This study focuses on the phenomenon of private supplementary tutoring, otherwise known as 'shadow education', which has proliferated around the world. By casting the spotlight on one particular shadow education institution (SEI) in Singapore and viewing it through the lens of Dewey's educational philosophy, the study aimed to illuminate the inner workings of a SEI to shed light on its ability to thrive in a competitive educational landscape. Data were drawn from lesson observations, interviews with various stakeholders and the SEI website. Viewed through Dewey's philosophical thinking about the connections between the child and curriculum and school and society, the data shows an institution outwardly guided by a progressivist mission to develop learners as a whole, providing opportunities for broadening their minds and preparing them for their future workplace. However, evidence also suggests that there is a fundamental focus on high-stakes examination preparation in its pedagogic practices and curricular content. This tension reflects the wider socio-economic culture in Singapore that is entrenched within a utilitarian and pragmatic paradigm while aspiring towards more humanistic and holistic educational goals.

This study explores the use of a corpus of classroom discourse data (Singapore Corpus of Research in Education or SCoRE) to facilitate the professional development of English language (EL) teachers in Singapore. A survey was first conducted to probe the knowledge base and belief system of EL teachers in three key domains: epistemology, pedagogy, and discourse. This was followed by a discourse analysis of the SCoRE corpus to mine resources that could address the specific professional needs of teachers identified through the survey. Survey findings suggest that EL teachers in Singapore are less secure in epistemology than pedagogy or discourse-related issues. The efficacy of using corpus-based materials to help teachers reflect on and develop their professional competencies was tested through a workshop. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of using authentic and situated corpus resources to facilitate teachers' reflective practice and professional development.

Shadow education, or supplementary private tutoring, has expanded to become a multi-billion-dollar industry worldwide, capitalising on the desires of parents and their children to succeed and excel in education. In doing so, shadow education draws upon and reproduces cultural capital represented by knowledge, skills and educational credentials and symbolic capital constituted in the prestige, privilege and legitimacy of educational achievement. The study on which this article is based adopts a critical discourse analytic approach to examine the websites of five leading private tuition centres in Singapore as seen through the lens of Bourdieu's concept of capital. The aim is to identify specific forms of cultural capital, examine how they are harnessed for promotional purposes, and show how this reflects and reproduces the forms and representations of educational achievement and success valued in Singapore. Findings offer a deeper understanding of the marketing discourse of shadow education that pivots on the quality of private tutors, success beyond examinations and school, and concrete representations of social distinction and achievement. More significantly, the study contributes to research situated at the nexus of shadow education and Bourdieu's concept of capital to shed light on how shadow education reflects and magnifies broader socio-cultural orientations and socio-economic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dialogic instruction, a form of instruction that engages students in meaningful and substantive classroom dialogue, has been shown to benefit students in many ways. However, few studies on dialogic instruction have focused on the role and agency of classroom teachers as they navigate and negotiate the vagaries of classroom talk, especially in contexts such as China where students are more accustomed to a more monologic mode of instruction. This practitioner research was conceived to address this gap in the literature by exploring the implementation of dialogic instruction in an English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom by the first author. A 15‐week instructional programme based on the principles of dialogic instruction was implemented in an intact English reading class in a Chinese university. Video‐recordings of all 15 lessons were transcribed and analysed using a coding system specifically designed to identify and examine the quality of dialogic moves made. The analysis shows the potential of dialogic instruction in the EFL classroom but also reveals some missed opportunities and challenges. The potential, challenges and other pedagogical implications are discussed with a view towards facilitating EFL teachers' implementation of dialogic instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on teaching critical literacy in the context of Singapore. It begins with a conceptualization of critical literacy as a stance oriented to questioning and challenging the often taken-for-granted meanings and assumptions found in "everyday" texts. It then discusses how this stance can be cultivated in students through a critical reading and writing project aimed at encouraging students to question the underlying motivations of seemingly unremarkable texts ("making the familiar strange") and produce alternative texts that challenge and destabilize the normative structures of society ("making the strange familiar"). The article concludes with a brief discussion of the issues and challenges faced by teachers in developing a critical disposition in students that will help them negotiate the information-saturated and text-mediated world of the twenty-first century.

This study adopts a critical discourse analysis approach in comparing the portrayal of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in two English language newspapers, China Daily (CD) and New York Times (NYT). It focuses on how these two influential newspapers employ various discursive strategies to portray the BRI and its various players to unpack the embedded ideologies underlying the news reports. The data comprises 165 news reports on the BRI published between 2013 and 2019. By examining key news features such as headlines, leads and quotes, three contrastive themes were uncovered: BRI as a unifying agent or disruptive force; bolstering support for or casting aspersions on the BRI; and a rising China versus a fading US. These themes coalesce and converge into two parallel but distinct discourses. While CD unequivocally depicts the BRI as a collaborative project that seeks to unify and bring widespread benefits to member countries, NYT presents a more complex picture that discursively constructs China's BRI as a geopolitical threat to the waning global influence of the US. These divergent discourses are discussed in light of motivated reasoning theory and in relation to the varying ideological standpoints from which the two newspapers operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective teaching, among other things, can be seen as a series of orchestrated moves between different kinds and levels of knowledge, be they between personal, everyday and technical knowledge, between school knowledge and the world beyond, and between knowledge in different disciplines. This article is about bridging the gap between what students learn in school and their out-of-school experiences. It focuses on the dimension of connected learnings, which is one part of a three-dimensional analytic framework developed for a study in Singapore. By examining transcripts of English language and social studies lessons in Singapore secondary schools, this article shows how teachers can make what is taught in the classroom relevant to the outside world as well as incorporate and infuse students' prior knowledge and out-of-school experiences into classroom teaching. It argues that such connected learnings not only increases motivation and engagement levels for the students but also makes learning more meaningful and purposeful. In this sense, students are no longer just learning basic literacy competencies within an academic context but endeavour to develop life skills that take them beyond classrooms and examination halls. Put simply, they are going beyond learning how to read and write, rather reading and writing in order to learn.

In this paper we describe Expanding Textual Repertoires (ETR) as a framework for enhancing Singaporean secondary school teachers' understanding of the nature and effective teaching of the increasingly specialized language and literacy competencies required of their students for skilled participation in the curriculum areas at the secondary grade levels. Drawing from a larger intervention project involving the development, and the introduction to teachers, of the three principles of ETR (intellectual quality, connected learnings, explicit instruction), we examine in what ways it could bring greater coherence, keener awareness of the language and literacy demands, as well as a more confident and critical engagement with the subject knowledge to the work and classroom interactions of one of the secondary Social Studies teachers. Looking at her post-intervention delivery of a unit of work, we show how the Social Studies teacher developed and trialled new teaching materials and tasks in the light of her broadened understandings of effective teaching through the ETR framework, refining and modifying them by ongoing analysis of the classroom learning environment and her students' responses. Through the analysis of ongoing sequences of lessons across a unit of work, we document the "developmental history" [Christie, F. (2002). "Classroom discourse: A functional perspective." London: Continuum] of her classroom, showing how it unfolded over time as a text, how the teacher handled different stages of learning, if and how students' prior learning and everyday knowledge were built on, if and how connections between various texts and literacy activities were made across lessons, how new learning, appropriate technical language and patterns of reasoning were accumulated as the unit progressed, and what evidence there was of students' uptake of this new learning through literate talk in their lesson contributions.