New Releases by Jim Cummins

An invaluable resource for both practicing and pre-service teachers, this long-awaited book offers a fresh and much-needed point of view of how to "rethink" literacy and technology in today''s diverse classrooms. Authored by some of the most respected researchers in the field today, Literacy, Technology, and Diversity reflects on the idea that great expectations are achievable through educational projects that foster academic growth, with classroom diversity and technology as catalysts for deeper learning, and that a narrow focus ongrade expectations yields superficial results. Arguing today''s learning principles need to incorporate the core values of community learning, critical pedagogy, multilingualism, anti-racist education, high academic standards, and technological fluency, Cummins, Sayers and Brown provide a thought-provoking introduction into these learning principles that will inspire the life-long learning of students. Take a peek inside... Provides examples of projects, backed by research-based theories for their effective adaptation to help both pre-service and practicing teachers become more independent and creative in the ways they use technology. Gives useful suggestions on how to effectively integrate literacy and technology into the classroom. Presents Portraits (Case studies) of collaborative projects promoting literacy learning and often involving technology on such topics as: Cognition, Assessment, Community of Learning, and Tools and Resources in Section II (Chapters 5-9). Contains an appendix of short vignettes of exemplary projects that promote learning of standards-based expectations for academic achievement. Includes a complimentary CD-ROM of additional resources for teachers as well as updated portraits on exemplary projects.

La movilidad de la población es una de las características del mundo en que vivimos. Esto explica que en muchos sistemas escolares, los estudiantes monolingües y monoculturales son más la excepción que la regla, sobre todo en las zonas urbanas. Este cambio de la realidad demográfica conlleva unos retos enormes para el profesorado y los responsables políticos: ¿Qué necesitan saber los docentes para enseñar en contextos lingüística y culturalmente diversos? ¿Cuánto tiempo necesitan los estudiantes para dominar una segunda lengua en la cual se imparte la enseñanza escolar? ¿Qué diferencias hay entre la adquisición de la fluidez conversacional en los contextos cotidianos y el dominio de los registros lingüísticos necesarios para el éxito académico? ¿Qué medidas urge tomar en los contenidos del curriculum y en las metodologías didácticas para asegurarse de que el alumnado perteneciente a otras culturas e idiomas no está siendo sometido a discriminación? ¿Qué papel debe otorgarse en el currículum a la lengua materna de los alumnos? ¿Los programas de educación bilingüe funcionan bien en el caso de los niños y niñas pobres que viven en ambientes en donde se hablan lenguas minoritarias? Al abordar todas estas cuestiones, Jim CUMMINS no sólo se centra en los problemas del aprendizaje y la enseñanza de los idiomas, sino que destaca también de qué modo influyen en el aula las relaciones de poder que rigen en la sociedad en las pautas de interacción entre docentes y alumnado. Jim CUMMINS es profesor del Departamento de Currículum, Enseñanza y Aprendizaje de la Universidad de Toronto, Canadá. Sus líneas de investigación se centran en temas de diversidad cultural y lingüística en educación.

The contribution of Jim Cummins to bilingualism and bilingual education has been substantial and profound. This reader provides a comprehensive compilation of his most important and influential texts. The book also provides a detailed biographical introduction and a commentary on the growth of ideas over three decades.

As linguistic diversity increases in countries around the world, policy-makers and educators are faced with complex and conflictual issues regarding appropriate ways of educating a multilingual school population. This volume reviews the research and theory relating to instruction and assessment of bilingual pupils, focusing not only on issues of language learning and teaching but also the ways in which power relations in the wider society affect patterns of teacher-pupil interaction in the classroom.

Video clips are used to demonstrate various techniques used in social work interviews. Text definitions of terms, text synopses of the situations used in the video clips, and a self-paced quiz are also provided in the program. The student guide includes background information on social work techniques, examples, and exercises.

"Brave New Schools" is the first book in the cultural literacy debate that considers the impact of the information superhighway and its presence in the classroom. Stunning in its implications for the future of learning guided by technology, the book offers hopeful solutions to the problems of cultural differences and the future of our children.

This course teaches English through thematic units based on grade-level science, social studies, health, mathematics and art. There are carefully sequenced activities in listening, speaking, reading, writing and thinking and authentic assessment activities.

This volume provides a comprehensive account of the implementation of bilingual education programmes in countries throughout the world. Bilingual programmes have been implemented to achieve a variety of educational and social goals in different contexts. Some programmes are intended to support the maintenance of national minority languages or to revitalize languages whose long-term survival is threatened; others aim to help recent immigrants succeed academically while making the transition to instruction taught primarily through the majority language of the society. In addition, bilingual programmes have been used to teach additional languages to students from the majority or dominant language group. Similar theoretical principles underlie the development of bilingual conversational and academic skills in all these diverse contexts.

Aimed at "empowering" teachers and students in a culturally diverse society, this book suggests that schools must respect student''s language and culture, encourage community participation, promote critical literacy, and institute forms of assessment in order to reverse patterns of under-achievement in pupils from varying cultures. The book shows that students who have been failed by schools predominantly come from communities whose languages, cultures and identities have been distorted and devalued in the wider society, and schools have reinforced this pattern of disempowerment.

This book confronts the patterns of school failure often faced by subordinated minority groups in the United States. It does so by presenting a socioacademic framework that is based on the notion that all groups can have comparable access to quality schooling, comparable participation in the schooling, and derive comparable educational benefits from their participation. Organized around three key, interrelated components--communication, integration, and cooperation--the book combines theoretical concepts with actual classroom practices that support change. It moves us from a position of rhetoric about educational equality to one that actively addresses the socioacademic needs of students in a culturally diverse society.

In this book the authors decry the creation of a version of Canadian identity that actively discourages the cultivation of many of its citizens'' languages. If multilingualism is regarded as a valuable asset both for the individual and for society, then why do so many Canadians vehemently oppose the teaching of heritage languages? Why do many parents who demand that their children be given the opportunity to become bilingual in French and English protest angrily at the fact that their tax dollars are being used to teach the languages of immigrant children? Why is it appropriate to promote multilingualism in private schools but not in the public school system? Is multilingualism good for the rich but bad for the poor? Heritage Languages examines the difficulties experienced integrating heritage languages into official curricula, and the successful efforts to teach Ukrainian, Italian, Hebrew, ASL, Portuguese and Punjabi in Canadian classrooms. An Our Schools/Our Selves book.

This book analyses policy issues regarding the education of minority students in western industrialised societies and presents a number of case studies of programs that have been successful in reversing the pattern of minority students'' academic failure.

This book examines the effectiveness of alternatives to assessment and pedagogical practices for bilingual children. A central theme of the book is that practice can be improved only by a thorough re-examination of the assumptions underlying the special education enterprise.