Austin and Britton Co-author Article on Language and Immigrant Job Training

Image

Theresa Austin, professor of language, literacy and culture in the College of Education's department of teacher education and curriculum studies, and doctoral candidate, Emma Britton, have co-authored an article, “‘Keeping Words in Context’: Language Policy and Social Identification in an Immigrant Job Training Program.”

The article, published in the “Journal of Language, Identity and Education,” examines how teachers interpreted and enacted language-in-education policies in one adult ESL program in the United States, where students simultaneously received job training as certified nursing assistants.

The article asserts that during classroom talk about word meanings, models of social identity formed, sometimes in conflict with the sociocognitive complexities of second language acquisition.