front cover of Breaking New Ground for SLIFE
Breaking New Ground for SLIFE
The Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm
Andrea DeCapua and Helaine W. Marshall
University of Michigan Press, 2023

In its second edition, Breaking New Ground for SLIFE builds on its model for supporting students who are new to English and may have experienced a disruption in their schooling. The practices presented in this book emerge from the belief that education for students with limited or interrupted formal education, also known as SLIFE, should not be remedial but should build on the students’ prior learning experiences and existing areas of knowledge. This second edition has been significantly updated, informed by recent research in the field, feedback from teachers, and new scholarly treatments of the topic. Breaking New Ground for SLIFE, second edition, explores the MALP approach, highlights how technology can be incorporated into classroom activities, and includes actual MALP projects implemented by MALP-trained teachers of both young and adolescent learners. In addition, the authors provide a newly revised MALP Teacher Planning Checklist.

By reading Breaking New Ground for SLIFE, educators will:

- Further develop their understanding of the needs of students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE)
- ​Learn about the Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm (MALP) and how to integrate it into their classrooms
- Discover and learn about the MALP instructional approach and how to use it to develop a project-based curriculum using examples from teachers in the field
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front cover of Crossing Cultures in the Language Classroom, Second Edition
Crossing Cultures in the Language Classroom, Second Edition
Andrea DeCapua, Ed.D., and Ann C. Wintergerst, Ed.D.
University of Michigan Press, 2016
A MICHIGAN TEACHER TRAINING title

Teachers are often in the forefront of today’s cross-cultural contact, whether in the language classroom or in the K–12 or university/college classroom, but they are not always prepared to handle the various issues that can arise in terms of cross-cultural communication. The intent of this book is to make education in cross-cultural awareness accessible to a broad range of teachers working in a variety of educational settings.
 
Crossing Cultures in the Language Classroom attempts to balance theory and practice for pre-service and in-service teachers in general education programs or in ESL/EFL, bilingual, and foreign language teacher training programs, as well as cross-cultural awareness workshops. This book is unique in that it combines theory with a wide range of experiential activities and projects designed to actively engage users in the process of understanding different aspects of cross-cultural awareness. The goals of the book are to help readers:
  • expand cultural awareness of one’s own culture and that of others
  • achieve a deeper understanding of what culture is and the relationship between culture and language
  • acquire the ability to observe behaviors in order to draw conclusions based on observation rather than preconceptions
  • understand and implement observations of cultural similarities and differences
  • develop an attitude of tolerance toward cultural differences and move away from the “single story.”
The new edition has been thoroughly updated and includes a Suggested Projects section in each chapter. This section provides opportunities for users of the text to explore in greater depth an area and topic of interest. It also includes even more Critical Incidents--brief descriptions of events that depict some element or elements of cultural differences, miscommunication, or culture clash. Critical Incidents develop users’ ability to analyze and understand how multiple perspectives of the same situation are rooted in differing culturally influenced beliefs, behaviors, norms of interaction, and worldviews.
 
 

 
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front cover of Culture Myths
Culture Myths
Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching
Andrea DeCapua
University of Michigan Press, 2018
Culture Myths is intended for all educators who work with culturally and linguistically diverse students. The book is designed to help readers observe, evaluate, and appreciate cultural differences in values, beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and worldviews by focusing on the underlying and mostly invisible reasons for these differences. Developing an awareness of one's own cultural assumptions deepens understanding and empathy and contributes to the breaking down of the cultural barriers that can affect communication. 

A goal of this book is to help readers strike a balance between minimizing cultural differences and assuming similarities across cultures on one hand, and exoticizing other cultures or accentuating surface differences on the other.
 
The myths about culture as it relates to the classroom that are explored in this book are:
  • We are all human beings, so how different can we really be?
  • The goal of education is to develop each individual’s potential.
  • Focusing on conversational skills in the classroom is overrated.
  • Not looking at the teacher shows disrespect.
  • How something is said is not as important as what is said.
  • Everyone knows what a good instructional environment is.
  • By the time students get to middle or high school, they know how to be a student.
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front cover of Making the Transition to Classroom Success
Making the Transition to Classroom Success
Culturally Responsive Teaching for Struggling Language Learners
Helaine W. Marshall and Andrea DeCapua
University of Michigan Press, 2013

Features a chapter on flipped classrooms!
 
 Learners with no, minimal, or limited exposure to formal education generally do not share the expectations and assumptions of their new setting; as a result, they are likely to find themselves confounded by the ways in which the language and content are presented, practiced, and assessed in Western-style educational settings. Institutions and teachers must tailor therefore their instruction to this population. Making the Transition to Classroom Success: Culturally Responsive Teaching for Struggling Language Learners examines how understanding secondary and adult L2 learners’ educational paradigm, rooted deeply in their past experiences and cultural orientations, provides a key to the solution to a lack of progress.

Making the Transition to Classroom Success builds on and expands on two earlier books, Meeting the Needs of Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Schooling and Breaking New Ground: Teaching Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education in U.S. Secondary Schools.  These previous books focused specifically on a subset of struggling L2 learners--those with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE) in U.S. secondary schools—and detailed the instructional model (MALP). Making the Transition broadens the applications of the MALP model to include academic thinking tasks, flipped classrooms, project design, and rubrics.

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front cover of Meeting the Needs of SLIFE, Second Ed.
Meeting the Needs of SLIFE, Second Ed.
A Guide for Educators
Andrea DeCapua, Helaine W. Marshall, and Lixing Frank Tang
University of Michigan Press, 2020
Today's public schools are brimming with students who are not only new to English but who also have limited or interrupted schooling. These students, referred to as SLIFE (or SIFE), create unique challenges for teachers and administrators.
 
Like its predecessor, this book is grounded in research and is designed to be an accessible and practical resource for teachers, staff, and administrators who work with students with limited or interrupted formal education. Chapters 3-5 focus on classroom instruction, but others address issues of concern to administrators and staff too. For example, Chapter 6 explores different program models for SLIFE instruction, but the planning and commitment to creating a successful program require the involvement of many across the school community, not just teachers. 
 
This edition features case studies, model programs, and teaching techniques and tips; also included is a new chapter focused on the Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm (MALP (R)). A major theme of this new edition is moving school personnel away from a deficit perspective, when it comes to teaching SLIFE, and toward one of difference. The goal is to help all stakeholders in the school community create and foster inclusion of, and equity for, a population that is all too often marginalized, ignored, and underserved.
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front cover of SLIFE
SLIFE
What Every Teacher Needs to Know
Andrea DeCapua
University of Michigan Press, 2019
SLIFE: What Every Teacher Needs to Know helps readers deepen their understanding of Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE). Because of their limited, greatly interrupted, or sometimes nonexistent participation in formal education, SLIFE face challenges in the classroom that go beyond language and content. Often SLIFE need to develop basic literacy skills and foundational subject-area knowledge, as well as to learn how to engage in the discourse and practices of formal educational settings. So what can teachers do to help these students succeed and to recognize and honor their knowledge, skills, and cultural capital? SLIFE: What Every Teacher Needs to Know centers around four guidelines for teaching SLIFE: question assumptions, foster two-way communication, explicitly teach school tasks and academic ways of thinking, and promote project-based learning. Discussion of the Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm (MALP), is also included.
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