Carpets, Beards, and Baseball Signs

There is a dearth of literature about the use of popular culture texts for students who are English language learners. This work begins to fill this gap in the literature by observing the use of popular texts as a means to develop language and literacies through an ethnographic case study of a small group of recent immigrants from Iran. North American popular texts were used as content throughout an intensive language course. In the course, the participants negotiated meanings of signs and texts embedded within broader discourses. These interpretations and negotiations of meanings of texts are the focus of the analysis. The findings indicate that for meaningful discourse to develop it is important for the participants to be able to make connections to their sociocultural backgrounds. When this happens, the findings indicate that the participation structure tended to change to learner-centered as the participants became 'knowledgeable cultural authorities.' This book offers insights for educators, researchers in the area of language learning, and people interested in intercultural interaction. This work also provides an insider perspective of life inside Iran.

currently teaches at WesternNew England College. His scholarly interestsinclude language learning, sociolinguistics,and literature from various cultures. He hastaught English in Massachusetts, California,and Japan. He earned his doctorate inLanguage, Literacy, and Culture from theUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst.