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Multilingual teacher training in South Tyrol: strategies for effective linguistic input with young learners
Abstract
Purpose: Attempts to cultivate a multilingual mindset in education in South Tyrol find an obstacle in educational norms, structures and policies that divide students into linguistically distinct schools based on their self-identified main language. Education in the region is administered through three separate educational authorities – German-speaking, Italian-speaking, Ladin-speaking – and teachers are prepared for service in one of these based on their own declared linguistic identification. Plural identities and translingual interaction do not flourish in this context where language separation is the norm. This paper begins with an overview of the educational policy of language separation in South Tyrol and its impact on the language achievement of its students. It then addresses how the Free University of Bolzano has responded to the need for improved language competences through teacher training for multilingual schools in the Province of Bolzano.Design: The paper presents the preliminary results of a small-scale study with in-service preschool teachers through an action research cycle in which classroom observations and a language input observation scheme are used to quantitively measure the quality of teachers' language input in second-language instruction in German and English, and provide formative feedback for improvement in teaching practice.Findings and Value: The expected outcomes of the study are threefold: (1) improving input and corrective feedback strategies of language teachers; (2) raising language awareness among teachers participating in peer observation; (3) empowering the emergence of language rich episodes through effective planning of interactive lessons in second/foreign language teaching. The study contributes to an understanding of what makes teachers' corrective feedback strategies in preschool settings effective in rendering input comprehensible for young learners, thus assisting language appropriation processes.
... According to the majority of the selected research, CF predominantly occured in the performance of tutor and peer responses, it is "information communicated to the learner that is intended to modify his or her thinking or behavior for the purpose of improving learning" (Shute, 2008: 154), and can take diverse forms and strategies in task-based language practices. For example, Mastellotto and Zanin (2022) categorized three critical feedback strategies in accordance with Nassaji and Kartchava (2021): guaranteeing children's comprehension, promoting children's output, and implicit CF. The study showed that translanguaging, as a collaborative, creative, and transformative space, can serve as a productive pedagogical metaphor for preschool children to achieve their communicative goal and meaning-making objectives (see Medina, 2022). ...
... Some studies (Ebadijalal & Yousofi, 2021;Sun & Zhang, 2022;Canals, 2022;Chen et al., 2019) typically employed translanguaging in a fixed approach, focusing on the alteration or combination use of the target language and L1 in peer CF, contributing to the development of grammatical, lexical, and metalinguistic knowledge in achieving the meaning-making objective. In face-to-face classes, the fixed language approach was also identified as a prominent translingual strategy in tutorial CF, involved in biliteracy practices (Talavera, 2020), instructional error corrections (Wang & Li, 2022;Li, 2018), and interactional output (Mastellotto & Zanin, 2022;Gomez, 2020). It was inferred that communication is influenced by the similarity between form and meaning, based on in-class activity, teaching outcome, and cultural backgrounds during translingual practices when language choice is negotiated. ...
In recent years, a rise in research has validated the practice of translanguaging as a valuable and beneficial instructional approach. This pedagogy is considered practical as it supports the flexible and integrated use of linguistic and semiotic sources for meaning construction, fostering plurilingual competence, and aiding in foreign language teaching and learning. Translanguaging has been demonstrated to enhance students’ learning potential and engagement in bilingual and multilingual classrooms
when feedback facilitates meaning exchange through negotiated involvement. Implementing translanguaging in feedback is increasingly recognized as a transformative pedagogy for efficient and responsive teaching and learning. By amalgamating the findings of recent studies, this study intends to elucidate the present situation of literature on the way in which translanguaging is approached in feedback across various educational contexts. A high-level scoping analysis was conducted using a semi-systematic approach, employing keywords, research objectives, study settings, and primary discoveries. Subsequently, a narrative review was compiled based on the inclusion criteria. Following the elimination of duplicates, the literature consisted of 22 peer-reviewed studies, published between 2017 and October 2022 and accessible in the two representative and sizable
databases—— Scopus and Google Scholar. This review delineated the primary educational and research contexts where studies were undertaken, the research methodology employed in investigating pedagogic translanguaging in feedback practices, as well as the considerations and implications of translingual practices in corrective feedback that were highlighted as an enriched and encompassing communicative approach in foreign language classes.
... According to the majority of the selected research, CF predominantly occured in the performance of tutor and peer responses, it is "information communicated to the learner that is intended to modify his or her thinking or behavior for the purpose of improving learning" (Shute, 2008: 154), and can take diverse forms and strategies in task-based language practices. For example, Mastellotto and Zanin (2022) categorized three critical feedback strategies in accordance with Nassaji and Kartchava (2021): guaranteeing children's comprehension, promoting children's output, and implicit CF. The study showed that translanguaging, as a collaborative, creative, and transformative space, can serve as a productive pedagogical metaphor for preschool children to achieve their communicative goal and meaning-making objectives (see Medina, 2022). ...
... Some studies (Ebadijalal & Yousofi, 2021;Sun & Zhang, 2022;Canals, 2022;Chen et al., 2019) typically employed translanguaging in a fixed approach, focusing on the alteration or combination use of the target language and L1 in peer CF, contributing to the development of grammatical, lexical, and metalinguistic knowledge in achieving the meaning-making objective. In face-to-face classes, the fixed language approach was also identified as a prominent translingual strategy in tutorial CF, involved in biliteracy practices (Talavera, 2020), instructional error corrections (Wang & Li, 2022;Li, 2018), and interactional output (Mastellotto & Zanin, 2022;Gomez, 2020). It was inferred that communication is influenced by the similarity between form and meaning, based on in-class activity, teaching outcome, and cultural backgrounds during translingual practices when language choice is negotiated. ...
This book offers a comprehensive exploration of bilingualism and multilingualism, delving into topics such as code-switching, corpus linguistics, languages in contact, and language policies. Featuring chapters authored by participants of the International Summer School of Bilingualism and Multilingualism (ISSBM 2022), this collection showcases heterogeneous student research and perspectives on language acquisition and diversity.
ISSBM 2022, a collaborative endeavor between the University of Nova Gorica (Slovenia) and the University of Udine (Italy), was supported by the European University for Cross-Border Knowledge Sharing (ACROSS) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Taking place at the Chemnitz University of Technology (Germany) from September 12-16, 2022, the summer school sought to discuss linguistic research and stimulate dialogue on bilingualism, multilingualism, and second language acquisition.
Additionally, the book includes a methodological reflection on translanguaging, with ISSBM 2022 serving as the case study. This compilation of proceedings serves as a valuable resource for students, researchers, and practitioners interested in the multifaceted world of bilingualism and multilingualism.
... Teacher training programmes should prioritise embracing multilingual teaching approaches and equipping educators with the necessary skills to effectively teach in diverse linguistic environments to promote a more inclusive and equitable educational experience. Countries like Italy (Hofer and Jessner 2019;Lynn and Zanin 2022) and Switzerland (Brohy 2005;Elżbieta 2016) can be models for successful programmes prioritising multilingual education through teacher training and hiring multilingual teachers. ...
... Yet, as also some scholars have observed (Gross & Mastellotto, 2021;Mastellotto & Zanin, 2022), such initiatives are limited by the policy of linguistic separation that persists in the institutional sphere and which can pose an obstacle to the effective promotion of plurilingualism and cultural diversity. In South Tyrol this means that even if each linguistic group can rely on its own school system, the principle of macro-allocation of languages is still dominant in all three school systems. ...
The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of COMPASS (Didaktische Kompetenzen in der mehrsprachigen Klasse [Didactic Competences in Multilingual Classes]), a two-year research and professional development initiative on inclusive plurilingual education that is being carried out in South Tyrol, Italy. Launched in 2021, the initiative includes a training course for teams of primary school teachers. Its aim is to promote the development of some of the competences and tools that are necessary to leverage linguistic diversity in the classroom and embrace more inclusive and socially just forms of education. In addition to its training component, COMPASS includes a longitudinal research study aimed at documenting whether the course has any impact on the participants’ beliefs, knowledge and practices. In this contribution we will discuss some of the preliminary findings of our study by drawing on data from one school team, i.e. nine teachers of various subjects working at the same school in a suburban area of South Tyrol: focusing on the concept of the schoolscape, i.e. the display and use of language-related signs in educational environments (Brown, 2012), the chapter will discuss whether and how the participants developed a more responsive attitude to the issue of the implicit and explicit language hierarchies that are present in their educational environment, as well as whether this has an influence on the way languages are displayed and used in school.
In the following article, a good practice example of building international cooperation in teacher education while considering different aspects of sustainability will be discussed, using the experience of project LiMa - Lehramt international in Marburg. The focus of this article is on the management aspect of relationship building and lessons learned in this project. In addition, benefits for students will be reported. Project LiMa aims to provide teacher education students in its pilot subjects biology, geography and education sciences with opportunities for international and intercultural exchange, so that they may increase their intercultural competencies in preparation for culturally diverse classrooms. The four-year project funded by the DAAD established strong partnerships with four universities in Poland, Portugal, Romania and Serbia, using an intentional combination of virtual and in-person measures. The article will first describe the relationship between sustainability and internationalization, considering potential goal conflicts. It will then investigate the advantages and disadvantages of a virtual kickoff event and explore opportunities of how virtual formats can be used for international relationship building on the level of staff and lecturers. Finally, the article will address teaching for sustainable development as an important transversal topic for international cooperation in the context of teacher education.
Purpose of the study: This study sets out on an innovative exploration to understand the nuanced learning needs of students, particularly focusing on the often-neglected areas of non-formal and multilingual education. Methodology: Utilizing a robust quantitative survey methodology, this research draws insights from a carefully designed questionnaire comprising 20 rigorously validated statements, achieving a commendable Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of 0.82. The study centers on a diverse group of 200 secondary school students from the culturally diverse landscapes of Israel and Moldova. Main Findings: The study investigates the external influences of national and institutional education policies, as well as transformative educational reform initiatives. Internally, it explores personal aspirations such as the desire for knowledge enhancement, professional retraining, and pursuit of individual interests and leisure activities. Furthermore, the research delves into the complex role of foreign languages in the educational framework, highlighting significant gaps in teacher proficiency, pedagogical methodologies, contemporary learning resources, and assessment practices. Novelty/Originality of this study: The uniqueness of this study lies in its recognition of the multifaceted benefits of multilingual education, which goes beyond cognitive development to foster emotional and social enrichment. Central to this discussion is the concept of interlanguage transfer, a phenomenon that captures the dynamic interaction between the languages of bilingual or multilingual individuals, significantly influencing their linguistic abilities. This study not only emphasizes the importance of multilingualism in educational settings but also highlights its potential to enhance the educational experience for students, educators, and society as a whole.
Lecturers play a huge role in the teaching of foreign languages across universities. As such, their training in language diversity and variation remains a significant tool in enhancing pedagogical strategies for multilingual foreign language classroom. This study focused on the analysis of different ways in which the training of foreign language lecturers can enhance pedagogical practices for multilingual foreign language classrooms. A total of 151 lecturers and 112 university non-academics staff members drawn from departments of foreign languages participated in this quantitative survey. Data was gathered using digitally developed questionnaire. There was a wide diversity of viewpoints from participants on instructional methods, such as peer instruction, outlining objectives explicitly, and continuing one's education. There are major and far-reaching implications of this research. One major takeaway from the research is how vital it is that lecturers of foreign languages get diversity training as part of their ongoing training and certification. Recognizing the need of such training allows schools to proactively provide lecturers with the tools they need to accommodate a student population that is becoming more diverse. In conclusion, this research sheds light on the difficulties and potential of teaching a foreign language to a population with a wide range of linguistic background. The research sheds light on the need of training for language diversity and the difficulty of maintaining order in a multilingual classroom. Lecturers and universities may better prepare students for success in a globalized world by addressing these issues and developing more welcoming, responsive, and successful foreign language classes.
Theoretical approaches within the cognitive-interactionist framework (Long, 2015) have identified various aspects of L2 input and characteristics of instruction that predict learners’ L2 outcomes. Such strategies of L2 teaching relate to shaping characteristics of communicative activities in which the L2 is embedded and modifying L2 input, L2 interactions and learners’ L2 output. These strategies are in line with task-based and content-based teaching approaches. This article starts out with theoretical underpinnings to L2 instructional principles. It introduces the roles of sensory input and individual perception, internal knowledge construction, prior knowledge, and selective attention as understood within this framework. Consequences of this type of processing for instruction are discussed with respect to the instigation of noticing, salience, cognitive activation, learning from insight and depth of processing. The second part gives an overview of characteristics of teachers’ linguistic behaviour, which includes how teachers modify verbal and non-verbal L2 input, shape communicative activities and interactions in terms of authenticity, negotiation of meaning, feedback and focus on form, and create opportunities for learners’ L2 output. The goal of these strategies of L2 teaching is to provide comprehensibility and cognitive stimulation during the L2 acquisition process, induce wide-spread neural activity, and facilitate long-term retention. All of these strategies are exemplified by, and operationalised in, the Teacher Input Observation Scheme (TIOS, Kersten, Bruhn, Ponto, Böhnke, & Greve, 2018), which provides a systematic basis for empirical L2 classroom observation, teacher training and teachers’ self-evaluation. The article closes with empirical and practical examples of the effects of L2 instructional strategies in pre-school and primary school.
In this paper presents a holistic model for multilingualism in education (Duarte, 2017), which combines different approaches to teaching and knowledge and places them in a continuum — from the acknowledgement of different languages to their actual use as a language of instruction. The model addresses attitudes, knowledge, and skills related to the multilingualism of both teachers and students (Herzog-Punzenberger, Le Pichon-Vorstman, & Siarova, 2017)
and is suitable for different school types and students (i.e., for both minority and migrant students). The model is tested in the northern Netherlands in a multilingual education project that combines different approaches to multilingual education for both migrant and minority learners. Through design-based interventions, teachers and researchers collaboratively develop multilingual activities in a bottom
-up approach (i.e., based on questions from the schools involved). Some preliminary results from the project are presented, and the model’s
contribution to research on multilingual education is discussed.
English has been increasingly used as a medium of instruction in European universities, where it is often used as a lingua franca alongside national languages. Both students and teachers require support in the development of English-‐language literacy, particularly writing skills. Writing is fundamental to knowledge construction, and the specificity of different European contexts inevitably impacts writing practices. The student writers often need to adapt their texts to multilingual and multicultural audiences. The teaching of second language writing in European contexts involves acquiring knowledge of texts and genres, understanding different contexts of writing, and developing pedagogical awareness required for working in multilingual environments. Implications for second language writing pedagogy are discussed with regards to texts and genres, students and teachers, and approaches to teaching writing. Main Text 1. Framing the Issue The European context is characterized by a great diversity of students, ways of reading and writing texts, and educational practices. In recent decades, English has gained a global status and is now used alongside national languages in higher education across Europe. Due to this increasingly global character of higher education, there is an urgent need for the development of English-‐language literacy. The understanding of academic writing as preparation for study in the UK or the US no longer reflects the students' needs, and the native speaker norms may no longer be universally applied in different academic contexts. Writing is essential to knowledge construction and to the creation of academic and professional communities.Here, academic writing is understood as a highly specialized, situated activity, which varies between different disciplines, institutions, and rhetorical traditions. In Europe, most academic writing in English as a second or additional language takes at universities. By second language (L2) writing pedagogy, we understand both well-‐established approaches to teaching writing, such as process writing, and the more recent approaches which make use of recent developments in digital technologies, such as collaborative writing. 2. Making the Case Over the past decades, English has been used as the language of instruction in universities across Europe. According to a recent survey (Wächter 2014), nearly 8100 degree programs have been taught in English in different parts of Europe, with the Nordic and Baltic countries taking the lead. Although students studying in English at European universities are in many ways similar to those overseas students who take their degrees in the English-‐speaking countries, such as the US, the UK, or Australia,
The term ‘repertoire’ belongs to the core vocabulary of sociolinguistics.1 John Gumperz, in the introduction to the epochal Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication (Gumperz & Hymes 1972/1986) lists ‘linguistic repertoires’ as one of the ‘basic sociolinguistic concepts’ (Gumperz 1972/1986: 20–21) and defines it as ‘the totality of linguistic resources (i.e. including both invariant forms and variables) available to members of particular communities’ (italics added).
This article describes a fixed pattern of assumptions about language learning implicit in the idea of a national language, and explores their role in failure in the multilingual, multicultural classroom. These examples are drawn from Europe, but they raise important issues for multilingual countries like South Africa with a dominant language of education.In hierdie artikel word 'n gevestigde patroon van aannames ondersoek oor die aanleer van 'n taal soos dit duidelik na vore kom in die opvatting oor 'n nasionale taal; verder word die rol wat dit by mislukking in die veeltalige, multikulturele klaskamer speel, ontleed. Hierdie voorbeelde word aan Europa ontleen, maar dit bring belangrike vraagstukke na vore in veeltalige lande soos Suid-Afrika waar 'n dominante taal van onderrig voorkom.
L3 acquisition has been a topic of increasing interest throughout the past decade. Nevertheless, linguistically-oriented work has so far paid little attention to the acquisition of foreign languages by second generation minority (or heritage) speakers, who have acquired two languages in early childhood. Our paper investigates article acquisition by German-Turkish speakers, who have grown
up in Germany. Specifically, we address the question whether these speakers’ L3 English shows cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from Turkish (their chronological L1) or German (their chronological L2). Results indicate the absence of negative CLI from Turkish and positive CLI from German, their L2. The study can be seen as supporting the view that typological proximity is crucial for CLI, while also allowing for the conclusion that language dominance plays a role.
This article looks at the definitions and scope of multilingualism and the different perspectives used in its study. Multilingualism is a very common phenomenon that has received much scholarly attention in recent years. Multilingualism is also an interdisciplinary phenomenon that can be studied from both an individual and a societal perspective. In this article, several dimensions of multilingualism are considered, and different types of multilingualism are discussed. The article summarizes the themes researched in various areas of the study of multilingualism such as neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics, linguistics, education, sociolinguistics, and language policy. These areas look at language acquisition and language processing as well as the use of different languages in social contexts and adopt a variety of research methodologies. The last section of the article compares monolingual and holistic perspectives in the study of multilingualism, paying special attention to new approaches developed in the past few years that argue for establishing more fluid boundaries between languages.
Two experiments investigated the effect of the classroom structure and the classroom climate of desegregated schools on the prejudices of White intermediate school students in a large, southwestern school district. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses indicated that (a) the higher the percentage of minorities in a class, the more minority friends the White students had; (b) the more the minorities in a class displayed hostility toward Whites, the more negative were the Whites' attitudes toward minorities in general; (c) the more equal the social class and achievement levels of the Whites and minorities in a class, the more minority friends the White students had; and (d) the higher the self-esteem of the Whites in a class, the more positive their ethnic attitudes. Implications for the design of desegregation plans are also discussed. (35 ref)
Der durch Migrationen hervorgerufene sprachliche und kulturelle Wandel der Gesellschaft ist unübersehbar und unüberhörbar. Die Frage aber, welche Herausforderungen dem Bildungswesen hieraus erwachsen und wie dieses sie lösen kann, findet in der Pädagogik im allgemeinen recht wenig Beachtung. Die zentrale These dieser Studie lautet, daß das nationalstaatlich verfaßte deutsche Bildungswesen im 19. Jahrhundert ein monolinguales Selbstverständnis herausbildete. Dieses Selbstverständnis regiert die Schule bis heute – und zwar um so sicherer, als der Vorgang seiner Herausbildung selbst im Vergessen versunken ist. Unter den Umständen wachsender Pluralität in der Schülerschaft aber, die sich als Konsequenz der Migration für Bildung und Erziehung eingestellt hat, erweist sich dieses Selbstverständnis mehr und mehr als dysfunktional: Es begrenzt die Kompetenzen, die zur Bewältigung der Komplexität schulischer Arbeit unter den Umständen sprachlicher Vielfalt nötig sind. Die Untersuchung konzentriert sich auf Entwicklung, Wandlung und jetzige Erscheinungsformen der monolingualen Orientierung im Lehrberuf. Im Kern steht die Frage, wie es zur „Vernatürlichung“ der Vorstellung kam, daß die Schule einsprachig organisiert sein müsse, daß sich Bildung am besten im Medium einer einzigen Sprache vollziehe und daß die Entfaltung von Einsprachigkeit in der Nationalsprache der ganze Zweck der Bildung sei. Vorgestellt werden außerdem die Sicht- und Handlungsweisen heutiger Lehrerinnen und Lehrer, die alltäglich vor der Aufgabe stehen, eine vielsprachige und kulturell heterogene Schülerschaft zu unterrichten.
This chapter focuses on the identity construction and exercise of agency of trilingual children (N = 13, aged 5–17 years) living in the capital of France. They were learning to read and write (or becoming literate) in three languages (French, English and a Heritage Language) in different educational contexts, both formal and informal. In addition to providing verbal data, the children were asked to produce drawings and bring to the interviews objects that represented the languages they spoke. Children’s narratives, pictorial representations and
artefacts reveal that children’s identity construction is anchored in lived experience through the languages they use in interaction with real people, in tangible places, and through relevant events that have value for the children. This tripartite framework of person-place-experience was further categorized into fixed (physical and unique) and hybrid (overlapping and complex) spaces. Children negotiate their identity between the need to affirm a narrow language-ethnic or language-national link and the inevitable multilingual interaction in
hybrid spaces.
Rev.& expanded from Case study research in education,1988.Incl.bibliographical references,index
Language Nutrition, a term created to describe language exposure that is rich in quality and quantity and delivered in the context of social interactions, is crucial for a child's development and is strongly associated with his/her future literacy, academic achievement, and health. However, significant differences in children's early language environments contribute to disparities in their educational and health trajectories. Interventions, including book distribution programs, coaching parents to enrich their child's language environment, and public awareness campaigns, have all been shown to positively influence a child's access to language-rich interactions. Incorporating Language Nutrition coaching and literacy promotion into pediatrics is a promising platform for building the capacity of parents to provide language exposure to their children. By teaching parents both how and why to treat their child as a conversational partner and by modeling such interactions, pediatric health care providers can help parents set their children on a pathway toward literacy, educational success, and health.
Starting from the key idea that learners and teachers bring diverse linguistic knowledge and resources to education, this book establishes and explores the concept of the 'multilingual turn' in languages education and the potential benefits for individuals and societies. It takes account of recent research, policy and practice in the fields of bilingual and multilingual education as well as foreign and second language education. The chapters integrate theory and practice, bringing together researchers and practitioners from five continents to illustrate the effects of the multilingual turn in society and evaluate the opportunities and challenges of implementing multilingual curricula and activities in a variety of classrooms. Based on the examples featured, the editors invite students, teachers, teacher educators and researchers to reflect on their own work and to evaluate the relevance and applicability of the multilingual turn in their own contexts. © 2014 Jean Conteh, Gabriela Meier and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved.
Introducing language use and interaction as the basis of good teaching and learning, this invaluable book equips teachers and researchers with the tools to analyze classroom discourse and move towards more effective instruction. Presenting an overview of existing approaches to describing and analyzing classroom discourse, Steve Walsh identifies the principal characteristics of classroom language in the contexts of second language classrooms, primary and secondary classrooms, and higher education settings. A distinct feature of the book are the classroom recordings and reflective feedback interviews from a sample group of teachers that Walsh uses to put forward SETT (Self Evaluation of Teacher Talk) as a framework for examining discourse within the classroom. This framework is used to identify different modes of discourse, which are employed by teachers and students, to increase awareness of the importance of interaction, and to maximize learning opportunities. This book will appeal to applied linguists, teachers and researchers of TESOL, as well as practitioners on MEd or taught doctorate programmes.
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The bi(tri)lingual Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen-South Tyrol in Northern Italy successfully accommodates its linguistic groups (69,38% of German speakers, 26,30% of Italian speakers and 4,32% of Ladin speakers) through territorial self-government. The Second Autonomy Statute (1972) regulates the coexistence of South Tyrol’s ethno-linguistic groups (’ rights). With regard to linguistic rights there is hardly any area of public and to a considerable extent also private life that is not covered by a complex network of norms, guarantees and remedies. The educational system in South Tyrol is based on separation and the principle of mother tongue instruction. The teaching of the second language (German or Italian) is obligatory. A plurilingual system is implemented in the Ladin valleys. Tertiary education in South Tyrol is also based on plurilingualism. Intensive talks about how to reform school policies are on a daily agenda, in order to move towards an integrated model of language learning. All in all, South Tyrol’s education system has to be considered through the lens of South Tyrol’s history (annexation to Italy in 1919, fascist occupation, First and Second Autonomy Statute). By retracing the development of school governance in South Tyrol, the article attempts to shed light on how South Tyrol’s institutional set-up is organized and how it responds to multilingual challenges.
Prologue Part I. Practice: Introduction I 1. Meaning 2. Community 3. Learning 4. Boundary 5. Locality Coda I. Knowing in practice Part II. Identity: Introduction II 6. Identity in practice 7. Participation and non-participation 8. Modes of belonging 9. Identification and negotiability Coda II. Learning communities Conclusion: Introduction III 10. Learning architectures 11. Organizations 12. Education Epilogue.
CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) has emerged since the millennium as a major trend in education. Written by Do Coyle, Philip Hood and David Marsh and drawing on their experience of CLIL in secondary schools, primary schools and English language schools across Europe, this book gives a comprehensive overview of CLIL. It summarises the theory which underpins the teaching of a content subject through another language and discusses its practical application, outlining the key directions for the development of research and practice. This book acknowledges the uncertainty many teachers feel about CLIL, because of the requirement for both language and subject knowledge, while providing theoretical and practical routes towards successful practice for all.
We investigate the role of prosody in child-directed speech of three English speaking adults using data collected for the Hu-man Speechome Project, an ecologically valid, longitudinal cor-pus collected from the home of a family with a young child. We looked at differences in prosody between child-directed and adult-directed speech. We also looked at the change in prosody of child-directed speech as the child gets older. Results showed significant interactions between speech type and vowel dura-tion, mean F0 and F0 range. We also found significant changes in prosody in child-directed speech as the child gets older.
This paper examines the position, nature, and scope of Language Awareness (LA) work in English language teacher education courses. By means of a sequence of LA activities, we attempt to identify the essential features of such activities for teachers and trainee teachers, so providing an interim framework for materials writing in this area, and illustrating the main methodological principles which underly LA activities. It is our contention that LA provides an important link between teachers' knowledge of language and their practices in teaching language.
This paper focuses on one approach to making research students more reflexive in their writing. It is argued that the development of the ability to be reflexive in regard to their own qualitative research does not come easily to a significant number of students. A range of possibilities which supervisors might present to their research students as questions to be considered in these respects is outlined. Four relevant case study vignettes are presented of the work of doctoral students (with the full cooperation and written permission of all involved) who have been supervised by the author of this paper. It is argued that these demonstrate that the students concerned have found consideration of their own, sometimes shifting, positions on the insider–outsider continuum of considerable value in developing their reflexivity in relation to their own research.
This article shows how language processing is intimately tuned to input frequency. Examples are given of frequency effects in the processing of phonology, phonotactics, reading, spelling, lexis, morphosyntax, formulaic language, language comprehension, grammaticality, sentence production, and syntax. The implications of these effects for the representations and developmental sequence of SLA are discussed. Usage-based theories hold that the acquisition of language is exemplar based. It is the piecemeal learning of many thousands of constructions and the frequency-biased abstraction of regularities within them. Determinants of pattern productivity include the power law of practice, cue competition and constraint satisfaction, connectionist learning, and effects of type and token frequency. The regularities of language emerge from experience as categories and prototypical patterns. The typical route of emergence of constructions is from formula, through low-scope pattern, to construction. Frequency plays a large part in explaining sociolinguistic variation and language change. Learners' sensitivity to frequency in all these domains has implications for theories of implicit and explicit learning and their interactions. The review concludes by considering the history of frequency as an explanatory concept in theoretical and applied linguistics, its 40 years of exile, and its necessary reinstatement as a bridging variable that binds the different schools of language acquisition research.
Language awareness refers to the development in learners of an enhanced consciousness of and sensitivity to the forms and functions of language. The approach has been developed in contexts of both second and foreign language learning, and in mother-tongue language education, where the term 'knowledge about language' has sometimes been preferred. The concept of language awareness is not new. van Essen (1997) points to a long tradition in several European countries; see also the journal Language Awareness 1990, 1/1. ¡ The approach was, however, associated in the 1980s with a reaction to those more prescriptive approaches to language learning which were generally typified by atomistic analysis of language, and reinforced by narrowly formalistic methodologies, such as grammar translation, drills, and pattern practice. However, the language awareness movement also developed a parallel impetus in reaction to the relative neglect of attention to forms of language within some versions of communicative language teaching methodologies. More recently, the approach has evolved alongside advances in language description which deal with larger stretches of discourse, including literary discourse, and which go beyond the single sentence or the individual speaking turn as the basic unit. In general, language awareness is characterized by a more holistic and text-based approach to language, of which a natural extension is work in critical language awareness, or CLA. [CLA is also referred to by the term 'critical linguistics'.] CLA presents the view that language use is not neutral, but is always part of a wider social struggle underlining the importance for learners of exploring the ways in which language can both conceal and reveal the social and ideological nature of all texts. (Fairclough 1992). One example would be drawing attention to the ways in which the passive voice or noun phrases can be used to conceal agency (although see Widdowson 2000 for some reservations about such claims). Language awareness has also been strongly advocated as an essential component in teacher education (see James and Garrett 1992; Wright and Bolitho 1993). But language awareness does not simply involve a focus on language itself. Its adherents also stress the cognitive advantages of reflecting upon language, and argue that attitudes to language and to language learning can change as a result of methods which highlight particular key concepts in elt articles welcome language features by a¤ectively involving the learner (Bolitho and Tomlinson 1995). Language acquisition research has underlined the developmental value of enhanced 'noticing' and of 'consciousness raising' in relation to the target language. Initial research in language awareness has shown increased motivation resulting from activities, especially task-based activities, which foster the learner's involvement by promoting the inductive learning of language rules, which allow learners time and space to develop their own a¤ective and experiential responses to the language, especially to its contextual meanings and e¤ects. The approach has been extensively researched and developed in relation to the teaching of grammar (Rutherford 1987; Ellis 1998), although a number of factors remain under-researched, such as the role of metalanguage in learners' responses; whether metalinguistic knowledge can enhance or hinder language development; and the precise relationships between task-based methodologies and the induction of rules and features of language use (see Ellis 1995). Appropriate assessment of language awareness is less likely to involve correct production than to elicit the learner's ability to explain how particular forms function. For example, how in English the 'get-passive' di¤ers from the standard passive, and to comment, in their first language where appropriate, on the di¤erent uses and usages.