Transcript
Book of Abstracts
International Conference: “Multilingualism in Society, Politics and Education”
Freiburg im Breisgau, 16-18 March, 2017
Table of Contents
Strand 1: Multilingualism across the lifespan
2 – 10
Strand 2: Multilingualism policy as integration policy
11 – 22
Strand 3: Didactics of multilingualism
23 – 47
Strand 4: English-medium instruction: Encouraging multicultural interaction?
48 – 62
Posters
63 – 74
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Strand 1: Multilingualism across the lifespan (HS 1132)
Thu, 15:00 – 15:30 Irina Leca “Multilingualism across the lifespan and its impact upon the brain health in the elderly. A new perspective in the European context of population ageing” Thu, 12:00 – 12:30 Lee Cher Leng “Arresting Total Language Shift in Singapore Chinese Language Education” Thu, 12:30 – 13:00 Adriano Murelli „Mehrsprachig durch Interkomprehension?“ Thu, 15:30 – 16:00 Bajiro Muric “Coping with Difficulties of Language Maintenance and Shift: Language Policy and Planning in the Bosnian Muslim Immigrant Families in Germany” Thu, 11:30 – 12:00 François Pichette & Justyna Leśniewska “Crosslinguistic influence in unbalanced bilingual children” Fri, 10:00 – 10:30 Hanna Pułaczewska “Parents in focus: perspectives on passing on a heritage language exemplified by Polish in Regensburg” Fri, 09:30 – 10:00 Jacopo Torregrossa, Maria Andreou, Christiane Bongartz & Eva Knopp “The benefits of balanced biliteracy on heritage speakers’ narrative skills” Thu, 11:00 – 11:30 Julia Vagg,Tobias Bormann & Verena Haser “Tapping into L1 processes: Implicit vs. explicit vocabulary acquisition in GermanEnglish bilinguals”
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Multilingualism across the lifespan and its impact upon the brain health in the elderly. A new perspective in the European context of population ageing Irina Leca Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium Currently Europe has the highest percentage of population aged 60 or over and the estimates indicate it will remain the continent with the oldest people in the coming decades. By 2050, European population aged 60 or over will exceed 30%, and those aged 80 or above will be approximately 12% of the total EU population. Due to this demographic change, the prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases associated with ageing is also expected to increase. Therefore, ensuring a smoother transition to an older population by preserving the cognitive health of European seniors may be one of the most important challenges of the following decades. This paper critically examines the latest studies investigating the putative role of multilingualism in delaying the cognitive decline, by contributing to the preservation of cognitive health. Web of Science, Pubmed, and PsychInfo databases were searched for research articles published in English using “cognitive reserve AND multilingualism”, “cognitive reserve AND bilingualism”, “cognitive decline AND bilingualism”, as keywords for study retrieval. Despite some controversies, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting multilingualism may play a significant role in preserving the cognitive health in the elderly by enhancing cognitive reserve. The roles of language proficiency and the age of acquisition, as well as the number of language spoken in maximizing the positive effects in the elderly are also considered. Implications of these results in bringing together cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, linguists and educationists in a constructive dialogue with the aim to promote lifespan multilingual education with role in preserving the cognitive health in the elderly, in the European context of population ageing, are discussed. Keywords: multilingualism, cognitive reserve, cognitive decline, multilingual education
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Arresting Total Language Shift in Singapore Chinese Language Education Lee Cher Leng National University of Singapore, Singapore The language situation in Singapore has undergone many changes throughout history. This language shift is guided predominantly by pragmatism, globalization, language policy, and economic forces of the world. Singapore is currently a small nation of 5 million population made up of ethnic Chinese (76.1%), Malay (15.0%), Indian (7.4%), and others (1.5%) (Singapore population census, June 2016). This multiracial state used to be multiracial and multilingual in the early 20th century when the Chinese people spoke their own southern dialects of Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainanese, the Indians spoke Tamil, Urdu, Hindi among other Indian languages. When Singapore gain independence from the British rule, there are four official languages: English was chosen as the main working language to maximize economic benefits, while the Malay (the National Language), Mandarin and Tamil were chosen as ‘mother tongues’ to represent the major ethnic groups (Malay, Chinese, and Indian respectively). The main working language is English which also became the medium of instruction in all schools in 1987. A Speak Mandarin Campaign was launched in 1979 to replace all southern Chinese dialects with Mandarin. Majority of Chinese children in Singapore speak English at home and learn Mandarin as a standalone lesson in schools. They are fast becoming monolinguals. This paper proposes that one solution to bring back multilingualism is to increase the learning of Mandarin in preschools. Research shows that there is only about 30% of Mandarin lesson time in preschools. The recommendation is to increase this to 50% at least to ensure that children increase competence in their Mandarin. However, given that Singapore is sensitive to balance equal rights for all races, increasing Chinese language education in preschools will mean doing the same for Tamil and Malay as well. Multilingual education has to be considered together with political considerations of the society
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Mehrsprachig durch Interkomprehension? Adriano Murelli University of Insubria, Italy Seit nun gut zwei Jahrzehnten wird Mehrsprachigkeit als erstrebenswertes Ziel jedes EUBürgers. Mehrsprachige Individuen sollen einerseits bessere Chancen auf einem europäischen, ja einem globalisierten Arbeitsmarkt haben, andererseits Zugang zu einer neuen Kultur erhalten – was wiederum als Grundlage für einen fruchtbaren interkulturellen Dialog und ein vertieftes Völkerverständnis gilt. Doch das Erlernen einer oder sogar mehrerer Fremdsprachen ist mit einem hohen Zeit- und Energieaufwand verbunden. Abhilfe könnte hierbei ein Lernansatz schaffen, der auf dem (in der tagtäglichen sprachlichen Realität vorkommenden) Phänomen der Interkomprehension beruht und dessen Potenzial nutzt: Lernende sollen über die eigene Muttersprache oder eine bereits erlernte Fremdsprache in relativ kurzer Zeit imstande sein, die rezeptiven Fertigkeiten – vor allem das Verstehen schriftlicher Texte – in einer neuen Fremdsprache rasch zu entwickeln (Meißner/Tesch/Vázquez 2011). Im Vortrag soll der Begriff ‚Interkomprehension‘ erläutert und anhand von Beispielen erörtert werden, welchen Beitrag ein interkomprehensionsbasierter Ansatz zur Förderung der individuellen Mehrsprachigkeit leisten kann.
Literatur: Meißner, Franz-Joseph; Tesch, Bernd; Vázquez, Graciela. 2011. Interkomprehension und Kompetenzförderung mit Blick auf die Konstruktion von Lehrwerken. In: Meißner, Franz-Joseph; Krämer, Ulrich (Hrsg.): Spanischunterricht gestalten. Wege zu Mehrsprachigkeit und Mehrkulturalität.
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Coping with Difficulties of Language Maintenance and Shift: Language Policy and Planning in the Bosnian Muslim Immigrant Families in Germany Bajro Muric University of Regensburg, Germany For most of the immigrants, who without deliberate institutional commitment and support try to pass down their heritage languages to their children, the family is considered to be the primary unit of language policy formation and planning. The family is, as recognized by Joshua Fishman, “the most common and inescapable basis of mother tongue transmission, bonding, use and stabilization” (1991: 94) and it plays a critical role in the maintenance of immigrant and ethnic minority languages (Schwarz 2010). As a result, family language policy, as a new field of inquiry, emerged providing “an integrated overview of research on how languages are managed, learned and negotiated within families” (King et al. 2008:907). Relying on Spolsky’s model (2004, 2009, 2012), which divides language policy in the family domain, into three components: language ideology, language practice, and language management, this paper reports on the family language policy and planning in three Bosnian Muslim Immigrant families in Stuttgart, Germany. The paper is set out to reveal language practices, ideologies and beliefs that these families stick to in order to preserve their heritage language and avoid language shift in the families. The parents belong to the first generation of Bosnian Muslims immigrants in Germany and they are all members of a larger extended family. The study deals with the ways in which the issue of heritage language preservation is perceived and approached and how family language policy has been negotiated among the family members. The paper attempts to uncover what strategies parents employ in order to transmit their heritage language to their children, their attitudes to heritage language, and the importance of the wider socio-economic, educational, religious and cultural contexts in which these families live for the transmission, preservation and positive attitude towards the heritage language. The paper also shows the importance of social networks for heritage language maintenance and transmission and investigates the interrelationship between the motivation to preserve heritage language in the family and religious and ethnic identity and nationalism. The data are collected through ethnographic research, semi-structured interviews and observations. The interviews are recorded and transcribed. Given the lack of studies that deal with Bosnian immigrants in Germany, this paper is one of the first attempts to investigate the sociolinguistic reality of Bosnian immigrants in Germany. Some preliminary results suggest that Bosnian Muslim immigrant families cope well with the transmission of heritage languages in the families and that some of the main motivations behind heritage language transmission stem from understanding the direct connection between language and identity, and especially ethnic identity, as well as the belief that communication in the heritage language creates a stronger emotional bond between family members. The results also imply that Muslim religious education in heritage language is of critical importance for the parents, as they believe that in such way they can transfer religious values and behaviours to their children. Also, language policy and planning is influenced by different context in which these families live, and to a large extent it is not carefully planned and successfully implemented. The process of language planning and policy is rather flexible and inherent to parents’ own identity and world views.
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Crosslinguistic influence in unbalanced bilingual children François Pichette1 & Justyna Leśniewska2 1
Université Téluq, Canada, 2Jagiellonian University, Poland
Cases of bilingual language acquisition that are characterized by a significant degree of asymmetry have been receiving attention in bilingualism research, and one of the key questions is whether the so-called “weaker” language of simultaneous bilinguals bears similarities to a language acquired sequentially (e.g., Meisel, 2007). While second language acquisition typically shows considerable crosslinguistic influence from the L1, most models of bi- and multilingualism (e.g., De Houwer, 2009), regardless of language imbalance, embrace the tenet that the different languages of a multilingual person develop separately, showing limited crosslinguistic influence. This study compared bilingual (but strongly unbalanced) language acquisition in children to second language acquisition in general, with respect to the extent of crosslinguistic influence. To that end, we 1) examined crosslinguistic errors in the language production of 60 unbalanced French-English and Polish-English simultaneous bilinguals; and 2) compiled a review of the extent of crosslinguistic influence in the SLA literature, suggesting that L1-induced errors average 35% of all errors. Our participants described three wordless cartoons. Errors affected an average of 6% of the English words they produced, and that percentage is statistically equivalent across both language groups. Among the errors made, the percentage of crosslinguistic ones – 22% – while lower than that reported for SLA, is still rather high, suggesting that the amount of input/interaction is an important factor in the development of the weaker language. Regarding policies, it implies that speakers of a minority language -even when exposed to it from a very early age- should be encouraged to interact in that language for it to develop normally rather than like a second language. References De Houwer, A. (2009). Bilingual first language acquisition. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Meisel, J. M. (2007). The weaker language in early child bilingualism: Acquiring a first language as a second language? Applied Psycholinguistics, 28(3), 495–514.
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Parents in focus: perspectives on passing on a heritage language exemplified by Polish in Regensburg Hanna Pułaczewska University of Stettin, Poland / University of Regensburg, Germany The study is rooted in the recognition that while multilingual children have frequently become the object of sociolinguistic studies, parenting of multilinguals has not yet received the attention it deserves in its own right. Models of multilingual parenting are missing in both psychology and sociolinguistics. Using inductive methodology to analyse interviews conducted with 19 mothers of teenagers with Polish family background living in Regensburg, Germany, since birth or infancy, we have attained a pioneering account of multilingual parenting under conditions of dispersed migration. At the core of the model is a typology of parents’ attitudes to parenting affecting the decision of whether and in how far Polish is being passed to children. Besides, it includes continuous change of social context, antagonisms, emotional experience, and the oppositional relation between communication and language tutelage as its central elements. While we do not claim a universal validity for the so derived model, our account can be extended and refined by adding further geographical and sociocultural locations and constellations of languages, analysed by the same means.
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The benefits of balanced biliteracy on heritage speakers’ narrative skills Jacopo Torregrossa1, Maria Andreou2, Christiane Bongartz2 & Eva Knopp2 1
University of Hamburg, Germany, 2University of Cologne, Germany
Recent studies have considered the positive effects of balanced biliteracy on cognition and language [1]. We investigate whether balanced biliteracy contributes to the enhancement of narrative abilities. We analyze narrative production by three groups of bilingual children (mean-age=11.3): GreekGerman (N=15) and Italian-German (N=15) in Germany, and Greek-English in the USA (N=15). The children were administered questionnaires targeting input in each language and tested for language proficiency. (Im)-balanced biliteracy was defined as the difference in teaching hours in each language. Greek-German are the most balanced (33% of exposure in Greek), followed by Italian-German (20% in Italian) and English-Greek (7% in Greek). Narratives were elicited using the ENNI stories [2] and analyzed for story grammar, mental state words, syntactic complexity (story length in units, subordinations and complex noun phrases) and patterns of reference tracking (characters’ shifts). These measures address knowledge of narrative structure, independently of language-specific form-function mappings. The results concerning the non-dominant language of instruction reveal that, for all the measures, Greek-German bilinguals outperform the other two groups. For example, in story grammar, GreekGerman obtain better results than Italian-German and Greek-English (ANOVA: F(2)=6.76, p<.05). Furthermore, correlational analyses reveal that the better the performance in narrative production, the greater the literacy exposure to the language (e.g., r=.57; p=.001 for story grammar). Proficiency and exposure outside school are weaker predictors (for story-grammar, r=.42; p=.02; r=.36; p=.05, respectively). Balanced biliteracy enhances narrative skills, even in association with relatively low levels of proficiency or exposure. The results are discussed in terms of implications for the design of bilingual teaching programs based on a balanced amount of instruction. [1] Marinis, T., Tsimpli, I.M., & Bongartz, C. submitted. Biliteracy education impacts on cognition selectively. [2] Schneider, P., Dubé, V. R. & Hayward, D. 2005. The Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument. Retrieved [10.03.2016] from University of Alberta: http://www.rehabresearch.ualberta.ca/enni.
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Tapping into L1 processes: Implicit vs. explicit vocabulary acquisition in German-English bilinguals Julia Vagg1, Tobias Bormann2 & Verena Haser1 Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany This study aimed to investigate whether adults are capable of learning novel vocabulary like children – implicitly, drawing on bottom up, associative processes – and to compare the outcomes of such learning to that which recruits explicit processing. To this end, 20 German–English bilinguals were taught 20 nonword-object pairings under implicit or explicit conditions using an adaptation of Breitenstein, Kamping, Jansen, Schomacher & Knecht’s (2004) paradigm. In the implicit condition, learning mimicked child language acquisition by relying solely on exposure to different frequencies of “correct” and “incorrect” nonword-object pairings. In the explicit condition, the makeup of the input was explained to the participants prior to training and they were instructed to remember the more frequently co-occurring pairs. Training took place in four blocks over two days and was immediately followed by recognition and production tests. Participants returned ca. one week later for additional recognition, production, and German–nonword translation tests. Results revealed successful vocabulary learning in both conditions. Although participants in the implicit condition did not learn as many vocabulary items as those in the explicit condition, they exhibited superior rates of retention and equal speeds of retrieval. This pattern of results reflects the rapid versus gradual nature of explicit and implicit learning respectively, and demonstrates that exposure to patterned input is indeed sufficient to prompt unconscious vocabulary acquisition in adult bilinguals. These findings suggest that manipulating input to provide high frequency exposure to novel items in context and promoting immersion training – both in classroom settings and via virtual worlds – might aid students in developing lexical competence.
References Breitenstein, C., Kamping, S., Jansen, A., Schomacher, M., & Knecht, S. (2004). Word learning can be achieved without feedback: Implications for aphasia therapy. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, 22(6), 445-45. 1 2
Department of English Linguistics, University of Freiburg Department of Neurology, University of Freiburg
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Strand 2: Multilingualism policy as integration policy (HS 1134)
Fri, 10:00 – 10:30 Nettie Boivin “Multiliteracies Community of Learning – Shifting from Product to Process” Thu, 11:00 – 11:30 Andrea Cnyrim “How Can Virtual Interpreting Help to Overcome Language Barriers?” Fri, 09:30 – 10:00 Eva Juarros Daussà “Minority Language Families in Diaspora: Factors for language transmission among migrant Catalans in New York City” Fri, 11:30 – 12:00 Gisella Ferraresi & Elvis N´cho „Das Nouchi - von missachtetem Soziolekt zur Integrations- und Identitätssprache“ Thu, 12:30 – 13:00 Karijin Helsloot & Virginie Mamadouh “Knowledge enhancement and social inclusiveness through free to choose your language course in regular schools in Amsterdam” Thu, 12:00 – 12:30 Birgit Hernády & Christoph Hofrichter “The university as a linguistic and cultural mediator: the challenges of “German as a foreign language”” Thu, 11:30 – 12:00 Verena Hoffmann “The Welcome Class – a Room for Multilingualism?” Fri, 14:30 – 15:00 Anna Khalizova “Plurilingual interactions in an enrollment office in Germany” Fri, 15:00 – 15:30 Michael M. Kretzer “Language policy in Malawi: Factors, contexts and consequences” Fri, 15:30 – 16:00 Shahir Nashed, Mareike Klappert & Alexander Waszynski “Taking Down Barriers: Arabic, Farsi and the Necessity of Multilingualism in School and on Campus” Fri, 11:00 – 11:30 Rebecca Van Herck & Dieter Vermandere “Multilingualism in terms of democratic and social cohesion”
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Multiliteracies Community of Learning – Shifting from Product to Process Nettie Boivin Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan Kazakhstan is a trilingual country (Kazakh, Russian and English) due to government policy. However, due to years of Soviet colonialism, Russian dominates the literacy and language practices for education, which is imposed on the revitalizing Kazakh community. Now, for children trying to learn Kazakh there is a gap in engaging age appropriate literacy resources. Additionally, there are very little digital multilingual resources. Compounded with this is the lack of awareness in the Kazakh community about how to participate in literacy practices because previously under the Soviet system this was left to the state. This research analyzes a transnational cultural multiliteracies approach to creating multilingual digital resources through co-constructing communities of learning. Moreover, the aim of the research is to investigate whether raising family and community members’ awareness of their influence in their children’s literacy learning increase participation? Are parents fully aware of the role they can play in multilingual, multiliteracies resource development through creating active community of learning? The methodology used was qualitative participatory observation, one-on-one interviews, triangulated with quantitative pre- and post- session questionnaires. The data collection including interviews totaled 25 hours. The multilingual multiliteracies sessions were videotaped using smartphones, tablets, and camcorders. All taped data was normed and compared against interview data and observation data. Findings revealed that raising awareness within a community of learning context that highlighted multiliteracies which increased all members’ participation at home. In addition, participants realized that it was not just parents but all community members who played an important role in multilingual and multiliteracies community learning.
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How Can Virtual Interpreting Help to Overcome Language Barriers? Andrea Cnyrim Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, Germany Language barriers hamper the communication and cause efficiency losses in local authorities who have to deal with increasing numbers of migrants and refugees in Germany, facing limited or no proficiency of the other’s language on both sides. However, these migrants are often housed in rural areas where little experience of the target group and few qualified language mediators are available. The Integration Act of 2016 gave migrants access to different levels of social participation, including the labour market, more rapidly. Consequently multilingual interaction was expected to increase in local authorities. Therefore Rheinland-Palatinat’s Development Agency tasked the author to set up and test a Virtual Interpretation Pool meeting high quality standards. In cooperation with Mainz University’s School of Translation and Interpreting (Germersheim Campus) this service was provided from June to October 2015. One of the most surprising results was that the public authorities remained reluctant to use the attractive offer – notwithstanding obvious advantages. This paper will evaluate the results of the project and discuss the chances and risks of virtual interpreting as compared to on-site community interpreting (cf. Meyer 2002, Pöchhacker 2007 and 1999, Snell-Hornby et. al. 1998). It will define the technical, professional, ethical and legal requisites and minimal standards and substantiate the claims with examples from the project. Furthermore, it will discuss advances in the use of technology and its chances and risks today as compared to on-site interpretation in this specific context (cf. Ko 2006, Wadensjö 1999). It will carefully assess alternatives, especially those frequently used by the local authorities, and their consequences for all parties involved. Finally it will delimit the types of situations this method of interpretation needs to remain restricted to.
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Minority Language Families in Diaspora: Factors for language transmission among migrant Catalans in New York City Eva J. Daussà University of Groningen, Netherlands Linguistic and cultural integration of children with migrant parents is a task ideally shared by teachers and parents, and in which multilingualism is oftentimes a natural consequence. Therefore, both families and teachers can benefit from understanding why parents decide to transmit which of their languages or not, and how they manage. Mixed and migrant families offer a particularly interesting case, since typically parents are forced to make conscious choices regarding their language repertoire. They can also illuminate the dynamics concerning societal multilingualism, where choices might be more environmentally mediated. I present one such case within the USA, a rich multilingual society, yet where, due to dominant ideologies promoting the hegemony of English, intergenerational transmission of other languages is oftentimes weak. Through a questionnaire and interviews, I examine linguistic practices and ideologies by multilingual families residing in NYC, in which one of the parents is born in Catalonia. Potential languages for transmission are: two locally available and globally projected languages, English and Spanish; and Catalan, not only a minoritized language at home, but also one with no presence in the American landscape. In the sample of 62 families, parents transmitted Catalan in a surprising proportion, and in many cases at the cost of Spanish. A motivational analysis revealed that the determinant factor was the distribution of integrative and personal values among the languages and the symbolic role that the languages had in the construction of identity. This population is compared with the NYC Galician community, which presents similar sociolinguistic characteristics, but opposite linguistic choices. An analysis of language ideologies reveals that the spreading ideology of minority cosmopolitanism in Catalonia, but not Galicia, might also be influencing language choices in the diaspora.
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Das Nouchi - von missachtetem Soziolekt zur Integrationsund Identitätssprache Gisella Ferraresi & Elvis N’cho Otto Friedrich University of Bamberg, Germany Nach der Unabhängigkeit im Jahr 1960 und dem darauf folgenden wirtschaftlichen Aufschwung der Elfenbeinküste erlebte die Hauptstadt Abidjan eine rasche Urbanisierung. Französisch wurde in der Verfassung der Elfenbeinküste als einzige Schul- und Amtssprache eingeführt (Kouadio 1977). Mit mehr als über 60 in diesem neuen Staat gesprochenen Sprachen liegt dieser Entscheidung das Streben nach einer Nation mit einer einzigen Sprache zugrunde. Da allerdings nur die Elite die französische Sprache richtig beherrschte, Französisch für viele Kinder jedoch eine Fremdsprache war, die in der Schule eine Barriere darstellte, mussten viele ivorische Kinder die Schule mit einem unterdurchschnittlichen Niveau verlassen. Die wirtschaftliche Rezession Ende der 70er Jahre führte dazu, dass viele Kinder, meist von Arbeitern, die ihre Arbeit verloren und keine staatliche Unterstützung genossen, zu sogenannten ‚Straßenkindern‘ wurden und zusammen mit vielen Waisenkindern auf der Straße lebten (Kouadio 1990). Diese Straßenkinder - als Delinquenten betrachtet - entwickelten einen Code, der schnell zu einem Soziolekt wurde, der aber wie seine Benutzer in den 80er und in der ersten Hälfte der 90er Jahre in der Gesellschaft stigmatisiert und in der Schule sowie im Familienkreis verboten war, nämlich das Nouchi. Ab der zweiten Hälfte der 90er Jahre fand das Nouchi seinen Weg in die Schulen und Universitäten, und in den 2000er Jahren wird das Nouchi sogar von Politikern als Nachahmung der Jugendsprache verwendet. Die öffentliche Debatte erreicht heute einen Punkt, an dem es darum geht, ob das Nouchi normiert werden soll bzw. kann und wie diese Normierung erfolgen soll. Nouchi scheint also zur Identitäts- und Integrationssprache geworden zu sein (Aboa 2005). In unserem Vortrag werden wir anhand von Sprachbiographien von Sprechern verschiedener Generationen und unterschiedlicher sozialen Status zeigen, wie der von Straßenkindern entwickelte, dann verbotene Soziolekt (die ‚Delinquentensprache‘) für viele Ivorer - im Inland sowie im Ausland - u.a. durch Medien und Musik zum Ausdruck einer ivorischen Identität geworden ist. Zudem werden wir diskutieren, ob das Nouchi wie die meisten Jugendsprachen bei Erwachsenen durch eine andere Varietät ersetzt wird und anschließend, welche Spuren die Sprachpolitik der Elfenbeinküste bei den unterschiedlichen Sprechergenerationen hinterlassen hat. 15
Knowledge enhancement and social inclusiveness through free to choose your language course in regular schools in Amsterdam Karijn Helsloot¹ & Virginie Mamadouh² ¹Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands, ²University of Amsterdam, Netherlands In the Netherlands, the educational language policy is mostly restrained to the national language(s) Dutch (and Frisian) and the foreign languages English, French and German. However, new initiatives are designed to address ‘home languages’ within the school system. We focus on a pilot supported by the municipality of Amsterdam to allow secondary school pupils to choose a language X to be learned. This language X may be the home language of the student, if different from one of the school languages, but it may also be another language. Initially, six languages will be offered including Arabic, Russian and Turkish, but being successful the aim is an array of languages. The digital achievements make this ground-breaking approach feasible. The very fact that pupils can choose to be certified in their home language, is expected to foster inclusiveness as well as socio-economic empowerment, reducing the rate of early school leaving as well as of the high unemployment among ethnic minorities. The programme also targets ethnically Dutch pupils, to choose a ‘different’ foreign language to learn. Peer exchanges and mutual learning aim at favouring inter-ethnic understanding and social cohesiveness, and new forms of blended and adaptive learning replace traditional classroom didactics. The programme exemplifies the European strategy to education and training (ET 2020). The presentation examines the potential of the programme for knowledge enhancement and social inclusiveness in the light of the institutional context in which it is implemented.
European Commission, ET2020: Strategic framework for European cooperation in Education and Training. http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/strategic-framework_en Helsloot, C.J. & V. Mamadouh, Report Expert meeting MIME, 15 March 2016 http://meertaligamsterdam.socsci.uva.nl/Report%20MIME%2015%20March%202016%20for%20MIM E%2015%20June%202016.pdf
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The university as a linguistic and cultural mediator: the challenges of “German as a foreign language” Birgit Hernády & Christoph Hofrichter University of Applied Sciences Graz, Austria More than one year ago, Austria and Germany opened their borders to thousands of refugees fleeing from war and terror. This paper examines the changed situation of “German as a foreign language” at the FH JOANNEUM University of Applied Sciences in Styria, Austria. “DaF ”, “DaZ*”; “German”? Terminological limits in language teaching The International Relations department at FH JOANNEUM has been offering German courses for 15 years: initially to a handful of exchange students, who were joined by regular international students about five years ago. Finally, since autumn 2016, asylum seekers have formed a new target group. Since then, the questions surrounding “DaF”, “DaZ” have become somewhat less important, because the reasons for the target groups to learn German vary significantly. Opening up German courses and universities to asylum seekers – experiences, challenges and visions The opening of the German courses at FH JOANNEUM in September 2015 has put the entire team to the test. Organizing the courses represented a challenge, of course, and so did assigning students to the different levels, which had to be done quickly and efficiently. The level of (university) education (and often the lack of it), which is an admission criterion, was particularly difficult to assess. Initially, people worried about how other learners would react. In most cases, these worries proved unfounded. Cultural challenges: the underrated cultural aspect in German courses Until recently, the culture of the host country played a minor role in the German course. However, with the increased number of regular international students and especially asylum seekers, cultural aspects became an important part of learning German – as did dealing with human destinies and cultural backgrounds. “Cultural mediation” must in no way be understood as an “integration measure”, but rather as an intercultural approach. Intercultural and communicative learning as part of German courses or vice versa! The intercultural programme R.U.D.I (respectful – united – diverse – intercultural) introduced in autumn 2016 is aimed to provide all students with a basis for their advanced (German) classes of their degree courses. The boundaries between language and culture are gradually blurred in these courses (e.g. “Communication in an intercultural context”), which goes hand in hand with a greater understanding of one’s own and the other culture and language.
German as a foreign language * German as a second language
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The Welcome Class – a Room for Multilingualism? Verena Hoffmann Free University of Berlin, Germany Today, discussions about language acquisition processes and the identity development of newly immigrated children and youths are on the daily agenda of educational policy, especially when dealing with the issue of integration. As part of my doctoral project, I therefore investigate how the multilingual identity of schoolchildren is perceived, constructed and evaluated in the so-called “welcome classes”. The fact that the importance of the acquisition of the German language is constantly emphasised, whereas the pupils' multilingual competence is hardly paid any attention to, has already been described in recent research works (see Krumm 2009, Gogolin 1994). Yet, especially a self-conscious dealing with the own multilingualism (for the concept of “language awareness” see Svalberg 2016) can positively influence the self-image and, in so doing, have a positive effect on educational aspirations and integration. The negative evaluation of the heritage languages (see Silverstein 1979 on the topic of “language ideologies”) and the thereby realised deprivation of multilingualism through rather monoculturally and monolingually organised societies, on the other hand, have a negative impact on the self-concept of these children (see Krumm 2009, Gogolin 1994). Consequently, the present research work will capture the multilingual identity of these schoolchildren from two major perspectives (including the “bottom-up” and the “top-down” processes), by examining it, on the one hand, within the field of tension between the individual, dynamic linguistic biography (see Franceschini 2001) and the collective multilingualism of society, and, on the other hand, by reflecting it against this background. The “Guideline on the Integration of Newly Immigrated Children and Youths in Daycare and School” (in German: Leitfaden zur Integration von neu zugewanderten Kindern und Jugendlichen in der Kindertagesförderung und die Schule; Berlin, 2016) is hence the starting point of my analysis and represents the institutional level of the conceptual framework for the linguistic integration of these schoolchildren. The planned presentation centres upon the sociolinguistic study I could conduct within the school year of 2015/16 at the Humboldt Secondary School in Berlin. This study includes one-to-one semistructured interviews with schoolchildren, teachers and social workers of the welcome classes as well as with the school's directors. The qualitative evaluation of these interviews shows exemplarily what influence the external ideological categorisation of language and ethnic origin does have on the individual's acceptation of multilingualism and language acquisition. Besides, and based on my initial results, the relationship between the schoolchildren's and teachers' degree of “language awareness” and their perception and evaluation of the multilingual identity can be explained.
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Plurilingual interactions in an enrollment office in Germany Anna Khalizova Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany My presentation focuses on a form-based Lingua Franca enrollment consultation provided for students. In this consultation, experienced students counsel international freshmen and simultaneously fill in their enrollment documents. The data basis of my work is composed of audio and video recordings that were gathered during counseling sessions for the enrollment of international students at the office of IAS (International Admission and Services) at the University of Freiburg in the summer terms of 2014, 2015 and 2016. Students and advisors from 51 different countries participated in the study. The dominant languages in these sessions were German and English, each acting as a Lingua Franca. I am interested in analyzing the process of understanding and the features of a type of conversation in which a form is filled in at the same time. At the center of my work is the analysis of linguisticcommunicative and multimodal (physical-visual) practices (viewing direction, use of gestures, head movement and body position) during the documentation and the negotiation of meaning (Deppermann et al. 2010). This type of conversation is characterized on the one hand by the necessity of continuously filling in the form and on the other hand by those tactics that are typical in a bilingual conversation to ensure and negotiate meaning, e.g. code-switching (Auer 1984). In contrast to conversations that focus solely on counseling, conversations in which data collection occurs during the conversation have rarely been studied up to this point. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that within the professional sphere understanding is a multimodal process that is documented in written as well as in oral form.
Auer, Peter (1984): Bilingual conversation. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Deppermann, Arnulf/ Reitemeier, Ulrich/ Schmitt, Reinhold/ Spranz-Fogasy, Thomas (2010): Verstehen in professionellen Handlungsfeldern. Tübingen: Narr.
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Language policy in Malawi: Factors, contexts and consequences Michael M. Kretzer Justus-Liebig University of Giessen, Germany The article examines the different factors and contexts which have influenced language policy in Malawi from pre-colonial times, the missionaries up until today, and highlights the implications of language policy - both politically, educationally and socially. The article has its main focus on the education system. Next to literature review and document analysis, semi-structured interviews, mainly with secondary school teachers, were conducted in Mzimba District. The study ascertains that current language practices were founded on the actions of various missionary groups, whose impact on the development of languages like Chichewa, Chitumbuka or Chiyao is persistent. Furthermore the longstanding dictatorship of Hastings Kamuzu Banda has influenced language attitude(s), practices and the overall language policy. However, since the election of the former president Bakili Muluzi and the new multi-party democracy, the policy has been characterised by linguistic pluralism although the lack of implementation hinders a sustainable development of the indigenous languages. The paper concludes that the implementation of language policy in Malawi, like in many other African countries, faces many challenges and is riddled with contradictions whether implicit or explicit. Keywords: Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT), linguistic justice, language attitude, linguistic pluralism.
References: Albaugh, E. A. (2014). State-building and multilingual education in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kamwendo, G. H:, (2010). Denigrating the local, glorifying the foreign: Malawian language policies in the era of African Renaissance. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies – Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, 5 (2), 270-282. Kayambazinthu, E. (1999). The language planning situation in Malawi. In R. Kapman, & R. Baldauf (Ed.) Language planning in Malawi, Mozambique and the Philippine (pp. 15-86). Sydney: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Kretzer, Michael M. and Kumwenda, Joshua (2016). Language policy in Malawi: a study of its contexts, factors for its development and consequences. In: Marang: Journal of Language and Literature, 27, 20-38. 20
Taking Down Barriers: Arabic, Farsi and the Necessity of Multilingualism in School and on Campus Shahir Nashed, Mareike Klappert & Alexander Waszynski University of Erfurt, Germany The Arabic language in teaching is becoming more and more important in society due to the current situation in Europe. It was common that is often associated with Islam. My lessons, as eligibility-free classes, consider language as a communication medium and especially between young people who have their own language. By several projects, which are multilingual, I always observe barriers disappear, if we can simply talk to each other. “Tell me more about you” is the motto of the workshops that I offer in schools. Addressees are scholars from different regions. They were every time after the workshop very happy hearing their language at school. In the second part of our presentation we will discuss a project launched by the initiative “MehrSprache” at the University of Erfurt. In Spring 2016 we started with a multilingual lecture series, addressing current topics from a different linguistic angle, e.g. “On the Idea of Human Dignity in the German Constitution and in Koran” (Arabic) or “Everyday-life Resistance in Iran” (Farsi). A simultaneous or consecutive translation to German, English or Arabic – most often provided by Shahir Nashed - allows for a broader public to participate in and contribute to sometimes highly controversial discussions. The language barrier that often prevents an active participation in scientific) discourse can at least be weakened by the employment of multilingualism. While the project aims at pluralizing the scientific languages spoken on campus and quite successfully reaches a diverse public, it also faces difficulties. We will thus focus both on the troubles and benefits of our project.
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Multilingualism in terms of democratic and social cohesion Rebecca Van Herck & Dieter Vermandere Instituut voor Professionele en Academische Communicatie, Belgium
When public servants in Belgium need to use Dutch and French, two of the three official languages of Belgium, for their jobs, they are entitled to a language bonus, ranging from €20 to €110 per month. This bonus depends on the geographical location of the job. In Brussels (a bilingual area with French/Dutch), the employees (window clerks) of a state-owned, public service company (company X) receive this bonus. But their coworkers in Flanders (a monolingual area (Dutch)), are not entitled to this financial bonus, even though they use French daily to communicate with customers. In this talk, we review and evaluate the specific language policy of company X and illustrate the reasons behind it, taking into account the Belgian language laws, and review the general costs (yearly expenditures) of the language bonus. Furthermore, based on the results of a survey study of 129 participants working for company X in Flanders we can also outline the effects this language bonus has on the employees’ “beliefs” (Spolsky 2009) about multilingualism on the work floor, and the use of the language bonus. It will be shown that the effects of the language bonus are not really perceived as “enhancing multilingualism”.
References SPOLSKY, B. 2009. Language Management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Strand 3: Didactics of multilingualism (HS 1139 / HS 1132* / HS 1142**)
Sat, 10:30 – 11:00 Mailin Antomo & Silke Leyendecker “Language Comparison at Secondary School - Aims, Challenges, and Teaching Materials” Fri, 15:00 – 15:30 Ramona Baumgartner, Frank Fuchshuber & Tanja Rinker ”Developing multilingual practices across institutions” Fri, 14:30 – 15:00* Marie-Louise Brunner & Stefan Diemer “Language diversity in the classroom – New approaches to multilingual language teaching” Thu, 15:30 – 16:00 Öveges Enikő “High-stake foreign language exams in school education, or what counts as certified proficiency in Hungary?” Fri, 11:00 – 11:30* Yüksel Ekinci „Mehrsprachigkeit und institutioneller Wandel – Förderung der Sprachen der Schüler/innen aus Zuwandererfamilien an deutschen Schulen“ Fri, 15:00 – 15:30* Meriem Gueche “Multilingualism Effects on the Acquisition of English Vocabulary” Sat, 10:00 – 10:30 Karijin Helsloot, Conny Boendermaker & Enoch O. Aboh. “Sharing Grammars: A teacher training programme for multilingual classrooms” Sat, 09:30 – 10:00 ** Susana Higueres Ruiz & Ulrike Szigeti “How to learn Romance languages in a more efficient way.The plurilingual approach to language learning helps to develop talents in the foreign language classroom” Fri, 14:30 – 15:00 Martina Irsara “Promoting linguistic awareness in teacher education: English motion events in a multilingual language-teaching model” Fri, 15:30 – 16:00 Iris Kleinbub & Kevin Isaac “Methodological composition of L1 language lessons under multilingual conditions” Thu, 12:30 – 13:00 Anna Kuhnt „Mehrsprachigkeit im Deutschunterricht an iranischen Hochschulen“
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Fri, 15:30-16:00* Sanne Larsen & Anne Holmen “Qualifying and Expanding Parallel Language Policy: Towards More Languages for More Students” Fri, 11:30 – 12:00 Karin Madlener, Katrin Skoruppa & Heike Behrens “Language assessment for multilingual preschoolers: Options and desiderata from a usage-based perspective” Thu, 11:30 – 12:00 Ute Massler & Dominik Unterthiner „Training von Leseflüssigkeit in Schul- und Fremdsprachen mit Hilfe von mehrsprachigen Lesetheatern“ Fri, 09:30 – 10:00 Eva Nelz “Integrating Grammatical Knowledge in L2 Teaching in Higher Education” Sat, 09:30 – 10:00 Diana Peppoloni & Chiara Demi “Building digital tools in support of multilingual meta-didactic terminology: the development of a multilingual digital glossary for Language Teaching” Fri, 09:00 – 09:30 Sylvie Richard & Susanne Hecht “Qualified self-documentation of language knowledge with EPOS” Thu, 15:00 – 15:30 Piotr Romanowski “Translanguaging in the Polish educational context: a study of international schools” Thu, 11:00 – 11:30 Christa Röber „Die Zeichen der Schrift als Veranschaulichung der Merkmale des Deutschen nutzen. Ein lerneffektives Konzept für den DAF- und DAZ- Unterricht“ Fri, 11:30 – 12:00* Yazgül Şimşek „Literalität und Ressourcen Kurdisch-Deutsch zweisprachiger Kinder: Empirische Einblicke und Potentiale für die Schule“ Fri, 10:00 – 10:30 Ilse Stangen & Karin Cudak “Multilingual and Inclusive Didactics in Science Classes – a teaching and research project of the Hamburg University” Thu, 12:00 – 12:30 Dominik Unterthiner & Ute Massler „Mehrsprachiges Vorlesen der Lehrperson in Schul- und Fremdsprache in der Sekundarstufe I (MeVoL): Auswertungen zu Scaffoldingaufgaben, Strategietraining und Akzeptanz des Designs“ Fri, 11:00 – 11:30 Carolin Zehne “Exploring Attitudes Towards ELF in Germany: The Need for Appropriate Training and the Gap between Theory and Practice”
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Sprachvergleich in der Sekundarstufe. Ein Unterrichtsbeispiel zu Nullsubjekten. Mailin Antomo¹ & Silke Leyendecker² ¹Georg-August University of Göttingen, Germany, ²Otto-Schott-Gymnasium Mainz, Germany Der typische Klassenraum in einer Schule in Deutschland ist mehrsprachig. Schüler und Schülerinnen beherrschen neben den Schulfremdsprachen häufig noch weitere Sprachen. Dennoch werden diese Sprachen nur selten in den Schulunterricht miteinbezogen und das damit verbundene Potential bleibt oft ungenutzt. Die Gründe hierfür sind vielfältig, betreffen aber vor allem Zeitmangel, mangelnde Lehrmaterialien und Unzulänglichkeiten in der Lehrerausbildung. In diesem Vortrag werden wir, anlehnend an Oomen-Welke (2002), Rothstein (2011) u.a., diskutieren, warum der Einbezug von sprachvergleichenden Elementen in den Deutschunterricht wichtig ist. Sprachvergleich in der Schule fördert nicht nur die sprachanalytischen Fähigkeiten und die Sprachbewusstheit. Der Einbezug der Herkunftssprachen der Schüler und Schülerinnen verfolgt auch ein affektives Lernziel, indem den Herkunftssprachen, welche häufig unter einem niedrigen sozialen Prestige leiden, Anerkennung gezollt wird. Da die praktische Umsetzung von sprachintegrativen Elementen häufig an mangelndem Lehrmaterial scheitert, werden wir im zweiten Teil des Vortrags einen Unterrichtsentwurf zu Nullsubjekten vorstellen. Das Ziel dieser Lehreinheit für die Sekundarstufe besteht darin, die Unterschiede zwischen Nullsubjektsprachen (wie Italienisch oder Polnisch) und Sprachen, die den Wegfall des Subjektpronomens nicht erlauben (wie Deutsch oder Englisch) herauszuarbeiten. Wir zeigen Unterrichtsmaterialien, die es den Schülern und Schülerinnen ermöglichen, selbstständig eine Hypothese zu entwickeln, warum einige Sprachen Nullsubjekte zulassen, wohingegen dies in anderen Sprachen ausgeschlossen ist.
References: Oomen-Welke, Ingelore (2002): Umgang mit Vielsprachigkeit im Deutschunterricht – Sprachen wahrnehmen und sichtbar machen. In: Deutsch lernen 25, 143-163. Rothstein, Björn (2011): Deutschunterricht und Qualifikation in der Herkunftssprache? In: Rothstein, Björn (ed.): Sprachvergleich in der Schule. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren, 9-26. 25
Developing multilingual practices across institutions Ramona Baumgartner, Frank Fuchshuber & Tanja Rinker University of Konstanz, Germany It has been suggested that formal instruction in the heritage language determines the level of the attainment in that heritage language (Kupisch & Rothman, 2016; Polinsky & Kagan, 2007). Our current project examines the connection between multilingual children’s backgrounds, linguistic skills, and educational contexts in early childhood in children with and without heritage language education. The data comprises results of 119 participants forming two main groups: 1) Italian-German children with formal instruction in L1 and L2 2) Children with diverse language backgrounds without formal instruction in languages other than German. Their language performance was assessed on vocabulary, reading, and grammar in German and where applicable in Italian. The children’s language background was thoroughly assessed in a detailed parent questionnaire. Our data shows a decline in the family use of heritage languages (e.g. family language use, book reading etc.) in the early childhood in the Italian-German children and in the diverse group around the entry into the school setting. However, the instruction in the heritage language Italian leads to a small increase in the productive language abilities. The results of the language assessments show a relationship between vocabulary, grammar, and reading competences in different languages. Our results are currently transferred into a training cycle for teachers and educators across educational settings. Opportunities and methods to integrate the heritage languages into the mainstream classroom will be discussed.
Kupisch, T. and Rothman, J. (2016) Terminology matters! Why difference is not incompleteness and how early child bilinguals are heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism. Polinsky, M., & Kagan, O. (2007). Heritage languages: In the 'wild' and in the classroom. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1(5), 368–395.
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Language diversity in the classroom – New approaches to multilingual language teaching Marie-Louise Brunner & Stefan Diemer Saarland University, Saarland Communication in a multilingual setting poses challenges from both a linguistic and a didactic perspective. In the European Union, the acquisition of at least two foreign languages demanded by the EU’s Barcelona objective (European Council 2002) has proven difficult to implement, prompting new concepts such as proposed in the European Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures (FREPA, Candelier et al. 2012). FREPA advocates the integration of multilingual teaching in an intercultural setting and the use of new didactic approaches such as Awakening to Languages and Intercomprehension (Stegmann & Klein 2000, Klein & Reissner 2006). Intercomprehensive methods are used for teaching several languages simultaneously, while the Awakening to Languages approach serves to playfully raise language awareness. The Web as a Corpus (Hundt et al. 2007, Diemer 2011) approach also provides a useful resource for teaching across languages, for example by enabling a playful exploration of a variety of languages with Google Trends, e.g. heritage languages, languages of the European Union, or languages with different structures or writing systems. These approaches focus on establishing awareness for different languages and cultures, and by demonstrating similarities between languages and regularities in the systems of languages on creating synergy effects for language learners.
References: Candelier et al. 2012. FREPA: A Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures: Competences and Resources. Strasbourg/Graz: Council of Europe. Diemer, Stefan. 2011. Corpus linguistics with Google. Proceedings of ISLE 2, Boston, 2008. European Council. 2002. Presidency conclusions: Barcelona European Council 15 and 16 March 2002 - EN. Hundt, Marianne; Carolin Biewer; and Nadja Nesselhauf. 2007. Corpus Linguistics and the Web. (Language and Computers.) Amsterdam: Rodopi. Klein, Horst; and Christina Reissner. 2006. Basismodul English. Aachen: Shaker. Stegmann, Tilbert; and Horst Klein. 2000. EuroComRom – Die sieben Siebe: Romanische Sprachen sofort lesen können. Aachen: Shaker.
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High-stake foreign language exams in school education, or what counts as certified proficiency in Hungary? Öveges Enikő Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary Language education has been an evergreen focus in both the academic and nonacademic worlds, and the same applies even more markedly to its assessment and recognition. In Hungary, the recent educational policy decisions have generated major changes in the roles, aims and even numbers of high-stake foreign language proficiency exams in school education (Öveges, 2007; 2013), which has revived heated discussions on 1) the concept of useful language competence, 2) the requirements set for the expected language output, and 3) the reliability and validity of the relevant exams. The talk will focus on the present language proficiency exams in Hungarian school education; it will elaborate on 1) the two-level school-leaving exam in foreign languages (Fazekas, 2009; Vígh, 2013), and the related amendments to be introduced from 2017 onwards (Halápi and Hegedűs, 2014); 2) the surveys on foreign language proficiency in grades 6 and 8, launched in 2015; 3) the exams launched in 2014 for the dual-language school students in grades 8 and 10 (Nikolov & Szabó, 2016); and 4) the relevant points about the ’hungaricum’ system of accredited, profit-oriented language exams (Bárdos, 2016). The aim is to provide a brief and critical overview of this renewed and complex, still fallible inventory of examinations in terms of their planning and implementation. The doublefold approach of exploiting both testing and language policy perspectives allows the establishment of a firm situational and theoretical basis for the identification and further empirical investigation of the benefits and drawbacks of the system of certified foreign language proficiency at schools in Hungary. The relevance of the exploration is enhanced by the recent introduction of a new regulation, according to which a certificate of B2 level (Common European, 2001) language exam will be required as an obligatory entry condition to higher education. As an additional angle, aspects such as the European trends and equal opportunities will also be reflected upon.
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Mehrsprachigkeit und institutioneller Wandel – Förderung der Sprachen der Schüler/innen aus Zuwandererfamilien an deutschen Schulen Yüksel Ekinci Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, Germany Das Lernen und Sprechen von europäischen Sprachen besitzen ein hohes Prestige an deutschen Schulen und sie werden entsprechend gefördert. Tatsache ist, dass in den Schulen durch die Zuwanderung nicht nur europäische Sprachen vertreten sind, sondern auch Sprachen wie Arabisch, Kurdisch, Türkisch, Dari etc. Mehrsprachigkeit ist somit bereits Alltag in den deutschen Schulen und erfordert institutionelle Weichenstellungen für die Zukunft der Schulentwicklung. Wie können Schulen der veränderten mehrsprachigen Gesellschaft in Deutschland gerecht werden? Werden die Nicht-EU-Sprachen in den Schulen adäquat gefördert? Institutionen wie die Schule müssen in der Zukunft auf die mehrsprachige Gesellschaft reagieren können, um allen Schüler/innen Bildungschancen zu ermöglichen. Dieser Vortrag befasst sich mit der Förderung der Sprachen der zugewanderten Schüler/innen aus Nicht-EU-Ländern als Herkunftssprache, Begegnungssprache und Fremdsprache an deutschen Schulen. Abschließend wird diskutiert, welche Chancen und Potenziale diese Förderung der Sprachen der Schüler/innen aus Zuwandererfamilien für die sprachliche Integration in der Schule und in der Mehrheitsgesellschaft birgt.
Literatur Ekinci, Y./Hoffmann, L/Leimbrink K./Selmani, L. (2013) Migration-Mehrsprachigkeit-Bildung. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Ekinci, Yüksel und Günesli Habib (2016) Studie zur Mehrsprachigkeit im Alltag von Schule und Unterricht in Deutschland. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Hoffmann, Ludger (2011) Mehrsprachigkeit im funktionalen Sprachunterricht. In: Hoffmann, Ludger/EkinciKocks (2011) Sprachdidaktik in mehrsprachigen Lerngruppen. Hohengehren: Schneider, S. 10-28 Hoffmann, Ludger (2016) Mehrsprachige Schule. In: Hoffmann, Ludger/Kamayama, Shinici/Riedel, Monika/Sahiner/Pembe (Hrsg): Deutsch als Zweitsprache. Grundlagen für die Lehrerausbildung. Berlin: Erich Schmid 29
Multilingualism effects on the acquisition of English vocabulary Meriem Gueche University of Paris 8, France This study seeks to investigate the effects of multilingualism on the acquisition of phonology and vocabulary among university learners of English. Firstly, we examine the learners’ acquisition of some salient phonological features. Our hypothesis is that a learner’s multilingual competence does not necessarily hinder the acquisition of an additional language. Secondly, we are concerned with the consequences a prior lexical competence could have on the acquisition of a new lexicon. We believe that the size and richness of a learner’s vocabulary is affected by their multilingual competence since they already possess a well-established double or triple lexical competence in the languages they speak, and this helps them (although not always) express ideas through different means. The data are collected from a multicultural and multilingual population in a French university. We start by conducting a survey whose aim is to make a classification of the different languages spoken by these learners, and to determine their competence in using them. Furthermore, we put together two tests: a pronunciation test to assess the learners’ phonological productions which are analyzed through receptive and acoustic means, and a lexical competence test which involves the evaluation the participants’ productive vocabulary through timed essay writing. The data will be analyzed using univariate and multivariate statistics, and will help us reveal some patterns about how multilingualism shapes the acquisition of phonology and vocabulary. Keywords: L2 acquisition, multilingualism, phonology, vocabulary.
References Gass, Susan M. & Carolyn N. Madden (eds.). 1985. Input in Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, London, Tokyo: Newbury House Publishers. Pawlak, Miroslaw & Larissa Aronin (eds.). 2014. Essential Topics in Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism: Studies in Honor of David Singleton. Cham, Heidelberg: Springer International Publishing Switzerland. Singleton David, Joshua A. Fishman, Larissa Aronin & Muiris O Laoire (eds.). 2013. Current Multilingualism: A New Linguistic Dispensation. Boston, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Inc. Wei Li & Melissa G. Moyer (eds.). 2008. The Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilingualism and Multilingualism. Massachusetts, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 30
Sharing Grammars: A teacher training programme for multilingual classrooms Karijn Helsloot¹, Conny Boendermaker¹ & Enoch O. Aboh² ¹ Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands, ²University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Today’s mosaic classrooms show pupil populations of which half or more have another first language than the national, or language of instruction. In addition to bilingual programmes based on two pre-determined languages, multilingual programmes are needed in classrooms with pupils with different linguistic background. To train teachers to deal with such a linguistic diversity we launched Sharing Grammars, a programme in which basic concepts and structural properties form the basis to exploring and understanding language similarities and dissimilarities. The language faculty is shared by all speakers wherever they were born, or whatever first language was spoken to them. The mental concepts, the building blocks and the basic principles responsible for meaningful language are very much universally shared. The language-specific selection from the set of building blocks, and the language-specific way in which these blocks can be structured, give rise to the Babylonian diversity, from which individual variations sprout and evolve into a myriad of expressions. In our talk we focus on the concept Person, on its linguistic properties and manifestations in languages frequently observed in Dutch classrooms. How person expressed in pronouns? What about Naming and reference? How is case encoded in personal pronouns and noun phrases? All these questions may lead to a variety of didactic activities motivating pupils to think about their own languages and to compare them with others. A pro-drop language like Italian differs from Dutch or English in the way verbal subjects are marked, by an overt personal pronoun or by a verbal affix. What does a primary school teacher need to know about these linguistic phenomena? And how can the teacher make it possible for the pupils speaking Arabic, Turkish, Surinamese, Polish or Tigrinya to enjoy the exploration?
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How to learn Romance languages in a more efficient way. The plurilingual approach to language learning helps to develop talents in the foreign language classroom Susana Higueras Ruiz¹ & Ulrike Szigeti² ¹University of Salzburg, Austria, ²University of Applied Sciences Salzburg, Austria Plurilingual approaches to language education offer great potential with regard to language acquisition and talent development, especially when it comes to learning related languages. The present paper points out the benefits of learning a second romance language: The plurilingual approach supports the language acquisition process and makes it more efficient, encourages the learner’s autonomy, motivation and development of learning strategies. Based on a romance language learnt before, it will be much easier and faster to learn a second foreign language, especially if the two languages interrelate and interact. The plurilingual approach helps to establish the knowledge transfer from the L1 to L2 by means of hypotheses forming and associative thinking processes. As pointed out earlier, this didactic approach benefits talent development. Therefore, language talent is investigated in the context of general scientific theories of intelligence. Gifted learners easily and efficiently can acquire a second or third language and develop their talent. The paper offers some best practice examples for the interlingual language learning process, both in the regular language class and in informal and autonomous learning contexts. It presents a way of how learning a language can be more motivating and efficient when the boundaries between languages are softened and the new language is taught in strong interaction with the foreign language(s) learnt earlier.
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Promoting linguistic awareness in teacher education: English motion events in a multilingual language-teaching model Martina Irsara Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy The young European generations often learn English together with a number of other languages, resulting in what has been termed multilingualism with English (Hoffmann 2000). Nowadays, it is commonly recognised that there is a certain degree of connectivity and conscious or subconscious interplay between the learner’s different languages in the learning of a third or fourth one. The purpose of this paper is to emphasise the importance of promoting cross-linguistic knowledge and awareness among primary teachers in education who will operate in a multilingual educational context. The paper will exemplify how English motion events can be introduced to future primary school teachers from a typological and comparative perspective. The encoding of motion events varies considerably from one language to another, so that the acquisition of language-specific but basic motion verbs (e.g. hop and skip) is sometimes hindered, although kinaesthetic activities could make the topic ideally suited for young learners. Teachers who are aware of the different aspects of motion verbs across languages could plan targeted lessons for children on the topic within the multilingual didactic framework integrierte Sprachendidaktik (Le Pape Racine 2007). This paper will therefore offer theoretical and practical suggestions for lesson design in this education model, which is accepted in the South-Tyrolean Ladin schools, but which still seems to be supported by a restricted amount of materials.
References Hoffmann, C. (2000). The spread of English and the growth of multilingualism with English in Europe. In J. Cenoz & U. Jessner (Eds.), English in Europe: The Acquisition of a Third Language (pp. 1-21). Clevedon / Buffalo / Toronto / Sydney: Multilingual Matters. Le Pape Racine, C. (2007). Integrierte Sprachendidaktik – Immersion und das Paradoxe an ihrem Erfolg. Beiträge zur Lehrerbildung, 25(2), 156-167.
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Methodological composition of L1 language lessons under multilingual conditions Iris Kleinbub¹ & Kevin Isaac² ¹ Ludwigsburg University of Education, Germany, ²Landesinstitut für Schule NRW, Germany By questioning primary school teachers in five German federal states, the study BeLmeR investigates how teachers consider students’ multilingualism while teaching L1 language lessons. The aims of the survey are to learn more about the methodological composition of L1 language lessons under multilingual conditions. Of further interest is whether teachers need support by using multilingualism as a resource to cultivate language awareness. Different approaches exist in German education most of which are rooted in the language awareness concept (Oomen-Welke, 2014; Rothstein, 2010). They are based on the assumption, that reflecting on own and foreign languages may lead to better language learning and self-confidence. Little is known about the realization in L1 language lessons and empirical studies are a desideratum. To close this gap the explorative study uses a questionnaire consisting of open and closed formats. The data is analyzed by using qualitative and quantitative methods. First descriptive results show that teachers recognize the potential of language comparison for language awareness. In their own classroom however they prefer activities focusing the encounter of languages and cultures (e.g. foreign songs, food). Getting an insight into structures of foreign languages seems to be less important for teachers in whose classes are more multilingual students than for those in which are less. The latter rather prefer a situational, spontaneous approach to grammar whereas the first seem to experiment less with language. In further analyses correlations between the implication of multilingualism in teaching and personal teaching experiences of the teachers will be investigated. For a partial sample it will be analyzed how the methodological conception of L1 language lessons effect students ‘achievements in grammar tests.
Oomen-Welke, I. (2014): Didaktik der Sprachenvielfalt. In: B. Ahrenholz, I. Oomen-Welke (Hg.): Deutsch als Zweitsprache. 3. korr. Aufl., Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Hohengehren, S. 479-492. Rothstein, B. (2010): Sprachintegrative Grammatikvermittlung. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
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Mehrsprachigkeit im Deutschunterricht an iranischen Hochschulen Anna Kuhnt University of Isfahan, Iran Anfang 2014 diskutierte die UNESCO zum ersten Mal die Mehrsprachigkeit im Iran. Dabei handelte es sich um Themen wie Bildung, Medien und die Stellung der Minderheiten im Iran. Iran ist seit Jahrhunderten ein Vielvölkerstaat und damit auch ein mehrsprachiges und plurikulturelles Land. Im Laufe der Zeit haben sich etwa 26 Sprachen und unzählige Dialekte entwickelt, darunter Persisch, Azeri, Gilaki und Mazandarani im Norden, Luri-Bakhtiari im Nordwesten, Belutschi im Südosten, Arabisch im Süden, Turkmenisch im Nordosten, Armenisch im Zentraliran, Assyrisch, Kurdisch im Nordwesten, Südkurdisch im Westen, Tatisch, Kaschqai und Judeo-Persisch in verschiedenen Regionen des Landes. Heute sind im Iran insgesamt sechs Sprachfamilien vorzufinden. Dabei bildet die indoeuropäische Sprachfamilie die größte Gruppe. Die offizielle Sprache des Landes ist Persisch, sodass in öffentlichen Räumen wie Schulen und Verwaltungen auf Persisch kommuniziert wird. Neben dieser Amtssprache spricht die Mehrheit der Iraner eine weitere der oben angeführten Sprachen oder stark abweichende Dialekte und ist somit mehrsprachig. – Gründe wie die Globalisierung, Migrationsbewegungen und die Urbanisierung führen dazu, dass das Lernen von Fremdsprachen zunimmt. Deutsch als Fremdsprache hat im Iran in den letzten Jahren aus oben angeführten Ursachen auch immer einen größeren Stellenwert eingenommen. Das Erlernen einer Fremdsprache ist bei Migrationsbewegungen nicht nur notwendig, sondern vergrößert auch die Chance auf einen Arbeitsplatz; sowohl im Aus- als auch im Inland. Dabei kann das Potenzial der Mehrsprachigkeit im Kontext des Erlernens einer Fremdsprache zu Nutzen gemacht werden. In einer Pilotstudie zu Sprachenporträts von jungen mehrsprachigen iranischen Erwachsenen soll gezeigt werden, welche Möglichkeiten es gibt, wie die Vermittlung des Deutschen als Fremdsprache auf mehrsprachige Lerner an iranischen Hochschulen ausgerichtet werden kann. Durch z. B. Sprachvergleiche oder Sprachsensibilisierung anhand von Interkomprehension zwischen verwandten Sprachen können interkulturelles Lernen, Kenntnisse der Sprach- und Kulturvielfalt sowie weitere Kompetenzen gefördert werden. (286 W.)
Literatur: Busch, Brigitta (2010): Die Macht präbabylonischer Phantasien. Ressourcenorientiertes sprachbiographisches Arbeiten. In: Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik LiLi 40, S. 58-82. Busch, Brigitta (2013): Mehrsprachigkeit. Wien: UTB. Franceschini, Rita (2011): Die 'mehrsprachigsten' Bürger Europas. Sprecher von historischen und neuen Minderheitensprachen und ihr Beitrag zur Multikompetenz. In: Eichinger, Ludwig M./Plewnia, Albrecht/Steinle, Melanie (Hg.): Sprache und Integration. Über Mehrsprachigkeit und Migration. Tübingen: Narr, S. 29–54. Hameedy, Mansoor. A. (2005). Bilingualism of Home and School in Iran: Conditions and Consequences as Showcased in PIRLS. Social Science Journal No, 54. University of Azzahra, Iran. Nercissians, Emilia (1996): ‚barresi tschand zabangunegi dar schahr-e tehran‘. Name-ye olum-e ejtema´i; Nr. 8. Online verfügbar unter https://journals.ut.ac.ir/article_15583_1531.html. Schmitt, Rüdiger (2000): Die iranischen Sprachen in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Wiesbaden: Reichert.
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Qualifying and Expanding Parallel Language Policy: Towards More Languages for More Students Sanne Larsen & Anne Holmen University of Copenhagen, Denmark Across non-Anglophone Europe, many universities have responded to internationalization through language policy and planning addressing the interplay between one or more local languages and English. In 2008, the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) joined suit with several other Nordic countries in adopting a parallel language policy aiming at a balance between English and the national language Danish. However, the University has also recently engaged in the development of a new multilingual strategy that promotes several other foreign languages as potentially relevant for students in their academic programs and in their efforts to target the Danish or the international labor market. This fiveyear strategy of More Languages for More Students (2013-2018) has mandate and funding ‘from above’ to carry out a pan-university needs analysis that involves stakeholders at multiples levels of the university and, at the same time, to run a substantial number of pilot projects where ways of addressing students’ diverse needs for different languages and language skills in academic programs and courses can be tried out and evaluated by the participants involved. Based on results of this multilevel needs analysis and the ongoing implementation and evaluation of pilot projects, this paper discusses the core challenge of the UCPH language strategy: to qualify the decision-making related to the implementation of a parallel language policy as it relates to student needs, whilst at the same time expanding the focus to skills in other languages.
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Language assessment for multilingual preschoolers: Options and desiderata from a usage-based perspective Karin Madlener, Katrin Skoruppa & Heike Behrens University of Basel, Switzerland Preschool language assessment aims at the early diagnostics of developmental risks. It targets both multilingual children with German as a second language and monolingual children with German as their first language, who run the risk of language-based educational disadvantages. Currently, preschool language assessment is based on a large range of methods and materials, which are informed by language acquisition theory to a greater or lesser extent. We therefore discuss the following question: Which theoretical, empirical, and practical desiderata for (mono and multilingual) preschool assessment can be derived from current usage-based models of language acquisition? Usage-based approaches do not look at language in terms of isolated abilities, but at contextualized language use. Language assessment should therefore target children’s constructional repertoire as put to use for specific communicative goals in contextualized interaction (instead of testing vocabulary and grammar in a discreteitem fashion). Based on spontaneous longitudinal and elicited German speech data (Leo, Rigol, and Bamberg corpora, CHILDES), we discuss two crucial aspects related to these assumptions: First, the role of scaffolding during data elicitation; second, the selection of an adequate baseline of comparison for data interpretation. (1) In natural conversations, information is typically co-constructed over several turns. Adults’ scaffolding of children’s language productions through clarification requests, elaborations, and reformulations helps children achieve higher levels of in formativeness and linguistic complexity. We illustrate the pervasiveness of adult scaffolding in parent-child interactions and its relevance for four- to five-year-olds’ spontaneous speech. We discuss corresponding desiderata for preschool language assessment. (2) We show how younger monolingual children significantly differ from older children and adults in terms of information density and linguistic complexity in both elicited and spontaneous speech. Particularly multilingual children’s performance should therefore be evaluated against a baseline of performance by same-age peers in the same task, not a potentially written, adult norm.
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Training von Leseflüssigkeit in Schul- und Fremdsprachen mit Hilfe von mehrsprachigen Lesetheatern Ute Massler¹ & Dominik Unterthiner² ¹Weingarten University of Education, Germany, ²Vorarlberg University of Education, Germany Individuelle Mehrsprachigkeit und ungenügende Lesekompetenzen sind gesellschaftlich wie auch bildungspolitisch relevante Themen in den vier Ländern (D/A/CH/L) des EU-Projektes MELT (2014-2017), das das didaktisch-methodische Design «Mehrsprachiges Lesetheater» entwickelt (OECD 2016, online). Im Projekt werden für 6., 7. und 8. Klassen literarische Texte in mehrsprachige dialogische Lesetheaterstücke umgewandelt, je nach landesspezifischem Praxiskontext in einer anderen Sprachenkombination aus Schul-, Fremd- und Migrationssprachen. Die Stücke bilden die Grundlage für das Training des gestaltenden Vorlesens in kooperierenden Schülerarbeitsgruppen wie auch die im Klassenverband abschließende Aufführung von Lesetheatern. Das Verbinden der Sprachen soll dann schrittweise zu einer erhöhten multilingual language awareness führen, welche von Linguisten als förderliche Effekte für das Sprachenlernen haben soll (vgl. Jessner 2006). Lesetheater ist einer der Lautlesemethoden, mit denen die Leseflüssigkeit in der L1 signifikant verbessert werden kann (z. B. Young & Rasinski 2009, 10). Das Projekt basiert daher auf der Hypothese, dass die Förderung der Leseflüssigkeit in der L2 sowie die sprachenübergreifende Vermittlung von Lesekompetenzen im Rahmen mehrsprachiger Lesetheater möglich sind. Im Vortrag werden die Konzeption und die Forschungsmethodik des Projekts, der design-based- research-Ansatz, sowie die Ergebnisse aus der Analyse der Entwicklungs- und Forschungszyklen präsentiert.
Projekt-Webseite: http://melt-multilingual-readers-theatre.eu Jessner, U. (2006). Linguistic Awareness in Multilinguals. Edinburgh, University Press. OECD (2016). PISA 2015. Ergebnisse im Fokus. http://www.oecd.org/berlin/themen/pisastudie/PISA_2015_Zusammenfassung.pdf zuletzt zugegriffen: 15.12.2016 Young, C., & Rasinski, T. (2009). Implementing Readers Theatre as an approach to classroom fluency instruction. The Reading Teacher, 63 (1), 4–13.
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Integrating Grammatical Knowledge in L2 Teaching in Higher Education Eva Nelz Freiburg University of Education, Germany The European Commission’s Action Plan on language learning and linguistic diversity (2004–2006) emphasizes universities’ key role in promoting multilingualism. In this study, we seek to contribute to this demand by presenting a teaching approach that integrates students’ gradually acquired plurilingualism during L2 Teaching in Higher Education. The research is taking place in Pre-Service Teacher Education where the students’ dual role as FL learners and future FL teachers is revealed. According to the German education report, the proportion of pupils with migratory backgrounds in secondary school is nearly equal to those without (2012). This results in linguistically heterogeneous classrooms for which future FL teachers need to be prepared. This paper explores an integrated teaching approach to Spanish grammar. The reference is students’ grammatical knowledge in French. We thereby investigate the effectiveness of this (quasi-experimental) approach for promoting the students’ grammatical knowledge about Mood Distinction in Spanish as well as its probable impact on their future teaching skills. We expect the activation of knowledge from a previously learned and similar language to allow a deeper processing of the chosen phenomenon. In a teachback study we then observe if experiencing their own plurilingualism during a language course at university will influence the teaching practices of those students. A study by Burns & Knox (2005) showed that in-service teachers, after participating in a grammar class based on systemic-functional linguistics, still relied on traditional approaches. We expect the pre-service experience to result in the adaption of our approach, as “teachers’ prior learning experiences […] play a powerful role in shaping their […] teaching practices” (Crandall, 2000: 35).
Burns, A. & Knox, J. (2005). Realisation(s): Systemic-Functional Linguistics, in: Bartels, N.: Applied Linguistics and Language Teacher Education. Springer, 235–260. Crandall, J. (2000). Language Teacher Education, in: Annual Review Of Applied Linguistics, 20. Cambridge, 34–55. 39
Building digital tools in support of multilingual meta-didactic terminology: the development of a multilingual digital glossary for Language Teaching Diana Peppoloni & Chiara Demi University for Foreigners of Siena, Italy Studies on foreign language learning-teaching are experiencing a time of great fervor in Europe, thanks to the diffused need of communicating in an international and multicultural society, thus highlighting the social usability of a solid linguistic communicative expertise (Diadori 2011). Data show that the academic population, in particular, is highly mobile. In line with the EU policy for finding common linguistic standards for promoting academic internationalization, this study aims at supporting multilingual didactics as a means to share knowledge and to enhance cross-cultural communication. An effective multilingual didactics requires high qualitative standards in Language Teaching. Being this latter a relatively recent science (Cambiaghi 2008), it has not yet developed a standard terminology: textbooks and theoretical studies are still too related to their cultural areas of origin (Robert & Rosen 2010, Balboni 1999, Lavinio & Vedovelli 1997, Barkowski & Krumm 2010, Garcia 1999) or to the hegemony of Anglo-Saxon linguistic tradition (Byram 2000, Davies et al. 1999, Davies 2005). This has led to confusion and disagreement among scholars about the meaning to be attributed to the didactic terms. This study aims at filling this gap, creating a multilingual glossary (Italian, French and German) of Language Teaching terminology, thus favouring inter-comprehension and interaction among scholars through terminological standardization. Our glossary constitutes a shared digital platform for experts and students, easily accessible and constantly updated. The 160 terms included at the moment, are alphabetically disposed and provided with translations, definitions, hyperlinks and examples. Lemmas derive from the most relevant European documents for Language Teaching, such as CEFR, EPOSTL and Profile, and have been selected only if they appear in at least two out of three of them. In a society where multilingualism is becoming a basic requirement, our multilingual glossary could be a valid resource for those professionals of Language Teaching, whose occupation is tightly influenced by the fortunes of this discipline.
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Qualified self-documentation of language knowledge with EPOS Sylvie Richard & Susanne Hecht Bielefeld University, Germany Which language resources do students with very diverse learning biographies have when they start with university? How can we describe, document and evaluate those resources? With traditional language proficiency evaluation it does not seem to be feasible for universities to provide a test for every language. Nevertheless students have the wish and the need to document their respective language proficiency. In order to answer this need we have developed a system of self-evaluation guided by objective criteria based on the learning platform EPOS. Which criteria have we applied? Which possibilities could universities gain using this system? And in which context will we use it in the concrete case of Bielefeld University? We will present the project and answer these questions.
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Translanguaging in the Polish educational context: a study of international schools Piotr Romanowski University of Warsaw University, Poland In multilingual communities the only way to communicate is through translanguaging. Lanza (2007) posits that speakers of different language practices select certain features from their multilingual repertoire to converse effectively in various situations and on the topics of their preference. Translanguaging also constructs a social space for individuals, and hence it brings together their language and cultural practices (Ofelia Garcia and Li Wei 2014). In educational contexts translanguaging is recommended as a pedagogical practice with a view to helping students develop their literacy skills and academic language proficiency. This paper focuses on classroom translanguaging at secondary level of education. The study was conducted in eight international secondary schools in Warsaw among 18-year-old learners from diverse linguistic backgrounds. For all the participants English was the language of instruction. It was L1 for the students from the English-speaking countries whereas L2 for all the others. Other L1s were French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Hungarian, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Czech, Italian and Swedish. All the subjects had some knowledge of Polish (L3) as they had resided in Poland for 2-5 years. The objective was therefore to identify situations when the students most frequently translanguaged and what their perceptions of this pedagogical practice were. To provide the answers to the two problems lesson observations and group discussions were implemented. It was instantaneously noticed that using one language reinforced the other and automatically augmented the learners’ activity in both languages.
García, O. and Li Wei (2014) Translanguaging. Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Pivot. Lanza, E. (2007) Multilingualism and the family. In: Li Wei and P. Auer (eds.), Handbook of Multilingualism and Multilingual Communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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Die Zeichen der Schift als Veranschaulichung der Merkmale des Deutschen nutzen. Ein lerneffektives Konzept für den DAF- und DAZ- Unterricht Christa Röber Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany Der Lesedidaktik kommt eine zentrale Rolle bei der Integration zu. Ihre Konzepte folgen nahezu ausnahmslos der amerikanischen Modellierung des Lernprozesses als ein Zusammenwirken einer kasuistisch vordergründigen Beschäftigung mit den Zeichen der Schrift (eine buchstabenisolierende Synthese: „Zugang von unten“) und einem Assoziieren der Lautgebilde, die so entstehen, mit gespeicherten Wörtern („Zugang von oben“). Dieses Modell des Leselernprozesses mag für die Beschreibung der kognitiven Prozesse einer Gruppe der Lerner der deutschen Schriftsprache, die bereits gefestigte sprachliche Erfahrungen haben, seine Berechtigung haben. Empirische Untersuchungen in Deutschland haben jedoch nachgewiesen, dass eine hohe Anzahl von Lernern den Anforderungen, die das Modell an sie enthält, nicht nachkommen kann und erfolglos bleibt. Dieses gilt insbesondere für Lerner, die noch einen sehr begrenzten Wortschatz und ein eingeschränktes strukturelles Wissen im Deutschen haben. Der Vortrag wird anhand von erprobten Materialein einen anderen Zugang zur Schriftsprache des Deutschen darstellen, der sich insbesondere für das Lernen diejenigen, die noch eine große Distanz zur deutschen Hochsprache, der Fundierung der Schrift, haben, eignet. Sein Ziel ist es, den Lernern zu ermöglichen, die grafischen Zeichen als eine systematische Hilfe zu sehen, um dem Geschriebenen Bedeutung entnehmen zu können, ohne der Vagheit des Assoziierens ausgeliefert zu sein. Das strukturelle Wissen über die Sprache, das dabei zugleich entsteht /entstehen muss, vermag ein weiteres: Es vermittelt einen Zugang zum Deutschen, der sowohl den Ausbau des Wortschatzes als auch des grammatischen Wissens, den Voraussetzungen für das Lesen, Schreiben, Verstehen und Sprechen der gesellschaftlich relevanten deutschen Sprache, ermöglicht.
Literatur: Bredel, Ursula; Noack, Christina; Plag, Ingo (2013): Morphologie lesen: Stammkonstanzschreibung und Leseverstehen bei starken und schwachen Lesern. In: Neef, Martin & Scherer, Carmen (Hrsg.): Die Schnittstelle von Morphologie und Geschriebener Sprache. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 211–249
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Literalität und Ressourcen Kurdisch-Deutsch zweisprachiger Kinder: Empirische Einblicke und Potentiale für die Schule Yazgül Şimşek University of Münster, Germany Die Schule als Institution ist weiterhin als eine einsprachige Sphäre zu beschreiben, in der die von den Kindern mitgebrachten herkunftssprachlichen Ressourcen tendenziell als Mangel oder Stolperstein auf dem Weg zur Bildungssprache betrachtet werden. Der Beitrag wird, aufbauend auf Ergebnisse einer empirischen Untersuchung zu literalen Fähigkeiten Kurdisch-Deutsch zweisprachiger Erst- und Zweitklässler die Frage der Nutzung der herkunftssprachlichen Ressourcen zur Diskussion stellen. Die empirische Studie beinhaltet Daten zum Erwerb der deutschen Orthographie – zu zwei unterschiedlichen Zeitpunkten mit dem Instrumenten HAVAS 5 und der Hamburger Schreibprobe erhobene Daten. Basierend auf diese Ergebnisse werden sich Schlussfolgerungen in Bezug auf den frühen Schriftspracherwerb ziehen lassen; Rückschlüsse im Hinblick auf ihre Probleme mit der deutschen Orthographie, bezüglich der Rolle der Erstsprache bei der Herausbildung phonologischer Bewusstheit und bezüglich der Kapazitäten der Kinder, sprachliche Einheiten des Deutschen analysieren zu können (Mehlem & Şimşek 2015 und Şimşek 2016). Ob und wie bestimmte Teilkompetenzen im Kurdischen für den Erwerb der Schriftsprache nutzbar wären, soll zur Diskussion über die Nutzung der Herkunftssprache bei der Herausbildung literaler Kompetenzen beitragen.
Mehlem, Ulrich & Șimșek, Yazgül (2015): Bilingual resources and school context: Case studies from Germany and Turkey. In: Peukert, Hagen (ed.): Transfer Effects in Multilingual Language Development. (Hamburg Studies on Linguistic Diversity). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 249 – 274. Șimșek, Yazgül (2016): Schriftlichkeit in der Dreisprachigkeitskonstellation: Kurdisch, Türkisch und Deutsch. In: Schroeder, Christoph & Rosenberg, Peter (Hrsg.): Mehrsprachigkeit als Ressource in der Schriftlichkeit. Berlin: de Gruyter, 87 – 112.
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Multilingual and Inclusive Didactics in Science Classes – a teaching and research project of the Hamburg University Ilse Stangen & Karin Cudak University of Hamburg, Germany Student Assessment Studies such as PISA point to different results between students with and without a migration background. When compared internationally, the worst performers in the field of sciences are fourth grade pupils with a migration background (OECD 2011). This difference does not result from the cognitive abilities of the pupils but from the German education system which has inadequately addressed the specific language needs of a heterogeneous student body. We argue for a sustainable implementation of the already existing across-the-board language education approach into regular classes, known as „durchgängige Sprachbildung in allen Fächern“ (Gogolin/Lange 2011) in Germany. The University of Hamburg has responded by introducing a blended-learning arrangement in its teacher training programme for pre-service teachers. This study option was developed by the Linguistics and Intercultural Education departments in cooperation with the Didactics of Mathematics, Physics, Biology and General Science. It aims to impart basic knowledge in the field of multilingual and heterogeneous learning environments in regular science classes. The study option draws on the DaZKom-Test in Pre-Post-Design, developed by Lüneburg and Bielefeld Universities to gauge its performance (Hammer et al. 2015). Our results show the positive development of the DaZ-Competence of the involved students and the changing beliefs of the latter with respect to the role of multilingualism in education and of multilingual didactics in science classes.
Works Cited Gogolin, Ingrid / Lange, Imke: Bildungssprache und Durchgängige Sprachbildung, in: Fürstenau, Sara / Gomolla, ;Mechthild (Hrsg.): Migration und schulischer Wandel: Mehrspra-chigkeit,Wiesbaden: VS 2011, S. 107-127. Hammer, Svenja et al. (2015): Kompetenz von Lehramtstudierenden in Deutsch als Zweitsprache. Validierung des GSL-Textinstrumnets. In: ZfPäd 61, S. 32–54. OECD (Hg.) (2011): Divided we stand. Why inequality keeps rising. Paris: OECD.
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Mehrsprachiges Vorlesen der Lehrperson in Schul- und Fremdsprache in der Sekundarstufe I (MeVoL): Auswertungen zu Scaffoldingaufgaben, Strategietraining und Akzeptanz des Designs Dominik Unterthiner¹ & Ute Massler² ¹Vorarlberg University of Education, Germany, ²Weingarten University of Education, Germany, Mehrsprachigkeit und sprachenübergreifendes Unterrichten haben in den letzten Jahren aufgrund von sozio- und bildungspolitischen Forderungen im sprachdaktischen Diskurs immer mehr an Bedeutung gewonnen (Marx 2011, 467ff), allerdings scheinen diese Ansätze nach wie vor kaum den Unterrichtsalltag zu erreichen. Vor diesem Hintergrund wurden im von der Internationalen Bodenseehochschule geförderten Projekt MeVoL (Mehrsprachiges Vorlesen durch die Lehrperson) nach den Prinzipien des design based-research-Ansatzes mehrsprachige Vorlesematerialien entwickelt, die Hörstrategien in Schul- und Zielsprache fördern und durch die Stärkung der Involviertheit während des Textrezeptionsprozesses die Lesemotivation wecken sollen. (vgl. Massler 2016, in print) Durch die mehrsprachige Gestaltung des entwickelten Unterrichtsdesigns sollen Synergien zwischen der L1 und L2 geschaffen werden, was den Ansätzen der Mehrsprachigkeitsdidaktik entspricht. Die Vorlesematerialien wurden gemeinsam mit Lehrpersonen an Schulen in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz in mehreren Zyklen entwickelt, erprobt, und für den Einsatz im Unterricht optimiert. Im Zuge der abschließenden summativen Evaluation wurde die Akzeptanz des Designs bei Lehrpersonen und Schüler/innen untersucht. Der Vortrag präsentiert theoretische Grundlagen, Entwicklung und Optimierung von Vorlesedesign und Lehr- und Lernmaterialien sowie Evaluationsergebnisse zu Scaffolding-Maßnahmen, Strategietraining und Akzeptanz des Designs.
Marx, Nicole. 2011. "Reading across the Germanic languages: Is equal access just wishful thinking?" Review of. International Journal of Bilingualism 16 (4):467-83. doi: 10.1177/1367006911429517. Massler, Ute. 2016. "Das didaktisch-methodische Design 'Mehrsprachiges Vorlesen durch die Lehrperson': Ausgangslage, Forschungsbedarf und Projektbeschreibung." In Mehrsprachiges Vorlesen durch die Lehrperson. Handbuch zu Theorie und Praxis, edited by Robert Hilbe, Sabine Kutzelmann, Ute Massler and Klaus Peter. Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich.
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Exploring Attitudes Towards ELF in Germany: The Need for Appropriate Training and the Gap between Theory and Practice Carolin Zehne Bielefeld University, Germany With ever more research in the field of ELF and particularly Seidhofer’s (2011) ‘conceptual gap’ in mind, many calls for a greater orientation towards ELF in teacher training and English language teaching (ELT) have been made (e.g. Dewey, 2012; Kohn 2011; Kohn 2015; Sifakis, 2007; Snow, Kamhi-Stein, & Brinton, 2006). The present qualitative study investigated seven non-native secondary school English teachers’ attitudes towards the notion of correctness in pronunciation (the notion of ELF with a focus on intelligibility in contrast to adherence to native speaker norms). The goal was find out whether there has been a change in attitudes and practices since Decke-Cornill's study (2002) and essential reforms in ELT in Germany. The results revealed that all the teachers still relied on an exonormative native speaker model when judging their own and their students’ pronunciation. Further there was a mismatch between teacher expectations regarding their own and their students’ language (use) in the classroom and reallife. Apart from highlighting again the obvious need for an ELF orientation in in- service and preservice teacher training and general ELF awareness in ELT, this mismatch between goals for the classroom and the students’ sociolinguistic reality needs further investigation. This should include a multiperspective view with all parties involved in the planning and implementation of ELT practices in Germany. A common ground needs to be worked out to bridge the gap between theory and practice and to successfully implement ELF as a multilingual approach for ELT. Keywords: teacher training, English language teaching, educational policies, teacher attitudes References Decke-Cornill, H. (2002). 'We Would Have to Invent the Language we are Supposed to Teach': The Issue of English as Lingua Franca in Language Education in Germany. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 15(3), 251–263. doi:10.1080/07908310208666649 Dewey, M. (2012) Towards a post-normative approach: Learning the pedagogy of ELF. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 1(1), 141-170. doi:10.1515/jelf-2012-0007 Kohn, K. (2011). English as a lingua franca and the Standard English misunderstanding. In A. de Hower & A. Wilton (Eds.), English in Europe Today- Sociocultural and Educational Perspectives (pp. 71–94). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kohn, K. (2015). A pedagogical space for ELF in the English classroom. In Y. Bayyurt & S. Akcan (Eds.), Developments in English as a lingua franca: Vol. 6. Current perspectives on pedagogy for English as a lingua franca (pp. 51–67). Berlin, Munich, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Sifakis, N. (2007). The education of teachers of English as a lingua franca: a transformative perspective. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 17(3). 355–375. doi:10.1111/j.1473 4192.2007.00174.x Snow, M. A., Kamhi-Stein, L. D. & Brinton, D. M. (2006). Teacher training for English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 26. 261–281. doi:10.1017/S0267190506000134
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Strand 4: English-medium instruction: Encouraging multicultural interaction? (HS 1142) Colloquium: Quality management of English-taught study programmes: Critical perspectives on research challenges and opportunities Fri, 09:00 – 09:30
Patrick Studer “Managing the quality of English-medium Instruction (EMI) in Swiss Higher Education”
Fri, 09:30 – 10:00
Gregg Dubow “Carrying out quality assurance of EMI: The Freiburg model and experience gathered so far”
Fri, 10:00 – 10:30
Curtis Gautschi “EMI lecture quality parameters: a context-based approach to validation”
Thu, 11:30 – 12:00
Katherine Ackerley, Caroline Clark, Fiona Dalziel, Marta Guarda & Francesca Helm “EMI for multilingual and multicultural development: exploring lecturers’ and students’ language attitudes and practices”
Sat, 10:30 – 11:00
Mireia Calm Novellas "Language Learning at Pompeu Fabra University: Managing Multilingualism in the Classroom”
Thu, 15:30 – 16:00
Irati Diert Boté & Xavier Martin-Rubió “Comparing monolingual and Plurelf teaching approaches at the university”
Thu, 12:00 – 12:30
Andrew James Fish “Language, Communication and Pedagogical Skills in the EMI Certification of New University Lecturers”
Fri, 11:30 – 12:00
Miya Komori-Glatz “Multilingualism in student teamwork on a marketing EMP”
Sat, 10:00 – 10:30
Sanne Larsen “Re-contextualising Academic Writing: The Experiences of Temporary Sojourners in Danish Academia”
Thu, 15:00 – 15:30
Xavier Martin-Rubió & Irati Diert Bote “The Plurelf approach to EMI: pros and cons”
Fri, 11:00 – 11:30
Thu, 11:00 – 11:30
Stephanie Swartz “A German-American Alliance: simulated real-life cross-cultural business communication exercise involving German and American” Sophie Swerts Knudsen & Slobodanka Dimova “Reading Strategies in EMI: Teacher and Student Perspectives”
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Colloquium: Quality management of English-taught study programmes: Critical perspectives on research challenges and opportunities Patrick Studer, Gregg Dubow & Curtis Gautschi
This colloquium addresses one of the most sensitive issues of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education: the assurance of its quality. While EMI research into this area has predominantly focused on (assessing) students’ English language proficiency for learning through the medium of English (e.g. Kling 2006, Kurtán 2006), the linguistic and communicative competences of lecturers teaching through English, and the broader challenges in implementing and evaluating internationalised curricula, have not received systematic research attention so far. Questions of language competence for teaching in English have primarily been approached through case studies documenting complementary quality improvement measures in higher education institutions (e.g. Clear 2005, Klaassen 2008, Lehtonen, Lönnfors & Virkkunen-Fullenwider 2003), or through surveys of lecturers’ self-assessment (Jensen, Stæhr & Thøgersen 2009). Despite Klaassen and Räsänen’s (2006: 249) plea for the “development of a European assessment tool […] for the appropriate contextual setting”, discussions of general and formal assessment criteria, instruments and procedures with regard to lecturers’ linguistic and communicative competences are still scarce. In this workshop, researchers engaged in two different projects at University of Freiburg and Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) will take stock of challenges and opportunities met whilst developing EMI quality management measures in different institutional contexts. In particular, the following themes will be addressed:
Methodological issues underlying the development of EMI quality management systems
Conceptual and organisational challenges in developing and running/using EMI quality systems
Future directions of research into EMI quality
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Managing the quality of English-medium Instruction (EMI) in Swiss Higher Education Patrick Studer ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland In the international higher education space, English has undoubtedly become the main language used as a medium of instruction. In response to this trend, the number English-medium programmes offered at the higher education level in Switzerland and abroad has risen considerably in recent years. One of the problems that universities are confronted with concerns the formal preparation of their teachers for English-medium instruction (EMI). Many schools offer ESP (English for Special Purposes) and EMI workshops, provide language support or even opportunities for lecturers to have shortterm stays abroad. All of these measures are intended as opt-in support mechanisms for teachers for whom the switch of language is new or challenging. However, very few schools have embarked on a sustainable quality assurance system, in which teachers’ communicative abilities in the foreign language form a key quality criterion of the English-medium programme. The present paper reports first results of a project funded by Swissuniversities that seeks to develop a quality assurance scheme offering organisational units within universities the opportunity to prepare for, and participate in, a Programme of Excellence in Teaching through English. In this paper, the rationale behind the project and the progress towards the project goal will be reviewed critically. In particular, the paper aims to highlight the complexity of conceptualising language and communicative competence at the interface of didactics and trans- / intercultural competence.
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Carrying out quality assurance of EMI: The Freiburg model and experience gathered so far Gregg Dubow University of Freiburg, Language Teaching Centre, Germany English-taught degree programs are a well-established hallmark of the European tertiary landscape. Assuring the linguistic and communicative quality of teaching done in English, however, is less established. In order to address this gap in internationalized higher education, the English Medium Instruction (EMI) unit from the Language Teaching Centre at the University of Freiburg has developed a procedure to certify the quality of language use in its English-taught degree programs. The certification procedure takes place in authentic teaching environments, incorporates pluriperspective feedback from stakeholders and observers, and uses EMI-specific criteria to assess linguistic and specific communicative competencies required to teach a multilingual group of students in an English-taught program. This paper addresses three aspects of the certification procedure. First, the actual procedure and some organizational considerations are explained. Second, the EMI-specific assessment criteria and some key certification results are presented. Third, an interim reflection of the procedure is given. Based on generally positive feedback from participating teaching staff, the procedure seems to be perceived as a valuable tool for teachers to reflect on and potentially adapt their use of language and communicative strategies when teaching in the international classroom. However, challenges like evaluating intercultural transparency and critical questions like the relevance of assessing grammar also warrant reflection and may require new avenues of EMI research in higher education.
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EMI lecture quality parameters: a context-based approach to validation Curtis Gautschi ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland The purpose of this paper is to examine students' evaluations of English-taught lectures with a view to validate the selection of criteria for use in EMI lecture quality assessment. Data is interpreted with reference to a test-validation theoretical framework as defined in the work of Weir (2005), Bachman (2004) and Fulcher (2003). By determining the relative contribution of questionnaire items to students' perceptions of overall lecture quality, achieved through factor and regression analyses, it is possible to weigh validation evidence in favour of specific items to be included in EMI quality assessment instruments. Such validation evidence is essential to determine the degree to which lecturers’ EMI-specific competences are accurately and meaningfully assessed. In addition, findings provide evidence that EMI quality assessment instruments are linked to the perceptions of the users of instruction, namely, students. The methodology used represents an original approach to the validation of assessment tools, in that expert opinion can be supplemented and enhanced through empirical data representing the perspectives of students. This paper will be of interest to institutions that have introduced or are considering the introduction of English-taught programmes and are concerned about the quality of said programmes.
References: Bachman, L. F. (2004). Statistical Analyses for Language Assessment. Cambridge University Press. Fulcher, G. (2003). Testing Second Language Speaking. London: Longman. Weir, C. (2005). Language Testing and Validation: An Evidence-based Approach. Palgrave Macmillan.
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EMI for multilingual and multicultural development: exploring lecturers’ and students’ language attitudes and practices Katherine Ackerley, Caroline Clark, Fiona Dalziel, Marta Guarda & Francesca Helm University of Padova, Italy The past two decades have witnessed an exponential growth of English-Medium Instruction (EMI) in higher education across Europe (Coleman 2006). This trend may lead to an assumption that, as Graddol has argued (2004: 1330), the spread of English will contribute to the creation of “new generations of bilingual and multilingual speakers across the world”. In order to fully understand this phenomenon and unveil its potential for multilingual and multicultural development, it is essential to shed light on the authentic language attitudes and practices of its main stakeholders: EMI lecturers and students. The aim of this talk is to present the findings of two research initiatives that were undertaken within the framework of the LEAP (Learning English for Academic Purposes) Project, which was developed at a public university in the north of Italy to offer both linguistic and methodological support to lecturers involved in EMI. The talk will report on how a shift in the language of teaching and learning led EMI lecturers of a range of disciplines to reflect on their own and their students’ language attitudes and practices and consequently innovate their teaching approaches. It will then address the linguistic challenges that students face while attending courses taught in English and how these influenced their attitudes towards EMI. Keywords EMI, language attitudes and practices, students, lecturers.
References Coleman, J. 2006. English-Medium Teaching in European Higher Education. Language Teaching 39/1, 1-14. Graddol, D. 2004. The future of language. Science 303.5662, 1329–1331.
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Language Learning at Pompeu Fabra University: Managing Multilingualism in the Classroom Mireia Calm Novellas Pompeu Fabra University, Spain In 2007 UPF approved its first Plan of Action for Multilingualism (PAM) to cater for the university's need for a consistent language policy that would cover all aspects of academic life. This plan addresses three key concepts: English as a working language, Linguistic Security and a Protocol of managing a multilingual classroom. The PAM has enabled UPF to consolidate and renew its language policy, to empower Catalan as the University's official language, to reinforce the role of English as a third language amongst Bachelor’s students and to promote Spanish as an international academic language with the status of a joint official language. The PAM called for new actions and proposals. Amongst them, a language training programme was designed to guarantee that lecturers with content courses had sufficient linguistic competence and knowledge of EMI (English as a Medium of Instruction) methodology. It is with this intention that we developed the STEP Programme, a 3-module-course that provides lecturers with useful language tools and teaching techniques to use in their EMI lessons (English methodology teaching, Classroom observation & feedback and English material development). Further to this course, we also launched a Catalan course called “Anima’t a fer docència en català” (Lose your fear to teach in Catalan), aimed to increment the use of Catalan at University. Currently the university offers a wide range of courses addressed to local and foreign teachers with the final objective to promote a fluent use of all languages and contribute to the preservations of all established linguistic rights. The Center for Learning Innovation and Knowledge (CLIK) designs different types of courses, from basic language courses, to courses for specific purposes, according to our teacher's needs. In conclusion, UPF contributes to shaping up a multilingual framework which, with the preservation and promotion of the Catalan language and identity, makes it possible to create favourable conditions for the use and interaction of various languages, within a teaching and learning context.
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Comparing monolingual and Plurelf teaching approaches at the university Irati Diert Boté & Xavier Martin-Rubió University of Lleida, Spain This paper presents preliminary results of a project in which two English-medium courses in a Business Administration and Management degree at Universitat de Lleida are being observed with the aim of (1) assessing their language gains; and (2) determining the impact that the two approaches exert on the students at an ideological, attitudinal and emotional level. One of the courses employs a monolingual perspective, whereas the other adopts a plurelf approach. ‘Plurelf’ results from the combination of the prefix ‘pluri’, which refers to the different languages used in the classroom, and the acronym ‘elf’ (English as a Lingua Franca). Therefore, a plurelf approach attempts to maximise the use of the full linguistic repertoires of the students in class and adopts an ELF-oriented approach in relation to English. The subject of these two courses is ‘Business English I’, and both have about 60 students per group. Data collection started in the first semester through class observation, during which field notes were taken, and will continue in the second semester by means of interviews to the teachers of both groups, audio and video-recordings of the students in the classroom and three focus groups (one with the monolingual group, another with the plurelf, and a last one mixed). By the time of the presentation, data collection from the second semester will have already started, for interviews, recordings and group discussions are planned to begin to take place within the first few weeks of the course. Keywords: plurelf; ELF-oriented pedagogy; learners’ beliefs; learners’ atittudes; learners’ emotions
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Language, Communication and Pedagogical Skills in the EMI Certification of New University Lecturers Andrew James Fish Aalborg University, Denmark This presentation reports on the use of obligatory CEFR-based certification of lecturers as quality assurance to guarantee the standard of EMI in lectures, seminars and supervision sessions at a Danish University whose trademark pedagogy is Problem-Based Learning (PBL). To complete their pedagogical training, all new lecturers at Aalborg University must achieve certification at C1 level on the CEFR. However, PBL instruction using EMI (Wilkinson 2013) involves a nexus of skills extending far beyond limited notions of English as a decontextualized code which must be learnt first and then activated. EMI demands effective communication strategies and pedagogical skills if students are to access and acquire complex concepts and procedures. Consequently, while Aalborg has adopted rigorous CEFR language-based standards, the certification program also addresses communication and pedagogical criteria. The overriding question in EMI certification must be simple and pragmatic – ‘Does it work?’ However, the answer is multi-faceted in a Problem-Based Learning environment. The certification process described in this presentation thus raises fundamental questions about language as code and language as practice. For instance, the CEFR tends to reward complexity as a sign of advanced acquisition of language-as-code, yet university instructors often need to simplify the language to unpack concepts for students. ‘Native speaker’ competence is the CEFR ideal, but perhaps C1 certification should not be awarded to a native speaker who communicates or teaches poorly? Are hardline codified assessment criteria from decontextualized language teaching really compatible with language as a communicational practice? Drawing on the concept of English as a Lingua Franca, this presentation primarily addresses such issues in terms adopted from Integrational Linguistic theory and Ethnomethodology.
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Multilingualism in student teamwork on a marketing EMP Miya Komori-Glatz WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria Both the corporate and educational sectors have seen a massive rise in teamwork in recent decades, and as the world becomes more interconnected, these teams are also becoming increasingly multicultural and multilingual. To date, there is still relatively little research into teamwork in business educational contexts (although see Cohen & Kassis-Henderson 2012). Teamwork offers an intriguing and unique insight into student interaction in EMI. On the one hand, the peer-to-peer setting and the lack of a teacher’s presence encourages – even forces – students to negotiate and construct meaning using the (multilingual) resources they have available. On the other, it simulates the multilingual and multicultural environments the students can expect to encounter when they enter the professional world and demands a more taxing, complex, and accurate use of language than is necessary in purely social interaction. This presentation therefore begins by conceptualising teamwork as “essentially a linguistic phenomenon” following Donnellon (1996: 6) and develops findings from organisational and management studies to highlight the role of language in effective teamwork. It then presents some illustrative examples from an ethnographic study of multicultural teamwork on an English-medium master in marketing at WU Vienna to show how the students’ use of their multilingual resources help them both to fulfil their task goals and increase team cohesion. It also argues that researching “multilingualism” in an EMP needs to include considerations of functional and professional languages as well as national ones.
References Cohen, Linda & Kassis-Henderson, Jane. 2012. Language use in establishing rapport and building relations: implications for international teams and management education. Revue Management et Avenir 55: 185207. Donnellon, Anne. 1996. Team Talk: The Power of Language in Team Dynamics. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. 57
Re-contextualising Academic Writing: The Experiences of Temporary Sojourners in Danish Academia Sanne Larsen University of Copenhagen, Denmark As the internationalization of European higher education continues apace, there is a need to better understand how students who move across borders tackle the demands of academic writing in Englishmedium courses in non-English dominant contexts. Whereas there is a long tradition of both researching and supporting the needs of ‘international students’ in English-dominant countries such as Britain, such efforts are much more recent and sporadic in relation to mobile students in non-English dominant Europe. Here the increasing replacement of a local language with English as the medium of instruction, which is often fuelled at least partly by the wish to attract international students, is not necessarily accompanied by efforts to support these students’ disciplinary literacy in English, especially not that of mobile students who only spend one or two semesters at a university. This paper presents the results of a multiple case study of the challenges and opportunities that exchange students experienced with academic writing in English in the context of English-medium subject courses at a Danish university. The paper focuses on the students’ re-contextualisation processes, that is, their application or reshaping of knowledge and beliefs about academic (writing) practices in response to exposure to requirements and norms that differed to various degrees from those they had encountered previously.
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The Plurelf approach to EMI: pros and cons Xavier Martin-Rubió & Irati Diert Boté University of Lleida, Spain This paper focuses on the behaviour and opinion of thirty year-one students of the Audiovisual Communication and Journalism degree at Universitat de Lleida (Catalonia, Spain) who are taking two subjects in English: ‘Anglès Oral i Escrit per als Mitjans de Comunicació’, addressed to all 95 year-one students; and ‘Teoria de la Comunicació (grup Anglès)’, who is only for those year-one student who choose to take this content subject in English, about a third of the total this year. The same subject is delivered by a different professor in Catalan. Whereas the first subject should be labeled ESP or CLIL, given its focus on language issues, the second would be EMI, as it is a content subject delivered in English with no focus on language matters and freedom to use Catalan or Spanish in the exams. Given that I am the professor in charge of both the CLIL subject and of the EMI version of the content subject, my intention is: (1) to provide a description of my teaching approach, in which Catalan, Spanish and English are used in class; (2) to compare the goals of the two subjects; (3) to provide an analysis of the language chosen by the students of the content subject in the two tests they have undertaken; and (4) to provide a discourse analysis of their opinions, beliefs and emotions about the languages employed in class by the teacher and by themselves, about the impact of the approach in their proficiency and selfconcept, and about the benefits or problems of this approach in relation to a traditional monolingual approach in CLIL and/or EMI courses. Keywords: EMI; CLIL; ESP; teaching methodology; plurelf.
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A German-American Alliance: simulated real-life cross-cultural business communication exercise involving German and American classrooms Stephanie Swartz University of Applied Sciences Mainz, Germany Although many global MBA programs teach intercultural communication, what happens when the method for teaching that concept becomes mostly experiential? To answer that question, we took two very similar classes, both comprised of working adults, in Germany and one in the US, and joined the students into a project with a purposely vague deliverable. To initiate this project, we gave them a case study of a real-life merger between an American and a German corporation to create a new corporation, then broke them into groups of four, with each group assigned to create proposed points to be included in new HR policies that governed both countries’ employees. These points were to be presented for discussion at a live international videoconference at the end of the month. Both culminated in a final paper where students analyzed issues that arose during the course of their interactions applying cultural theories such as Hofstede and Hall and proposed strategies for successful business interactions involving Americans and Germans. Each group was comprised of two Americans and two Germans. They were told to “make initial contact with each other, decide on what method to use to continue communication, distribute tasks, share information, and prepare a five-minute presentation of proposed policy points for the rest of the “company” (the other students) to discuss at the video conference.” Our purpose was simple: while it is one thing to read about communication and work styles in other countries, experiencing it and working within it while also having to meet expected requirements of your own culture is something different altogether. We wanted students to have first-hand experience of working both internationally and almost entirely via electronic communication. The students were given a month in which to complete this assignment. We listed categories for types of HR policies, such as dress code, employee monitoring, dating of other employees, and social media. We then assigned students to the teams, exchanged a list of who was in what team and their email addresses, and sat back to watch the process start. Our goals were also simple: we wanted them to be able to move beyond a text-book understanding of working interculturally, to have experienced working with people from another country, and to
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be able to present points via technology with presenters who were delivering information simultaneously from both sides of the Atlantic for discussion at the videoconference. While the students may have inferred that the policy points were the main goal of the assignment, our main goal was to have them learn to communicate with people from another country. Our method was also simple: we each distributed one page of instructions that were purposely broad and open to interpretation. Then, as students had made the initial contact with their international counterparts, we asked questions within the classroom setting as to what was happening but also how the students were reacting to what was happening and why.
We purposely remained in the back-
ground, giving just as much guidance as necessary to keep the project moving but allowing for the students to make their experiences and solve issues themselves. Through this method of assessment, the students learned that initial get-to-know-you questions that the Germans, who had read that Americans value small talk, asked were considered too personal and almost offensive by the Americans. Distinct differences arose as to what medium to communicate in; where communicating for work via social media was acceptable to one county it was not for another. Americans learned that much of their unconscious use of idioms and casual phrasing—including emails without salutations—were considered unprofessional and rude by the Germans. They worked through translation and language barriers as well as barriers they created for themselves via perceived tone. And the discussion at the final videoconference went far longer than we had intended as students interacted in true discussion over cultural differences and how to solve them. Once the project had completed, with a very successful videoconference, student feedback was that they felt this was one of the best projects of their entire academic careers. Takeaways for attendees of the session: Attendees will gain an understanding of how to set up a similar assignment, plus gain knowledge of what we as professors learned along the way, such as which technology to use, what other aspects to possibly add to the scope of the assignment, and how experiential assignments as applied to intercultural communication can enhance student learning outcomes. Description: This session presents an overview, methodology, and results of an experiential international communication learning exercise as well as offers guidance on how to set up a similar international learning experience.
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Reading Strategies in EMI: Teacher and Student Perspectives Sophie Swerts Knudsen & Slobodanka Dimova
University of Copenhagen, Denmark Because of internationalization and the implementation of EMI in tertiary education, students are required to read increasingly more in English both in graduate and undergraduate years. This situation leads to substantial problems voiced both by lecturers and students: it takes more time and effort to read and learn from texts in an L2 (Hellekjær, 2009; Pecorari et al., 2011b; Tatzl, 2011). In addition, students fail to complete their reading assignments in preparation for classes, resulting in inability to follow the lectures (Pecorari et al., 2012; Mezẽ k, 2013). For this reason, the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports (NEXS) at the University of Copenhagen decided to implement a series of EMI workshops, which were taught from 2011 until 2015. To investigate the effects of these workshops on teaching and learning, as well as students’ and lecturers’ perceptions on reading skills and strategies, IELTS test data from students and interviews with teachers and students were collected. The test results indicated that the students’ level in reading skills fluctuated very little across the 5 years. However, approximately 25 % of the students who took the reading test performed at the low end of the IELTS scale, i.e. below 6.5. Based on the interviews, it became clear that content teachers were aware of the problem and implemented, both consciously and subconsciously, reading skills activities in their courses to support students in their struggle to read. Results suggest that to understand academic literacy and to design appropriate support for our multilingual, multicultural students, closer collaboration between language and content teachers is essential. In particular, awareness should be raised among teachers and students about the transferability of L1 literacy skills in L2 reading, as well as the necessity for continuous support.
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Posters Poster session: Fri, 16:00 - 17:00 (Aula Foyer)
Rika Aoki “Third Language Perception of English Initial Plosives by Mandarin-Japanese Bilinguals” Sandra Bucheli “Language Proficiency and Social Integration in a linguistically heterogeneous Kindergarten in Germanspeaking Switzerland” Stefania Dei “Genres de Textes et Stratégies de Lecture sur Écrans et sur Support Papier” Mary Ashley Dwyer “Canada’s Overlooked Variety: Evidence of Lexical, Semantic and Morpho-Syntactic Variation in New Brunswick’s Anglophone and Francophone communities” Blanca Aparicio Larrán “Working abroad: Translation in L2 Teaching and Languages for Specific Purposes” Helena Levy, Lars Konieczny & Adriana Hanulíková “Long-term effects of accent exposure on perception and production” Karin Madlener & Andrea Ender “Language start classes for newly immigrated adolescents – Chances and challenges” Denise McAllister “Moving an International Classroom to an Inter-Cultural Classroom: Steps taken to build an ICC course” Diana Peppoloni “The role of collocations in EMI academic discourse. Developing lexical resources for non-native English academic speakers” Sarah Sofie Raphael “English as a Lingua Franca in the Humanities? Language Policy in Structured Doctoral Programs in Germany” Charles Robert Webster “Multilingual Identities in Study Abroad”
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Third Language Perception of English Initial Plosives by MandarinJapanese Bilinguals Rika Aoki Saitama University, Japan The aim of this paper is to investigate whether being bilinguals facilitates or impedes the perception of a third language. The present study conducted a perception experiment in which Mandarin-Japanese bilinguals with varying ages of arrival (AOA) in Japan categorized a Voice-Onset-Time (VOT) continuum into English /b/ or /p/. Here, the bilinguals were divided into two groups according to their AOA in Japan: those who immigrated from China to Japan before the age of six (early bilinguals) and those after the age of ten (late bilinguals). The perception pattern of the bilinguals was compared not only with English monolinguals but also with Mandarin and Japanese monolinguals in an attempt to observe the similarity or dissimilarity in the discrimination patterns of the two groups of the bilinguals. The results show that early bilinguals were influenced by both Mandarin and Japanese, while late bilinguals showed a tendency to perceive in a similar manner to Mandarin monolinguals. Thus, it can be concluded that in the present study having two languages did not help bilinguals to perceive L3 stop contrast native-likely. This result supports the previous studies on L2 perception by bilingual speakers reporting that bilingual speakers do not show the same categorical boundaries as monolingual speakers of L1 and L2.
References Flege, J. and W. Eefting. 1987. The production and perception of English stops by Spanish speakers of English. Journal of Phonetics, vol. 15, 67-83. Raphael, L., Y. Tobin, A. Faber, T. Most, H. Kollier, and D. Milstein. 1995. Intermediate values of voice onset time. Producing Speech: Contemporary issues, 117–127. Williams, L. 1979. The modification of speech perception and production in second-language learning. Perception & Psychophysics, vol. 26, 95-104.
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Language Proficiency and Social Integration in a linguistically heterogeneous Kindergarten in German-speaking Switzerland Sandra Bucheli University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland In German-speaking Switzerland, people with a migration background currently encounter a socio-political discourse which considers language as the key to integration. However, it is unspecified which language level and variety is required in which context. People with a migration background are unilaterally pressurized to learn German and/or Swiss German and to integrate themselves actively (Flubacher 2014). Based on this discourse, the present case study examines the following research question: How do children with a different language background and different language proficiency in Swiss German position themselves within the social network of a kindergarten group, and which relationships do they enter? Preferred interaction partners were determined by interviewing and observing the children and were evaluated by social network analysis. The children’s syntactic and morphological proficiency was tested by a diagnostic procedure and their pragmatic proficiency by observation. The results show that Swiss children, Turkish speaking children, and children who acquired the ambient language at an early age mostly interact among themselves. Generally, the children choose interaction partners with similar productive syntactic and morphological proficiency in the ambient language. There are medium to high positive correlations between popularity and productive and receptive syntactic and morphological proficiency. Moreover, there are positive correlations between popularity and pragmatic proficiency. Thus, children with a lower language proficiency may be excluded and miss opportunities to improve. Possible interventions include peer learning, tutoring systems between children with the same first language, and group level interventions on prosocial behaviour. Unless the children have a specific language impairment, a unilateral, individual-centred intervention is not evident. Works cited Flubacher, Mi-Cha (2014): Integration durch Sprache - die Sprache der Integration. Eine kritische Diskursanalyse zur Rolle der Sprache in der Schweizer und Basler Integrationspolitik 1998-2008. Göttingen: V&R unipress.
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Genres de textes et stratégies de lecture sur écrans et sur support papier Stefania Dei University of Florence, Italy La problématique Il est maintenant reconnu que les traitements cognitifs sont susceptibles de variation d’un individu à l’autre. Je me suis intéressée à l’apprenant en FLE en tant que lecteur de nouvelles, comme genre littéraire, et lecteur d’articles de presse argumentés. L’utilisation d’Internet, des tablettes et des smartphones, amène toujours de nouvelles interrogations. Je me suis alors posé la question suivante : à quel point l'écran peut-il influencer notre façon d’appréhender un texte littraire, comme la nouvelle, ou un texte d’actualité argumentatif ? Les hypothèses Mon hypothèse est que la nature des stratégies varie, en partie, en fonction du genre socio-discursif d'appartenance du texte lu et que les écrans, qui deviennent un instrument de lecture, étendent ou modifient l'éventail des stratégies de reconstruction du sens s’il s’agit de textes narratifs ou argumentatifs. Les résultats Mon étude a fait apparaître non seulement les stratégies utilisées par rapport aux supports et aux types de discours mais également la dimension du « Je » dont on ne peut faire abstraction dans une activité de reconstruction du sens dans l'acte de lire. Perspectives didactiques Enseigner le développement de stratégies liées aux types de discours tout en tenant compte du lien qui existe entre les stratégies de lecture et d'écriture, qui est un sujet de recherche des courants intégratifs, prônant le travail sur les genres discursifs pour améliorer la lecture et postulant que ce travail permet d'améliorer les stratégies de production écrite. Adam, Jean-Michel (1992). Les textes, types et prototypes : récit, description, argumentation, explication et dialogue, Nathan, Paris. Bélisle, Claire (2004). « Lire avec un livre électronique : un nouveau contrat de lecture », in Les défis de la publication sur le Web : hyperlectures, cybertextes et méta-éditions, dir. Salaün Jean-Michel et Vandendorpe Christian, Presses de l’enssib, août, Villeurbanne. Pp 169-186. Gaonac’h Daniel et Fayol Michel (2003). Aider les élèves à comprendre, Dir. Hachette Education, Paris
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Canada’s Overlooked Variety: Evidence of Lexical, Semantic and MorphoSyntactic Variation in New Brunswick’s Anglophone and Francophone communities Mary Ashley Dwyer Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany The following study investigates linguistic variation in the Maritime region of Canada, with a focus on New Brunswick, in order to ascertain whether there is enough linguistic evidence to show that regional variation exists with regard to lexicon, semantics and morpho-syntax. It also examines past and current research on English in Canada, which has been recorded throughout the course of linguistic literature. In an effort to determine if New Brunswick is as homogeneous and unvaried, as implied in the current literature, a linguistic survey was created for the purpose of this paper, in which 150 participants from all over New Brunswick, took part. The participants varied over a number of social factors, including age, gender, location and education. For further investigation into language variation in New Brunswick, they were later compared with smaller controlled groups from other parts of the country, in order to establish any correlations and differences in linguistic use. The results throughout the course of investigation on the literature, as well as through the use of the survey, indicate a number of significant, unique linguistic distinctions in the province in comparison with other provinces. They highlight the influence that Canadian French, local Aboriginal languages and Canadian English have had on each other, culminating in an intriguing mixed variety, utilizing features from all three language sources. However, due to underrepresentation and generalizations in linguistic studies on regional variation in Canada, as well as clear preferences for specific fields of linguistic study (e.g., phonology), little about the variety is known. Finally, the findings also suggest that current linguistic study on linguistic variation in Canada, is primarily done only in a small number of areas (e.g., Toronto), while New Brunswick and the other Maritime provinces are often omitted from current research, or often grouped together, providing an incomplete view of language use in the province and region.
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Working abroad: Translation in L2 Teaching and Languages for Specific Purposes Blanca Aparicio Larrán University of Cádiz, Spain Our study aims to prove that translation techniques could represent a valid method of second language teaching in the area of languages for specific purposes. To this end, we take the example of Spanish health professionals that, due to the economic crisis beginning in 2008 and searching for better job opportunities, emigrated to German-speaking countries. Unfortunately not every one of these professionals owns sufficient language skills to cope with the challenging opportunity of working abroad, especially since in many Spanish universities language courses are not an integral part of standard teaching curricula. In this regard and considering recent voices in the translation field for the reintroduction of translation as an adequate way of bringing and enabling L2-acquisition for students, we intend to show the reasons which speak up for the application of translation-related methods in language classrooms and particularly in the case of language for specific purposes in the Nursing and Medical fields. Taking into account the shift to a more functional and context-oriented process in Translation Science, and considering that our students should have certain knowledge of their respective fields in their mother language, translation techniques could serve as an adequate transfer-based way to raise awareness in our students about the different specific language uses – e. g. speech between professionals or between professionals and patients as well as their relatives– which are characteristic in healthrelated fields in the language they are studying, as well as the cultural differences that they should take into account when working with foreigners or in a foreign environment. Our poster will provide an explanation of the steps and methods we will use in order to achieve our objectives. Keywords: translation; language for specific purposes; foreign language teaching; health sciences References: CABRÉ, Mª Teresa/GÓMEZ DE ENTERRÍA, Josefa (2006): La enseñanza de los lenguajes de especialidad: la simulación global. Madrid: Gredos. HURTADO ALBIR, Amparo (2011, 5th rev. ed.): Traducción y Traductología. Introducción a la Traductología. 5ª ed. rev. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra. LEONARDI, Vanessa (2014): The Role of Pedagogical Translation in Second Language Acquisition. From Theory to Practice. Bern: Peter Lang AG. ROCHE, Jörg (2008, 2nd rev. and ext. ed.): Fremdsprachenerwerb: Fremdsprachendidaktik. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto.
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Helena Levy, Lars Konieczny & Adriana Hanulíková Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany
Many children in Germany are growing up in a highly diverse language surrounding. In addition to a rich dialect-scape with a variety of regional accents, children are increasingly exposed to different languages as well as foreign accented German. This project is concerned with the effects of experience with different accents (regional or foreign) and languages on children’s speech perception and production. We know from previous studies that children have more difficulties recognizing words in unfamiliar accents as compared to familiar accents (Nathan et al., 1998; Bent, 2014). Less attention has been paid to the influence of experience with accented speech on accent comprehension. In a perception experiment, 65 German primary school children (mean age 9 years, 10 months) were asked to repeat sentences spoken by three different speakers: one who spoke standard German, one with a foreign accent and one with a regional accent in German. All of the children had experience with regional and foreign accents but the amount of accent exposure to both kinds of accents varied considerably. More experience with regional accents led to more correct sentence repetitions in the regional accent condition. More experience with foreign accents, however, did not help in the foreign accent condition. Type and amount of experience seem to codetermine processing ease of accented speech. We are currently analyzing the same subjects’ productions of German vowels in spontaneously produced words in order to examine how children’s pronunciation differs acoustically according to type and amount of accent and language experience.
References: Bent, T. (2014). Children’s perception of foreign-accented words. Journal of Child Language 41, 1 – 22. Nathan, L., Wells, B., & Donlan, C. (1998). Children’s comprehension of unfamiliar regional accents: a preliminary investigation. Journal of Child Language 25, 343 – 365.
Language start classes for newly immigrated adolescents – 69
Chances and challenges Karin Madlener¹ & Andrea Ender² ¹University of Basel, Switzerland, ²University of Salzburg, Austria School attendance is certainly compulsory in the German-speaking countries, but how can we ensure that newly immigrated children and adolescents will meet the right conditions for learning, opening up equal chances of educational success as well as longer-term opportunities of integration and social participation? As the educational systems in the federal states of Germany, in Austria, and in Switzerland do not share standardized educational frameworks for newly immigrated children and adolescents, a multitude of individual curricula and models of so-called language start, welcome, or integration classes have been implemented locally and have only just begun to be monitored and evaluated by experts in multilingualism, second language acquisition, and language pedagogy (cf. Benholz et al. 2015, 2016). Based on (i) best practice interviews with selected expert teachers in language start classes for newly immigrated adolescents in Berlin, Basel, and Salzburg, and on (ii) written surveys taken by teachers and decision-makers from a larger number of secondary school language start classes, our presentation discusses the following crucial issues from the perspective of second language acquisition theory: (1) Which models of language start classes have been devised to meet the needs of adolescent populations? How are they motivated and evaluated from internal (teacher) and external (decisionmaker) perspectives? (2) Which are the major challenges posed to teachers by high levels of fluctuation and heterogeneity within the learner groups, primarily as regards the integration of learners lacking basic literacy skills? (3) How can the teaching of subject matters be introduced in language start classes, ensuring that any subject matter teaching at the same time provides ample opportunities for language learning (cf. Röhner & Hövelbrinks 2013)? (4) How can transitions to regular general or vocational educational programmes be scaffolded and how can subsequent continuous special language training for linguistically heterogeneous classes be ensured?
Benholz, C., M. Frank & C. Niederhaus (Hrsg.) (2016). Neu zugewanderte Schülerinnen und Schüler –eine Gruppe mit besonderen Potentialen. Beiträge aus Forschung und Schulpraxis. Münster: Waxmann. Benholz, C., M. Frank & E. Gürsoy (Hrsg.) (2015). Deutsch als Zweitsprache in allen Fächern: Konzepte für Lehrerbildung und Unterricht. Stuttgart: Fillibach bei Klett. Röhner, C. & B. Hövelbrinks (Hrsg.) (2013). Fachbezogene Sprachförderung in Deutsch als Zweitsprache. Theoretische Konzepte und empirische Befunde zum Erwerb bildungssprachlicher Kompetenzen. Weinheim, Basel: Beltz Juventa.
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Moving an International Classroom to an Inter-Cultural Classroom: Steps taken to build an ICC course Denise McAllister Maastricht University, Netherlands Maastricht University has been at the forefront of internationalisation and English Medium Instruction (EMI) for some time, but it has become evident that simply putting groups of students into a classroom together and expecting them to work together does not automatically create internationally competent students. The Problem-Based Learning (PBL) method that the university employs requires students to work together and to share their opinions but this approach may cause some conflict as cultural backgrounds can determine how easily students volunteer opinions rather than have them elicited, think critically or objectively, or work in groups rather than as individuals. In addition to the possible cultural conflicts that can occur within the classroom, the administrative and teaching staff also experience culture clashes as a result of increased numbers of international students and staff. This is reminiscent of the increasingly international public and private sector workforce throughout the region, with the province of Limburg lying on the Dutch-Belgian and DutchGerman borders. Katya Verbruggen and Denise McAllister of the UM Language Centre have been delivering workshops in Intercultural Awareness both within the university and to external customers in the region since September 2015. In addition, they are now building a seven-session course in Intercultural Competence with the intention of promoting it as a minor subject in the university and offering it externally. This poster highlights the steps taken so far in developing the workshops and course and those yet to be taken in order to roll it out to the widest audience possible. It identifies competencies required to build and deliver such courses and areas which must be addressed in order to ensure intercultural communication is maximised.
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The role of collocations in EMI academic discourse. Developing lexical resources for non-native English academic speakers Diana Peppoloni University for Foreigners of Siena, Italy English has been used increasingly over the last decades as the medium of instruction of the academic community, becoming a contact language intended for people, who share neither a common native tongue nor a common (national) culture. Worldwide, non-native speakers are encouraged to use Academic English to interact as a consequence of a global process of academic internationalisation (Nagy & Townsend 2012). Even if a common academic lingua franca constitutes the ideal medium for sharing knowledge in an international environment, non-native speakers may still be at a severe disadvantage, when it comes to communicating proficiently. Two crucial weak points for non-native speakers are vocabulary acquisition and lexical competence development. Foreign speakers usually focus on vocabulary size at the expense of vocabulary depth in their learning process, thus neglecting crucial lexical relations such as collocations (e.g. address an issue, high probability) (Nattinger & DeCarrico 1992, Hyland 2008, Pawley & Syder 1983). These sets of frequently co-occurring words in a language are fundamental indicators of one’s lexical competence and deeply affect language proficiency (Henriksen 2013, Nesselhauf 2005). Despite being an essential requirement, collocational competence is one of the most neglected areas in vocabulary studies and second language teaching/learning. My project aims at filling this scientific and didactic gap, developing effective tools (an Academic corpus and a list of English academic collocations) to foster language acquisition in a concrete way, providing non-native users with the necessary means to use EAL in the best way possible. For this purpose I will collect data on oral Academic English usage by audio-recording native and highly advanced non-native speakers from the academic staff at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) in different academic situations. Then, I will annotate the collected data to develop the Academic Spoken English Corpus (ASEC), from which I will extract a list of the most frequent and representative English academic oral collocations. Having already developed a similar work for academic Italian language, I aim at developing the future a multilingual digital resource.
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English as a Lingua Franca in the Humanities? Language Policy in Structured Doctoral Programs in Germany Sarah Sofie Raphael Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany In the context of higher education policy, internationalization is at the heart of most discussions on strengthening the German and European research landscape. English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in academia plays a central role in most institutional strategies for internationalization, which ultimately aim at gaining excellent academic staff through the training of junior researchers, i.e. doctoral students. By now, English-medium Instruction (EMI) is a central part of that training and can be key to identifying current trends: Research on language attitudes of the potential scientific leaders of tomorrow sheds light on how they might shape the future of scientific communication. However, most studies on German doctoral education focus on a width of statistical aspects, thereby naturally neglecting detailed analyses of language attitudes of PhD students. ELF is mostly studied regarding the quality or spread of EMI in Master’s programmes. So far, the question how ELF language policy in doctoral programmes impacts internationalization strategies (and vice versa) has not been addressed systematically. Also, research on language attitudes and policy is especially scarce for the Humanities. Compared to other disciplines, the Humanities do not seem to have established ELF extensively (yet?), which is why they need special attention in this context. My research is motivated by the understanding that this gap in ELF research must be closed in order to provide a knowledge base for discussions and further research on structured doctoral training as well as internationalization trends, and offer policy recommendations for the future of German higher education. Hence, I am posing the following questions: Is there a tendency towards a spread of ELF in German doctoral training? How do PhD candidates in the Humanities see ELF and what trends can be detected? What implications does ELF have for language policy, research management and institutional internationalization strategies?
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Multilingual Identities in Study Abroad Charles Robert Webster University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA This study investigates the role that identity plays in language interaction and use in a study abroad context. Though studies focusing on social aspects of study abroad have become more prevalent recently, few have addressed the linguistic diversity that students encounter while abroad (Kinginger, 2009). Students encounter not only native speakers of the target language but also speakers of other languages, with varying degrees of proficiency. This study addresses the extent to which foreign students, whose primary goal is to gain proficiency in the L2, negotiate the multilingual study abroad experience. Study participants included nine American university students participating in an 11-month study abroad program in southwestern Germany. Participants reported the number of minutes of German and English they spoke each day in various situations. In addition, they reflected on their language use and interactions in daily diaries and bi-weekly interviews. Participants adopted a range of interactional strategies. A quantitative analysis of interaction time and a qualitative analysis of the level of participants’ relationships with native and non-native speakers of German and their attitudes towards them were conducted. Participants can be positioned on a spectrum, from little interaction in German to a rejection of the American and foreign cohorts in favor of interactions with German native speakers exclusively. Participants’ positioning did not remain constant but rather fluctuated depending on program events and changes in relationships.
Reference: Kinginger, C. (2009). Language learning and study abroad: A critical reading of research. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave/Macmillan
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