CEFLING: Combining Second Language Acquisition and Testing Approaches to Writing

Grammaticality judgments and reaction time measurement : a tool for analyzing the use of second language knowledge

“But big is a funny word”: a multiple perspective on concept formation in a foreign-language-mediated classroom

In recent years, foreign-language mediated instruction (immersion, content-based language learning and teaching) has been studied from various perspectives. In the following study, a single event from a Finnish third-grade EFL-mediated geography lesson is studied by combining insights from three research approaches: sociocultural, socio-cognitive, and discourse-pragmatic. The data analysis focuses on how during concept formation, the participants use commonplace means present in every classroom – textbook and chalkboard, spoken and written, verbal and nonverbal communicative means – to construct knowledge and its social context. The results indicate that there exist strong parallels among t…

Kieli objektina : miten lapset mieltävät kielen

In this article, children’s views to language are discussed. The data comes from a project called Situated metalinguistic awareness and foreign language learning. It is argued that in children’s conceptualizations, the knowledge and skills that are required at school are separate from the skills of everyday life. For example, the English they learn in everyday life - “Play Station English” - is not identified with the “Classroom English”. It is suggested that the gap between school and everyday life, or, between different school subjects dealing with language (mother tongue and foreign languages) should be better bridged. peerReviewed

Assessing learners’ writing skills in a SLA study: Validating the rating process across tasks, scales and languages

There is still relatively little research on how well the CEFR and similar holistic scales work when they are used to rate L2 texts. Using both multifaceted Rasch analyses and qualitative data from rater comments and interviews, the ratings obtained by using a CEFR-based writing scale and the Finnish National Core Curriculum scale for L2 writing were examined to validate the rating process used in the study of the linguistic basis of the CEFR in L2 Finnish and English. More specifically, we explored the quality of the ratings and the rating scales across different tasks and across the two languages. As the task is an integral part of the data-gathering procedure, the relationship of task p…

A Sociocultural Approach to Young Language Learners' Belief about Language Learning

Designing and Assessing L2 Writing Tasks Across CEFR Proficiency Levels

Kaksikielinen koulu? Pietarsaaren lukio ja Jakobstads gymnasium saman katon alle

Suomessa on käyty usean vuoden ajan keskustelua kaksikielisistä kouluista. Erityisen kiivaana keskustelu kävi syksyllä 2011, jolloin niin suomen- kuin ruotsinkielisessä lehdistössä esiteltiin mielipiteitä puolesta ja vastaan (Boyd & Palviainen 2015). Onko kaksikielinen koulu uhka vai resurssi? Miten molempien kielten asema koulussa turvataan? Suomessa on tällä hetkellä parikymmentä peruskoulua, joissa kaksi kieltä saman katon alla on arkea. Lukiokoulutuksessa kaksikielistä koulua on ryhdytty vasta kokeilemaan. nonPeerReviewed

Toimijuus ja asiantuntijaksi kasvaminen monimediaisessa kielenopettamisessa

This case study investigates the role of agency in the development of two students’ expertise during their participation in the year-long KOO-KIT program (Language Technology for Language Teachers) for pre-service language teachers at the Centre for Applied Language Studies of the University of Jyväskylä in the 2000s. The curriculum of the program was organized around project-based learning, with theoretical and pedagogical lessons and hands-on technology courses alternating with practical team work in web-based design. The data consist of the teachers’ observations and narrative assessments of the students’ performance, and the students’ self-reports during the one-year course. The finding…

ELT in Finland

"Nyt ymmärrän, että opettajaksi tullaan vasta työssä" : vieraiden kielten opettajaopiskelijoiden ajatuksia opettajan vastuusta

Languaging in Ultima Thule: Multilingualism in the Life of a Sami Boy

Abstract In this paper we investigate multilingualism as a phenomenon which pervades different social and cultural levels but is manifested in the everyday life of multilingual individuals. As an illustration, we examine multilingualism from the perspective of a young Sami boy, Ante, and explore how different languages function as a complex – but at times problematic – set of resources for him. To capture the complexity and fluidity in the relationships between various languages in his life, we base our theorising on such concepts as ‘linguistic resources’, ‘heteroglossia’ and ‘languaging’. With the help of multimodal data we examine how the linguistic resources present in Ante's daily life…