“How are you, siihen me sanotaan I’m fine” : tapaustutkimus oppilaiden ja kielenopettajan käsityksistä kielestä ja kielen oppimisesta varhaisen englannin opetuksen kontekstissa

Vuonna 2020 Suomessa käynnistettiin uudenlaisen pohjan luominen kielen oppimisen jatkumolle, kun ensimmäisen vieraan tai toisen kotimaisen kielen aloitus varhennettiin ensimmäiselle vuosiluokalle. Tutkimus on osoittanut, että opettajien ja oppilaiden käsityksillä on keskeinen rooli oppimis- ja opetuskäytänteiden muotoutumisessa ja siksi on tärkeää tutkia käsityksiä uudessa tilanteessa. Tässä artikkelissa tarkastellaan yhden englannin aineenopettajan ja hänen oppilaidensa käsityksiä vuosina 2020–2021 tehtyjen teemahaastattelujen kautta. Tulokset osoittivat, että oppilaiden ja opettajan käsityksissä lasten vapaa-ajan ja koulun englanti erosivat toisistaan ja opettajan käsityksissä myös varhai…

Raising awareness of multilingualism as lived – in the context of teaching English as a foreign language

Tässä artikkelissa esitellään mahdollisuuksia herätellä kielen oppijoiden kieli- ja kulttuuritietoisuutta. Esitellyt mahdollisuudet pohjautuvat 24 empiirisen tutkimuksen kriittiseen arviointiin. Tutkimuksissa käytettiin kuvataiteisiin pohjautuvia visuaalisia menetelmiä. Tällaisten menetelmien avulla on mahdollista pohtia aikaisempia kokemuksia tai kuvitella tulevaisuutta ja näin reflektoida erilaisia monikielisyyden kokemuksia. Näitä voivat olla identiteetin rakentumiseen liittyvät kysymykset, käsitykset eri kielten käytöstä tai tulevaisuuden unelmat. Arviointimme perusteella esitämme, että niitä tehtäviä, joita käytettiin tutkimuksissa, voidaan soveltaa eri tavoin erilaisille vieraan kiele…

Dynamic Multimodal Language Practices in Multilingual Indigenous Sámi Classrooms in Finland

Starting from the premise that dynamic language practices are an emerging property of interaction, and that languages are learnt by participating in language practices, we focus in this chapter on the tensions and creativity that arise from complex, changing, and interconnected multilingual discourses, practices, and experiences in indigenous Sami classrooms. Drawing on longitudinal ethnographic and discourse-analytic research on a multilingual indigenous Sami community in Finland, we will examine the strategies and practices that a group of Sami children develop, use, and modify while navigating this complex terrain. We illustrate the various ways in which the children adopt and play with …

Tegn på sprog - set udefra : fire perspektiver

Texts and interaction : literacy practices in the EFL classroom

This study investigates literacy practices in the EFL classroom and subscribes to a social view of literacy (Literacy Studies). Accordingly, literacy is understood as a social practice where people talk about and around texts. Literacy in the classroom is embedded in the institutional context of education, which is characterized by specific discursive practices and by certain types of texts. As talk is central in the classroom, the present study pays special attention to the role of interaction in constructing literacy. Literacy practices are established, maintained and contested locally in particular literacy events through the interaction (including with texts) and actions of those partic…

Visual methods in Applied Language Studies

This introductory article serves two purposes. Firstly, it provides the background for the set of 11 articles that appear in the special issue of this journal and summarizes the articles along a number of dimensions. All the articles address aspects of multilingualism as subjectively experienced and they all make use of visual methodologies. Secondly, it subjects the articles to two meta-analyses. The first one compares and contrasts the studies by site: production, image and audiencing. The second one, in contrast, classifies the studies by the research strategy chosen by the researchers: looking, seeing or designing. The article concludes by pointing to future directions in research on mu…

Status versus nature of work : pre-service language teachers envisioning their future profession

Considering the central role of identity in understanding teacher development, this paper addresses the ways in which pre-service language teachers envision their identities as future professionals. The paper is based on a qualitative study of 61 students’ visualisations of their future work during their first semester in language teacher education. The visualisations and accompanying descriptive texts were analysed using the principles of qualitative content analysis. In the analysis, two different ways of perceiving future professions, and thereby identities as professionals, were identified. The first was a nature-oriented perspective that focused on desired characteristics of the profes…

Young People’s Emerging Multilingual Practices: Learning Language or Literacy, or Both?

Research on language learning and research on literacy are typically seen as two separate strands of enquiry and thus the concepts of language and literacy have traditionally been kept apart. This is partly due to epistemological questions related to language and literacy. In this chapter, I will discuss these concepts in the context of multilingualism. Approaching multilingual language use from the perspective of literacy practices enables us to look beyond language to social practices and to examine the relationship between the concepts of language and literacy, literacy practices and language learning. Two data sets are used to illustrate how language, literacy, and language learning are…

Changing society - changing language learning and teaching practices?

Swift and unexpected changes have taken place in society over the past few decades: globalisation, increasing mobility, labour market changes and fast technological development have transformed society, making it multicultural, multilingual and multimodal. Education – and here above all language education – is at the centre of most societal activities and should be able to react to the changes quickly and flexibly. However, the changes in education are slow, and the views of the parties involved in the various levels of education as to the changes and their consequences do not always correspond. The purpose of this article is to outline the field of language education in the midst of the cu…

Kansallinen kyselytutkimus englannin kielestä Suomessa : käyttö, merkitys ja asenteet

Introduction to next-generation engineering: Being human in the information society

While adopting Information Technology (IT) may have been a goal in itself in the past, during the last decade the emphasis has shifted, and IT has instead become a tool that enables us to realize other needs. This also sets new requirements for IT education: skills in software engineering and computer science alone do not provide students with the professional abilities they will need after graduation. To answer this call, the University of Jyväskylä launched in autumn 2021 a new engineering B.Sc. and M.Sc. degree program in Information and Software Engineering with close ties to the Humanities. The degree program was established on three cornerstones: 1) the ability to implement IT systems…

Young People's Translocal New Media Uses: A Multiperspective Analysis Of Language Choice And Heteroglossia

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the particularities of the linguistic, social and cultural action of young Finns in translocal new media spaces, and the ways in which they themselves make sense of and account for their actions. We present findings from 4 case studies, each of which illustrates aspects of translocality in young Finns' new media uses. Theoretically and methodologically the case studies draw on sociolinguistics, discourse studies, and ethnography, making use of the concepts of language choice and linguistic and stylistic heteroglossia. Through the 4 cases in focus, the paper shows how young people's linguistically and textually sophisticated new media uses are geared…

From a school task to community effort: children as authors of multilingual picture books in an endangered language context

Multimodal literacy practices in the indigenous Sámi classroom: Children navigating in a complex multilingual setting.

This article explores multimodal literacy practices in a transforming multilingual context of an indigenous and endangered Sami language classroom. Looking at literacy practices as embedded in a complex and shifting terrain of language ideologies, language norms, and individual experiences and attitudes, we examined how multilingual Sami children navigate and appropriate meaning-making resources available for them while designing their own picture books. We adopted a discourse ethnographic approach to analyse these multimodal picture books and found three different but interrelated orientations to the making of the books, each organising and valuing multimodal resources in his or her own wa…

Discursive construction of a high-stakes test: the many faces of a test-taker

As part of a larger project, we studied how a foreign language test got discursively constructed in the talk of upper-secondary-school leavers. A group of students were asked to keep an oral diary to record their ideas, feelings and experiences of preparing for and taking the test over the last spring term of school, as part of a high-stakes national examination. In addition, they took part in discussions either in pairs or groups of three after having learned about the final test results. After transcribing the data, drawing on a form of discourse analysis originally launched by a group of social psychologists, we identified (at least) four interpretative repertoires in the students’ acco…

Rhizoanalysis of Sociomaterial Entanglements in Teacher Interviews

AbstractThis chapter explores how the entangled relationship between the material and social in teachers’ perceptions of change can be empirically investigated. More specifically, the chapter adopts a DeleuzoGuattarian rhizoanalytic assemblage approach and the notion of becoming to capture the dynamic and fluid nature of social and material affects. The study re-analyses three teacher interviews from data sets originally collected for different research purposes but with the theme of change relevant in each interview. The findings show that rhizomatic analysis and approaching interviews as assemblages can yield important insights about material realities. For example, they indicate how teac…

Visual Methods in Researching Language Practices and Language Learning: Looking at, Seeing, and Designing Language

The changing ways of using language and various understandings of what language is have consequences for the way we research language practices and language learning. When engaging in social contact, people use diverse and complex forms, modes, and varieties of language to communicate, and moreover, these resources often include icons, images, and other semiotic ways of meaning making. Visuality thus has a natural position in people’s language practices. In this chapter, we discuss how visual methods have been adopted and used as a methodological tool in researching language practices and language learning. With this focus, attention is geared to the materiality of language, on the one hand…

Practising applied linguistics and the change agenda

Forum Discussion

Language teacher identities as socio-politically situated construction : Finnish and Brazilian student teachers’ visualisations of their professional futures

The process of envisioning the future is central to teachers’ identity construction, but different environments create distinct sociocultural conditions for the process. This qualitative study drawing on visual-textual methods compares Finnish and Brazilian student teachers’ desired and feared professional futures. Two different perspectives on future identities were detected: a desire for status and a desire for meaningfulness. The results revealed the radically different social status of teaching in the two countries and the role this played in the envisioned identities. The study highlights the importance of awareness of the socio-political nature of identity construction in developing t…

Language teacher identities as socio-politically situated construction: Finnish and Brazilian student teachers’ visualisations of their professional futures

Abstract The process of envisioning the future is central to teachers’ identity construction, but different environments create distinct sociocultural conditions for the process. This qualitative study drawing on visual-textual methods compares Finnish and Brazilian student teachers’ desired and feared professional futures. Two different perspectives on future identities were detected: a desire for status and a desire for meaningfulness. The results revealed the radically different social status of teaching in the two countries and the role this played in the envisioned identities. The study highlights the importance of awareness of the socio-political nature of identity construction in dev…

Saamelaislapset kirjailijoina : multimodaaliset tekstikäytänteet monikielisissä saamen luokissa

This article examines children’s multimodal literacy practices in an indigenous Sámi language classroom in Northern Finland, with a speci$ c focus on multimodal picture books designed by the pupils. The position of the Sámi languages in people’s linguistic repertoires has changed dramatically during the past 60 years as they have turned into endangered languages with only few speakers. Consequently, there is very little printed material available and therefore few established literacy practices. By using the term literacy practices we mean here both the text that is produced as well as the values and attitudes rooted in the culture and histories of communities. The data consist of picture b…

Multilingualism in (Foreign) Language Teaching and Learning

I am an applied linguist who considers language learning to be a socially constructed practice. In fact, I would rather talk about applied language studies than applied linguistics, as I understand this area of inquiry to include any language-related research that bears a strong connection to societally significant phenomena. In that broad palette of research, my own work would be placed at the interface of the areas of language learning and teaching, on the one hand, and discourse studies and sociolinguistics, on the other. I have always worked with students who wish to be language teachers. Over the years, I have seen hundreds of students entering working life that is in constant turmoil.…

Young People's Emerging Multilingual Practices : Learning Language or Literacy, or Both?

Research on language learning and research on literacy are typically seen as two separate strands of enquiry and thus the concepts of language and literacy have traditionally been kept apart. This is partly due to epistemological questions related to language and literacy. In this chapter, I will discuss these concepts in the context of multilingualism. Approaching multilingual language use from the perspective of literacy practices enables us to look beyond language to social practices and to examine the relationship between the concepts of language and literacy, literacy practices and language learning. Two data sets are used to illustrate how language, literacy, and language learning are…

Visual accounts of Finnish and Greek teenagers’ perceptions of their multilingual language and literacy practices

AbstractThis paper uses visual methods to explore how teenagers in two different European countries (Finland and Greece) personally relate to their first language and to English, which is widely used in the everyday lives of young people in both countries. Our data comprise sets of self-made visualizations in which 14- to 16-year-old teenagers depict their personal relationship to their first language (Finnish/Greek) and to English. Theoretically and methodologically, we subscribe to socio-culturally oriented research on (foreign language) literacy and language learning and recent studies on multilingualism. Overall, by offering a detailed account of the variety of representation forms and …

Teachers negotiating multilingualism in the EFL classroom

Tässä artikkelissa tutkimme suomalaisten englanninopettajien käsityksiä maahanmuuttajaoppilaista, joilla on monikielinen tausta, vieraan kielen luokkahuoneessa. Aiemmat tutkimukset monikielisistä oppijoista ovat keskittyneet toisen kielen oppimiseen tai oppijan äidinkieleen. Tässä tutkimuksessa keskitymme englantiin vieraana kielenä, sillä maailma on aiempaa monikielisempi ja liikkuvuus yleisempää kuin ennen. Aineistona on englannin opettajien haastattelut (n=7), joissa he pohtivat kokemuksiaan maahanmuuttajaoppilaista vieraan kielen oppitunnilla. Analyysimenetelmänä oli laadullinen sisällönanalyysi. Tulokset osoittavat, että osallistujat eivät olleet pohtineet monikielisyyttä englannin opp…

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…

ALR special issue: Visual methods in Applied Language Studies

Abstract This introductory article serves two purposes. Firstly, it provides the background for the set of 11 articles that appear in the special issue of this journal and summarizes the articles along a number of dimensions. All the articles address aspects of multilingualism as subjectively experienced and they all make use of visual methodologies. Secondly, it subjects the articles to two meta-analyses. The first one compares and contrasts the studies by site: production, image and audiencing. The second one, in contrast, classifies the studies by the research strategy chosen by the researchers: looking, seeing or designing. The article concludes by pointing to future directions in resea…

Vanhemmat kielivalintojen äärellä

Jyväskylän yliopistossa tehtiin tapaustutkimus syksyllä 2019 alkaneen varhennetun kieltenopetuksen kielivalinnoista. nonPeerReviewed

Maahanmuuttajat vieraan kielen oppijoina: monikielisen oppilaan kielirepertuaarin tunnistaminen ja hyödyntäminen vieraan kielen oppitunnilla

Multilingualism and its eQ ect on language learning and teaching have been widely studied from the point of view of + rst languages, but multilingualism as a resource in foreign language learning/teaching has been largely neglected. Yet, the number of migrant students grows in Finnish schools as immigration becomes more common. In Finland, the number of migrant students at schools is growing rapidly. This pilot study addresses multilingual resources and how they are being recognised and employed in foreign language classroom. Teachers’ experiences reveal that the issue is neglected in teacher training. Yet, it is a question teachers face in their everyday work. This paper discusses the view…