Search results for "612"
showing 10 items of 302 documents
Epistemic Search Sequences in Peer Interaction in a Content-based Language Classroom
2013
Epistemics in interaction refers to how participants display, manage, and orient to their own and others’ states of knowledge. This article applies recent conversation analytical work on epistemics to classrooms where language and content instruction are combined. It focuses on Epistemic Search Sequences (ESSs) through which students in peer interaction collectively resolve emerging knowledge gaps while working on pedagogic tasks. ESSs are initiated when a speaker displays an ‘unknowing’ epistemic stance by making an information request about some aspect of language or the content being worked on. We examine three different types of ESS: those in which a ‘knowing’ response is accepted by th…
Teachers’ views on differentiation in content and language integrated learning (CLIL): Perceptions, practices and challenges
2012
The present study investigates differentiation in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in Finland. Specifically, this combination of a qualitative case study and quantitative survey examines (1) primary teachers’ perceptions of differentiation, (2) the differentiation methods specific to CLIL education the teachers use and (3) the challenges of differentiation they identify. The qualitative phase was conducted in a school which offers CLIL education also to pupils with special needs following the principles of inclusive education. The results revealed that the teachers (n = 51) perceived differentiation in somewhat different ways. In general, the teachers differentiated their CLI…
Assessing learners’ writing skills in a SLA study: Validating the rating process across tasks, scales and languages
2014
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…
Investing in indigenous multilingualism in the Arctic
2018
Abstract This article explores the dynamics between language and identity categories and the boundaries produced in a changing multilingual, indigenous context in the Arctic region of Finland. In this moment of transition, indigenous multilingualism has high stakes. It can be a resource for political and economic development but also for management and regimentation, open to winners and losers. Drawing on a longitudinal critical discourse ethnography of producing language and identity categories in the Finnish Arctic, I discuss three circulating discourses relevant for the ways in which indigenous identity boundaries are made to matter, namely strategic, aspirational and affective multiling…
Exploring the cross-linguistic transfer of reading skills in Spanish to English in the context of a computer adaptive reading intervention
2017
ABSTRACTWe explore the potential of a computer-adaptive decoding game in Spanish to increase the decoding skills and oral reading fluency in Spanish and English of bilingual students. Participants were 78 first-grade Spanish-speaking students attending bilingual programs in five classrooms in Texas. Classrooms were randomly assigned to the treatment (i.e., where students played Graphogame Spanish) for 16 weeks for ten minutes per day (n = 3) versus business as usual instruction (n = 2). Results indicate that students at some risk on Spanish pseudoword reading appeared to benefit the most from playing the game. Analysis of gains suggests a potentially small, but meaningful educational effect…
Irony and the moral order of secondary school classrooms
2011
Abstract This paper describes how irony is used to negatively evaluate student behaviour in sequences where students disrupt or resist the official business of the lesson and thus challenge the teacher's authority. Irony-implicative utterances, i.e. utterances hearable as ironic in their context, are examined from two complementary perspectives: (i) the intricate interactional work utterances involve; how utterances are hearable as ironic and how participants negotiate their implications within the sequences of action in which the utterances are occasioned and used, and (ii) the use of irony in the local management of moral orders in the classroom. Findings show that irony-implicative utter…
Ohjeita, tietoa ja turvaa kielen keinoin. Ulkomailta palkatut sairaanhoitajat ammatillista suomen kielen taitoaan osoittamassa
2016
Advice, information and safety by means of language: internationally recruited nurses demonstrating their professional Finnish language skills he focus of this paper is on the professional language used by four internationally educated nurses working in Finnish in Finland. The data comes from a tailor-made professional language test module including integrated material-based tasks. The module was designed by the project Health care Finnish: developing and assessing Finnish proficiency among health care professionals (2014−2015) to complement the skill profiles based on the test results of the National Certifi- cates of Language Proficiency (NCLP) intermediate level test. None of the partic…
Reforming the national core curriculum for bilingual education in Finland
2016
This article explores the discourses surrounding the act of writing Section 10 Bilingual education in the new Finnish national core curriculum, which will be implemented in 2016. This section will set the parameters for programs that integrate language and content learning, where a minimum of two languages are used for instruction in content subjects. The main research questions discussed in this article are how and why certain discourses are expressed, or left unexpressed, in the final draft version of the curriculum. The data for qualitative analysis consists of participatory observations and minutes of meetings in the working group assembled for writing the draft.
Rapping the ‘Better folk’: Ideological and scalar negotiations of past and present
2017
Drawing on sociolinguistics of globalization, discourse studies and global hip hop studies, this article examines how the ideological sociocultural and -historical reality of Finland is (re)constructed and (re)negotiated in a local rap song and how the song takes issue with the official, but often tension-ridden Finnish–Swedish bilingualism. Its specific, ironic take arises from the fact that the rap artist is Finnish-speaking, but echoes a Swedish-speaking minority who are traditionally and stereotypically seen as a privileged, historical elite. The song exemplifies how rap can constitute a site for investigation of language ideological debates in bi/multilingual societies and how national…
Commodifying Sami culture in an indigenous tourism site
2014
Cultural tourism has become an alternative economic activity in many indigenous sites, and local tourist providers compete globally by commodifying their culture in an efficient, attractive manner. This process is not however a straightforward one, because of the need to manage both the multilingual context and the interaction between host and tourists, and this can lead to tensions for all parties. We examine a Reindeer Farm in the indigenous language space of Samiland. Based on a long-term ethnography, we identify different scripts which are used within the tourist encounter to pre-empt and manage tensions around the legitimacy of the host, the collusion and cooperation between host and t…