Search results for "Language assessment"
showing 10 items of 55 documents
Speed in cognitive tasks as an indicator of second/foreign language reading and writing skills
2013
In a cross-sectional study 823 Finnish school children were tested to examine the relation between speed of performance in cognitive and linguistic tasks and second/foreign language reading and writing. Participants were Finnish-speakers with English as foreign language and Russian-speakers with Finnish as second language which made it possible to compare the results across these two language groups. The Finnish group was furthermore divided into three groups by age to see how speed develops with age and education. Groups were tested with a number of cognitive instruments that included measures of speed of performance. Overall, performance on the speed measures improved with age; often, the…
Vironkielisten osallistujien kielitaito Yleisten kielitutkintojen suomen kielen testissä
2021
Tarkastelemme tässä artikkelissa vironkielisten suomen oppijoiden osallistumista Suomen kansallisen kielitestin, Yleisten kielitutkintojen, keskitason tutkintoon ja heidän kielitaitoprofiiliaan tutkintotulosten valossa. Vertaamme tuloksia yleiseen tutkintomenestykseen sekä osallistujien taustaan ja pohdimme suomen kielen asemaa oppimisen kohteena vironkielisten näkökulmasta. Analyysimetodina käytämme kuvailevaa tilastollista analyysia sekä tilastollista päättelyä. Tulokset osoittavat, että vironkieliset osallistujat menestyvät tutkinnossa hyvin ja erityisesti ymmärtämistaidot ovat tutkitussa ryhmässä vahvat. Vaikka aiemman tutkimuksen valossa suomen kielen taidon tason onkin nähty riippuvan…
An ethnographic study of language socialization and choice in a first and second grade English medium classroom in Finland
2013
In this ethnographic study of language socialization I investigate how a monolingual language norm is instituted, maintained, monitored, resisted, and subverted by participants in a first and second grade English medium class in Finland. In this setting language choice and use are an integral part of membership in this class. This study foregrounds the social implications of managing a monolingual norm by examining student agency, resistance, the achievement of voice, the uptake of a teacher-like discourse, and the practice of repair. The end result is a detailed exploration of peer-talk among students engaged in a variety of activities, highlighting the diverse trajectories of individuals,…
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…
Constructing practical knowledge of teaching: eleven newly qualified language teachers' discursive agency
2011
This paper explores the professional development of 11 newly qualified foreign language teachers. It draws on a qualitative longitudinal study conducted at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland between 2002 and 2009. The paper concentrates on the personal side of teacher development by analysing participants' discourses concerning language teaching. The study shows important differences in teachers' ways of conceptualising their environment and constructing practical knowledge on teaching. Teachers' sense of agency is identified as a major factor contributing to their professional development.
Youth language in media contexts: insights into the functions of English in Finland
2007
ABSTRACT: Recent research has shown that the role of English in Finland is now changing. In particular contexts, it is sometimes used as a lingua franca, an intracultural means of communication, and an additional language, along with Finnish. An interesting domain in terms of the spread and changing role of English is also youth language – the focus of the present paper. Approaching youth language from a discourse-analytic and sociolinguistic perspective, this paper investigates an electronic game session, hip-hop lyrics, fan fiction and weblogs. As in youth language in other bi/multilingual speech communities, the paper argues that the uses of English in these Finnish youth language conte…
LANGUAGE POLICY AND PLANNING
2000
The field of language policy and planning is clearly a sub-field within applied linguistics. It generally does not draw heavily on formal linguistics, except for aspects of corpus and status planning. However, it does draw extensively from a range of disciplines in order to plan, implement, and evaluate language policies that respond to the needs of stake holders of various types. Despite continuous development of the field, aspects of language policy and planning need to be developed further. One of the key areas where policy can be enhanced considerably is in the area of policy and planning evaluation. This direction of inquiry is also relevant to a number of other areas within applied li…
Implementing language policy for deaf students in a Texas school district
2013
Language policy implementation is a complex, multilayered process. Understanding this process can be achieved by identifying the agents, layers, and processes of language planning and policy activities, analyzing the layers independently, and examining the relations among the layers. Considering these dimensions, this article explicates how U.S. special education policy functions as de facto language policy for deaf students. Turning to implementation in local contexts, data from a larger multi-sited, qualitative case study of a Texas school district is presented to show how individuals act as policy-implementing agents and how their beliefs about language and education policy influences th…
Hands-on tasks in CLIL science classrooms as sites for subject-specific language use and learning
2015
This paper is concerned with content and language integrated learning (CLIL), i.e. classrooms where a foreign or second language (L2) is used as the means of instruction and where content and language learning objectives merge. More specifically, it explores the potential of hands-on tasks in CLIL chemistry and physics lessons to serve as sites for using and learning subject-specific language, conceptualised as both special concepts and terminology as well as subject-specific ways of constructing meaning. Using discourse analysis, attention was directed to hands-on tasks as well as pre-task and post-task phases. The findings indicate that despite the evident content orientation in the tasks…
"Vierasta korostusta on niin vähän, että arvaan viro" : yleisten kielitutkintojen suomen kielen arvioijien käsityksiä suomenruotsalaisten puhumasta s…
2022
Artikkelissa tarkastelemme Yleisten kielitutkintojen suomen kielen arvioijien (N = 44) käsityksiä suomenruotsalaisten puhujien (N = 9) oletetusta ensikielestä. Tutkimuksemme aineisto perustuu Suomen Akatemian rahoittamaan Rikkinäistä Suomea: Aksenttien arviointi yhteiskunnallisena portinvartijana (2018– 2022) -hankkeeseen, jossa tutkitaan vieraan aksentin vaikutusta suullisen kielitaidon arvioinnissa. Analysoimme sisällönanalyysin avulla arvioijien kirjallisia vastauksia liittyen puhujien ensikieleen ja siihen liittyviin perusteluihin. Artikkelissa kuvaamme, miten usein ja miksi suomen kielen arvioijat pitivät suomenruotsalaisia suomen kielen puhujia virolaisina puhujina. Arvioijat tunnisti…