Search results for "Language education"
showing 10 items of 117 documents
Towards multilingual competence: examining beliefs and agency in first year university students’ language learner biographies
2021
As working life across the world is increasingly multilingual, multicultural and multidisciplinary, higher education language teaching is faced with a challenge of how to prepare students for it. Many universities have recently developed multilingual pedagogies but central to their success is learners’ perceptions of these practices. To fill this gap, this article explores first year university students’ language learner biographies to gain insight into how learners construct their linguistic realities. The biographies were studied with discourse analytical methods to examine the participants’ beliefs about language learning and their sense of agency in it. The results reveal that participa…
Raising awareness of multilingualism as lived – in the context of teaching English as a foreign language
2020
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…
Being a good neighbour: developing intercultural understanding through critical dialogue between an Australian and Finnish cross-case study
2020
Language educators in Australia and Finland are expected to foster intercultural understanding within foreign language education. This paper presents findings from a qualitative case study focusing on theoretical and practical intercultural understanding in secondary school language education. The data for this study includes lesson observations as well as student and teachers interviews collected in two secondary schools in Australia and Finland. The findings demonstrate the complex resources teachers and students draw on to develop and share intercultural understanding. The discussion addresses the value of different perspectives and the need for a new metaphor to conceptualise intercultu…
The emotional journey of being and becoming bilingual
2017
This article examines the foreign language learning biographies of six Finnish English speakers who reflect on their journey towards a bilingual identity. In this article language learning is examined as a process that is intrinsically emotional as emotion connects individuals with the world as well as being a movement within oneself. The data analysis is based on dialogical and narrative approaches. Through the analysis two key story types were named: Bilingualism as striving and Bilingualism as a gift. In the striving stories English was held up as an ideal, as a way of engaging with the wider world but moreover as a way of finding a better ‘me’. In the gift stories, English was experienc…
Foreign language teaching – Integrationism vs. MGM
2018
Abstract Modern language teaching is no longer grammar based, but based on authentic real life dialogues (dialogic speech acts) which enable learners to communicate or rather to interact verbally and nonverbally competent with native speakers. The conception of language teaching curricula, especially with regard to the development of textbooks, is in need of an applicable model of communication, based on regularities or principles of language-usage. Both, Integrationism and the Mixed Game Model (MGM) opt against segregational static approaches of linguistic analysis and – at first glance – could be considered suitable approaches within the field of language teaching. Yet, I will argue that …
Analysis of New Concept English from the Perspective of Cross-cultural Communication–A Case Study in Book 2
2018
New Concept English (NCE) is a series of English language textbooks, four volumes in total, which have gained national popularity and wide acceptance by English teachers, learners and parents in China. In the academic circle, apart from the analysis of the contents of NCE, which has been mostly discussed, many contrast studies between NCE and other English course-books are not new topics either. This paper focuses on the analysis of NCE from the perspective of cross-cultural communication and develops a detailed study on the second volume based on eight parameters: norm, value, art, custom, religion, language, ways of life, material culture. Hopefully, the current study will shed new light …
Online Intercultural Exchanges Through Digital Storytelling
2017
This article focuses on the affordances of a digital storytelling project in developing students' language, digital and other skills: learning and innovation, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, team working, and life and career skills. The project was undertaken by university English for Specific Purposes students and was conducted within an Online Intercultural Exchange between the Cyprus University of Technology and the University of Valencia. Its design was based on a Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology. It incorporated active learning and multimodal resources and capabilities. The need for transforming language teaching pedagogies was borne in mind, as it is necessary …
Teachers’ Emotions and Beliefs in Second Language Teaching : Implications for Teacher Education
2018
Studies on language teacher beliefs have long indicated that in order to better understand teacher beliefs, we need to look at their connections with emotions (Borg 2006). Researchers in fields such as social psychology (Frijda et al. 2000) and education (Rosiek 2003; Gill and Hardin 2014) have pointed out how emotions shape and are shaped by beliefs. These suggest also that emotions and beliefs are fundamentally interconnected in individuals’ decision-making processes, with emotions providing the necessary impetus for change and beliefs deciding the course of actions. In order to have a complete view of second language teachers’ beliefs, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of these…
Heteroglossia in Action: Sámi Children, Textbooks and Rap
2013
This chapter examines heteroglossia in the complex, continuously evolving multilingual context of Samiland, the historically and culturally central area for indigenous Sami culture and languages. The analytical discussion is of a rap about textbooks, created and performed by a group of Sami children with the help of their teachers and parents that they presented as their petition for more Sami language teaching materials. The rap is viewed as an example of heteroglossic practices, a strategic mobilization, mixture and recycling of multiple meaning making resources that result in a polyphonic performance.
Foreign language teaching within special needs education: learning from Europe-wide experience
2005
In this article, Anne Stevens and David Marsh focus on the main aspects of the argument and discussion raised in the recently published European Commission (2005) report on the teaching and learning of languages in the context of special educational needs. They explore the avenues of possible action that should follow if the issues raised in the report are to be effectively addressed.