Search results for "Language policy"

Families in flux: at the nexus of fluid family configurations and language practices

2021

Research on multilingualism in the home has approached the family as a fixed unit thus neglecting the dynamic view of the family and its intersection with family language practices. The present study aims to address this gap by focusing on Russian-speaking mothers in Finland who have raised their children bilingually in single-parent as well as in dual-parent families. Russian speakers are the largest minority language group in Finland, and their number is constantly growing. The current study is a contribution to the research on family language practices in the Finnish context. It examines the nexus of shifts in family configurations and language practices and explores how the dynamic chan…

Das mehrsprachige Abgeordnetenhaus der Tschechoslowakei in seiner parlamentarischen Praxis 1920–1938

2017

The Multilingual Chamber of Deputies of Czechoslovakia in its Parliamentary Practice, 1920–1938 In addition to the two official languages of Czech and Slovak, German, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish were allowed to be spoken as secondary languages in the lower house of Czechoslovakia’s parliament in 1920 in order to increase the acceptance of the new republic by the deputies of all national minorities. By swearing the oath in one of these languages, a deputy obtained the right to use this language in parliament. This article examines in which situations and how often members of parliament of minority descent took advantage of this right, regardless of their political convictions. …

Bilingual children as policy agents : Language policy and education policy in minority language medium Early Childhood Education and Care

2017

AbstractThe current study examines bilingual children as language policy agents in the interplay between official language policy and education policy at three Swedish-medium preschools in Finland. For this purpose we monitored nine Finnish-Swedish bilingual children aged 3 to 5 years for 18 months. The preschools were located in three different parts of Finland, in milieux with varying degrees of language dominance. The children were video recorded during their normal daytime routines in early childhood education and care. Three types of communicative situations were analyzed: an educator-led small group activity, free play with friends, and an activity in which one child was playing alone…

The Challenges of Teaching Reading in Uganda: Curriculum guidelines and language policy viewed from the classroom

2014

The goal of this paper is to consider the challenges which Ugandan children experience in beginning to learn to read. The paper demonstrates that there are disparities between rural government and rural private school approaches to reading and between rural and urban schools. The disparities arise from the uneven ways in which the language-in-education policy is being implemented and the variation in the nature and quality of the reading pedagogy in the early years. Ugandan children are being taught to read in different circumstances: government schools use mother tongue (MT) from Primary (P) 1 to P3 while English and MT are taught as a subject; private schools use English and teach MTs as …

English as a lingua franca – a native-culture-free code? Language of communication vs. language of identification

2011

English has become the dominant means of international communication. Its non-native speakers now far outnumber the conventional native speakers in the UK, the USA, Canada etc. Against this background, a number of authors have recently stressed the functions for which foreign languages are learned. They make a distinction between a ‘language of communication’ and a ‘language of identification’. The terms, which were coined by the German applied linguist Werner Hüllen (1992), have recently been popularised in the context of English as a lingua franca. English, it is said, can be used as a language of communication without necessarily being a language of identification. As it is used for prac…

Formulerande av familjespråkpolicy - en gemensam, komplex och ständigt pågående process

2012

Turkmenistan: Language Situation

2006

Turkmenistan, located in the Transcaspian region, has more than 4.8 million inhabitants, of which 85% are Turkmen, 5% Uzbeks, and 4% Russians. Its official national language is Turkmen, spoken by about 72%. Russian is spoken by 12%. In the post-Soviet period, the functions of Turkmen have been broadened and consolidated. Though the language policy aims at limiting the influence of Russian, this language has maintained much of its importance in public communication.

Teaching and Learning Work, Organization, and Personnel Psychology Internationally. The Erasmus Mundus Program

2013

This chapter aims to present the successful case of an International Master’s Program in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Psychology (WOP-P) implemented in 2005–2006 under the framework of the European Union postgraduate education program labeled Erasmus Mundus (EM). This chapter analyzes the different axes of internalization for educational programs and presents the rationale and options of the design and implementation of the WOP-P program. This chapter tackles the following issues: (1) the challenges and opportunities for WOP-P education in the age of internationalization. When designing the EM Master’s course in WOP-P, we analyzed the implications of contextual factors such as global…

Languages in Higher Education in Estonia and Latvia: Language Practices and Attitudes

2018

The institutions of higher education in Estonia and Latvia mainly function in the official languages of the countries, Estonian and Latvian. Yet, as in many places elsewhere the international nature of tertiary education has brought these languages into contact with others, mainly English. In addition, Russian is used in higher education in both countries. By analysing language practices and attitudes in higher education comparatively in Estonia and Latvia, the chapter reveals some of the purposes for which different languages are used in academia, and casts light on attitudes that students elicit towards the use of those languages. The results of the analysis indicate that while the overal…

The Expansion of English-medium Instruction in the Nordic Countries.Can Top-Down University Language Polices Encourage Bottom-up Disciplinary Literac…

2015

Recently, in the wake of the Bologna Declaration and similar internationalinitiatives, there has been a rapid increase in the number of university courses and programmestaught through the medium of English. Surveys have consistently shown theNordic countries to be at the forefront of this trend towards English-medium instruction(EMI). In this paper, we discuss the introduction of EMI in four Nordic countries (Denmark,Finland, Norway and Sweden). We present the educational setting and the EMIdebate in each of these countries and summarize relevant research findings. We then makesome tentative suggestions for the introduction of EMI in higher education in othercountries. In particular, we are…