Search results for "bilingual"
showing 10 items of 165 documents
“You Can Stand Under My Umbrella”: Immersion, CLIL and Bilingual Education. A Response to Cenoz, Genesee & Gorter (2013)
2014
Classrooms the world over are full of people who, for different reasons, are learning additional languages and/or are studying through languages that are not their first. Gaining insight into such contexts is complicated for researchers and practitioners alike by the myriad of contextual variables that come with different implementations and make comparison and generalization a tricky business. We welcome Cenoz et al.’s (2013) article as an important contribution to the debate on how best to tackle this problem. In this Forum piece we would like to, however, redress the balance on two issues: the fact that terminologies have histories and the emphases on the research agenda suggested for fu…
A language socialisation perspective on Swedish immersion in Finland : Students, teachers, and parents as key actors
2022
Abstract This retrospective review applies a language socialisation perspective in examining the findings of a four-year research project on Swedish immersion in Finland. Findings from nine sub-studies within the project are reported with a point-of-view from three key actors’ (teachers, students, and parents) language socialisation processes. Results show that a special feature of immersion teacher socialisation is its continuous attention toward the additive multilingual nature of immersion education, which requires sustained attention to multilingual language use and development. Students in Swedish immersion are socialised into the use of multiple languages in school and act as socialis…
Constructions of bilingualism in Finnish Government programmes and a newspaper discussion site debate
2014
The concept of bilingualism in Finnish political discourse is predominantly used in the meaning of official or state bilingualism, focussing on the two constitutionally defined ‘national languages’; i.e. Finnish and Swedish. Legally, both Finnish and Swedish speakers have a right for public services, such as schooling or health care, in their first language. On the other hand, several language ideological debates have taken place in recent years, challenging especially the status of Swedish in administration and education. These debates have reshaped the discourses on what counts as bilingualism. This paper analyses on one hand the historical discursive development of the “official will” pr…
Onko suomen ja ruotsin koodinvaihdolla kielioppia? : substantiivien ja verbien taivutus Haaparannan, Tukholman ja Helsingin kaksikielisissä keskustel…
2016
Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan kaksikielisten 13–15- vuotiaiden nuorten koodinvaihtoa suomen ja ruotsin välillä luokkahuoneen ulkopuolella nauhoitetuissa arkikielisissä keskusteluissa Haaparannassa (2014–2015), Tukholmassa (2015–2016) ja Helsingissä (2014). Artikkelissa kartoitetaan, miten toisesta kielestä upotetut substantiivit ja verbit taipuvat koodinvaihdossa. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on selvittää, taipuvatko upotetut sanat matriisikielen eli pääkielen vai upotetun kielen kieliopin mukaan ja onko eri paikkakunnilta kerättyjen aineistojen välillä eroja. Tavoitteena on myös tutkia, onko suomen ja ruotsin koodinvaihdolla rakenteellisia rajoituksia eli voiko koodinvaihtoa tapahtua silloin, k…
The environment of a bilingual classroom as an interactional resource
2018
Both schoolscape studies and recent conversation analytic (CA) research on classroom interaction have demonstrated that material artefacts such as images, texts and different kinds of objects found in classrooms have a significant role in educational practice. This article turns the spotlight on social action within a bilingual classroom, exploring how participants visibly orient to the surrounding material environment during instructional interaction. The data consist of video-recorded lessons from secondary-level education. A multimodal conversation analytic investigation focuses on interactions during which participants attend to classroom texts and semiotic objects in ways that foregrou…
Two languages in the air : a cross-cultural comparison of preschool teachers’ reflections on their flexible bilingual practices
2016
Bilingual preschool education is under researched compared with bilingual school education. There is also a lack of research on bilingual preschool teachers’ agency and how they negotiate between two languages in the classroom. We examined the language practices of five bilingual preschool teachers working within three different socio-linguistic settings, in Finland (Finnish–Swedish and Russian–Finnish contexts) and Israel (an Arabic–Hebrew context) and interviewed the teachers about their use of languages in the classroom. We found that in each context the teachers reported modifications to an initial bilingual education model over time: from a strict separation of languages, to flexible b…
Understanding developmental language disorder-The Helsinki longitudinal SLI study (HelSLI): A study protocol
2018
Background Developmental language disorder (DLD, also called specific language impairment, SLI) is a common developmental disorder comprising the largest disability group in pre-school-aged children. Approximately 7% of the population is expected to have developmental language difficulties. However, the specific etiological factors leading to DLD are not yet known and even the typical linguistic features appear to vary by language. We present here a project that investigates DLD at multiple levels of analysis and aims to make the reliable prediction and early identification of the difficulties possible. Following the multiple deficit model of developmental disorders, we investigate the DLD …
Masked Translation Priming Effects With Highly Proficient Simultaneous Bilinguals
2010
One essential issue for models of bilingual memory organization is to what degree the representation from one of the languages is shared with the other language. In this study, we examine whether there is a symmetrical translation priming effect with highly proficient, simultaneous bilinguals. We conducted a masked priming lexical decision experiment with cognate and noncognate translation equivalents. Results showed a significant masked translation priming effect for both cognates and noncognates, with a greater priming effect for cognates. Furthermore, the magnitude of the translation priming was similar in the two directions. Thus, highly fluent bilinguals do develop symmetrical between…
Bilingualism at the core of the brain. Structural differences between bilinguals and monolinguals revealed by subcortical shape analysis.
2015
Naturally acquiring a language shapes the human brain through a long-lasting learning and practice process. This is supported by previous studies showing that managing more than one language from early childhood has an impact on brain structure and function. However, to what extent bilingual individuals present neuroanatomical peculiarities at the subcortical level with respect to monolinguals is yet not well understood, despite the key role of subcortical gray matter for a number of language functions, including monitoring of speech production and language control — two processes especially solicited by bilinguals. Here we addressed this issue by performing a subcortical surface-based anal…
Vocabulary teaching strategies and conceptual representations of words in L2 in children: evidence with novice learners.
2008
Abstract A controversial issue in bilingual research is whether in the early stages of L2 learning, access to the conceptual system involves mediation of L1 lexical representations [Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 149–174] or a direct route from the L2 word [Altarriba, J., & Mathis, K. M. (1997). Conceptual and lexical development in second language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language, 36, 550–568; Finkbeiner, M., & Nicol, J. (2003). Semantic category effects in second language word learning. Applied Psycholing…