scholarly journals Translanguaging pathways to higher education: a transition program for highly educated refugees

Multilingua ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joana Duarte ◽  
Mirjam Günther-van der Meij

Abstract The paper focuses on translanguaging practices of highly skilled refugees in a transition program in Dutch higher education. The pathways for refugees to enter higher education are full of obstacles. Acquiring the new language at a university level is one of the biggest challenges. Many institutions offer ‘transition programs’ to prepare refugees for their studies. These are mostly focused on acquiring language skills and general basic skills in subjects such as Mathematics and Cultural Diversity. The Dutch transition program described in this paper was specifically developed to make use of students’ multilingual repertoires. The resource-oriented pedagogy of translanguaging is used to give space to all languages, leverage students’ resources and contribute to their academic and language development. In this research, data from one year of the Dutch transition program was collected to study a) how teachers engage in official translanguaging practices during instruction and b) to what extent teachers develop other practices to engage with their students’ multilingual repertoires. Results from interaction analysis show that the teachers, although mainly using the language of instruction (Dutch), did use a variety of translanguaging practices, and created other ways to encourage students’ multilingualism, such as engaging in language comparisons and raising language awareness.

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingela Holmström ◽  
Krister Schönström

AbstractIn a few universities around the world courses are offered where the primary language of instruction is a national sign language. Many of these courses are given by bilingual/multilingual deaf lecturers, skilled in both national sign language(s) and spoken/written language(s). Research on such deaf-led practices in higher education are lacking, and this study will contribute to a greater understanding of these practices. Drawing on ethnographically created data from a higher education setting in Sweden, this case study examines the use of different languages and modalities by three deaf lecturers when teaching deaf and hearing (signing) students in theoretic subjects. The analysis is based on video-recordings of the deaf lecturers during classroom activities at a basic university level in which Swedish Sign Language (SSL) is used as the primary language. The results illustrate how these deaf lecturers creatively use diverse semiotic resources in several modes when teaching deaf and hearing (signing) students, which creates practices of translanguaging. This is illustrated by classroom activities in which the deaf lecturers use different language and modal varieties, including sign languages SSL and ASL as well as Swedish, and English, along with PowerPoint and whiteboard notes. The characteristics of these multimodal-multilingual resources and the usage of them will be closely presented in this article.


2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter P. Smith

The United States is in a bind. On the one hand, we need millions of additional citizens with at least one year of successful post-secondary experience to adapt to the knowledge economy. Both the Gates and Lumina Foundations, and our President, have championed this goal in different ways. On the other hand, we have a post-secondary system that is trapped between rising costs and stagnant effectiveness, seemingly unable to respond effectively to this challenge. This paper analyzes several aspects of this problem, describes changes in the society that create the basis for solutions, and offers several examples from Kaplan University of emerging practice that suggests what good practice might look like in a world where quality-assured mass higher education is the norm.


Fachsprache ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 94-121
Author(s):  
Marian Flanagan ◽  
Carmen Heine

As teachers of English as a second language (L2) in web communication, our aim is to help L2 students improve their spoken and written English language skills. Teacher feedback has been shown to do this in some cases. However, only using teacher feedback can put huge pressure on the teacher, both in terms of time and resources. This paper describes and discusses our attempt at introducing peer feedback as an additional way of providing students with feedback on their English writing. Before conducting this study, we did not know if peer feedback would be feasible in our teaching environment or whether it would benefit the students and teachers. Our aim was to establish a status quo of our students’ abilities in providing and implementing peer feedback. We introduced peer-feedback tasks and focused on the types of feedback provided by the students, the phrasing of the feedback, both when implemented and not implemented by the students, and the types of revisions made by the students. Our findings allowed us to develop peer-feedback process guidelines for web communication as a way towards improving written feedback processes in higher education, and hopefully for others to adapt and implement in their own communication classrooms.


2011 ◽  
pp. 70-76
Author(s):  

Objectives: To evualate the effects of early intervention program after one year for 33 disabled children in Hue city in 2010. Objects and Methods: Conduct with practical work and assessment on developing levels at different skills of the children with developmental delay under 6 years old who are the objects of the program. Results: With the Portage checklist used as a tool for implementing the intervention at the community and assessing developing skills on Social, Cognition, Motor, Self-help and Language skills for children with developmental delay, there still exists significant difference (p ≤ 0.05) at developing level of all areas in the first assessment (January, 2010) and the second assessment (December, 2010) after 12 months. In comparison among skills of different types of disabilities, there is significant difference of p ≤ 0.05 of social, cognition and language skills in the first assessment and of social, cognition, motor and language skills in the second assessment. Conclusion: Home-based Early Intervention Program for children with developmental delay has achieved lots of progress in improving development skills of the children and enhancing the parents’ abilities in supporting their children at home.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Pluck

BackgroundPeople vary between each other on several neurobehavioral traits, which may have implications for understanding academic achievement.MethodsUniversity-level Psychology or Engineering students were assessed for neurobehavioral traits, intelligence, and current psychological distress. Scores were compared with their grade point average (GPA) data.ResultsFactors associated with higher GPA differed markedly between groups. For Engineers, intelligence, but not neurobehavioral traits or psychological distress, was a strong correlate of grades. For Psychologists, grades were not correlated with intelligence but they were with the neurobehavioral traits of executive dysfunction, disinhibition, apathy, and positive schizotypy. However, only the latter two were associated independently of psychological distress. Additionally, higher mixed-handedness was associated with higher GPA in the combined sample.ConclusionsNeurological factors (i.e., neurobehavioral traits and intelligence), are differentially associated with university-level grades, depending on the major studied. However, mixed-handedness may prove to be a better general predictor of academic performance across disciplines.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (97) ◽  
pp. 9-14
Author(s):  
Rosita Lekavičienė ◽  
Dalia Antinienė

Background. A scientific problem concerning factors which are important for academic achievement of students is analysed in the paper. Questions whether emotional intelligence level is related to academic achievement and whether correlation between academic achievement in a specific area (science, languages) and EI expression exists, whether emotional intelligence of young people with low education differs from that of young people with higher education, etc. are raised. Methods. Research participants were 1430 students aged between 17 and 27 years. The survey was performed using EI-DARL V2 test. The following factors were assessed: “Perception of one’s own emotions”; “Control of one’s own emotions”; “Perception of emotions of other people”; “Control of emotions of other people”, and “Manipulations”. Also, such aspects as ability of recognizing emotions in facial pictures and ability of emotional situation solving were assessed. Results. The combined EI scale scores in all factors were the highest of those subjects who are or were excellent students, the lowest – of those who were poor students. Those subjects who were equally poor both at languages and sciences were the least capable of perception of their own emotions and those of others people, they also were the least capable of controlling their own emotions. Highly educated young people were of higher emotional intelligence. Furthermore, emotional situation solving and emotion recognition in pictures was better in the group of highly educated students. Conclusion. Positive correlation between academic achievement and emotional intelligence was established. Mathematics and language skills proved to be significant indexes of emotional intelligence: it was established that those subjects who were more successful in sciences were the best at understanding and controlling their own emotions, while individuals who were better in languages were more efficient in understanding and controlling emotions of other people.


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Bacharach ◽  
Teresa Washut Heck ◽  
Kathryn Dahlberg

This paper will describe a project that includes 16 university level co-taught classes. Preparation of the faculty co-teaching along with results from the study will be shared.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-137
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Grzywacz ◽  
Grażyna Miłkowska ◽  
Magdalena Piorunek ◽  
Lech Sałaciński

This report is a part of the results of the international project entitled “Studium in Osteuropa: Ausgewählte Aspekte (Analysen, Befunde)” conducted in the years 2013-2015 under supervision of Prof. Wilfried Schubarth and Dr Andreas Seidl from the Potsdam University, Department of Education Science, and Prof. Karsten Speck from the University of Oldenburg, Germany. The project was conducted jointly by representatives of academic centres from Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia. Its general aim was a comparative analysis of the effects of implementation of Bologna Process directives into the higher education systems of the individual countries. The changes introduced into the higher education systems in the countries involved in the project were described and evaluated, discussed was in particular the problems of education of teachers at the university level. The following text is the result of the contribution of the Polish group participating in the project. The report will be presented in two parts. The first part is focused on the macro-societal context of transformations in the higher education system in Poland. The implementation of selected aspects of Bologna Process directives is described and supplemented by empirical comments. The second part deals with selected aspects of university level education of teachers, followed by a polemic against the assumptions and execution of the target transformations of higher education system.


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