scholarly journals You Can’t Fix What Is Not Broken: Contextualizing the Imbalance of Perceptions About Heritage Language Bilingualism

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatih Bayram ◽  
Maki Kubota ◽  
Alicia Luque ◽  
Diego Pascual y Cabo ◽  
Jason Rothman

In this article, we discuss the perceptions of researchers who work on heritage language bilingualism (HLB), educators who teach heritage speakers (HSs), and, crucially, HSs themselves regarding the nature of bilingualism in general as well as HLB specifically. Despite the fact that all groups are invested in HLB and that researchers and educators tend to have a similar basic understanding of HLB development and share common goals regarding heritage language (HL) teaching and learning, there are non-trivial differences and disconnects between them. In our view, beyond the various aspects of the societal milieu that significantly contribute to this state of affairs, we maintain that these differences also reflect unfortunate miscommunication regarding how the object and outcomes of HLB research is packaged, contextualized and communicated to HSs and teachers who have direct influence over their education. Considering this, the main goal and contribution of the present work is to provide a forum in which the many voices involved in HL research/teaching/learning are acknowledged and the knock-on effects of such acknowledgement are meaningfully considered.

Author(s):  
Eileen M Herteis

Mount Allison University, with about 2,400 students, is a small, undergraduate Liberal Arts and Science university with a long history of faculty-student collaboration in both research and cocurricular activities. In 2005, Mount Allison introduced the Undergraduate Teaching Internship Program in which professors and senior students collaborate in instruction. The program has quickly become for its faculty participants an important springboard for teaching innovation and scholarship. Almost immediately after its introduction, it became clear that the Undergraduate Teaching Internship Program addressed two distinct but overlapping needs—the first was predictable, the second less so: (a) it presented opportunities for senior students to develop skills, knowledge and values that transcend those normally associated with undergraduate education; and (b) it provided a mechanism whereby faculty could engage in scholarly reflection on teaching and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning projects. In the 5 years since its inception, internship has become not simply a peripheral program but a strong thread woven into the fabric of the university culture. While outlining some constraints of the program, this descriptive paper explains the many ways in which internship has resulted in productive, mutually beneficial collaborations between interns and their supervising professors, encouraging an even more pervasive dialogue about teaching. L’Université Mount Allisson est un petit établissement qui offre des cours dans les domaines des arts et des sciences à environ 2400 étudiants de premier cycle. Son personnel enseignant et ses étudiants collaborent depuis longtemps aux activités de recherche et aux activités parallèles au programme. En 2005, l’Université a mis sur pied le programme de stages en enseignement au premier cycle où les professeurs et les étudiants qui en sont à leur dernière année d’étude collaborent à l’enseignement. Ce programme est rapidement devenu un tremplin important en matière d’innovation et d’érudition pédagogique pour le corps enseignant qui y participe. Pratiquement dès sa création, il est devenu évident que le programme comblait deux besoins distincts qui se chevauchaient. Le premier était prévisible, le deuxième l’était moins : a) il fournissait des occasions aux étudiants qui termine leur parcours d’apprentissage d’acquérir des compétences, des connaissances et des valeurs qui transcendent celles normalement associées aux études de premier cycle et b) il constituait un mécanisme permettant aux membres du corps enseignant de réfléchir aux questions pédagogiques et aux projets relatifs à l’avancement des connaissances en enseignement et en apprentissage. Au cours des cinq premières années, le programme de stages n’est pas simplement devenu un programme marginal, mais plutôt un fil solide tissé dans la trame de la culture de cette université. Tout en soulignant certaines contraintes du programme, cet article descriptif explique les nombreuses façons dont les stages se sont traduits par une collaboration productive et mutuellement bénéfique entre les stagiaires et les professeurs qui les supervisaient. L’article illustre également comment les stages ont favorisé un dialogue sur l’enseignement encore plus omniprésent qu’avant.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-408
Author(s):  
Claudia Riehl

Recent research provides evidence for beneficial cross-influences between L1 and L2, but we still know little about how different factors interact. Against this background, this article presents the results of a study that analyzes the interdependence of L1 and L2 text competence and the impact of metalinguistic awareness and extra-linguistic factors. The study was carried out with Italian, Greek and Turkish adolescent heritage speakers in a German-speaking environment. The data encompass narrative and argumentative texts in L1 and L2, sociolinguistic interviews and a bilingual language awareness test (LAT). The texts are analyzed according to holistic scores by defining different levels of text competences. The results indicate that students achieve a significantly higher score in both narrative and argumentative texts in L2. Moreover, there is a genre-specific advantage for the narrative text. Although there is no significant difference between the heritage language groups the Greek students achieve higher upper scores. The different levels of text competence also correlate with metalinguistic knowledge and extra-linguistic factors, most significantly writing practices and schooling in the heritage language. The results therefore provide further support for the assumption that teaching and learning heritage languages has a positive impact on school language literacy development. Other than a few mentions of Turkish speakers at the beginning I don’t see examples of their texts or conclusions about their writing.


Fluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 158
Author(s):  
Anastasios Zoupidis ◽  
Anna Spyrtou ◽  
Dimitrios Pnevmatikos ◽  
Petros Kariotoglou

This essay synthesizes more than a decade of research, most of which has been published, on the teaching and learning of floating and sinking (FS) phenomena. The research is comprised of the iterative design, development, implementation and evaluation of a Teaching-Learning sequence (TLS) for the teaching and learning of density within FS phenomena. It was initiated within the frame of the European Community supported “Materials Science” project. Due to the many, different aspects of the project, each publication has focused on a particular part of the study (e.g., effectiveness and the iteration process). The didactic transformation for the teaching of FS phenomena is presented and discussed here. In doing so, it is essential to mention: (a) the students’ ideas as the main cause of the scientific knowledge transformation, (b) the scientific/reference knowledge, and (c) the knowledge to be taught and its limitations. Thus, we intend to describe and justify the didactic transformation process and briefly synthesize the published (from previous papers) and unpublished results to show its effectiveness.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grégory Hallé Petiot ◽  
Rodrigo Aquino ◽  
Davi Correia da Silva ◽  
Daniel Vieira Barreira ◽  
Markus Raab

Research in sport pedagogy and its applied recommendations are still characterized by a contrast between the different learning theories from psychology. Traditional theories and their corresponding approaches to the specific case of teaching and learning “how to play [team sports like soccer]” are subject to compatibilities and incompatibilities. We discuss how behaviorism as an approach to teaching the game shows more incompatibilities with the nature of tactical actions when compared to constructivism. As coaches strive to teach the game and make their players and team perform, we argue that teaching the game requires teaching approaches that will help develop their way to play (i.e., tactical behavior) without taking away their autonomy and adaptiveness. The teaching-learning-training process for playing the game should then be conducted to harmonize the characteristics of the contents, the context, and the individual(s) at hand. We provide two illustrated examples and portray how the recommended approaches fit key contents of the game that are observed in the tactical behavior. We finally argue that the coherent design of games provides minimal conditions to teaching approaches, and that such a design should be a priority when elaborating the learning activities along the player development process. As a conclusion, the interactionist theory is the one that best serves the teaching of the game and the development of tactical behavior. We therefore defend that its principles can help coaches tailor their own strategy to teach the game with the many tools.


10.28945/2679 ◽  
2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
ME Herselman ◽  
HR Hay

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are the major driving forces of globalised and knowledge-based societies of a new world era. They will have a profound impact on teaching and learning for two decades to come. The revolutionary change which is taking place in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), has dramatic effects on the way universities carry out their functions of teaching, learning and research, particularly on the creation, dissemination and application of knowledge. These developments pose unprecedented challenges to higher education institutions (HEIs) in developing countries particular in South Africa as South Africa is viewed as the leading country on the continent.


Author(s):  
Kingsley Okoye ◽  
Jorge Alfonso Rodriguez-Tort ◽  
Jose Escamilla ◽  
Samira Hosseini

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many areas of the human and organizational ventures worldwide. This includes new innovative technologies and strategies being developed by educators to foster the rapid learning-recovery and reinstatement of the stakeholders (e.g., teachers and students). Indeed, the main challenge for educators has been on what appropriate steps should be taken to prevent learning loss for the students; ranging from how to provide efficient learning tools/curriculum that ensures continuity of learning, to provision of methods that incorporate coping mechanisms and acceleration of education in general. For several higher educational institutions (HEIs), technology-mediated education has become an integral part of the modern teaching/learning instruction amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, when digital technologies have consequently become an inevitable and indispensable part of learning. To this effect, this study defines a hybrid educational model (HyFlex + Tec) used to enable virtual and in-person education in the HEIs. Practically, the study utilized data usage report from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Emotions and Experience Survey questionnaire in a higher education setting for its experiments. To this end, we applied an Exponential Linear trend model and Forecasting method to determine overall progress and statistics for the learners during the Covid-19 pandemic, and subsequently performed a Text Mining and Univariate Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to determine effects and significant differences that the teaching–learning experiences for the teachers and students have on their energy (learning motivation) levels. From the results, we note that the hybrid learning model supports continuity of education/learning for teachers and students during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study also discusses its innovative importance for future monitoring (tracking) of learning experiences and emotional well-being for the stakeholders in leu (aftermath) of the Covid-19 pandemic.


Author(s):  
Miriam Geiss ◽  
Sonja Gumbsheimer ◽  
Anika Lloyd-Smith ◽  
Svenja Schmid ◽  
Tanja Kupisch

Abstract This study brings together two previously largely independent fields of multilingual language acquisition: heritage language and third language (L3) acquisition. We investigate the production of fortis and lenis stops in semi-naturalistic speech in the three languages of 20 heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian with German as a majority language and English as L3. The study aims to identify the extent to which the HSs produce distinct values across all three languages, or whether crosslinguistic influence (CLI) occurs. To this end, we compare the HSs’ voice onset time (VOT) values with those of L2 English speakers from Italy and Germany. The language triad exhibits overlapping and distinct VOT realizations, making VOT a potentially vulnerable category. Results indicate CLI from German into Italian, although a systemic difference is maintained. When speaking English, the HSs show an advantage over the Italian L2 control group, with less prevoicing and longer fortis stops, indicating a specific bilingual advantage.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832199790
Author(s):  
Anna Chrabaszcz ◽  
Elena Onischik ◽  
Olga Dragoy

This study examines the role of cross-linguistic transfer versus general processing strategy in two groups of heritage speakers ( n = 28 per group) with the same heritage language – Russian – and typologically different dominant languages: English and Estonian. A group of homeland Russian speakers ( n = 36) is tested to provide baseline comparison. Within the framework of the Competition model (MacWhinney, 2012), cross-linguistic transfer is defined as reliance on the processing cue prevalent in the heritage speaker’s dominant language (e.g. word order in English) for comprehension of heritage language. In accordance with the Isomorphic Mapping Hypothesis (O’Grady and Lee, 2005), the general processing strategy is defined in terms of isomorphism as a linear alignment between the order of the sentence constituents and the temporal sequence of events. Participants were asked to match pictures on the computer screen with auditorily presented sentences. Sentences included locative or instrumental constructions, in which two cues – word order (basic vs. inverted) and isomorphism mapping (isomorphic vs. nonisomorphic) – were fully crossed. The results revealed that (1) Russian native speakers are sensitive to isomorphism in sentence processing; (2) English-dominant heritage speakers experience dominant language transfer, as evidenced by their reliance primarily on the word order cue; (3) Estonian-dominant heritage speakers do not show significant effects of isomorphism or word order but experience significant processing costs in all conditions.


Languages ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
van Osch ◽  
García González ◽  
Hulk ◽  
Sleeman ◽  
Aalberse

This exploratory study investigates the knowledge of word order in intransitive sentences by heritage speakers of Spanish of different age groups: 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds and adults. In doing so, we aim to fill a gap in the heritage language literature, which, to date, has mainly focused on adult heritage speakers and preschool bilingual children. The results from a judgment task reveal that child- and adolescent heritage speakers do not entirely resemble monolingual age-matched children in the acquisition of subjects in Spanish, nor do they assimilate adult heritage speakers. The data suggest that several different processes can occur simultaneously in the acquisition of word order in heritage speakers: monolingual-like acquisition, delayed acquisition, and attrition. An analysis of the influence of extraneous variables suggests that most of these effects are likely to be the consequence of quantitatively reduced input in the heritage language and increased input in the majority language.


2020 ◽  
pp. 136216882094845
Author(s):  
Huahui Zhao ◽  
Beibei Zhao

The current assessment in language classrooms prevailingly utilizes the criteria provided by instructors, regarding learners as passive recipients of assessment. The current study drew upon sustainable assessment and the community of practice to highlight the importance of involving learners in co-constructing the assessment criteria and argued that using the criteria provided by instructors could lead to discrepancy between assessment, teaching, and learning. It adopted a participatory approach and investigated how to involve learners in co-constructing the assessment criteria with instructors in tertiary English writing instruction in China, based on the European Language Profile (ELP), an evolved version of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Two writing instructors and 146 tertiary students played different, yet interactive roles in adapting the assessment criteria in the local context. Instructors drafted the criteria in line with curricula, teaching, learning and learners. Learners utilized the draft criteria in a training session and suggested possible modifications to the criteria in a survey. Suggestions were used to revise the descriptors alongside teachers’ reflections via reflective logs. A follow-up survey explored students’ perceptions of the feasibility and usefulness of the modified descriptors to investigate the effectiveness of co-constructing the assessment criteria for learning and reveal further improvement if necessary. Vigilant decision-making processes were thickly described regarding how assessment descriptors were selected, arranged, and modified to constructively align them with curricula, teaching, and learning. Statistical and thematic analyses were conducted to examine the accessibility, feasibility, and usefulness of the assessment descriptors prior to and after the modifications. Results substantiated the effectiveness and thus the importance of co-constructing assessment criteria for enhancing the quality of assessment criteria and developing learners’ cognitive and metacognitive knowledge of writing and assessment. Implications for language tutors regarding co-constructing assessment criteria in local contexts were deliberated on at the end of the article.


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