Mälardalen University, Eskilstuna 18 th February 2010

1. Mälardalen University, Eskilstuna18th February 2010 Symposium on multilingual students’ learning and linguistic development Constant Leung

2. European Core Curriculum for Mainstreamed Second Language Teacher Education EUCIM-TE is a multilateral COMENIUS project co-financed by the European Union within its Lifelong Learning Programme

3. Eurydice (2004:70) ‘The challenges posed by [linguistic and cultural diversity], and the expansion of the intercultural approach in the education of all pupils inevitably mean that teachers in Europe will have to mobilise new skills … … there is a demand for teachers and other professionals in the following three areas of action: • support for immigrant pupils in school-based measures for their benefit, especially as regards teaching the language of instruction … • teaching the mother tongue and culture of origin to immigrant pupils … • developing the intercultural approach for the benefit of all pupils … Teachers do not always have the necessary skills to perform the tasks required in these three areas …’

4. Second/Additional language developmentMain perspectives • Biological • Linguistic • Psychological-cognitive (intra-individual) • Psychological-cognitive (inter-individual) • Socio-cultural • Not mutually exclusive perspectives; overlapping • A matter of priority and purpose

5. Second/Additional language development in schooling contexts A teacher education perspective: • Teachers of all subjects should be equipped to work with all students, including linguistic minority students of all backgrounds • Teachers cannot re-shape students’ past experience, biological/physical endowment, socio-economic circumstances (although all are relevant to teaching and learning)

6. Educational principles Equality of entitlement in education (but not same treatment)  Appropriate pedagogy  Socio-cultural perspective Inclusive academic language

7. A functional view of language and literacy in school Subject content meaning is constituted and communicated through language and other semiotic means in the classroom and subject content meaning can be expressed through language and other means in different ways for different purposes in different contexts

8. Sairah – ‘median’ and ‘mode’ Technical definitions: • The median of a set of numbers is the value of the middle number when they are arranged in ascending order. (National Strategy p. 258) • The mode indicates the item or class that occurs most often. (National Strategy p. 257) http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/downloads/pdf/ma_sf_exmp_257_259_261_036608.pdf

9. Sairah – ‘median’ and ‘mode’ An example of classroom language: • complex content meaning • here-and-now interactional language • absence of complex sentence grammar • difficult for the student (and for the teacher)

10. ‘Simple’ everyday language  easy to understand

11. A functional view on language & literacy in school for teacher education Background understanding: Accepts that differences in1st and 2nd language in psycho-cognitive and linguistic terms can impact on learning

12. A functional view on language & literacy in school for teacher education In classroom: • subject content meaning and language is always linked, but language expression can appear in different forms in different activities • subject content meaning can be expressed in ‘simple’ as well as ‘complex’ language – but all potentially difficult • language practices & forms in different subjects can differ.

13. From Spoken to Written Language Text 1: (spoken by three 10-year-old students and accompanying action) • this … no it doesn’t go … it doesn’t move … • try that … • yes it does …a bit … that won’t … • won’t work it’s not metal… • these are the best … going really fast. (Gibbons, 1998:101)

14. From Spoken to Written Language Text 2: (spoken by one student about the action, after the event) we tried a pin…a pencil sharpener.. .some iron filings and a piece of plastic … the magnet didn’t attract the pin but it did attract the pencil sharpener and the iron filings … it didn’t attract the plastic.

15. From Spoken to Written Language Text 3: (written by the same student) Our experiment was to find out what a magnet attracted. We discovered that a magnet attracts some kinds of metal. It attracted the iron filings, but not the pin. It also did not attract things that were not metal.

16. From Spoken to Written Language Text 4: (taken from a child’s encyclopedia) A magnet is a piece of metal which is surrounded by an invisible field of force which affects any magnetic material within it. It is able to pick up, or attract, a piece of steel or iron because its magnetic field flows into the magnet, turning it into a temporary magnet. Magnetic attraction occurs only between ferrous materials.

17. Aspiration To enable teachers to reflect and analyse their classroom work, and to inform their actions. e.g. if Sairah didn’t get ‘mode’, was it because she didn’t understand simple here-and-now language, or was it because she didn’t understand the content meaning in the here-and-now language?

18. References Gibbons, P. (1993). Learning to learn in a second language. Sydney: Primary English Teaching Association. Gibbons, P. (1998). Classroom talk and the learning of new registers in a second language, Language and Education. 12 (2), 99-118. Leung, C. (1996). Context, content and language. In T. Cline & N. Frederickson (Eds.), Curriculum related assessment, Cummins and bilingual children (pp. 26-40). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Leung, C. (2005). Convivial communication: recontextualizing communicative competence. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 15(2), 119-144. Leung, C. (2006). Englisch-als-zusätzliche-Sprache: Ausgeprägter sprachlicher Schwerpunkt oder allgemeines Anliegen des Lehrplans? In P. Mecheril & T. Quehl (Eds.), Die Macht der Sprachen: Englische Perspecktiven auf die mehrsprachige Schule (pp. 151-173). Münster: Waxmann. Leung, C. (2007). Integrating school-aged ESL learners into the mainstream curriculum. In J. Cummins & C. Davison (Eds.), The international handbook of English Language Teaching (pp. 249-269). New York: Springer. Leung, C. (2009a). Mainstreaming: Language policies and pedagogies. In I. Gogolin & U. Neumann (Eds.), Streitfall Zweisprachigkeit - The bilingualism controversy (pp. 215-231). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Leung, C. (2009b). Second language teacher professionalism In J. Richards & A. Burns (Eds.), Cambridge guide to second language teacher education (pp. 49-58). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leung, C., & Creese, A. (2008). Professional issues in working with ethnolinguistic difference: Inclusive policy in practice. In D. Murray (Ed.), Planning change, changing plans (pp. 155-173). Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Mohan, B., Leung, C., & Davison, C. (Eds.). (2001). English as a second language in the mainstream: teaching, learning, and identity. London: Longman.