Teaching and learning in a multilingual Europe: findings from a cross-European study

School classrooms within the EU are multilingual learning environments. The diversity of pupils in classrooms raises significant challenges for teachers, but to date, there are no data from large-scale surveys that compare views within and across European countries. A bespoke questionnaire was designed to examine views of current classroom learning environments with respect to the multilingualism. The questionnaire was piloted and subsequently completed by 2792 teachers across different European countries. Eleven countries provided sufficient data for analyses. Results from structural equation modelling showed that teachers’ attitudes could be reliably measured across Europe with the use of carefully devised questionnaire, whose loading and factor structure remained invariant across countries. Teachers’ views about multilingualism were most challenged by the numbers of children in their classes, not the percentage of multilingual pupils in the class. Countries differed in how they perceived multilingualism, with their differences leading to distinctive country clusters. Gender and education level (elementary vs. secondary) differences were also observed irrespective of country. These findings enhance our understanding of the role that the characteristics of teachers and their classrooms play in a multilingual setting across diverse European settings. The practical relevance of the results and new opportunities for teacher training are discussed

Correction: Teaching and learning in a multilingual Europe: findings from a cross-European study

The original version of the article unfortunately contained an error. In author’s personal details, middle names were not included in author Hanne B. Søndergaard Knudsen’s name, and the listed articles were therefore incorrect

Teaching and learning in a multilingual Europe: findings from a cross-european study

School classrooms within the EU are multilingual learning environments. The diversity of pupils in classrooms raises significant challenges for teachers, but to date, there are no data from large-scale surveys that compare views within and across European countries. A bespoke questionnaire was designed to examine views of current classroom learning environments with respect to the multilingualism. The questionnaire was piloted and subsequently completed by 2792 teachers across different European countries. Eleven countries provided sufficient data for analyses. Results from structural equation model- ling showed that teachers’ attitudes could be reliably measured across Europe with the use of carefully devised questionnaire, whose loading and factor structure remained invariant across countries. Teachers’ views about multilingualism were most challenged by the numbers of children in their classes, not the percentage of multilingual pupils in the class. Countries differed in how they perceived multilingualism, with their differences leading to distinctive country clusters. Gender and education level (elementary vs. secondary) differences were also observed irrespective of country. These findings enhance our understanding of the role that the characteristics of teachers and their classrooms play in a multilingual setting across diverse European settings. The practical relevance of the results and new opportunities for teacher training are discussed

Family language policy leading to multilingual home literacy environment : Evidence from interviews with Russian-speaking mothers in Cyprus, Estonia and Sweden

This paper investigates family language policies which lead to multilingual HLEs, based on the example of Russian and majority language speaking families in Cyprus, Estonia and Sweden. The main aim of the investigation is to determine differences and similarities, and whether, most importantly, translanguaging and various extralinguistic and sociolinguistic factors, such as heritage language use, maintenance and transmission, linguistic and cultural identities, heritage language attitudes, heritage language status, and quality and quantity of input, affect the development of home language literacies among children in immigrant and minority settings. These families provide a very interesting setting for investigating the relevance of language attitudes and ideologies. In Sweden and Cyprus, Russian is used in immigrant communities (in Cyprus, Russian is the largest In Estonia, Russian is used as an L1 among one-third of the population, is now a minority language and was formerly the sociolinguistically dominant language. The understandings of Russian use in the HLE are linked to various ideological discourses and social practices, as well as differential motivations. In these micro-level settings, we can observe the contrast between top-down policies and bottom-up practices. Thus, this article provides an analysis of family language ideologies in three different contexts where multilingualism occurs and investigates how families modify their family language policy, creating multilingual HLEs in response to their linguistic environments. We show that despite dissimilar external environments, there were more similarities than differences in Russian language use between the countries, especially in families who realised the importance of the multilingual HLE for early literacy development and Russian as heritage language transmission. The knowledge, experiences and attitudes of twenty families in each country were investigated. The method applied in our study is based on the qualitative research tradition. We highlight key features that emerge from our data in different domains of family language policy and that were detected in all three countries. Thus, we focus on what phenomena characterise a multilingual HLE and what kind of literacy habits and activities, writing and reading beliefs concerning heritage language and majority languages (Burgess et al. 2002; Weigel et al. 2005) constitute it. Russian-speaking mothers were interviewed concerning literacy opportunities, heritage language instruction and its quality, cooperation and social-emotional quality (Leseman & de Jong 1998), the literacy activities of family members and joint literacy activities involving the child (van Steensel 2006; Manolitsis et al. 2013; Manolitsis & Sarri 2019), and the role of translanguaging in the development of multilingual HLEs. Authors 1, 2 and 3 all contributed equally and should be considered co-first authors. https://doi.org/10.15626/hn.20204502 12 HumaNetten Nr 45 Hösten 2020 immigrant language).

Translanguaging space and translanguaging practices in multilingual Russian‐speaking families

Translanguaging is seen both as a threat and as an opportunity for minority language development and transmission. While the theme of translanguaging has been explored especially in a context of migration, the novelty of this study lies in its investigation of the multiple contexts in which translanguaging is examined. In order to understand the nature of translanguaging, we adopt a novel interdisciplinary approach and view it in all its complexity, including liminal spaces of linguistic landscape. Family language policy affects the home linguistic environment. Our purpose is to investigate language choices by multilingual Russian-speakers in Cyprus, Sweden and Estonia, immigrant and minority settings, and try to understand how they are reflected in the multilingual interaction of the families. Using ethnographic participant observations and oral spontaneous multilingual production, our study attempts to describe how communication is managed through translanguaging practices among multilingual Russian-speaking families’ members in the cultural and linguistic environments of the three countries. By looking closely at the complexities of translanguaging space, it is our ambition to gain new insights about how it is organised and how translanguaging becomes a valuable linguistic resource in multilingual families. Our results indicate that translanguaging practices can be used in family conversational contexts and contribute to the creation of a rich and positive family repertoire. A new norm of Russian has been developed in all the three settings. A language shift can happen more quickly than expected, and, thus, it is important for parents to provide many opportunities for practising Russian as the L1. © Sviatlana Karpava, Natalia Ringblom and Anastassia Zabrodskaja, 2021

The effect of L1 Tamazight literacy on L3/Additional language acquisition in Morocco

Cummins’ (1979) Linguistic Interdependence and Threshold Hypotheses suggest the existence of a “common underlying language proficiency” that is shared by both languages of the bilingual speaker. It also claims that the development of high academic skills in two languages is necessary for them to benefit from their bilingualism when acquiring additional languages. Moroccan Tamazight speaking children rarely receive L1 formal language lessons which is why they are L1 illiterate. This study explored whether children who acquired L1 Tamazight literacy skills acquired L2 Arabic/ L3 French and L4 English differently from their L1 illiterate peers. Two groups of Tamazight/Arabic bilinguals were compared: a control group (n=21) with no L1 literacy and an experimental group (n=15) with varying degrees of literacy in their L1. The students took a Raven’s Coloured Matrices test and then filled in a questionnaire based on Gardner’s (1985) Attitude/Motivation Test Battery. A Matched-Guise Test (Lambert et al., 1960) was also conducted. The parents filled in a questionnaire that elicited data about their children’s background information and language use at home. The questionnaire also measured the parents’ views about the language instruction in school. Finally, the children completed a set of cloze, fluency and literacy tests. The results suggest the existence of a biliterate advantage in Arabic cloze, Pseudoword reading, semantic fluency, and phonemic fluency tests. Biliterate bilinguals also outperformed their mono-literate peers in the following tests: French cloze, French semantic fluency, English Pseudoword reading, English semantic fluency, English phonemic fluency and Tamazight phonemic fluency. No statistically significant differences were found between groups in the rest of the tests. These results give partial support to Cummins’s Linguistic Interdependence Theory and Threshold Hypothesis (Cummins, 1979) and partially replicate many results of previous research (Abu-Rabia & Sanitsky, 2010; Schwartz, Geva, Share, & Leikin, 2007; Schwartz, Ibrahim, & Kahn-Horwitz, 2016)

Aspect in the L2 and L3 Acquisition of Greek

This paper investigates different facets of the second language acquisition of Modern Greek by native speakers of Russian and Georgian, both adults and children, in the domain of aspectual marking in embedded clauses. The study investigates experimentally the inte-raction of lexical and grammatical aspect in those embedded sentential environments which are a locus of difference between Modern Greek and Russian: The former permits only per-fective aspect of the finite complement verb in the context under consideration, while the latter allows either perfective or imperfective aspect of the infinitival complement verb. The results of the experimental study reveal that L2 learners can reach native-like attainment, though there is L1 interference at the initial stage of L2 acquisition, thus providing evi-dence in support of the Full Transfer/Full Access Hypothesis. The large number of partici-pants and the different groups investigated further allow us to distinguish other variables re-levant for L2 acquisition, such as age of onset, length of residence, and so on, which were gathered through a detailed language history questionnaire. The results are interpreted sta-tistically for all relevant facets of the languages and participants involved, shedding some light on a number of intertwined issues involved in (early vs late) L2/L3 acquisition

Correction to: Teaching and learning in a multilingual Europe: findings from a cross-European study (European Journal of Psychology of Education, (2021), 10.1007/s10212-020-00523-z)

The original version of the article unfortunately contained errors. The following author e-mails were omitted, A Ralli, [email protected], I Dimakos [email protected]. There remained highlighted in yellow XXX (blinded for review) in the questionnaire section. This should be replaced with: Work Group 1 of COST IS 1401 (European Literacy Network). The footnotes and endnotes had been merged with footnotes. Footnote 1 should be Endnote 1, Footnote 2 should be Endnote 2, Endnote 3 should appear in the last sentence of DATA CLEANING AND MANAGEMENT section, next to the word "imputation" with a superscript. Endnote 3, top p. 10, should be Endnote 4, Endnote 4 should be Endnote 5, Endnote 5 should be Endnote 6, Endnote 6 should be Endnote 7. (F3), top, p. 9 should be F3 in plain font. On p. 12, the word ‘factors’ in the parenthesis should be capitalized (in Factors 1, 3 and 4). Finally Table 4 p should be * p <.05. The author name H. Knudsen has been corrected (correct name shown above) and ORCID number has been captured as well. The original article has been corrected. © 2021, Instituto Universitário de Ciências Psicológicas, Sociais e da Vida

Teaching and learning in a multilingual Europe: findings from a cross-European study

School classrooms within the EU are multilingual learning environments. The diversity of pupils in classrooms raises significant challenges for teachers, but to date, there are no data from large-scale surveys that compare views within and across European countries. A bespoke questionnaire was designed to examine views of current classroom learning environments with respect to the multilingualism. The questionnaire was piloted and subsequently completed by 2792 teachers across different European countries. Eleven countries provided sufficient data for analyses. Results from structural equation modelling showed that teachers’ attitudes could be reliably measured across Europe with the use of carefully devised questionnaire, whose loading and factor structure remained invariant across countries. Teachers’ views about multilingualism were most challenged by the numbers of children in their classes, not the percentage of multilingual pupils in the class. Countries differed in how they perceived multilingualism, with their differences leading to distinctive country clusters. Gender and education level (elementary vs. secondary) differences were also observed irrespective of country. These findings enhance our understanding of the role that the characteristics of teachers and their classrooms play in a multilingual setting across diverse European settings. The practical relevance of the results and new opportunities for teacher training are discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio