The Impact of Multilingualism on Education and Language Learning

2014

This book presents current trends in language education as reflections of and responses to globalization. The intended audience is a diverse group that includes students in linguistics and education, policy makers, educators, and activists. The main thrust of the book is to advocate for bilingual and multilingual education, positioning multilingualism as a resource rather than a problem.

Journal of Language and Education, 2019

It is aimed at revealing and systematizing current cultural trends and experiences embodied in both nationally identical and internationally oriented projects within the educational space of the 21st century. The book is also aimed at mobilizing the education policymakers, the international community, and civil society organizations trying to ensure that the right to education for all people -particularly language and cultural minorities -is upheld both in developing and developed countries. The authors of the book share their views on some urgent and far-reaching issues related to rapid changes in modern world educational paradigms caused by dynamically developing interrelationships between global communication and national development on one hand and requirements to correlate emerging virtual forms of collaboration in different spheres of human activities on the international level on the other. The significance of this monograph is the emphasis on "translanguaging" , which is usually interpreted as a rapidly growing field of research both in theory and in practice because it provides an opportunity to push forward adequate understanding of renewed linguistic terminology and is able to challenge cross-cultural experiences and multimodal means of expression and communication that multilinguals navigate in educational settings on a daily basis. Touching on traditional and diverse elements of multilingual research, such as code switching, code meshing, polylingualism, polylanguaging, plurilingualism, hybridity, hybrid language practices, and flexible dynamic bilingual education, the contributors focus strongly upon the ability of translanguaging to assist in explaining how multilinguals go about their language choices in real contexts. The book also takes a fresh look at the necessity to transform various teaching/ learning methods and empirical educational schemes to meet the challenges of the second millennium.

DE GRUYTER, 2020

Multilingualism has become an increasingly common global phenomenon especially in the last two decades. Therefore, multilingual programmes have now been regarded as a cornerstone of education systems in many countries around the world. Learning multiple languages helps us plug into a globalised world and strengthen links with a multitude of speakers from a diversified reality we live in. Thanks to the researched cases described in the chapters, further developments aimed at fostering multilingual practices in the contemporary world will be enhanced. The chapters included in the present volume, provide an overview of current theory, research and practice in the field. They deal with such prominent research topics as multilingual education, language policies, language contact, identity of multilingual speakers, to name only a few. The selected chapters focus on the numerous and heterogeneous relations between languages. They also incorporate a series of contextualized studies with diverse research designs applied in different settings across the globe. This volume constitutes a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly material on multilingualism from twelve different countries. It is a thought-provoking collection that provides a series of rich insights into the way multilingualism is practised in international contexts. It is ideally designed for academics, upper-level students, educators, professionals and practitioners seeking linguistic and pedagogical guidance on multilingualism.

" Focus on Multilingualism " is a holistic approach to the study of multilingualism in educational contexts. This approach can be characterized by focus-ing on the following three elements: the multilingual speaker, the whole linguistic repertoire and the context. Multilingual speakers use languages as a resource to communicate successfully and to develop their own identities through multilingual practices. In this chapter, " Focus on Multilingualism " is illustrated with examples from multilingual education in the Basque Country.

The linguistic choices teachers and educators make in their spheres of influence depend on their own language experiences and how these have shaped their thinking. In this article, we draw on teacher beliefs, social activism and language socialisation perspectives to demonstrate the potential impact of the Multilingual Socialisation (M-SOC) tool. This theory-informed tool was designed to: (1) make visible multilingual practices where they exist; (2) establish a link between biographical experiences, actions and beliefs related to multilingual practices in education; and (3) expose educators less familiar with multilingualism in education to practical ideas, thus enabling reflection and inspiration. This is part of a potentially wider collective action project that has the aim of generating greater acceptance of multilingual practices in education. Here, we present and evaluate the first stage of the M-SOC project and a follow-on consultation phase and draw conclusions for future research. The quantitative and qualitative analyses of the first results (n = 81) from our ongoing data collection indicate that the M-SOC tool has a role to play as an effective theory-informed teacher development tool that is able to identify, inform and change teachers' thinking and intentions regarding their classroom practices.

2013

2019

University of Nova Gorica Press, 2023

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of bilingualism and multilingualism, delving into topics such as code-switching, corpus linguistics, languages in contact, and language policies. Featuring chapters authored by participants of the International Summer School of Bilingualism and Multilingualism (ISSBM 2022), this collection showcases heterogeneous student research and perspectives on language acquisition and diversity. ISSBM 2022, a collaborative endeavor between the University of Nova Gorica (Slovenia) and the University of Udine (Italy), was supported by the European University for Cross-Border Knowledge Sharing (ACROSS) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Taking place at the Chemnitz University of Technology (Germany) from September 12-16, 2022, the summer school sought to discuss linguistic research and stimulate dialogue on bilingualism, multilingualism, and second language acquisition. Additionally, the book includes a methodological reflection on translanguaging, with ISSBM 2022 serving as the case study. This compilation of proceedings serves as a valuable resource for students, researchers, and practitioners interested in the multifaceted world of bilingualism and multilingualism.

2018