Language awareness in action: Primary school students’ language practices while performing a multilingual task
Year: 2018
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: This chapter discusses the language awareness (LA) practices that arise among students and teachers while performing a multilingual task called Radio Tika in Flemish primary classrooms.Radio Tika is a task that promotes primary school students' full use of their linguistic repertoire.The task challenges the students to present the radio news for the fictitious Tikaland in as many languages or language varieties as possible.Students' language choices and practices while preparing their task performance give rise to reflections and discussions about languages and language use, create opportunities for students to position themselves as experts, but also confront them with their limitations.This chapter discusses the value of the wide range of spontaneous LA practices that emerged in several Flemish primary school classrooms that differed greatly with respect to linguistic/ethnic composition. IntroductionLanguage awareness (LA) as an approach to language education in schools has travelled a long and winding road.Its history differs from country to country.Up to now, in Flanders, Belgium, LA has not really been incorporated in the curriculum of either primary or secondary schools.Whereas LA received more attention in the French speaking part of Belgium it was never fully introduced in Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of the country.Nevertheless, since around 2010, it has received some special attention from the Department of Education and from the educational networks in Flanders (see Chapters 1 and 2 in this volume).The increasing interest in LA was fuelled by the growing number of second language learners in the Flemish educational system and the need to address equity issues in education.Developing LA in all students through intentional and incidental LA activities was believed to help foster mutual understanding and respect toward other languages and their speakers.In this chapter we first discuss the role, or rather, the lack of role home languages other than Dutch, the dominant language in the Flemish educational system, have in the education of students.We briefly explain the monolingual ideology pervading Flemish education and argue how translanguaging, paying attention to multilingualism and LA might help to develop a sensitivity to and awareness of the existence of a multitude of languages and associated underlying cultures and frames of reference in our world.Second, we describe a multilingual task that was used as a research task in three different studies over a period of five years to uncover teachers' and students' beliefs and practices regarding multilingualism.This task was proposed to seven primary school classrooms across Flanders and allowed us to collect information on the incidental, spontaneous LA "moments" that arose in the interactions among students and teachers while performing the task.We describe and discuss our findings in terms of the organic LA practices and reflections they brought about in students and teachers.Finally, we conclude this chapter by discussing the potential of translanguaging and LA in creating a space where students' voices are heard and where teachers and students discover the multilingual identities of each other.2 Educational language policy in Flanders, Belgium 1 Belgium is officially a multilingual country.As a federal state, it consists of three languagebased communities (Dutch, French, and German) and is divided in three territory-based regions: Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part), Wallonia (where French and German are the official languages) and the Brussels-capital (bilingual French-Dutch).In such a political and linguistic landscape, one would expect citizens to grow up bi-or multilingual and inhabitants to have a positive attitude towards multilingualism.However, language is a sensitive issue in Belgium.Relations between the Flemish and French communities are complicated due to historical reasons, causing Flemings to react, sometimes heavily, against the use of French both in the educational and public space in Flanders and Brussels (Willemyns 2003).The historical and politically anxious relation between the use of Dutch and French, as well as an intolerance within Flanders to cultural and linguistic diversity (e.g., Blommaert and Verschueren 1998), has engendered problematic relationships with immigration, creating a kind of spill-over effect that causes negative feelings and reactions against almost all ethnic minority languages (Jaspers 2004).The problematic relation with multilingualism and the monolingual attitude of the Flemings, especially in the educational system, has been evidenced time after time (Jaspers
Source: De Gruyter eBooks
Authors: Koen Van Gorp, Steven Verheyen
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2800484619