Study Modules for Majority Language Teacher Training module 1: Diversity in the Majority Language classroom: Identities Work of Teachers and Learners (1.1:

Study Modules

for Majority Language

Teacher Training

module 1: Diversity in the Majority Language classroom: Identities Work of Teachers and Learners

(1.1: Language and Identity

1.1 Language and

Identity

1.1.1 Brainstorming

Who among you is plurilingual?•discussion in small groups•discussion in plenary

How can plurilingualism be defined?Today the contact with different varieties/languages is inescapable!Everyone has different Language Repertoires!

1.1.2 Demographic Change

• Worldwide pluriligualism is normal and monolingualism the exception.

• Individual and social plurilingualism play an important role as well in many European countries: „internally“ (autochthonous minority languages) „externally“ (allochthonous minority languages)

• Effects on the educational scope!

Plurilingual School (Example Germany):

„In a class of 23 pupils 9 of them speak German as a mother tongue: Marko, Neil, Jan, Annika, Sylvia, Jessica, Nicole, Melanie. Jolanthe, Anna, Patrick, Christine, Romana and Robert are Germsan resettlers from Poland, Anna and Albert are German resettlers from Kazakstan. Helay and are from Afghanistan, Mussie from Eritrea, Guiseppe from Italy, Volkan comes from Turkey, Simon from Paraguay, Kevin is American“ (Budde 2001: 7)

Conclusion 1:• In the educational area individual and social plurilingualism are

normal.• This point of departure challenges particularla the majority

language education, because: pupils need to acquire competences in the majority language

which are the condition for any further educational success. the linguistic skills of pupils in plurilingual classes are

enormously heterogeneous.• Plurilingualism is a matter of teachers and learners!

1.1.3 Language Portraits

Task 1:• Please create a poster with the title: „My Languages“

(languages and dialects which you can talk or which are important to you for any other reason).• Please try to visualize your attitude/mindsets towards

these varieties (e.g. by creating a language landscape, language body etc.).• Please take now notes on the poster commenting

your mindsets.

„Gallery Walk“:Regarding the exhibits

I speak four different languages. My mother or first language is Albanian. It covers a big part of my language body, because I use it every day to talk with my family, my friends and my boyfriend. Besides the biggest part of my upper body my hand is also green / blue. I painted it that way, because Albanian, as my hand, too, is a tool, that helps me in my every day life. French, in the same hand, is marked with blue, too. It´s only a small part, because I don´t like this language too much. Nevertheless I can handle it and use it quite a lot in Switzerland. German is my second language.

Example 1: Language Body (Student, Switzerland)

Example 2: Linguistic Landscape (Student, Austria)

My Socialization and I, ÖDaF-Conference 2010,

Georg Gombos

Example 3: Language Zoo (Pupil, 9 years, Italy)

Other examples

1.1.4 Language Learning Biography

Task 2:• Please write your biography focussing on your

language learning process (biographiy elements are welcome):

• How did you achieve your repertoires? What can you remeber?

Example 1 (Student, Austria):• The language of my heart in which I think, dream,

laugh, cry and love is the Styrian dialect. I grew up at the countryside, at home we never communicated in Standard German.

• At Primary School there were the forst differentiations between dialect and standard variety. It began to be important to talk „beautifully“ during the lessons. […]

Example 2 (Student, 20 years, Austria)C‘era una volta eine language che mi fascinated sehr:Den first contact mit einer foreign language hatte ich at the age of 4.

Mein dad hatte kein Englisch at school und versuchte sich durch language courses „very British“ im holiday zu verständigen. At that time habe ich alles, was ich nicht verstanden hatte, interesting, spannend, fascinating gefunden und I immediately began alles nachzuplappern. I fell in love with it until un giorno im Urlaub qualcosa passiert ist. Ho incontrato eine andere, sehr seltsame, extremly veloce Sprache. Perchè sie mir noch nie zuvor aufgefallen ist? Strano! Era molto anders als the first one. Adesso war ich confused. Ero sicura che I was in love con la first one ma what now? Ma meine mamma told me that at the age of mio fratello I could learn beide Sprachen und this mi piaceva molto…[…]

Example 3: (Student, 21 years, Switzerland):

Example 4 (Student, 20 years, Switzerland):

Example 5 (Student, 20 years, Switzerland):

1.1.5 Reflection learner´s language biography

Task 3:

Please exchange in pairs about your current language biographies. The following aspects could be interesting:

academic vs. extracurricular language learningmotivating vs. demotivating elements positive and negative memoriesthe role of teachers, parents, friends, peers, …beneficial vs. obstructive influences

1.1.6 Language Learning Experience

Task 4: Examples: Mini Language Course (Hungarian, Russian, Arabic), stay abroad, Internet Link

Reflection questions:1.What feelings did emerge? How did they change during the learning experience?2.What was especially easy/diffult to me?3.How did I experience the „setting“ (method/speed)?4.What do these experiences mean to me?

Conclusion 2• In a globalized world everyone comes into contact with many

varieties (first, second, foreign languages, dialects, varieties of class mates, …) and disposes thus of different language repertoires!

• With our languages we connect emotions, memories and persons; therefore they are inseparably linked with our (language) biography and for this reason with our identity! In many cases we have a heart language; often this is our first language.

• In the educational area, this implicatec pedagogic and didactic consequences, especially in the majority language education!

Concretely it is necessary that teachers…1.… reflect their language biography and their general

attitudes towards plurilingualism.2.… welcome every language in the classroom and

illustrate cultural and linguistic variety (cp. modules 1.2 & 1.3).

3.… command a wide background knowledge to be able to benefit didactically from plurilingualism in the majority language classroom (cf. modules 2 & 3).