poyhonen birmingham2009
DESCRIPTION
Talk in Language, Discourse and Society (LDS) seminar, University of Birmingham, School of Education 9.10.2009TRANSCRIPT
Literacy practices and construction of identities in schools: Perspectives
of migrant pupils
Sari Pöyhönen
University of Jyväskylä
Centre for Applied Language Studies, Finland
Aims of the talk overview of language situation in Finland focus on
literacy (and media) practices pupils are socialized in language classrooms, and
the possibilities of pupils to construct and manifest their multilingual and multicultural identities in school settings
Two projects: Towards Future Literacy Pedagogies Intervention among 8th graders in Finnish as a second
language class
”Finland is a land of paper”
Language situation in Finland (5.3 million) Finnish and Swedish are the official languages
Speakers of Finnish 90.9% Speakers of Swedish 5.4%
Sami as indigenous people, Romany and people using Finnish Sign Language as linguistic and cultural minorities have a special status in the Constitution
3 Sami languages ca. 1 780 persons, Romany ca. 14 000, Finnish Sign Language ca. 5 000 (ca. 14 000)
Speakers of other languages (ca. 140 languages), about 3.6% of the population (190 538 persons)
No official statistics about bilingualism or multilingualism in Finland The use of English has increased in several fields of life
Situation at schools Basic education (school years 1-9, age 7-16):
2-3 % (17 000) of the pupils with immigrant background Differences between areas and schools within the areas About 50 languages taught as first languages at schools Minimum group size 4 persons Extra-curricular subject: “own mother tongue, own native
language” Finnish as a second language
25 % does not study Finnish as a second language at all 12 % studies only Finnish as a second language 60 % of the pupils studies both Finnish as mother tongue and
Finnish as a second language General Secondary education (access to higher education)
60 % of the age group, 15 % of immigrants
Three concepts
Literacy practicesLanguageIdentity
Literacy practices Reading, writing and talking about texts
Social and cultural practices (Barton & Hamilton 1998; Street 2000)
Attitudes, feelings and social relationships Symbolic resources in negotiating identity
(Martin-Jones 2000) Defining identities, manifesting membership to
groups, and ownership and authorship to texts Gee 1990; Cope & Kalantzis 2000; MacCleod
2004; Bartlett 2005).
View of language and identity Dialogical philosophy of language and
human existence (Bakhtin 1978; 1984) Multiplicity and heterogeneity of language Language as dynamic and multilayered
Discourse and context do not alone determine the formation of identity but function as resources
Competing discourses, several meanings contradictory, even opposite
Dialogic definition of identity
Identity is formed in a dialogic relationship with others. It has many voices, it is dynamic and process-like, but, at the same time, anchored to the historical and cultural context with the result of gaining continuity and permanence. Therefore, identity is at the same time both fragmented and complete. Instead of an identity, we can speak of several identities that acquire different meanings in dialogical situations. (Pöyhönen & Dufva 2007; Pöyhönen 2009)
Literacy (and) media practices in language classrooms
Towards Future Literacy Pedagogies
Aims of the project: To explore and interpret literacy practices in school and
out-of-school contexts To explore teaching and assessment practices, and
attitudes To evaluate to what extent school is able to meet the
literacy challenges of the knowledge society and the globalised, networked and culturally diverse world
To develop proposals for interventions in teaching, curriculum planning, assessment and teacher education
More information: www.jyu.fi/tolp
Holistic view to literacies
Survey of literacy practices in 2006 Based on a representative sample of
9th grade pupils in Finnish-speaking comprehensive schools (15-year-olds, school-leaving cohort)
First language (Finnish) teachers (who teach in the 9th grade)
Foreign language teachers (who teach in the 9th grade) Responses from 1 720 pupils from 102 Finnish-
speaking lower secondary schools and from 740 teachers (417 L1; 324 FL) 2 % of the pupils had immigrant background
Response rates: Pupils 86 % L1 teachers 42 % & FL teachers 32 %
Structure / content of the survey
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
LEARNING AND TEACHING IN SCHOOL
FREE TIME
education and training (teachers only) experience (teachers only) language knowledge use of technology
materials methods objectives cooperation feedback and assessment attitudes
use of media technology skills and needs reading and writing texts attitudes
The world changes – how does the school respond? Mother tongue and foreign language literacy practices in school and in free-time.
Priorities and preferences The most important teaching material is the text
book for 97,5 % of the FL teachers (n=283) and 92,5 % of the L1 teachers (n=361)
”Language is in the book” Possibilities to take into account pupils’
experiences, texts, initiatives? Teachers’ professional identity?
Linguists? Pedagogues?
“Concentrating”Photo: Ari Korkala, National Board of Education, Finland
Pupils’ own texts at school
36 % of the L1 teachers integrate pupils’ texts produced in their freetime into teaching sometimes
40 % of the FL teachers never integrate pupils’ texts produced in their freetime
Texts pupils read at school L1
Most read: fiction, stories & narratives, explorative texts media texts: newspaper articles, news
Most important according to the teachers: fiction Least read: texts chosen by pupils, comics, visual texts
(forms, tables, graphs etc.) FL
Most read: text book texts, stories & narratives Most important according to the teachers: stories &
narratives Least read: texts chosen by pupils, visual texts
“Good text is a long text”
Texts pupils produce at school L1
Most produced: school essays & writings, linear texts Most important according to the teachers: essays, papers
and other linear and monomodal texts Least produced: www-material and other unlinear and
multimodal texts FL
Most produced: conversations, dialogues, school essays Most important according to the teachers: conversations,
dialogues, school essays, oral presentations Least produced: any form of multimodal text
Tendencies in L1 & FL classrooms
Text book driven Print-based
Teacher-led Doing alone & mechanical pair-work
Monocultural & monolingual practices Other linguistic resources non-existent Pupils’ multilingual literacies not important
Clear boundaries school subjects school & freetime
Pupils’ texts in their freetime personal, interactive & social new media
texts SMS-messages, Messenger, IRC (internet-relay
chat), e-mails, chats etc Most read and written Closest for the pupils
on-line presence
Example: Pupils’ daily use of the new media
83
75
16
14
15
60
7
8
18
12
7
12
13
10
9
12
10
16
55
54
7
10
30
37
32
22
46
48
23
30
1
1
17
22
18
3
20
17
2
2
2
1
24
17
26
3
18
11
2
1
0 % 20 % 40 % 60 % 80 % 100 %
Boys
Blogs Girls
Boys
Skype, Messenger, IRC Girls
Boys
Computer games Girls
Boys
Internet sites Girls
Boys
E-mail Girls
not at all only a little to some extent quite a lot a lot
Multilingualism and the new media
25
60
15
53
13
43
52
68
14
8
4
4
5
1
9
3
18
10
19
16
21
19
29
19
46
52
21
24
68
60
47
48
11
9
13
13
19
18
10
8
25
27
24
38
20
31
27
33
14
10
17
9
22
12
5
2
11
10
30
25
6
6
12
12
30
10
34
8
24
7
2
2
3
2
20
8
2
1
5
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
0 % 20 % 40 % 60 % 80 % 100 %
Boys
Game consoles Girls
Boys
Computer games (off-line) Girls
Boys
Online games Girls
Boys
SkypeGirls
Boys
Messenger, IRC Girls
Boys
Internet sites Girls
Boys
SMS messages Girls
Boys
E-mail Girls
I do not use at allOnly in my mother tongueMore often in my mother tongue than in other languagesAs often in my mother tongue as in other languagesMore often in other languages than in my mother tongueIn Finnish as the second language
Multilingualism and the new media
Use of more than one language is very common when pupils use the media in their free time
Boundary between L1 use and FL use is very flexible in some new media, e.g. reading websites and playing games L1 used more with print media
Majority of foreign language use is in English
School and freetime: two parallel realities?
→ How is school able (and willing) to support pupils in participating in different communities? in practicing and expanding their literacy practices? in exploring the possibilities of the new media as a
learning environment? Pöyhönen & Saario 2009 Taalas, Tarnanen, Kauppinen & Pöyhönen 2008
”The cookies on my daughter’s computer know more about her interests than her teachers do”
Henry Kelly
President
Federation of American Scientists
How could school & freetime practices meet each other?
Constructing and manifesting multilingual and multicultural identities in school settings
The case/space: an intervention
4 weeks in spring 2008Finnish as a second language, grade 8 (13-years old)Overall aim: Expanding the learning environment and materials; to learn about Finnish media and culture by using digital learning resources
OECD case study on Digital Learning Resources as Systemic Innovation
Specific tasks: Practicing producing different media texts, giving feedback to others, learning teamwork skills, learning to bring own experiences to the learning situations and to assess own skills.
Favourite links, news, review (film, game etc.), interview (Survey, personal interview)
Process and product: making a web-journalParticipants: 9 pupils (4 girls & 5 boys), F2 teacher, 2 teacher trainees, 1 teacher trainer, 2 researchers
A. The name of the magazine: Who are we?
Different ideas of group-belonging Afgaani uutiset (Afghan news) ”Alueen” lehti (”Region” mail ) Rikosuutiset (Crime news) S2 (F2; Finnish as a second language) Team Terrorist El Mosku
Final desicion:
Mosquitos - S2-oppilaiden oma lehti Mosquitos - F2 pupils’ own magazine
Negotiations
Teacher trainee: Isn’t Mosquitos a good name? Suggest a better one! :D
Girl 1: well, LOL Boy 1: spiderman Teacher trainee: Was that some kind of a
suggestion??! :O Girl 1: Oh yeah (it was) :D Well, change it and put F2
It’s a lot better than that nmfgdjythn Teacher trainee: Boy 1: why spiderman? How does it
relate to this?!! Girl 2: remove that F2 pupils’ own magazine … it’s
stupid Only mosquitos is better! El mosku would be even better.. (mosku = multiculturalism)
Different relationships/stances content of the journal, learning tasks, interests oneself as a reader and writer oneself as a member of a linguistic or ethnic
community
→ hybrid discursive practices Difficulties to handle the familiar
practices and use & expand them for learning purposes.LOL, :D
”Me/us” in the texts“We are interested in film culture, so we decided to
make a survey. We asked some15 pupils questions about films, which we ourselves were also interested in.”
These are the questions we asked:
1. What kind of films do you like most?a) comedy, b) romantic, c) action, d) science fiction
2. Who is a better actor?a) Brad Pitt, b) Johnny Depp
3. Do you watch films late at night?a) yes, b) no
4. Do you go to cinema often?
a) yes, b) no 5. Do you watch foreign films?
a) yes, b) no
Comments/feedback
Teacher trainee: An interesting survey! If you had asked about an actress, which alternatives would you have given?
Girl 2: Well… maybe Angelina Jolie F2 Teacher: An interesting survey! I would
like to know about the foreign films, from which countries are they? Good work, girls!
Boy 3: quite a good survey, you could have asked which film is their favourite :)
What is ”proper” learning? Sari: should the internet be used more often in teaching? Girl 1: no Girl 2: well not really Sari: why not? Girl 3: because you get easily bored with the net or what I mean is that if
you do exercises then you sort of get bored with it them easily Girl 1: then you don’t really learn better Sari: what’s the best way to learn then? Girl 1: well in the classroom if the teacher explains compared you
know with the net
Continues... Sari: is it because there’s so much stuff in the
net that it’s difficult to choose or or? Girl 1: well you see it’s like awfully that if
someone tells you about it it’s better than if one reads about it in some internet the net usually has quite long stories
Girl 3: or it’s like when you’re in the net you want to go to your own pages and don’t want to do it (the exercise)
Internet & multi-voiced identities
All pupils had Internet connection at home Internet was used by all members of the family The pupils helped younger siblings and their parents
in the use of Internet and IT technology Internet as a social space
Chatting with friends, listening to music, watching videos, online gaming…
Polyphonic identities Multilingualism vs. monolingualism
Linguistic repertoires and resources connected with the activities
Using different languages, genres and varities Finnish, English, Dari, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, Bengali,
Hindi… Notions on ”our language” in ”our culture”
“Our own mother tongue” Sari: that one is an English page, do you visit pages in other
languages? Boy: well at least pages in our own mother tongue Sari: what’s it then your own mother tongue? Boy: well it depends on what I want to do Sari: oh yeah Boy: for example I visit an address to watch television in our own
mother tongue or I mean of our own country – Sari: so what is your home country? Boy: Afghanistan
Concluding thoughts Literacy practices and texts at school: learning
for school or learning for life? Pressures to integrate formal and informal
learning Challenges of the school
To support and expand pupils’ literacy and media practices
Give space to construct different identities To get rid of monocultural, monolingual practices and
fixed meanings
Critical question How willing are pupils to learn new ways to
participate in these activities and to create knowledge together?
Keeping school practices and out-of-school practices separated
Giving preference to print-based, teacher-led practices in school
Personal views and texts: minimizing the ”me/us”
Is there a way out of the land of paper?
Project groupProf. Minna-Riitta Luukka [email protected] First language literacy practices in schools and out-of-school contexts Ari Huhta [email protected] assessment and feedback practicesSari Pöyhönen [email protected] literacy practices and construction of identities, language education policies Peppi Taalas [email protected] teaching and learning practices in language teaching environments Mirja Tarnanen [email protected] assessment and feedback practices in relation to curriculum and goals Merja Kauppinen [email protected] language learning and literacy practices in the national core curricula for basic education Johanna Saario [email protected] language context and concepts in social studies; challenges for second language learnersSanna Voipio-Huovinen [email protected] support for bilingualism and bi-literacy in Finnish schools among Russian
and Somali-speaking immigrant pupils