Literacy Acquisition In School In The Context Of Migration And Multilingualism

This book presents the outcomes of a multi-methodical investigation of the processes of literacy acquisition. The focus is on mono- and bilingual first- and seventh-graders in schools in socially underprivileged areas of two major cities in Turkey and Germany. By means of extensive analyses of lesson videos, linguistic tests, interviews and ethnographic research, social, cultural, linguistic, pedagogic and didactic differences on the international, national, local and individual level are aligned with the momentary problem of exercising a school lesson and acquiring literacy on a daily basis. The results contradict to some degree that cultural and linguistic differences actually make a huge difference in the organisation and process of literacy acquisition. With the interdisciplinary background of the book, it addresses academics concerned with migration sociology, migration linguistics, classroom research, and bilingual education. In a broader perspective, the book contributes to the pedagogically and politically significant question how social and cultural characteristics of specific groups are stereotyped and partly unjustly combined in order to reach symbolic solutions for actual problems.

Literacy acquisition is one of the primary goals of school education, and usually it takes place in the national language of the respective country. At the same time, schools accommodate pupils with different home languages who might or might not be fluent in the national language and who start from other linguistic backgrounds in their acquisition of literacy. While it is safe to say that schools with a monolingual policy are not prepared to deal with the factual multilingualism in their classrooms in a systematic way, bilingual pupils have to deal with it nonetheless. The interdisciplinary and comparative research project “Literacy Acquisition in Schools in the Context of Migration and Multilingualism” (LAS) investigated the practical processes of literacy acquisition in two countries, Germany and Turkey, where the monolingual orientation of schools is as much a reality as are the multilingual backgrounds of many of their pupils. The basic assumption was that pupils cope with the ways they are engaged by the school - both socially ...

This book explores the question of how equitable and inclusive education can be implemented in heterogeneous classes where learners’ languages and cultures reflect the social reality of mass migration and everyday plurilingualism. The book brings together researchers and practitioners working in inclusive teaching and learning in a variety of migration contexts from pre-school to university. The book opens with an exploration of the relationship between language ideologies and policies with respect to the inclusion of learners for whom the language of education is not the language spoken in the home. The following section focuses on innovative pedagogical practices which allow migrants to be socially, culturally and institutionally included at school and at university while using their plurilingual competences as resources for learning/teaching and allowing them to fully realise their potential.

This book discusses literacy development in heritage language speakers and presents the results of four different quantitative studies that investigate the transfer of literacy skills in bi- and multilingual language development. The empirical studies focus on different populations of pupils, most of them located in various parts of Switzerland, and emphasise the potential residing in shared or transferred resources between their heritage languages and the languages spoken in the region to which their family has immigrated. The goal of all studies was to gain an understanding of the factors, both linguistic and non-linguistic in nature, that contribute to the development of language skills in both the heritage and school languages. Theoretical assumptions are put to the test via hypothesis testing and the generally shared assumptions on bilingual education are questioned based on the data. Furthermore, methodological problems in the investigation of linguistic interdependence are discussed. This book contributes to the scholarly investigation of potential beneficial effects in academic proficiency across languages in migrant children.

Adult migrants who received little or no formal education in their home countries face a unique set of challenges when attempting to learn the languages of their new countries. Few adult migrants with limited or no literacy in their native languages successfully attain higher levels of literacy in their additional languages, even if they attain high levels of oral proficiency. This book, the result of a European- and United States-wide collaborative research project, aims to assist teachers working with adult migrants to address this attainment gap and help students reach the highest possible levels of literacy in their new languages. The chapters provide the latest research-informed evidence on the acquisition of linguistic competence and the development of reading in a new language by adults. The book concludes with a chapter that addresses the challenges and opportunities faced by this group of learners and their teachers, with specific instructional strategies that can be used. The book will be an invaluable resource for teachers, tutors and training providers, as well as volunteers, who work with adult migrants.

This book offers insights into questions related to mobility, literacy learning and literacy practices of adult and adolescent migrants. The authors address learning and use of literacies among adults and adolescents in both temporary and more permanent post-migration settlements and in various contexts, exploring spatial as well as temporal dimensions of literacies and power. The formal and informal educational settings examined include state-mandated schools, community settings, and libraries, and the chapters offer insights into the complex relations between literacies and mobility, as well as a range of perspectives on language use and language learning. This volume will be of interest to students and researchers in fields including education and literacy, applied linguistics, language education and migration studies.

From an international, research-led perspective, this book explores how languages are foregrounded in education in different countries and educational sectors, and among different groups of people in contexts of migration. It is concerned with the movement of people and their languages as they migrate across borders, and as languages—and their speakers—are under threat, pressure and pain, even to the point of being silenced. The contributors explore the multilingual possibilities and opportunities that these situations present. For example: where children’s education is neglected because of displacement or exclusion; or in classrooms where teachers and educational leaders seek to meet the needs of all learners, including those who are new citizens, refugees, or asylum seekers. Together, the findings and conclusions emerging from these studies open up a timely space for interdisciplinary, inter-practitioner, and comparative researcher dialogue concerning languages and intercultural education in times of migration. Originating from an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project "Researching multilingually at the borders of language, the body, law and the state", this book provides readers with a natural impetus for exploring how languages and their speakers create new imaginaries and new possibilities in educational contexts and communities, as people engage with one another in and through these languages. This book was originally published as a special issue of Language and Intercultural Communication.

In the context of constantly increasing linguistic diversity in many parts of the world, opportunities and challenges arise for the acquisition of literacy skills. The successful development of literacy skills becomes a crucial prerequisite for educational attainment determining future career prospects of migrant students. Multilingual settings reveal the diversification of languages and scripts prompted in the context of migration. This monograph explores the phenomenon of biscriptuality and aims to provide an approach for investigating the development of biliteracy in the context of divergent scripts. This interdisciplinary mixed-methods study bridges intercultural education science, education research and applied linguistics for gaining a complex view on the role of biscriptuality in students’ biliteracy. It considers the extent of students’ biscriptual skills, specifies language dimensions in which the influence on biliteracy may occur, and differentiates between the effects of biscriptuality on the development of writing skills in two different genres, narrative and expository.