Sixth International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: Connecting Research and Practice Across Contexts

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

main languages Swedish, Finnish and English + other languages used in the immersion context

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

The presentation aims to deepen our understanding of the language repertoire of immersion students and their linguistic behavior. The presentation is based on ethnographic case studies in Grades 5 and 8. Data consist of students’ self-reported visualizations of their linguistic  environment and of personal visual language inventories and photo-elicitation interviews.

Our presentation draws upon studies conducted in the project Multilingualism in immersion where multilingual perspectives in the Swedish immersion programmes in Finland have been analyzed through questionnaire and interview data among students and language teachers. Results show that there are several languages in the language repertoire of immersion students and that the students perceive themselves as multilinguals. Furthermore, their definition of a multilingual tends to be usage-based and related to languages taught at school.

The aim of this presentation is to deepen our understanding of the language repertoire and the linguistic behavior among immersion students. Our presentation is based on ethnographic case studies of students in grades 5 and 8. The data consist of the students’ self-reported visualizations of their linguistic environment (My language tree, cf. Østern 2004) and of their personal visual language inventories (photographs) in informal school spaces and in out-of-school spaces and individual photo-elicitation interviews (cf. Rose 2012) with them. Based on the visual representations chosen and reflected by the students we explore the complexity of language repertoires coming into play in their language environment. The results show that the students use their multilingual language repertoire in multiple informal school spaces and out-of-school spaces and in multiple ways. There is a wide variety of uses from separating languages strictly to dynamic flexible use of several languages.

References

Rose (2012). Visual methodologies. An introduction to researching with visual materials. London: SAGE.

Østern (2004). ‘My language tree’: young Finland-Swedish adults tell us about their linguistic and cultural identities. Journal of curriculum studies, vol. 36, no. 6, 657–672