Session Information
31 SES 04, The Complexities of Multilingualism in Relation to School Achievement
Paper Session
Contribution
Immigrant children’s poor school results are often linked to their linguistic background. It is a common belief that pupils speaking a language at home other than the dominant one in society, perform worse on educational achievement tests. In Flanders, little research on the relationship between the home language of migrants and educational achievement has been performed and is generally based on more traditional measurements of language abilities. These traditional measurements are dichotomous, i.e. they categorise pupils in completely separate groups of non-native and native speakers. This does not do justice to the cultural and linguistic diversity of a person at diverse levels of language skill development (Jang, Dunlop, Wagner, Kim & Gu, 2013). These dichotomous questionnaires in research and policy show little attention for the linguistic reality in which individuals switch from variety to variety depending on context, interaction partner, topic and also on the perceptions of other individuals.This is also true for international comparative research like for example the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This poses serious limitations on the interpretation of results.
In this research we want to examine:
1) The influence of home literacy activities and use of media on the academic achievement of pupils.
Home literacy measures have been found to be related to school literacy achievement (Mason, 1992; Purcell-Gates & Dahl, 1991; Wells, 1985b in Leseman & de Jong, 1998). In this research we want to examine how literacy activities and use of media influences the academic achievement of pupils.
2) The influence of teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding linguistic diversity in school on the academic achievement of pupils.
The vast majority of teachers(Agirdag, Jordens & Van Houtte, 2014), policy makers as well as parents in Flanders are sincerely convinced that maximal exposure to the dominant language in school is the best manner to learn the language and consequently to obtain educational success for all pupils (Blommaert & Van Avermaet, 2008). We want to examine how the perceptions of teachers influence the academic achievement.
1) The influence of pupils’ perceptions regarding linguistic diversity in school on their academic achievement.
Whereas the direct size of teacher expectation effects is rather small, there appears to be an indirect impact through pupils’ beliefs and perceptions of their “academic futility”, which should not be underestimated (Agirdag et al., 2013). Academic futility forms a measure for pupils’ feelings about their possibilities to function appropriately in the school system.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Agirdag, O., Van Avermaet, P., & Van Houtte, M. (2013). School segregation and math achievement: A mixed-method study on the role of self-fulfilling prophecies. Teachers College Record, 115(March 2013), 1–50. Agirdag, O., Jordens, K., & Van Houtte, M. (2014). Speaking Turkish in Belgian Primary Schools: Teacher beliefs versus Effective Consequences. Bilig, 70, 07-28. Blommaert, J., & Van Avermaet, P. (2008). Taal, onderwijs en de samenleving. De kloof tussen beleid en realiteit. Berchem: EPO. Creese, A., & Blackledge, A. (2010). Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching. The Modern Language Journal, 94(1), 103-115. García, O. (2009). Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century. In A. Mohanty, M. Panda, R. Phillipson, & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.), Multilingual education for social justice: Globalising the local (pp. 128-145). New Delhi: Orient Blackswan (former Orient Longman). Gutierrez-Clellen, V. F., & Kreiter, J. (2003). Understanding child bilingual acquisition using parent and teacher reports. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 267–288. Ioannidou, E. (2009). Using the “improper” language in the classroom: the conflict between language use and legitimate varieties in education. Evidence from a Greek Cypriot classroom. Language and Education, 23(3), 263–278. doi:10.1080/09500780802691744 Jang, E. E., Dunlop, M., Wagner, M., Kim, Y.-H., & Gu, Z. (2013). Elementary school ELLs’ reading skill profiles using cognitive diagnosis modeling: Roles of length of residence and home language environment. Language Learning, 63(3), 400–436. doi:10.1111/lang.12016 Jaspaert, K., & Van den Branden, K. (2011). Literacy for All. In K. Van den Branden, P. Van Avermaet, & M. Van Houtte (2011). Equity and excellence in education. Towards maximal learning opportunities for all students (pp. 215-235). London: Routlegde, Taylor & Francis Group. Leseman, P.P.M., & de Jong, P. F. (1998). Home literacy: Opportunity, instruction, cooperation and social-emotional quality predicting early reading achievement. Reading Research Quarterly, 33(3), 294-318.
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