Kirjablogi

Kirjablogi 5/5

2017-06-09T01:23:07+03:00

Having lived in Finland for nearly 12 years, I have often meditated the underlying reasons for the marvellous success of the Finnish education system, which tends to score high in most, if not all, European and world benchmarks. The topic has puzzled me to such an extent that I have decided to search the Internet for some credible explanations. In the course of my research I have recently come across an interesting article by William Doyle entitled, “How Finland broke every rule – and created a top school system.” The writer juxtaposes the Finnish education system with its American counterpart and observes that a lot can be learnt from practices adopted by this Nordic country.

http://hechingerreport.org/how-finland-broke-every-rule-and-created-a-top-school-system/

The key figure in the story is Jussi Hietava, a fourth-grade teacher at the University of Eastern Finland’s Normaalikoulu teacher training school in Joensuu, Finland. As the author suggests, “Spend five minutes in Jussi Hietava’s fourth-grade math class in remote, rural Finland, and you may learn all you need to know about education reform (...) Instead of control, competition, stress, standardized testing, screen-based schools and loosened teacher qualifications, try warmth, collaboration, and highly professionalized, teacher-led encouragement and assessment.”

Alongside his pupils, also Hietava's university students enjoy the cutting-edge concept of “personalized learning,” which translates into the quiet, daily, flesh-and-blood countless face-to-face and over-the-shoulder interactions with schoolchildren. To quote Hietava himself, “Finland’s historic achievements in delivering educational excellence and equity to its children are the result of a national love of childhood, a profound respect for teachers as trusted professionals, and a deep understanding of how children learn best.”

It is the teacher who sets the classroom atmosphere. Children are allowed to behave as children normally do, i.e. to “wiggle and giggle” from time to time. Instead of being “strait-jacketed by bureaucrats, scripts or excessive regulations,” teachers in Finnish school are generally given more “freedom to innovate and experiment as teams of trusted professionals.” They are encouraged to constantly test new approaches to improve learning. To exemplify this point, let me quote Hietava’s latest pilot-testing of “self-assessments” (where students write daily narratives on their learning and progress) and “peer assessments” (where children are carefully guided to offer positive feedback and constructive suggestions to each other).

What do I learn from the article? In order to live up to the title of a trusted professional, I need to change some of my old habits, e.g.:

Set less formal atmosphere in my classroom. Introduce regular breaks in-between teaching and learning episodes.
Bear in mind that children are children and, as such, should be given more freedom of expression, allowed to “misbehave” and be restless at times.
Be a “warm” person and an encouraging tutor in one.
Experiment with new approaches to improve learning. Include more innovative practices in my teaching, e.g. “self-assessments” and “peer assessments”.

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Kirjablogi 4/5

2017-06-09T00:59:36+03:00

Slang is the fastest changing register in every language. Quoting Wikipedia's definition: "Slang consists of a lexicon of non-standard words and phrases in a given language. Use of those words and phrases is typically associated with the subversion of a standard variety (such as Standard English) (...) As for its social implications, slang is usually associated with a particular group and plays a role in constructing our identities. (...) Therefore, using the slang of a particular group will associate an individual with that group."

As an interpreter from, and into, English I know only too well how challenging it is to keep up to speed with the ever-changing slang lexicon. That is why learning (and teaching) current slang words and expressions ought to constitute a must in both mother and foreign language curriculum.

Searching the Internet for interesting slang-teaching material, I came across the following lesson scenario available on the Teaching English webpage (created in association with the British Council and the BBC):

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/slang-how-do-young-brits-speak

The aims of the lesson include the following:

Learning some British slang terms
Practising reading skills
Practising writing skills
Discussing register in language

The lesson offers a variety of activities based on informal language and modern British slang. It consists of eight different tasks:

Task 1: a warm up activity wherein students guess the correct definition of slang.
Task 2: a matching activity which looks at slang in song lyrics.
Task 3: practicing the words and expressions from Task 2.
Task 4: students skim-read a text about modern British slang to get a general idea.
Task 5: helping students with vocabulary from the text before they do Task 6.
Task 6: comprehension activities based on Task 5.
Task 7: students complete (and extend) dialogues in pairs: a speaking practice.
Task 8: students give their opinions in groups in the discussion activity.

I was so much inspired by the lesson that I though it worthwhile translating the content as faithfully as possible and using in Polish-language-teaching context. Even though my current pupils of heritage Polish classes are too young to learn and practice slang words, the lesson scenario can be ready for use with this group in just a few years’ time.

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Kirjablogi 3/5

2017-06-02T15:03:14+03:00

Turning to a more scientific argument in favour of multilingual education, I recently leaved through lecture notes taken in the course of my MA degree studies of Applied Linguistics, completed in 1995–2000 at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Reading notes on philosophy and psycholinguistics helped me refresh my knowledge of the multilingual teaching theory. While going through subsequent pages, I came across one particularly important name, i.e. that of Wilhelm von Humboldt.

Wilhelm von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher and linguist, who created the concept of the linguistic worldview, which refers to semantic universals and conceptual distinctions in languages. Von Humboldt claimed that every language reflects its speakers’ perception of the surrounding world by adopting a set of terms (terminology) helpful in describing various phenomena. To give one specific example: there are literally dozens of snow-denoting terms in Inuit language spoken by the Eskimo people, indicating a great variety of types of snow they can distinguished and a clear significance of snow as a phenomenon omnipresent in their lives. Likewise, other languages build up their own culture-specific vocabulary, echoing the perception of the surrounding world by those language users. Wilhelm von Humboldt argues that the more languages one masters, the broader his/her understanding of the surrounding world. In a nutshell: with every new language learned, we – its speakers – broaden our own horizons and those of our children.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_von_Humboldt

– Mitä kirjasta, nettisivulta tms. opin?

The more languages we actively use, the more we learn of the world around us. It is of crucial importance to promote multilingual upbringing and education, which we – heritage language teachers – do as part of our professional activity.

– Mihin sen omassa opettajuudessani tai pedagogiikassani yhdistän?

Despite hurdles encountered in teaching bilingual pupils, it is worth overcoming the challenges, convinced that at the end of the day our students will gain extraordinary communication skills.

– Miten kokeilen sitä konkreettisesti omassa opetuksessani?

I ought to adopt language teaching methodology, which incorporates elements of both languages (Finnish and Polish) spoken by my students rather than stick to one language only. In practical terms, I can make use of exercises based on comparative approach to grammar and complete translation tasks.

– Mitä muuta kirjallisuutta tähän aihepiiriin mielestäni liittyy?

Studies in linguistics, pedagogy, psycholinguistics, glottodidactics, foreign language teaching methodology and philosophy.

– Kenelle erityisesti lukemaani suosittelsiin ja miksi?

I would recommend more in-depth study of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s work to teachers of heritage language classes and other professionals working with pupils and students representing multilingual and multicultural backgrounds. Despite challenges in our profession activity – dealing with pupils who constantly mix up the two languages spoken at home and at school – the effort put into the teaching will one day pay off, as having completed the course, our pupils will gain extraordinary linguistic skills and communication ability.

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Kirjablogi 2/5

2017-06-02T14:59:15+03:00

Since the phenomenon of bilingual communication is part of my daily life, the topic has puzzled me for quite some time. Consequently, I have tried to get acquainted with both scientific and popular literature dedicated to the problem of multilingual and multicultural communication. Here is an example article on the topic I have read recently.

Biliteracy: Teaching Bilingual Children to Read and Write in More Than One Alphabet by Corey Heller, the founder of Multilingual Living and the Editor-In-Chief/Publisher of Multilingual Living Magazine. Corey, an American, and her German husband live in Seattle where they raise and home-school their three children in German and English.

Speaking from her first-hand experience, the author shares with the reader her thoughts and practical hints related to bilingual child-raising. The article discusses challenges in teaching a bilingual child more than one alphabet. She argues that, unlike monolingual families, bilingual families have the added hurdle of having to manage more than one alphabet. Even if both alphabets include the same letters, often they have very different sounds (or sounds that are the same but refer to different letters). How does a family juggle all of this? It isn’t as difficult as it sounds. It just takes a little bit of creativity.

http://www.multilingualliving.com/2011/07/25/biliteracy-teaching-bilingual-children-read-write-alphabet/

– Mitä kirjasta, nettisivulta tms. opin?

Ambitious and dedicated parents can teach their children to communicate in two (or even more) languages, provided they are determined, consistent and creative.

– Mihin sen omassa opettajuudessani tai pedagogiikassani yhdistän?

Based on an article dedicated to Multilingual language awareness and teacher education, my colleague argues that, (...) it is important to know the background of your students in many ways. Especially for language teaching you need to know the “linguistic landscape” of your student (...).

– Miten kokeilen sitä konkreettisesti omassa opetuksessani?

Working with bilingual (Finnish–Polish) pupils in my class, I ought to remain in close contact with their parents, to know the students’ backgrounds, the way their bilingual communication functions at home, e.g. if is it based on the OPOL rule or some other.

– Mitä muuta kirjallisuutta tähän aihepiiriin mielestäni liittyy?

There is abundant literature available in various paper publications and online, dealing with the issue of multilingual and multicultural communication and pedagogy.

– Kenelle erityisesti lukemaani suosittelsiin ja miksi?

I would recommend the article to all parents who either raise, or consider raising, their children multilingual. In addition to such parents, the target reader group includes also teachers of heritage language classes and other professionals working with pupils and students representing multilingual and multicultural background.

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Kirjablogi 1/5

2017-06-02T14:43:24+03:00

A Polish citizen married to a Finn, I moved to Central Finland less than twelve years ago. As my husband happens to speak flawless Polish, my settlement in Finland was made easier. For the first year or so, while at home, I had the comfort of communicating exclusively in my mother tongue Polish. The birth of our two children (Helena in 2006 and Jan in 2009) proved a turning point in our family life and created, apart from other challenges, a veritable revolution in the way we communicate at home.

From the moment we became parents, we tried to adopt the OPOL (= One Parent, One Language) rule when addressing our two children. Meaning to say, I communicate with them in Polish only, while my husband tries to stick to his mother tongue Finnish. In an ideal world we would probably be able to avoid confusing the two language, reality however proved far different from our idealistic assumptions. Often times, when witnessing a discussion held in Finnish between my children and their father, I get involved speaking Finnish, either on my own initiative or in reply to a question put forward in that language. It feels perfectly natural to reply to a given question in the same language, in which it is formulated. This results in the violation of the initially adopted OPOL rule. Needless to say, the same goes for my husband, who frequently gets “carried away” and replies to a Polish question posed by one of the children in the same language it is asked in, i.e. in Polish (foreign to him).

It is hardly surprising then that being exposed to both languages spoken by both parents (sometimes as mother tongues, i.e. correct, and sometimes as foreign languages, i.e. incorrect) our offspring tend to get confused when switching from one language to another. The other day our 7-year old son made us burst with laughter when creating yet another perfect neologism. By associating the past tense form of the Polish verb zdążyć [to make in on time] and its Finnish equivalent ehtiä, Jan spontaneously coined a typical linguistic fusion, by exclaiming: – Nie ehditowałem! [which combines the Polish – Nie zdążyłem with the Finnish form – En ehtinyt, i.e. – I didn’t make it on time]. Similar examples are plentiful in his daily linguistic repertoire.

Here is an online article I read recently, which so faithfully reflects our bilingual family struggles and joys:

Ni ma water”, or how I raised a bilingual child by Andrzej Michalik, a translator and interpreter (English and Polish) and a highly motivated father who decided (and managed!) to raise his son Patrick bilingual in a monolingual community.

The article proves that “when there is a will, there is a way” and that it is definitely worth putting extra effort into your child’s bilingual upbringing, as at the end of the day the benefits will outnumber the hardships. Why bother at all? Well, let us hear the opinion of Patrick himself:

Hello, I’m Patrick. I have been bilingual since I was born. I think it’s great. There are so many advantages to that. Like: I can communicate with virtually anyone wherever I go. [...] And I don’t have to learn during English classes. [...] The next nice thing about being bilingual are the books and movies. There are so many books in English. All the movies are great too. Finding information on the Internet must be really hard for someone who only speaks Polish. [...] I also understand most of the songs playing on the radio and I’ve met many nice people from England or the USA.

http://interpretersoapbox.com/how-i-raised-a-bilingual-child-polish-english/

Studying the text felt like seeing a mirror reflection of my own family. There are so many parallels between the examples quoted by the writer and our own everyday linguistic experience!

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Imagery-based learning: Improving elementary students' reading comprehension with drama techniques

2017-10-26T09:13:06+03:00

Reading comprehension, the ability to understand and retain the details, sequence, and meaning from written material, is a basic skill that is one of the critical elements of any primary-level education. There has been a discussion going on between people that argue that subjects as arts, should make place for the ‘basic skills’ so children can concentrate on what is more ‘important’. Others argue that there is an empirical link between arts education and basic academic achievement.

The Reading Comprehencion through Drama program was developed on the assumption that drama could be an effective medium for teaching young readers. It is suggested that a critical component of reading comprehension is the ability to create a “gestalt,” which “is created by the visualization of the whole … it is the ability to create and inmagine whole” (Bell, 1991 pp. 247-248). Those students who comprehend clearly what they read are able to visualize the secens they have read. Strong readers can visualize the details of a story assembled as a whole rather than try to hold on to the many parts seperately. This visualising of the story is exactly what I noticed in my students when I made the soundscape with them. They really understood the whole story and could visualise (and hear) it. This way they could interpreted the story in sounds instead of in words.

The similarity between imagery-based instruction methods and the use of drama as a teaching technique is of particular interest in the context of using drama as a medium for teaching reading. Like the imagery-based learning methods that Bell described, drama requires actors to visualize (or create an image of) a scene and all of its elements so that it creates a meaningful story.

Memory and cognition

The essence of reading comprehension, which is highly dependent on memory, is the ability to store and retrieve information from writen text. Some research suggest that memory for visual informtion is stronger than memory for written information. If reading instruction can be made less dependent on memory of text and focus instead on visual images described in the story, then readers are lkely to store, retain, and recall more about what they read.

Meaning-based memory

Meaningful information is better remembered than meaningless information. Specifically, propositional representation are used to represent meaningful information about an event, story, ore scene. Reading comprehension likely is based on the ability to encode and retrieve the basic building blocks (propositions) of sentences and relates the meaning withn them to scenes and stories from a text.

To apply those finding to teaching reading comprehension, which relies on memory, students must learn to segment the meaningful pieces of a story and to understand the meaningful relationships between the segments that create the whole story. That approach parallels the one that actors use to re-create a scene. One must be albe to visualise each piece of the story (as well as the pieces together) to accurately represent them.

Thus, the ability to visualise the secne in the text, a skill that can be developed through drama-based instruction, may be a useful tool for both coding the propositions within the text and combining the meaningfully to re-create the details of the story.

Elaboration

Research suggests that human memory can be enhanced greatly by elaborating on information to be remembered. Elaboration involves a deeper level of proccessing information, which has a positive effect on memory. Memory in reading can be enhanced by creating a vivid image of the scene described in a sentence. Thus, providing students with the opportunity to elaborate on the text they are reading, especially if it involves vivid visual representation, is likely to improve their recall and comprehension of the material.

Taken together, the research on memory and imagery suggest that reading comprehension can be improved by helping students a) create visual images of what they read, b) break down stories into their smallest meaningful components (or propositions) and c) elaborate on what they read so they can process information more deeply. All of those characteristics are common to drama-based instruction.

Thus there seems to be ample theoretical and empirical support for the notion that drama can improve reading comprehension.

There were five steps to make the story into drama:

Students silently read the story
The artis/leader reads the same story aload (so any weak/nonreader can participate)
Students identify specific elements of the story
Students re-create (via props) the elements identified in step 3
Students re-tell the story using props to dramtise the elements.

Students are guided in the recreation of the story in four stages. The first stage involved the story elements. After reading the story (step 1 and 2), students created symbols to represnet the different story elements necessary to re-tell the story. Thy needed to created inmagine for in ‘what’, ‘who’ and ‘where’ elements of the story. In the second stage, studenst were asked to devide the story in beginning, middle and end, and identify those parts of the story and re-tell the narrative using three-panel illustrtion to draw each element. In the third stage, the perceptions elements, ‘see’, ‘smell’, ‘taste’, ‘hear’, and ‘thought’ were used. In this stage, rather than retelling the story with paper images, students re-told the story by acting out the scene. In the final stage, students explored the evalution elements of ‘interpretation’, ‘critique’, and ‘opinion’. In this stage, students were interviewed as if they were one of the characters in the story. The students responded to the interview by inferring (elaborating) the character’s likely response according to what they read about the character’s motiviations, actions, and personality.

Classes that used this approach for reading comprehension did show an improvement in reading skills. I think this method can be really well used, since it engages also the poor readers. This way, reading can be enjoyable for everybody in the class. I noticed the same when making the soundscape in my class. Even children that could not read yet, were engaged in the story, and new when it was their turn to act, so they new the story without reading it. Visualisation of the scenes and words of the story, also helps with learning new words. It is easier to connect a sound (new word) to a picture than to a text.

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Screenagers

2017-10-26T09:17:00+03:00

“What you say about what you watch on television serves

to define your identity, in terms of age and gender,

but also in terms of ethnicity and cultural origin”

(de Block en Buckingham, p. 107).

What is said in this little phrase, actually already summarizes the main content of the study done in the article I summarize below. Depending on your ethnical and cultural background, your gender and your age you watch certain television programs, a certain amount of time and in a certain social context. Since media has such a prominent place in today’s live, it is important to also understand what kind of differences there are in media use between different groups, and how this can influence the way children/young adults look towards the world. If you know in what kind of media world your students live, you can connect to them, which makes interaction and communication easier. You can also understand differences in the way people reflect the world against the media world.
By knowing what interests children on TV and in the media, you can make connections to the subjects you want to teach.

Young people in the twenty-first-century live in a 'multi-TV set environment' with an average of 2.54 television sets per family. These TV sets are spread throughout the entire house and also their own bedroom. Striking variables include gender and age: boys own more TV’s than girls and the older the young people are, the more likely they have their own device at their disposal.

In addition to 'old' media, 'new' media are well integrated into the daily life of today’s youth. Forty percent reported having surfed online or have been active on social networking sites over the past day. Listening to music remains a popular activity among young people, as opposed to reading newspapers, which is not popular among young people. Watching television remains the most popular medium of media and is integrated into the daily life of both boys and girls.

The media usage of young people is characterized by multitasking, with mobile phone use and Internet surfing being the most combined with watching TV. Viewing motives: girls have higher scores for exploration and escapism; boys prefer social inclusion as the main reason to watch television. Age is also important: older youth (17-19 years) show lower scores for entertainment, social inclusion and escapism, but they have higher scores for knowledge than 14 to 16 year olds. This can be explained by older teenagers watching less TV by preferring other activities that take place outside of the house. Finally, second-generation immigrant and native-born youth have significantly higher entertainment scores than first-generation immigrants. One possible explanation is the fact that first generation foreigners do not yet master the language and less understand the programs. On the other hand, it appears that immigrant youth indicate significantly more television watching in order to gain knowledge about the world than indigenous young people.

TV and TV shows prove to be a topic of discussion among young people and their relatives, and by class analysis we distinguish highly communicative and less communicative profiles among young people. These communication patterns are different for boys and girls. For example, girls talk more often than boys about television. Girls appear to be talking more often than boys talking to their mother about TV; this is because girls often watch TV with their mother. A clear link between viewing partner and communication partner is thus visible. When young people talk about TV, it's mostly about what happened in the past episode, followed by jokes and certain statements of characters, the characters themselves, what can happen in the next episode, the actors and their clothes. Striking is that the program maker or the director is rarely mentioned. When young people cannot talk about a particular program, this was experienced as annoying and annoying. This bring a certain social pressure, if all children in your class watch a certain TV program or show, you are kind of expected to watch it yourself too, otherwise you fall out of the group (same is true for computer game, video clip etc.).

To gain better insight into the authority of the parents in the viewing behaviour of young people, it was identified which programs are prohibited. 15% of respondents indicate that there are programs they cannot watch. These are especially erotic and pornographic programs with a 16+ or 18+ label. Boys more often indicate that certain programs are prohibited from girls. Logically, age also shows significant differences: as children get older, fewer programs are banned. It is also remarkable that immigrant youth from both the first and second generation say significantly more that they are not allowed to watch a program.

Besides television, computers and laptops are often present in a family. This study indicates that a Flemish family in 2009 has 2.66 computers at their disposal. They thus have on average more computers and laptops than television sets. Students from vocational education have significantly less access to a PC, just like immigrants. Six out of ten young people have their own PC in the bedroom and girls have significantly less their own PC than boys. The older you get, the more access to your own PC in the room. An internet connection is available for 93% of the young people. A young person who has their own PC in the bedroom, in 88% of the cases, has an internet connection for this computer, and gender also gives significant differences: boys have more PCs with internet than girls.

Young people surf the most to Youtube and Facebook, which shows the importance of social networking sites in the lives of young people. It is also apparent that girls are much more involved with social networking sites (36.8% versus 26.1%) than boys, and send more e-mails (15.6% versus 9.4%).

We can decide that the "old" medium television still holds a prominent place in the lives of young people. Media - and especially visual media - play a very important role in the private bedroom of young people. However, despite this tendency to privatize media, young people still prefer to watch TV together above watching TV in their own bedroom. Watching television together also allows young people and their relatives to interact and communicate on television and television programs.

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Literary discussions in class five and six of the primary school

2017-05-29T22:21:28+03:00

Following the article of Kainulainen & Kainulainen, I wondered how the state literature education in the Netherlands is. I found this article ‘Literaire gesprekken in groep 7 en groep 8 van de basisschool: Een onderzoek naar stimulering van literaire competentie’ (Literary discussion in class five and six of the primary school: An inquiry into stimulation of literary competence) by Gertrud Cornelissen, Maarten Dolk and Dick Schram in the journal: Tijdschrift Taal, year 3, number 5.

According to the writers of the article Dutch children score very well in literal reading compared to children from other countries, but significantly worse in the interpretation of ideas that are not literally found in the text. The text questions are divided into four key processes of reading comprehension:

A: Finding explicitly mentioned information and ideas;
B: Making references that can be found in the text;
C: Interpreting and integrating ideas and information;
D: Investigate and review the content.

Dutch children score above average on parts A, B and for part D on the aspect, or the events might be true; They score significantly less on part C: putting relationships within the text and in part D on investigating and evaluating the story structure. The students seem to master the basic skills of comprehension reading, such as searching for information and drawing direct conclusions (text comprehension). But with the processes that require more thinking and experience, such as integrating ideas and evaluating content (text interpretation), students are having more trouble. In addition, according to this study, Dutch students spend relatively little time reading books compared to pupils from other countries, like we read in the article about Finnish fifth graders. They have a negative attitude towards reading, but nevertheless, they feel positive about their own reading performance. From this you can deduce that reading for Dutch children is mainly a school activity, where they learn how to literally understand a text. This is still far from the image of a literary competent reader. A literary competent reader knows its way in the wide range of books and organizations, has knowledge of the characteristics of literary of literary texts and thus developing appreciation for those texts, and which can then formulate that appreciation.

For primary education, students must be able to read literary and fictional texts "like they experience it" at the end of group 8 (class 6), the aim is to read fiction "recognizing". In 'experience' reading, the reader seeks' primary, emotional stimuli, such as tension, sensation and drama 'in' recognizing reading 'the reader attempts to put work in his own experience world'. It has been shown that young children can not only read from experience and recognition, but also reflectively and interpreting. From research done about reading picture books as literature, it appears that children can talk about literary features of a story and, moreover, prove to enjoy it. If pre-schoolers are already capable of talking about literary features, than this is certainly possible for pupils from upper secondary school.

Primary school children can read more than just empathetic and recognizable texts. Therefore, in primary education, more attention should be given to the development of narrative skills, here meant to gain insight into the way a story is told. The central role of the reader: communicating with and about literature.

In the research discussed in this article two 5^th grades and one 6^th grade participated. The students from these classes read four books at home, in the class they discussed about these books. When reading the book at home, the children make notes about the book on post-its. These post-its form the start point of a discussion in small groups about the books. The first two books were discussed in random groups, for the third and fourth book they had the same member in each group. The fourth book was chosen by the group itself.

Characteristic of these conversations is the central place of the book. During the discussions the books are on the table. The research shows that children are spontaneously searching for quotes and sometimes they also read fragments from the book. Children experience that they can find evidence in the book for their literary discoveries.

There are two theoretic concepts to look at literature; the structuralistic view with the emphasis on the text and the reader-response view with the accent on the reader. In the first the real meaning of the literary work is confined in the text and can only be overcome by properly analysing the literary work. The teacher guides you through the text with question about the writer’s viewpoint, the theme and the structure of the text. The teacher with his knowledge of literature leads the students by asking good questions and giving feedback to this only correct interpretation. This is the way I was taught literature in high school. I could never have my own opinion about a text, because the writer already had meant the text in a certain way, and that was the way how we should see the text as well. The second concept, the reader-response view would have been way more suitable for me, to become interested in literature as a teen ager. In this concept the emphasis is not on the text, but with the reader. From their own expectations and reading experiences, readers talk about the text and create their own meaning. In the readership approach, there is no proper interpretation, interpretation depends on the reading experience of the reader, and in the interaction with literature, "new horizons of significance" can rise.

The latter view is used in literary reading at the schools. The teacher is still there to guide the students, but they can develop their own view on the text.

Each reader builds his own textual world while reading, and as the reading progresses, this text world is further expanded. Four forms of meaning can be distinguished that can occur during the reading process:

Get out of the text world and step back into it.
Be in the text world and move through it.
Step out of the text and think of what you know of the text world
Step out of the text world and objectivise the experiences.

The first two forms of meaning relate to understanding and interpreting the book. In the third form, the text world is expanded with the world outside the book. In the fourth form, readers reflect on the text and reading experience. The formulation of an argued judgment is part of the built-up text world.

Literature education aimes at making readers develop their own interpretation greatly appeals to the formulation of their own thoughts about the texts. The supportive role of teachers in this regard is to help students develop their own opinions. This means that teachers rather than judging student comments on good or wrong, try to find out what students think. The whole situation in the classroom differs from traditional literature education. It is not the teacher that asks the question, waits for the answer and judges if it is right or wrong, but the students are asking the questions, towards each other. This is how a discussion about the book starts instead of a recitation. The role of teachers is to encourage children to respond to each other and to disappear more and more in the background. This means a lot more speaking time for students and empathetic listening for the teachers. Teachers can try to involve as many students as possible in the conversation by applying certain questioning routines. There are different types of questions you can use for this:

A) Questions for the purpose of constructing meaning

Knowledge questions appeal to the knowledge that readers of the book and literary concepts have.
Experience questions invite to express their own experience of the story.
Empathy questions appeal to the ability to link the data from the book to their own experiences and emotions
Deepening questions invite you to clarify or justify an opinion
Interpretation questions invite to give a personal interpretation
Assessment and evaluation questions invite to express an opinion on the book or on a fragment

B) Questions with the aim of promoting interaction between the students

Director questions invite all students to take part in the conversation. Students are asked to express their (dis)approval and to connect different ideas.
Questions to summarize

The classes that participated in this project were all really positive, students and teacher. The project was especially effective for the weaker readers. They got more pleasure in reading. For all students there was a clear growth in terms of experience and interpretation of the texts. In the field of interpretation, children make the biggest development.

I think this article give clear examples how to develop the reading skills of 5^th and 6^th graders. Since this is also a weak point in the Finnish students (according to the article by Kainulainen & Kainulainen) I think this is relevant for all teachers. It motivates co-operative learning and gives clear handles how to make literature reading more enjoyable for the students.

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Language Learning Strategies

2017-05-29T15:30:56+03:00

I choose this subject of language learning strategies, since it comes back in the OPS of the heritage learning languages; “Practice different language learning strategies. (L1, L4, L5)”. I think this subject can be relevant to all teacher that have students in their classroom with a different language background, since Finnish will be the second language for all these students, secondly it will be of use for all foreign language teachers and of course for all heritage language teachers. For this blog I used two articles about language learning strategies:

Language Learning Strategies: An Update October 1994 Rebecca Oxford, University of Alabama
Griffiths, C. & Oxford, R. (2014). Twenty-first century landscape of language learning strategies. System, 43, 1-10. DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2013.12.009

Foreign or second language (L2) learning strategies are specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques students use -- often consciously -- to improve their progress in apprehending, internalizing, and using the second languae . For example, some seeks out conversation partners. Others groups words to be learned and then labels each group. A third person uses gestures to communicate in the classroom when the words do not come to mind. Othrs learns words by breaking them down into their components. Another method is to consciously use guessing when you reads. Strategies are the tools for active, self-directed involvement needed for developing communicative ability in a scond or foreign language. Research has repeatedly shown that the conscious, tailored use of such strategies is related to language achievement and proficiency. However an absolute definition for language learning strategy does not exsit. Some examples of strategy definitions are:

“the techniques or devices which a learner may use to acquire knowledge.”
definition of learning strategies as procedures which facilitate acquisition, retention, retrieval, and performance
“specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations.”
“activities consciously chosen by learners for the purpose of regulating their own language learning”

Whereby the last is the most simple and maybe closest definiton of learning strategy.

Good Language Learners

It has been suggested that good L2 learners are willing and accurate guessers; have a strong drive to communicate; are often uninhibited; are willing to make mistakes; focus on form by looking for patterns and analyzing; take advantage of all practice opportunities; monitor their speech as well as that of others; and pay attention to meaning.

There has been found no evidence that good language learners are uninhibited, probably most second langugae learners are inhibited, because they are anxiaus to use their new language and to make mistakes.

Strategies and proficiency

Use of appropriate language learning strategies often results in improved proficiency or achievement overall or in specific skill areas

However, what these appropriate language learning strategies are, depends on the person. Under-achieving students were quite often using many strategies, though they were not always used appropriately. But the more active strategy users made faster progress than those who employed strategies less often. In other words, a number of studies have demonstrated a significant positive correlation between strategy use and successful language learning.

Successful language learners tend to select strategies that work well together in a highly orchestrated way, tailored to the requirements of the language task. These learners can easily explain the strategies they use and why they employ them.

In other words these language learners already know what kind of stragies work for them, and how they can actively use them.

Cognitive (e.g., translating, analyzing) and metacognitive (e.g., planning, organizing) strategies are often used together, supporting each other. Well tailored combinations of strategies often have more impact than single strategies.

The question that rises with me by reading this: Is this an unconcious choice made by the language learners, or should they be guided in making this well tailored combinations of strategies? If you need to guide them, how to do this?

Certain strategies or clusters of strategies are linked to particular language skills or tasks. For example writing, benefits from the learning strategies of planning, self-monitoring, deduction, and substitution. Speaking demands strategies such as risktaking, paraphrasing, circumlocution, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation. Listening comprehension gains from strategies of elaboration, inferencing, selective attention, and self-monitoring, while reading comprehension uses strategies like reading aloud, guessing, deduction, and summarizing.
The powerful social and affective strategies are found less often in research. This is,perhaps, because these behaviors are not studied frequently by L2 researchers, and because learners are not familiar with paying attention to their own feelings and social relationships as part of the L2 learning process.

I think this part of language learning is underestimated. Only when you are able to use language in a social and affective way, you really master a language. Escpecially when you are learning this second language as a heritage language it is part of who you are, which is directly linked to your own feelings and social realtionships, and therefore thus part of your learning process.

Factors Influencing the Choice of Language Learning Strategies

Motivation. More motivated students tended to use more strategies than less motivated students, and the particular reason for studying the language (motivational orientation, especially as related to career field) was important in the choice of strategies.

Gender. Females reported greater overall strategy use than males in many studies (although sometimes males surpassed females in the use of a particular strategy).

Cultural background. Rote memorization and other forms of memorization were more prevalent among some Asian students than among students from other cultural backgrounds. Certain other cultures also appeared to encourage this strategy among learners.

Attitudes and beliefs. These were reported to have a profound effect on the strategies learners choose, with negative attitudes and beliefs often causing poor strategy use or lack of orchestration of strategies.

Type of task. The nature of the task helped determine the strategies naturally employed to carry out the task.

Age and L2 stage. Students of different ages and stages of L2 learning used different strategies, with certain strategies often being employed by older or more advanced students.

Learning style. Learning style (general approach to language learning) often determined the choice of L2 learning strategies. For example, analytic-style students preferred strategies such as contrastive analysis, rule-learning, and dissecting words and phrases, while global students used strategies to find meaning (guessing, scanning, predicting) and to converse without knowing all the words (paraphrasing, gesturing).

Tolerance of ambiguity. Students who were more tolerant of ambiguity used significantly different learning strategies in some instances than did students who were less tolerant of ambiguity.

Strategy Training

An important point is how to improve students' learning strategies. Strategy training should:

be based clearly on students' attitudes, beliefs, and stated needs.
be chosen so that they mesh with and support each other and so that they fit the requirements of the language task, the learners' goals, and the learners' style of learning.
if possible, be integrated into regular language learning activities over a long period of time rather than taught as a separate, short intervention.
include explanations, handouts, activities, brainstorming, and materials for reference and home study.
not be solely tied to the class at hand; it should provide strategies that are transferable to future language tasks beyond a given class.
be somewhat individualized, as different students prefer or need certain strategies for particular tasks.
provide students with a mechanism to evaluate their own progress and to evaluate the success of the training and the value of the strategies in multiple tasks.

Classifying Strategies

Over the years, there has been little consensus in the area of strategy classification and there have been a number of criticisms of various classification systems.

Almost two dozen L2 strategy classification systems have been divided into the following groups:

systems related to successful language learners;
systems based on psychological functions;
linguistically based systems dealing with guessing, language monitoring, formal and functional practice or with communication strategies like paraphrasing or borrowing;
systems related to separate language skills; and
systems based on different styles or types of learners.

The existence of these distinct strategy typologies indicates a major problem in the research area of language learning strategies: lack of a coherent, well accepted system for describing these strategies.

Implications

Language learning strategies should include the social and affective sides of learning along with the more intellectual sides. The language learner is not just a cognitive and metacognitive machine but, rather, a whole person. In strategy training, teachers should help students develop affective and social strategies, as well as intellectually related strategies, based on their individual learning styles, current strategy use, and specific goals. Particularly important is information on how students from different cultural backgrounds use language learning strategies. Learning style is an important factor, along with gender, age, nationality or ethnicity, beliefs, previous educational and cultural experiences, and learning goals. Additionally, it is likely that different kinds of learners (e.g., analytic vs. global or visual vs. auditory) might benefit from different modes of strategy training. Maybe most important, teachers must have training relevant to their own instructional situations in three areas: 1) identifying students' current learning strategies through surveys, interviews, or other means; 2) helping individual students discover which strategies are most relevant to their learning styles, tasks, and goals; and 3) aiding students in developing orchestrated strategy use rather t

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Multilingual language awareness and teacher education

2017-05-03T21:14:10+03:00

All the children in my classroom are at least bilingual, and most of them multilingual, so that is why I am attracted to this subject. When I started to read the article (attached below) I realized that actually in (almost) every classroom nowadays there is at least one multilingual student. As the article states: “ Twenty- first century classrooms throughout the world have students who speak many different languages, often languages different from those spoken by the classroom teacher. Thus, classrooms teachers most often teach content in languages other than those the children speak at home and in communities. These teachers are not language teachers, and yet, to be successful content teachers they need to have specialized knowledge of language, and especially of the bilingual and multilingual contexts in which the children live, and of the social practices that produce certain discourses.”

So that is why I think this article, or at least the subject of this article is relevant for all teachers, especially now that we also have lost of refugees with different languages and cultural backgrounds entering the classrooms. It would be useful to have this multilingual language awareness (MLA) as a subject in all teacher education programs.

The article divides languages understanding in four levels. Depending on the role you have as teacher (subject teacher or language teacher) you should have a certain amount of knowledge about your language and about the second/third language in your classroom.

knowledge of the language (proficiency) -> language user

-awareness of social and pragmatic norms

2. knowledge about language (subject matter) -> analyst

-grammar/phenology/vocabulary

3. pedagogical practise (teacher)

4. social, political and economic struggles

-critical language awareness

When you are a language teacher, the most important thing to know, is the language you teach in. However, it is good to have some understanding of the students’ language, which will interfere with the teaching language. So in my case, I need to have full knowledge of and about the Dutch language, and know how to teach this (pedagogics). However it would be very helpful if I would have some knowledge about the subject matter of the Finnish language, and at least know how it is taught to the children (the methods). In this way I can understand better how the children learn a language, and how I can connect my target language (Dutch) to the students’ language (Finnish).

Further it is important not to see language as an object in itself, but as an instrument used by the child and used by the teacher. The child’s language use should be seen and described within the context of other activities and student characteristics, and not in isolation. A good way to get real inside in the linguistics of a student is to let the student make a “linguistic landscape”. To do so, the student is sent out to document—using e.g. photography and videos—the languages they see in their community: in the newspaper and magazine stands. They listen to conversations and sounds in the street, and make recordings. They interview people in their community, about ways of using languages, and about the socio-political and socio-economic struggles in their community. An important part of this language ethnography is the home of the child itself, and in particular, the knowledge of the parents.

In my classroom for example I have students with very different ‘linguistic landscapes’. One student has a Finnish mother and Dutch/Finnish father (only his grandfather is completely Dutch). He lives in Finland, goes to a Finnish school, speaks Finnish with his friends and at home, and only speaks Dutch when he is in the Netherlands (one a year), or during the Dutch lesson. Three other students in my class have a Dutch father and a Finnish mother who can speak Dutch. Their common language at home is Dutch, but they go to a Finnish school, have mostly Finnish friends. However, they speak Dutch every day, read Dutch books, watch Dutch movies, and have a lot of Dutch visitors. There is a huge difference in how to teach the Dutch language to these students. However if you are not aware of the different linguistic landscapes of your students, you cannot use this in developing your teaching.

To conclude, in today’s classrooms, it is important to know the background of your students in many ways. Especially for language teaching you need to know the ‘linguistic landscape’ of your student, and have some knowledge about the second language your student is using, to be able to use this in teaching the target language.

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