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- Karlsson, Daniela, et al.
(author)
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Students’ Repertoire of Ways of Responding to Translation Challenges in Bilingual Education and its Implications for Language Learning
- 2020
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In: ECER 2020, Glasgow - European Conference on Educational Research, August 25-28, 2020 (Conference cancelled).
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Students’ repertoire of ways of responding to translation challenges in bilingual education and its implications for language learning Outline of the research question and theoretical framework Education that supports students’ language learning is a pressing issue in several cultural contexts. Finding ways of promoting language teaching and learning is important to educational inclusion and justice. In the nature of contemporary schooling, how to design language teaching, in a developmentally productive manner, provides a particularly demanding challenge. An important feature of this challenge is analyzed in the present study by focusing on the development of students’ linguistic and meta-linguistic awareness. In the study, we investigate student’s repertoire of ways of responding to translation challenges in bilingual education and its implication for (language) learning. More specifically, we have analyzed: a) how do the students take on the challenge of approaching and managing translation tasks in groups, b) how do translation activities engage students in meta-communication, and c) how is translation collaboratively constituted by the participants. The study, taking a cultural-historical perspective on human learning (Fleer, 2010; Hedegaard, 2009), conceptualizes learning as the appropriation of cultural tools and practices (Fleer & Pramling, 2015). Appropriating cultural tools and practices tend to require a prolonged familiarization process (Wertsch, 1998); the learner gradually becomes more familiar with using the particular tool and participating in the practice. Cultural-historical theory suggests that through interaction we appropriate concepts and construct our understanding in interaction with other people. Language is the primary cultural and psychological tool; it plays the central role in sense making, learning and development processes (Vygotsky, 1978; Littleton & Mercer, 2013; Wells, 2007). Taking this theoretical point of view, concepts used for understanding communicative practices are intersubjectivity, that is how participants coordinate their perspectives to constitute a mutual activity (Rommetveit, 1974; Wertsch, 1998)) and meta-communication (Fleer & Pramling, 2015). In addition, language is understood and analyzed as a set of practices, rather than as a system (Gort & Sembiante, 2015). In the context of the present study, this means that translation activities are interesting to investigate in terms of teaching and learning. Translation activities, including negotiations between students (and teachers), are therefore seen as important practices for understanding and developing language and linguistic awareness. Methodology and Methods The study is conducted in one of the larger cities in Sweden, in an English class of 17 Grade-seven (13 years) students with a certificated English and Swedish teacher. The empirical data were generated during five lessons. The students, with various linguistic backgrounds, have experience of Content and Language Integrated Learning Programme (CLIL), and therefore are used to communicate both in English and Swedish in the school context. This type of practice builds on a premise that languages do not need to be taught separately and that all students’ language practices work together as a linguistic repertoire, rather than operating independent of each other. In the activities analyzed in this study, the students are introduced to various poems, songs or texts, and then are prompted to discuss their translations and sense made, using one or several languages. The teacher rotates among the groups, listens to their discussion, and gives further challenging and supporting feedback. The present presentation takes its starting point in the empirical data of group discussions of groups of three students without the teacher. During the five lessons, the students were introduced to a task to translate in groups a part of a book they were currently reading, Bodyguard (written by Chris Bradford), from English to Swedish. The subsequent task was to translate several songs or parts of songs: “Where is the Love” (by the Black Eyed Peas) and “Dancing on My Own” (by Robyn), from English to Swedish; and a Swedish song (by Håkan Hellström) called “Valborg” (Eng. Walpurgis Night), to translate from Swedish to English. The activities were audio-recorded, transcribed inspired by Jefferson’s transcription system of notation and interpreted through attending to the sequential unfolding of communicative actions (Wells, 1999). Based on the nature and functions of language, mainly the notion that the development of higher-mental processes, such as metalinguistic awareness, is rooted in interaction with others (Vygotsky, 1997), Sociocultural Discourse Analysis (SCDA) more specifically constitutes the method for analysis in the current study. SCDA provides methodological tools for analyzing how participants in an activity use language to think together in the pursuit of the activity and the ways in which (partly) shared understanding is developed. Ethical approval was obtained from the school leadership, the teacher, the students and their caregivers prior to the commencement of data collection. Conclusions, expected outcomes or findings In this presentation, we will show how the students take on the challenge of translation they face, focusing on: a) ways of arguing the choice of word/meaning when translating, b) meta-communicating their approach of handling the translation/task, and c) how the translation activity is collaboratively constituted. a)Ways of arguing the choice of word/meaning The analysis shows how the students use various ways of arguing their choice of word/discerned meaning. We will show how they base their argument on i) how something sounds, ii) specific content-related knowledge, contingent on their interest and experience, iii) conventions or linguistic ‘rules’ of what one can/cannot say in English/Swedish, and iv) context of the text. b)Metacommunicating the approach of handling the translation/task The analysis shows how the students explicitly comment and negotiate their approach or choice of words/terms when translating something. Communicating the meta-perspective of the activity relates to i) whether it is important to know the corresponding term, ii) how the use of the terms depends on the content and context, and iii) how sometimes one needs to go on with the translation and come back to it later and look for a more appropriate term or phrase. c) Translation as collaboratively constituted by the participants The analysis shows how the negotiations become explorative (Littleton & Mercer, 2013) in their character of how the students are negotiating the meaning of different words or phrases. In the negotiations, they relate to the context of the text and to the type of the text (what kind of text they are translating – its genre – and what the text is about). On the basis of the findings, we will discuss what the indications and implications of this repertoire of responses to translation challenges are for accessing and developing the students’ metalinguistic awareness and how a translation activity can function as a learning practice. References Fleer, M. (2010). Early learning and development: Cultural-historical concepts in play. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fleer, M., & Pramling, N. (2015). A cultural-historical study of children learning science: Foregrounding affective imagination in play-based settings (Cultural Studies of Science Education). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer. Gort, M., & Sembiante, S. F. (2015). Navigating hybridized language learning spaces through translanguaging pedagogy: Dual language preschool teachers’ languaging practices in support of emergent bilingual children’s performance of academic discourse. International Multilingual Research Journal, 9, 7–25. Jidai, Y., Kultti, A., & Pramling, N. (2017). In the order of words: Teacher-children negotiation about how to translate song lyrics in bilingual early childhood education. Research on Children and Social Interaction, 1(2), 199–221. Kultti, A., & Pramling, N. (2018). ”Behind the words”: Negotiating literal/figurative sense when translating the lyrics to a children’s song in bilingual preschool. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 62(2), 200–212. Kultti, A., & Pramling, N. (2017). Translation activities in bilingual early childhood education: Children’s perspectives and teachers’ scaffolding. Multilingua, 36(6), 703–725. Littleton, K., & Mercer, N. (2013). Interthinking: Putting talk to work. London: Routledge. Mercer, N. (2004). Sociocultural discourse analysis: Analysing classroom talk as a social mode of thinking. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(2), 137–168. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, Volume 1: Problems of general psychology, including the volume Thinking and Speech (R. W. Rieber & A. S. Carton, Eds., N. Minick, Trans.). New York: Plenum. Wells, G. (2007). Semiotic Mediation, Dialogue and the Construction of Knowledge. Human Development, 50(5), 244–274. doi: 10.1159/000106414 Wells, G. (1999). Dialogic inquiry: Towards a sociocultural practice and theory of education. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. New York: Oxford University Press. Intent of publication Language Awareness Keywords linguistic and metalinguistic awareness, languaging, translation in education. Keywords on research methods (3-5 keywords to specify research methods) CLIL, Group discussions, audio-recording, Interaction Analysis, Sociocultural Discourse Analysis
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