A professional development course in translanguaging: Teachers’ beliefs and attitudes

Scientific Conference (2020, August)

To support preschool teachers with applying the new law that declared multilingual education mandatory in Luxembourg, we offer a professional development course in translanguaging. Our first goal is to ... [more ▼]

To support preschool teachers with applying the new law that declared multilingual education mandatory in Luxembourg, we offer a professional development course in translanguaging. Our first goal is to address teachers’ negative attitudes and beliefs towards children’s multilingualism, proficiency in their home languages, and teachers’ use of French and English. [less ▲]

Developing multilingual practices in early childhood education through a professional development in Luxembourg

in International Multilingual Research Journal (2020), 4

This paper investigates seven early education practitioners’ attitudes towards multilingual activities and translanguaging as well as their actual practices in Luxembourg. They took part in a professional ... [more ▼]

This paper investigates seven early education practitioners’ attitudes towards multilingual activities and translanguaging as well as their actual practices in Luxembourg. They took part in a professional development comprising a course, coaching, and regular meetings to deepen their understanding of multilingualism and language learning, and enable them to implement activities in multiple languages. The findings, drawn from questionnaires, observations, and interviews, show that all practitioners opened up towards multilingual activities and translanguaging, increased activities in such languages, and translanguaged frequently. The practitioners analyzed their beliefs and practices, connected theory and practice, constructed new knowledge, developed positive attitudes and changed their practice. This study is the first one to investigate the attitudes and practices of professionals in formal and non-formal education settings as well as the effect of professional development in Luxembourg. It also addresses the research gap regarding professional development on multilingualism in early childhood. [less ▲]

Home literacy environment and family language policy of immigrant families in Luxembourg

Scientific Conference (2019, December 18)

Early literacy skills are critical for children’s later academic achievement. A wealth of research showed that children’s home languages should not be abandoned, as they are crucial for promoting dynamic ... [more ▼]

Early literacy skills are critical for children’s later academic achievement. A wealth of research showed that children’s home languages should not be abandoned, as they are crucial for promoting dynamic multilingualism, assuring cross-linguistic transfer and developing identities. To explore home literacy environment and family language policy of language minority preschool children in Luxembourg, we obtained 603 parent questionnaires, tested 226 children age 4 to 6 in their home languages and Luxembourgish, and interviewed 31 families. The results from the questionnaires showed that the home resources and parent involvement influenced children’s language awareness and their print knowledge irrespective of parent’s education and their wealth. Concerning children’s competences in Luxembourgish, children with positive attitudes towards their school did better than their peers in other schools. In the interviews, parents explained that maintaining home language is important for keeping connections with family, friends and their culture. This is the language parents feel emotionally connected to and the easiest to transmit to their children. Language maintenance is mostly achieved through conversations, movies, games and books in the home languages, children’s attendance of language schools on weekends, celebrations of traditions as well as holidays in the native country of the parents. The home language is, however, not something parents enforce too strictly, as they mostly correct the children’s linguistic mistakes by simple repetition. It is often with great pride that parents report their children having an excellent proficiency in their home language. Finally, through our professional development training in translanguaging we are helping teachers to integrate children’s different home languages and cultures into the classroom and strengthen the home-school collaboration in order to support children’s well-being, learning and identities. [less ▲]

Developing Multilingual Pedagogies in Early Childhood: a review of the project MuLiPEC

Scientific Conference (2019, November 27)

Developing Multilingual Pedagogies in Early Childhood: a review of the project The project MuLiPEC (2016-2019) addresses the need for multilingual pedagogies in early childhood education in Luxembourg. It ... [more ▼]

Developing Multilingual Pedagogies in Early Childhood: a review of the project The project MuLiPEC (2016-2019) addresses the need for multilingual pedagogies in early childhood education in Luxembourg. It offered a professional development (PD) course to develop the practitioners’ knowledge and skills in relation to multilingualism and effective pedagogies as well as their practices, and analysed the effects of the PD on the practitioners and the children’s languaging. We offered a first 15-hour course to 46 practitioners from formal and non-formal education settings. Of these, seven continued during one academic year. They were coached and took part in six network meetings where we discussed their practices. To analyse the results, we drew on observations of the PD and in the research settings, video-recorded activities, and interviews. The results show that all 46 participants opened up to multilingual education and deepened their understanding of multilingualism, language development and multilingual pedagogies. Furthermore, the seven focus practitioners implemented activities in multiple languages and deployed effective language supportive strategies. Five of them developed holistic and child-centred multilingual pedagogies. This paper presents these positive findings and raises questions related to the sustainability of PD course and the need to continue the implementation of these effective pedagogies. [less ▲]

Teachers’ translanguaging stance, design, and shifts in a professional development course

Scientific Conference (2019, October 28)

Classrooms in Luxembourg are highly socially, culturally, and linguistically diverse. About 65% of 4 year-old children do not speak Luxembourgish, of which 28% speak Portuguese (MENJE, 2018). In 2017, the ... [more ▼]

Classrooms in Luxembourg are highly socially, culturally, and linguistically diverse. About 65% of 4 year-old children do not speak Luxembourgish, of which 28% speak Portuguese (MENJE, 2018). In 2017, the new law has declared multilingual early education mandatory. Until that time, the focus was solely on the development of Luxemburgish, whereas now teachers should also familiarize children with French and value their home languages. To support preschool teachers, our project aims to: (1) offer a professional development (PD) course in translanguaging, (2) involve children’s families to reinforce home-school collaboration, and (3) foster children’s cognitive, linguistic, and socio-emotional engagement in the classroom. We use focus groups, questionnaires, and language portraits with teachers and a test in early literacy and numeracy in school and home language and video observations with children. Translanguaging, the main topic of our 22 hour PD course (June – December 2019), is the use of a full linguistic repertoire to make meaning (Otheguy, García, & Reid, 2015). Through focus groups, we identified teachers’ negative translanguaging stance towards children’s proficiency in their home language that hinders the development of Luxembourgish. Translanguaging design was related to teachers’ use of multilingual stories and morning greetings, while translanguaging shifts concerned frequent translations by involving older children. Our main goal is to address the negative translanguaging stance by offering practical activities during the course and collaborating with parents, children, and organisational stakeholders. References Ministry of National Education, Childhood and Youth [MENJE]. (2018). Key numbers of the national education: statistics and indicators – School year 2016-2017. Retrieved from http://www.men.public.lu/fr/actualites/publications/themes-transversaux/statistiques-analyses/chiffres-cles/index.html Otheguy, R., García, O., & Reid, W. (2015). Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistic Review, 6(3), 281–307. [less ▲]

The Importance of Socio-Emotional Skills and Behaviour in Preschool for Later Outcomes

Scientific Conference (2019, April 18)

Background to the Study In order to meet the socio-economic challenges of the 21st century, a blend of cognitive and socio-emotional skills is required (Temple, 2002). Socio-emotional skills are important ... [more ▼]

Background to the Study In order to meet the socio-economic challenges of the 21st century, a blend of cognitive and socio-emotional skills is required (Temple, 2002). Socio-emotional skills are important for personal well-being, life satisfaction, healthy life styles, active citizenship and safer societies (OECD, 2015). No study in Serbia has investigated the development of young children’s socio-emotional skills and behaviour, and the relationship with academic progress in Serbia before and this directly responds to the urgent call for more information concerning the Serbian preschool education (Baucal et al., 2016). The findings are of broader relevance to other countries; as noted in the OECD (2015) report, socio-emotional development continues through late childhood and adolescence which gives a space for intervention programmes that can help reduce social inequalities among children. Theoretical Framework Socio-emotional skills are a range of competences including emotion knowledge, emotional and behavioural regulatory abilities and social skills (Denham, 2006). When children enter school and have positive peer and teacher interactions, they will develop more positive attitudes towards school tasks, engage more into school activities, be more persistent and perform higher (e.g., Arnold et al., 2012; Fantuzzo et al., 2007). Furthermore, studies have shown that children with behavioural difficulties such as inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity display more delinquent behaviour as adolescents and achieve academically lower than their peers (e.g., Frazier et al., 2007; Merrell et al., 2017). Data In this empirical study we explored the links between socio-emotional skills, behaviour, mathematics and literacy performance of preschool children in Serbia over the course of 14 months. Teachers rated 159 children (51% of girls) aged 5-8 by Personal, social and emotional development scale, and Behaviour rating scale on inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. These scales were included in the Performance Indicators in Primary School (PIPS; Tymms, 1999), an adaptive test that measures early literacy and mathematics. Results • At all three times, girls were rated more positively than boys in socio-emotional skills and behaviour, except for adjustment to school setting where there were no differences. • At Time 3, when children entered school, their socio-emotional skills and behaviour were associated with gender, mathematics at Time 1 and their socio-emotional and behaviour ratings at Time 2, controlling for maternal education at Time 1. • Mathematics at Time 3 was not associated with socio-emotional skills nor with specific behaviour. • Literacy at Time 3 was associated with mathematics and social skills at Time 1, and literacy at Time 2, controlling for gender and maternal education. Significance of the Study This study offers the first insight into the links between socio-emotional skills, behaviour and mathematics and literacy performance of preschool children in Serbia which will inform the development and evaluation of interventions. Attrition of the sample limits the findings. [less ▲]

The effect of Professional Development on Multilingual Education in Early Childhood in Luxembourg

in Review of European Studies (2018), 10(4), 148-163

While multilingual programmes have been implemented in early childhood education in several countries, professionals have shown to be unsure of how to deal with language diversity and promote home ... [more ▼]

While multilingual programmes have been implemented in early childhood education in several countries, professionals have shown to be unsure of how to deal with language diversity and promote home languages. Therefore, there is a need for professional development. The present article discusses the outcomes of a professional course on multilingual education in early childhood delivered to 46 early-years practitioners in Luxembourg. Using a questionnaire administered prior to and after the course as well as interviews, we examined the influence of the training on attitudes to multilingual education and activities to develop Luxembourgish and home languages. The analysis drew on content analysis, paired samples t-test and correlational analysis. The findings show that the course positively influenced the professionals’ knowledge about multilingualism and language learning, their attitudes towards home languages, their interest in organising activities in the children’s home languages and the implementation of these activities. The results shed light on special interest areas such as the quality of input that future professional development courses could focus on. [less ▲]

Emergent Multilinguals Learning Languages with the iPad app iTEO

Scientific Conference (2018, June 22)

This presentation showed the results of a small-scale study led by Ass. Prof. Claudine Kirsch that investigated language learning in primary schools in Luxembourg and the ways in which this process is ... [more ▼]

This presentation showed the results of a small-scale study led by Ass. Prof. Claudine Kirsch that investigated language learning in primary schools in Luxembourg and the ways in which this process is mediated by peers and the iPad app iTEO. This study draws its data from the larger longitudinal qualitative research project iTEO (2013–2017) and is based on 10 hours of audio and video-recordings. The participants were 6–7-year-olds learning German and French. The presentation focused on the ways in which the emergent multilingual primary school children scaffold each other’s learning of French while collaboratively producing oral texts on iTEO. The findings show that the children’s language learning was mediated by peers, the task and the app. The children used a range of learning and teaching strategies while completing tasks framed by their teacher. iTEO and the task together mobilised the children’s resources, encouraged autonomy and promoted discussion about language. The presentation linked the results with the other projects during the COST DigitLitey meeting. For example, the link was made with the work with robots in early childhood education and the use of Cubetto, a robot toy teaching kids code and programming and encouraging collaboration and storytelling. The presentation was followed by a discussion on the use of digital tools in early childhood education settings. Keywords: The iPad app, iTEO, peers, language learning, mediation, primary school Source: Kirsch, C. & Bes Izuel, A. (2016). Emergent multilinguals learning languages with the IPad app iTEO: a study in primary schools in Luxembourg, The Language Learning Journal, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2016.1258721 This work was funded by the University of Luxembourg under Grant PUL R-AGR-0222; Ministry of National Education, Childhood and Youth under SCRIPT. [less ▲]

Translanguaging and Linguistic Creativity and Criticality

Presentation (2018, May 25)

Translanguaging (TL) pedagogy is the strategic deployment of the entire linguistic and non-linguistic repertoire for learning and teaching (García & Seltzer 2016). Particular educational advantages of ... [more ▼]

Translanguaging (TL) pedagogy is the strategic deployment of the entire linguistic and non-linguistic repertoire for learning and teaching (García & Seltzer 2016). Particular educational advantages of translanguaging are: (1) deeper and fuller understanding of the subject matter, (2) helps the development of the weaker language, (3) facilitates home-school links and cooperation, and (4) helps the integration of fluent speakers with early learners (García & Li Wei 2014, p. 67). TL is transformative for the child, for the teacher and the whole education. TL space develops the sense of connectedness (Li Wei 2011b) which is important for children's cognitive, linguistic, and socio-emotional development. By the use of the whole linguistic repertoire children can develop criticality and creativity. According to García and Li Wei (2014), creativity is "pushing and breaking the boundaries between the old and the new, the conventional and the original, and the acceptable and the challenging". (p. 67) while criticality is "the ability to use available evidence appropriately, systematically and insightfully, to inform considered views of cultural, social, political and linguistic wisdom, to question and problematize received wisdom and to express views adequately through reasoned responses to situations" (p. 67). The development of creativity and criticality are important skills for children's education and translanguaging pedagogy creates space for the development of these skills. [less ▲]

Perspectives on Translanguaging as a Pedagogy in Luxembourg

Presentation (2018, April 10)