Danièle Moore

Code-switching and Learning in the Classroom

This paper addresses the issue of code-switching in the classroom and analyses the roles and functions of the first language (L1) in the second language (L2) class. The observation of intra-sentential code-switching shows complex learning and communicative strategies, and emphasises the need to better understand these strategies and their role in the learning process.

Introduction – French voices on plurilingualism and pluriculturalism: theory, significance and perspectives

Abstract While theoretical constructs and frames of reference advanced in French and English research share many points of communalities, Francophone research has contributed in original ways to issues of language learning and bilingual development in multilingual contexts. The Francophone contribution to contemporary thinking has, however, often been obscured by the fact that it has been published in French, or lost in translation when concepts are not interpreted the same way in English and French. At the intersection of educational sociolinguistics and sociodidactics (Dabène, 1994), this body of work is more narrowly defined in European Francophone research as ‘didactique du plurilinguisme et du pluriculturalisme’ (didactics of plurilingualism and pluriculturalism), a term difficult to translate adequately in English. The purpose of this special issue is to present readers with a range of papers that we believe to be significant and representative of French studies, and to provide a comprehensive examination of the historical and social construction of bi/plurilingualism and its impact on the development of theory, on language policies, and on professional practice in the field of language education. Collectively, the articles capture a variety of theoretical and methodological constructs to analyse multiple repertoires in relation to speakers’ agency in a variety of situations and social contexts.

Plurilingualism and Strategic Competence in Context

This contribution documents the strategies bi/plurilingual children spontaneously develop when confronted with a task that demands comprehension of texts in a third language. To illustrate these strategies in context, the paper draws from classroom interaction excerpts: small groups of children (ages 8–10) discover meaning in a text in a language unknown to them (Mandarin written in the Chinese script). International research has long documented the metalinguistic abilities shown by bilinguals in approaching new languages (e.g. Bialystok, 2001; Cummins, 2000), and their facilitative nature for further language learning. This paper documents how competence in two languages, and specifically heightened language awareness, serve as resources to build knowledge in context.

Multilingual literacies and third script acquisition: young Chinese children in French immersion in Vancouver, Canada

Abstract This contribution reports on a qualitative study conducted with 14 young Chinese children enrolled in French immersion in Canada, to explore their multilingual practices, and their simultaneous acquisition of three writing systems. Drawings and in-depth interviews constituted creative and age appropriate narratives to understand childrens experience of migration and multilingualism. We explored in particular how multilingual children creatively appropriate Chinese script, English and French for three purposes: (a) to gain voice and expertise; (b) to mediate their experience of migration and mobility; and (c) to reconstruct knowledge and negotiate new and multiple identities in their various socio-cultural settings, including both French and Chinese schools, families, local communities and the larger Anglophone society in Vancouver.

Reconsideration of the Coexistence of Buddhist Temple Education and State Education in Xishuangbanna, China.

This paper presents data gathered in interviews with 29 informants in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan, China – an administrative region with Theravāda Buddhist religious identity. The data highlight tensions between the traditional faith-based education provided by Theravāda Buddhist temple schools and secular state education. The paper concludes that a negotiated balance between traditional faith-based education and the state education system would best serve the interests of the ethnic minority in the region.

Plurilingualism amid the panoply of lingualisms: addressing critiques and misconceptions in education

ABSTRACT Today, scholars and students face an array of lingualisms: bilingualism, multilingualism, polylingualism, metrolingualism plurilingualism, codeswitching, codemeshing, and translanguaging, among others. Plurilingualism can be understood as the study of individuals’ repertoires and agency in several languages, in different contexts, in which the individual is the locus and actor of contact; accordingly, a person’s languages and cultures interrelate and change over time, depending on individual biographies, social trajectories, and life paths. The term ‘plurilingual competence’ adds emphasis on learners’ agency, and constraints and opportunities in educational contexts. We discuss where and how plurilingualism fits among the other lingualisms, its similarities and differences, with an example of plurilingual pedagogy and practice from a university in Vancouver, Canada. In doing so, we challenge three common critiques of/misconceptions about plurilingualism: (i) that it is based on an invalid static binary between the social and the individual, (ii) that it is over-agentive, and (iii) that it can serve to reinforce social inequities within a neoliberal world order.

Voices from the “Heart” Understanding a Community-Engaged Festival in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

This study presents findings from an ethnographic case study of a community-engaged festival held annually in Downtown Vancouver. It explores how the festival functions as a small group that contributes to the establishment of local culture and place identities in order to resist engrained stereotypes. This study also examines the ephemeral space of the festival as an interactional arena where participants co-engage in the construction of community, identity, and meaning. The study expands the discussion of community festivals as socially meaningful devices for collective action, community building, and multiliterate meaning-making in urban environments.

Thinking Language Awareness at a Science Centre: Ipads, Science, and Early Literacy Development with Multilingual Kindergarten Children in Canada

SituatedinthehighlymultilingualcontextofVancouver,thisarticlediscussesaspectsofacollaborative researchproject,intertwiningthedevelopmentoflanguageawarenessandscientific,technological,and multilingualliteraciesinasciencecentreenvironment.Participantsweremultilingual,kindergartenagedchildrenwhoattendedaninteractive,activity-basedscienceeducationalprograminalocalscience centreandparticipatedinwritingactivitiesinanearbycommunitycentre.Thearticlewilldiscussthe sciencecentreasatransformativelearningenvironmenttoharnessculturalandlinguisticdiversity, avitalresourcetosimultaneouslydeveloplanguageawareness,andscienceknowledge.Multimodal datasourcesincludevisualdocumentationofthelinguisticlandscapeatthesciencecentre,aswell asphotographs,videorecordingsandfieldnotesofchildrenworkingindividuallyorinsmallgroups, andaselectionoftheproductschildrencreated. KEywoRDS Language Awareness, Multilingual Literacies, Pluricultural Repertoires, Plurilingual Approaches, Plurilingual Repertoires

Multilingualism, Identities and Language Hegemony: A Case Study of Five Ethnic Minority Students in China

Thispaperpresentsthefindingsfromacasestudyofhowfivepost-secondaryethnicmultilingual students (three Bai and two Zhuang) at a local university in Southwestern China experience multilingualismandethnicidentities(de)constructionandinvestthemselvesinanactivenegotiation forlegitimatemembershipinmainstreameducationalDiscourses(Gee,1990,2012).Theauthorsseek tounderstandhowtheperceivedhegemonyofMandarinhasimpactedtheirsocialpositioningand delegitimizedtheirmultilingualassetsandethnicidentitiesinmainstreameducationalDiscourses,and howtheymanagedtonegotiatetheiridentitiesasethnicmultilingualsindifferentsocialDiscourses. The authors argue that through the legitimate dominance of Mandarin, these students are not merelybeingpositionedasmembersofanegativelystereotypedethnicgroupbutalsoconcurrently participatinginreconstructingtheMandarinlanguagehegemonyinthoseveryDiscourses,which runs the risk of further expanding the existing educational inequalities between Han and ethnic minoritystudents.. KEywoRDS China, Discourses, Hegemony, Multilingualism, Positioning