Paula Kalaja

Languaging in Ultima Thule: Multilingualism in the Life of a Sami Boy.

Abstract In this paper we investigate multilingualism as a phenomenon which pervades different social and cultural levels but is manifested in the everyday life of multilingual individuals. As an illustration, we examine multilingualism from the perspective of a young Sami boy, Ante, and explore how different languages function as a complex – but at times problematic – set of resources for him. To capture the complexity and fluidity in the relationships between various languages in his life, we base our theorising on such concepts as ‘linguistic resources’, ‘heteroglossia’ and ‘languaging’. With the help of multimodal data we examine how the linguistic resources present in Antes daily life may provide affordances and set constraints for him. In addition, we study how Ante himself, as a multilingual child, takes issue with the languages in his life. We argue that the multilingualism present in Antes environment embodies many opportunities and resources, but is also a source of ambiguity. The ways in which Ante moves between languages, makes choices between them and positions himself in relation to them seem to suggest that while languages do position Ante in various ways, he can also choose which language to use and when as part of his active languaging work.

Discursive construction of a high-stakes test: the many faces of a test-taker

As part of a larger project, we studied how a foreign language test got discursively constructed in the talk of upper-secondary-school leavers. A group of students were asked to keep an oral diary to record their ideas, feelings and experiences of preparing for and taking the test over the last spring term of school, as part of a high-stakes national examination. In addition, they took part in discussions either in pairs or groups of three after having learned about the final test results. After transcribing the data, drawing on a form of discourse analysis originally launched by a group of social psychologists, we identified (at least) four interpretative repertoires in the students’ accounts - with different constructions of themselves as test-takers, the test, and their performance in the test - including expectations and explanations for success or failure as well as credit or blame. The findings point to variation in the uses of these repertoires, not only from one context to another but also from moment to moment.

From Milk Cartons to English Roommates: Context and Agency in L2 Learning Beyond the Classroom

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in examining L2 learning outside the classroom in terms of learners’ emerging identity, autonomy and agency (Benson 2011; Norton and Toohey 2001). Agency has been adopted relatively recently by L2 scholars as a key notion through which to capture critical social and cognitive aspects of L2 learning (Darhower 2004; Hunter and Cooke 2007; Gao 2010). Agency can be defined as ‘the socioculturally mediated capacity to act’ (Ahearn 2001: 112). In many ways, agency goes to the very heart of the main problem facing researchers into L2 learning: what is the relationship between the individual language learner — his or her cognitive, affective and social self — and the context?

Key Issues Relevant to the Studies to Be Reported: Beliefs, Agency and Identity

As pointed out in Chapter 1, this volume is a response to the recent calls for research on learner and teacher beliefs that would be not only contextual and longitudinal, but also interconnected. In other words, beliefs should be viewed in relation to other issues that play a role in learning and teaching foreign languages. These include aspects of those involved in the processes of learning and teaching foreign languages, that is, learners and teachers — their agency and identity, for example. This chapter provides background to the seven studies that will be reported later in Chapters 3–9 by reviewing the key issues addressed: beliefs, agency and identity. In the following, an attempt will be made to define the three key constructs and review developments in doing research on each in applied linguistics, or language learning and teaching, and viewing these either from the point of view of L2 learners or teachers. The chapter concludes with an overview of the chapters, making it possible to compare and contrast the studies to be reported.

ALR special issue: Visual methods in Applied Language Studies

Abstract This introductory article serves two purposes. Firstly, it provides the background for the set of 11 articles that appear in the special issue of this journal and summarizes the articles along a number of dimensions. All the articles address aspects of multilingualism as subjectively experienced and they all make use of visual methodologies. Secondly, it subjects the articles to two meta-analyses. The first one compares and contrasts the studies by site: production, image and audiencing. The second one, in contrast, classifies the studies by the research strategy chosen by the researchers: looking, seeing or designing. The article concludes by pointing to future directions in research on multilingualism as lived, and suggests a visual turn.

Comparing and Contrasting the Studies Reported: Lessons Learnt

This volume, with its title Beliefs, Agency and Identity in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching and the seven empirical studies reported in Chapters 3–9, has explored the phenomena of believing, acting, and identifying (or identity construction), and the interconnectedness of these phenomena in the learning and teaching of English or other foreign languages.

The Book in a Nutshell

In second language (L2) learning and teaching, an emic (or insider) perspective has gained ground in the past few years. This perspective highlights the subjective nature of L2 learning: it throws light on the learner’s beliefs about the language to be learned (when compared, for example, with his or her first language (L1) or other languages he or she may know), being a learner, the learning process, and the learning contexts, all of which are charged with positive and negative experiences and loaded with personal meanings. We would argue that this is also true of aspects of teaching.

Chapter 2.03.02: Designing and Assessing L2 Writing Tasks Across CEFR Proficiency Levels

With the advent of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for the learning, teaching and assessment of modern languages, there have been renewed calls for the integration of the research perspectives of language testing and second language acquisition across Europe. The project Cefling was set up in 2006 with this purpose in mind. In the project our aim is to describe the features of language that L2 learners use at various levels of language proficiency defined by the CEFR scales. For this purpose, L2 Finnish and L2 English data were collected from young and adult L2 learners by using a set of communicative L2 writing tasks. In the course of the project, the different understandings of what the purpose of an L2 writing task is needed to be reconciled not only in the minds of researchers but also in research design. In what follows, we will discuss the issues involved in designing and assessing L2 tasks for SLA and language testing purposes by using the design and assessment procedures in the project as a case in point. We will also present some of our findings to illustrate how statistical procedures such as multifaceted Rasch analysis can be used to examine task difficulty.

Deviance, did you get it? An experiment in reading to learn

Abstract This article reports an experiment in which an attempt was made to test reading a scientific text under as natural study conditions as possible. After reading a lengthy text from a Sociology textbook in English, five out of 25 Finnish college students understood a basic concept the way it had been defined by a sociologist; 4 weeks later, after going over the text the second time in Finnish, the number increased to 12. However, even after the second reading of the text in their first language, only half of the students had learnt the basic concept. This indicates that the problems in studying were not only linguistic problems; they seem also to have been study skill problems in general.