Riikka Alanen

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.

Assessing learners’ writing skills in a SLA study: Validating the rating process across tasks, scales and languages

There is still relatively little research on how well the CEFR and similar holistic scales work when they are used to rate L2 texts. Using both multifaceted Rasch analyses and qualitative data from rater comments and interviews, the ratings obtained by using a CEFR-based writing scale and the Finnish National Core Curriculum scale for L2 writing were examined to validate the rating process used in the study of the linguistic basis of the CEFR in L2 Finnish and English. More specifically, we explored the quality of the ratings and the rating scales across different tasks and across the two languages. As the task is an integral part of the data-gathering procedure, the relationship of task peformance across the scales and languages was also examined. We believe the kinds of analyses reported here are also relevant to other SLA studies that use rating scales in their data-gathering process.

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?

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.