Guest lecture and researcher meeting: Ragni Vik Johnsen: Negotiating multilingual spaces and policies in an introductory class in Northern Norway

Negotiating multilingual spaces and policies in an introductory class in Northern Norway

Ragni Vik Johnsen

UiT – The Arctic University of Norway, ragni.v.johnsen@uit.no

The national curriculum in Norway states that all students shall experience that “knowing multiple languages is a resource” (Kunnskapsdepartementet, 2017). Despite this, studies indicate that many practitioners find it challenging to transform this into practice, especially in education for new migrant students (Burner & Carlsen, 2022), where the curriculum also encourages rapid progression in the majority language Norwegian. In this presentation I investigate the linguistic environments encountered by newly arrived immigrant students in a lower secondary school in Norway. The students are in an introductory class – a separate class within a mainstream school, where students who have recently arrived in Norway receive temporary, preparatory language and subject education before transitioning to mainstream classes. The data material is collected through a linguistic ethnography (Heller et al., 2017) and consists of classroom observations, photos of the linguistic landscape in school, interviews with students and their teachers and language policy documents. The data analysis draws on nexus analytical as a scalar ethnography, which allows to investigate both personal, discursive and interactional elements of social actions (Hult, 2016). The preliminary analysis sheds light on how language ideologies shape how students perceive school spaces and how they position themselves. Moreover, the analyses show examples of how contradictory language policies materialize in classroom practices (Jaspers, 2022) through impositions of monolingual policies on the one hand, and explicit orientations to a trope multilingualism as a resource on the other. I discuss possible implications of the findings for the students’ future educational trajectories, and how ambivalences and contradictions may serve as pedagogical possibilities.

References

Burner, T., & Carlsen, C. (2022). Teacher qualifications, perceptions and practices concerning multilingualism at a school for newly arrived students in Norway. International Journal of Multilingualism, 19(1), 35-49. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2019.1631317 

Heller, M., Pietikäinen, S., & Pujolar, J. (2017). Critical sociolinguistic research methods : studying language issues that matter (First edition. ed.). Routledge, an imprint of Taylor and Francis. 

Hult, F. M. (2016). Nexus analysis as scalar ethnography for educational linguistics. In Researching Multilingualism (pp. 103-118). Routledge. 

Jaspers, J. (2022). Linguistic dilemmas and chronic ambivalence in the classroom. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 43(4), 281-294. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2020.1733586 

Kunnskapsdepartementet. (2017). Overordnet del – verdier og prinsipper for grunnopplæringen. Fastsatt som forskrift ved kongelig resolusjon. Læreplanverket for Kunnskapsløftet 2020.  Retrieved from https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/verdier-og-prinsipper-for-grunnopplaringen/id2570003/

Ragni Vik Johnsen is an Associate Professor at the Department of Education and Pedagogy. She teaches different Norwegian courses at the teacher education program at the UiT – The Arctic University of Norway and supervises master students on topics related to inter alia multilingualism and Norwegian as a second language. Her research focuses on sociolinguistic approaches to multilingualism among young people and in school contexts. She completed her PhD on multilingual adolescents and their families in 2021. In her latest projects she investigates multilingualism in educational transitions (as part of the MultiTrans – Multilingualism in Transitions project) and the linguistic landscapes in Tromsø’s urban spaces.

Aaron J. Peltoniemi (University of Jyväskylä, Finland): Synchronous and asynchronously learning experience of students in online and physical spaces

In my own research, I examine the learning experience of students from the University of Jyväskylä as they traverse between online and physical spaces while synchronous and asynchronously learning through the lenses of design, architecture, and temporality. I conducted semi-structured interviews with stimulated recall using paper maps of the campus in addition to a computer opened to different university websites such as Moodle. Results highlight that the preference for a learning space and mode (synchronous/asynchronous) depends on learning needs, and that some needs were shared while others were unique.

Ulla Sivunen (University of Jyväskylä, Finland): Multiliteracies and linguistic agency of deaf and hard of hearing young people using Finnish sign language

In the context of mediated society, deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) young people use their diverse multiliteracies with different texts and spaces. I approach this topic primarily from the perspective of the sociocultural literacy tradition, specifically New Literacy Studies (Barton, 2007, Kress, 2003, Gee, 2000; Street 1984), which is a field of applied linguistics. In my ongoing research I’m investigating the perceptions and experiences of deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) young people aged 13-28 who use a signed language (Finnish Sign Language/other sign languages), their linguistic agency and participation in digital and other everyday environments. The data are based on interviews with 25 deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) youth and young adults. In the first part of the study, I explored media use and textual practices in digital environments as social and cultural practices (Author, forthcoming 2024).  The findings show that DHH young individuals form a heterogeneous group in terms of their multiliteracies and media use, with significant linguistic, cultural and individual differences. Results show the importance of multilingual education including a national sign language in promoting young DHH people's multilingualism and quality media produced in signed language. Accurate information on these issues will support young DHH people's learning, linguistic and digital competence, well-being, equality and inclusivity of different spaces.

Marc Perkins (University of Jyväskylä, Finland): The intersection of multilingual environments and crisis leadership in higher education

Our recent study found that higher education staff and leaders identified communication as a core need before and during crises, especially multimodal/multichannel communication to the full diversity of the campus.  Also, being a part of / feeling as though one is a part of a community on campus was identified as a core benefit for crisis resilience, yet this can be a challenge in multilingual environments for new arrivals.

Francisco Quilodran Peredo (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile): Literary practices of Haitian origin students in Chile

In Chile, the national language is Spanish. However, migration from countries where other languages are spoken has brought challenges to the public education context. Specially, migration from Haiti has been a challenge in this context. Currently, there are no politics in education to face this topic.  
This research adopts Street's concept of literacy practices (Street, 2004), emphasizing what is done outside the classroom (Hull and Schultz, 2008). Similarly, it incorporates ideas from funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992) and the cultural wealth of the community (Yosso, 2005). 
The research follows an ethnographic design (Dyson & Genishi, 2005) that will track primary school students of Haitian origin over four months. For this presentation, the analyses of the first two rounds of interviews and classroom observations from the initial two months (of four) will be included. This will address the question: What are the literacy practices that these students develop inside and outside the school context?
It is expected that the results will provide a detailed description of the types of texts, modalities, languages, motivations, etc., of the students concerning literacy practices.

Dobrochna Futro (University of Glasgow): Arts-based methods for developing multilingual approaches to language teaching in primary schools
I currently work with primary school teachers to explore the potential and limitations of arts-based methods for developing multilingual approaches to language teaching in primary schools (see e.g. this online material). I can situate this research in the context of Scotland's '1+2 Approach' and 'Learning in 2+ Languages' policies (we do not have preparatory classes for newcomers) and 180 languages that were recently registered as spoken by pupils in mainstream schools as their main languages.