ABSTRACTS ARRANGED BY PANELS
THE POLITICS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING LANGUAGES CONFERENCE
PANEL 1, paper 1
Language, identity and the medium of instruction in Lebanon
Samer Annous, University of Balamand, Lebanon
Mike Orr, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Legislation from 1997 requires teachers in Lebanon to speak in French or English for nearly all
lessons other than history and geography. Arabic may be used even less often in the private
schools which educate 65% of children. Such a policy must rest on the assumption that pupils
have enough second language (L2) ability to be able to learn the curriculum to a satisfactory
standard or will develop sufficient L2 skills in the course of their studies. This assumption is
questionable in itself and, in any case, the issue of mother tongue education involves the right to
equal opportunity, as well as other considerations such as the role of language in cultural
transmission.
Written and group interview data were collected from 100+ students at a Lebanese university who
were asked for their opinions regarding the language aptitude of the Lebanese and the language
in education policy in Lebanon. Results indicate there is an underlying belief: (i) in the superior
ability of the Lebanese to learn foreign languages, and (ii) in the unsuitability of Arabic for 21st
century globalized enterprise and industry. Drawing on Thompson’s (1990) work on ideology and
Phillipson’s (2008) work on linguistic imperialism, these results are discussed in terms of their
ideological force in favour of the local elite, and in the wider context of language and imperialism.
Phillipson, R. (2008). The linguistic imperialism of neoliberal empire. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 5(1), 1-43.
Thompson, J.B. (1990). Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Social Theory in the Era of Mass Communication. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
PANEL 1, paper 2
The individual within languages - the impact of language learners’ beliefs and the politics of
teaching and learning languages in Romania on the individual learner
Enikő Biró, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj Napoca, Romania
A great number of speakers of Hungarian in Romania are affected by the lack of informal
language learning due the lack of overlap between the linguistic and civic communities that they
belong to. According to their beliefs this is the main reason of not being able to acquire Romanian
as second language, the official language of the country. On the other hand, many of the
interviewed participants reported on good or even high English proficiency, English being the
first foreign language they learn at school. This paper presents the current language learning
policies behind learning these languages and the expected outcomes versus the actual effects and
effectiveness of learning these languages by the minority. A number of studies have shown that
belief system of language learners plays a decisive role in their success and failure in language
learning (Bernat & Gvozdenko 2005; Csizer, K., & Dornyei, Z. 2005). Almost all of the researchers
have recognized that learning a language is directly influenced by what learners think and how
they evaluate the target language. In Romania the difference in the methodologies as well as
individual, social and other factors determine the success of language acquisition. The research
presents the content analysis of interviews with bilingual participants belonging to the Hungarian
minority. It describes through belief patterns the differences between learning the two languages:
Romanian and English. The beliefs are linked to the particular language placed in a social-cultural
dimension, however, previous learning experiences are somehow independent of each other.
Learning these languages and competence might influence the learners’ sense of belonging to one
or a number of communities.
Csizer, K., & Dornyei, Z. (2005). The internal structure of language learning motivation and its relationship with
language choice and learning effort. The Modern Language Journal , 89(1), 19-33.
Bernat, E., & Gvozdenko, I. (2005). Beliefs about language learning: Current knowledge, pedagogical implications, and
new research directions. TESL-EJ, 9(1), 1-21.
PANEL 1, paper 3
Learner Perspectives on English Language Policy and Practice in China
Terrence G. Wiley, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC
Na Liu, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC
Since the 1980s, China has represented one of the major growth areas in the world for English
language education, and teaching English is a priority among its foreign language educational
policies. The priority on English has been viewed with both optimism and concern. Some see the
use of English as a lingua franca as means to greater educational access and social mobility. Others,
however, see cause for concern by noting that instruction is not always effective and that learning
English does not necessarily improve social mobility. Others fear that too much emphasis on
English language teaching (ELT) pushes other languages out of the curriculum, and even weakens
the status of Mandarin. In considering these issues and their implications for policy and practice,
this study was designed to assess how Chinese learners of English themselves view and
experience English language teaching (ELT).
The study surveyed over 1,600 Chinese university undergraduates focusing their experiences as
learners, views and dispositions toward English, motivations for studying the language, as well as
their perceptions of best practices and areas for improvement. Survey data were analyzed to
examine the associations between learner views toward ELT and learner characteristics including
gender, major, hometown, home dialect, extramural studies, and family background factors.
Findings indicated most respondents have strong instrumental motivations to learn English, based
on their beliefs in the current and future utility of the language as the envision themselves
becoming more involved in the global economy and world affairs. Respondents also assessed their
own strengths and weaknesses in various English skill areas. The majority reported stronger
receptive skills, noting few opportunities to use the language in meaningful ways in or out of
school, despite strong motivations to learn the language. The paper concludes by addressing the
implications of learner views within the context of recent Chinese educational policies.
PANEL 2, paper 1
When Russian Was Considered ‘the Language of the Future’: the Cuban Connection
Vladimir Alexander Smith-Mesa, SSEES/UCL, London, UK
The title refers to politics and language in education, in particular, to the politics of teaching and
learning of Russian as a foreign language in the Americas, in Cuba. Why and how did this
process of teaching and learning Russian language happen? These are the key questions for the
present study. From 1961 to 1989, Cuba was an efficient centre of Soviet influence in the West, in
the so-called Third World. Certainly, the impact of the politics of teaching and learning Russian as
a foreign language is not easy to assess in a single research project, since it submerges in all
aspects of society. Cubans were confronted on a large scale with the unfamiliar and alien Russian
language. A great example of the experiment was not only the creation of the Maxim Gorki
Institute for the teaching of Russian language in 1962, but also the experiment in Cuban television,
when Soviet cinema became the most disseminated for decades. Russian language, until that
moment unknown to the majority of the population, was the most promoted in Cuban educational
programmes. As W. Raymond Duncan explains, the importance of the Cuban Revolution to the
USSR is best understood in the context of its foreign policy, which ‘guarantee territorial security to
an expanded Soviet Third World presence as a means to an enlarged role within the global arena.’1
Thus, the Cuban Revolution was considered by the Kremlin to be the key to the New World
because of its strategic geographical position as an ideological and military base.
1
Quoted from W. Raymond Duncan The Soviet Union and Cuba: Interests and Influence (New
York: Praeger Publishers, 1985), p.32.
PANEL 2, paper 2
The Politics of Teaching English in Puerto Rico
Jorge R. Schmidt, University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico
The paper addresses the first theme of the conference: politics and language teaching. It analyzes
the historical and political events that led to the establishment of educational language policies
regarding English in Puerto Rico from 1898 to 2015. It identifies the political variables that
produced the policies and describes their causal relationship. From 1899 to 1949, Puerto Rico’s
public school system became engaged in an Americanization policy, designed to transform the
Hispanic linguistic and cultural habits of the Puerto Rican children into an Anglo-Saxon
weltanschauung. Some societal sectors of the population supported the policy, believing that the
American culture and language embodied modern values while casting away everything Hispanic
as obsolete. However, other sectors resisted the policy and engaged in resistance tactics that
slowed down the assimilationist impulse. The paper identifies the relevant political stakeholders
on both sides and argues that the educational and political institutions offered incentives and
constraints for all actors to turn their preferences into policies. The political stakeholders are
classified as insiders (school administrators, teachers, parents and students) and outsiders
(government officials, political parties, and non-governmental organizations). It identifies the
three relevant institutional features of the educational system as the centralization of decisionmaking, the participation of insider stakeholders, and the autonomy of the education department
from governmental interference. Changes in those institutional features during the 1940’s
increased the influence of the anti-assimilationist stakeholders, which led to the abandonment of
the Americanization strategy and the adoption of a Puertoricanization approach in 1949. The public
school system now stressed the importance of Hispanic language and culture. By 1969, another set
of changes in the political and educational institutions led to a Bilingualization approach, which
attempted to reconcile the previous paradigms. In sum, this story is about language contact
between two linguae francae in a colonial context.
PANEL 2, paper 3
Arabic in Malta - Social, Cultural and Educational Perspectives
Lydia Sciriha, University of Malta, Malta
Malta’s two official languages, Maltese - a variety of Arabic - and English, are both vestiges of the
island’s former colonizers. Maltese children are formally taught the official languages as soon as
they enter school, and once they proceed to secondary school they are also expected to increase
their linguistic repertoire by learning a third and possibly a fourth language.
Though the teaching of Arabic may be traced back to the early 17th century, Arabic lessons ceased
to be held in 1914. More than sixty years later, in 1975, Arabic was reinstated in the Maltese
secondary school system. However, its inclusion was not academic, but a political tactic by the
Maltese government to ingratiate itself with the Libyans. Moreover, many Maltese interpreted the
introduction of Arabic as the Maltese Government’s move to distance Malta from Europe and
bring it closer to Libya. Unlike other foreign languages taught at secondary level, Arabic was
made a compulsory third language and all students who wished to go to university had to obtain
a pass in the language at SEC (Secondary Education Certificate) level. However, with the change
of government in 1987, Arabic was demoted to an optional subject and with one fell swoop the
importance of Arabic was drastically diminished.
This paper discusses the findings of two scientifically-representative surveys on (i) knowledge of
foreign languages (Italian, French, Spanish, German and Arabic) in addition to the official
languages and (ii) the perceptions of the Maltese towards Arabic.
Culturally, the Maltese still harbor negative attitudes. However, recent initiatives to teach Arabic
are testimony to Malta’s geo-political reality.
PANEL 2, paper 4
East or West: Politics and Foreign Language Teaching in Romania
A.G. Niculescu-Gorpin, University of Bucharest, Romania
My aim in this presentation is to analyse the extent to which foreign language teaching in
Romania has been determined historically by politics. I shall begin with a brief presentation of the
Romanian education system from a diachronic perspective, also mentioning a period when
Romanian was not the main teaching language in the country and discussing the consequences of
that situation. Then I shall make an overview of language teaching policies implemented in
Romania over the last 100 years or so, highlighting the ways in which politics has been shaping
foreign language teaching in various historical periods.
I am going to argue that Romania was a country where politics dictated the foreign languages
people were allowed to formally study, particularly during Communism. This had a huge impact
not only on the study of a particular language, but also (more importantly) on the Romanians’
perception of the native speakers of that language, their culture and literature. In those times,
knowledge of a foreign language or other could be either an asset or a drawback, depending on
the language (languages spoken west of Romania were not really recommended);
sometimes
people even preferred to conceal they could speak foreign languages, especially if they were the
“wrong” languages. It must also be said that, due to the then President’s somewhat maverick
attitude in the Communist block, in Romania Russian never acquired the status and importance it
developed in other former Communist countries.
Things changed radically after 1989, and people started to (openly) study a variety of languages.
Initially there was some reluctance to the study of Russian, not because of the language, but
because of what it stood for. But currently people have a very pragmatic attitude towards
language learning, and the study of languages is determined mainly by needs. As a result,
everybody studies English.
PANEL 3, paper 1
Foreign language provision and learners’ attitudes in UK schools
Abigail Parrish, University of York, UK
As an island nation, in the shrinking modern world there are few obvious candidates for
languages to be taught in UK schools and the need for languages at all is not always recognised by
young people. At present, any language may be taught in secondary schools and yet three
languages make up 92% of all GCSE exam entries. This limited range of languages, combined with
a decline in the number of students studying them post-14 (since the political decision was made
to make languages optional in this phase, but tempered slightly by the more recent political
decision to include them in the ‘EBacc’ performance measure), and compounded by the
emergence of English as the global lingua franca, has led to increasing belief in the idea that
‘English is enough’ – an idea not supported by employers’ dissatisfaction with language skills and
increasing need to recruit from abroad. The focus on a limited range of European languages also
poses problems for security & defence, as highlighted in a recent report from the British Academy.
This paper presents findings of research into the languages taught and learned in English schools,
from both a staff and student perspective. Self-determination theory and related motivational
frameworks are used as a lens through which to view the processes and priorities which are
central in schools when setting language teaching policy, and to consider the student decisionmaking process. Data comes from students who have chosen to take languages, those who have
not been given a choice and those who have opted out. Implications for language planning in
schools and nationwide are considered with a view to improving student outcomes and meeting
the needs of employers in various sectors.
PANEL 3, paper 2
Where there’s a political will, there’s a way: teaching primary MFL in France
Norah Leroy, University of Bordeaux, France
One of the key measures of the French Education Reform Act of 8th July 2013 was to improve
modern foreign language learning (MFL) at primary level leading to MFL becoming a statutory
subject from year one (cours préparatoire). The newly formed Conseil supérieur des programmes
(Supreme Council for the National Curriculum) would call upon experts on research into
language teaching theory and practice to put forward recommendations for the new MFL
curriculum in the form of written reports.
MFL for French primary school children was once again in the political arena because recent
European surveys indicated little progress in French pupils’ language competence since the
signing of the Barcelona agreement in 2002. The political will in France to improve MFL learning
at primary level stretches back several decades to the 1960s however this has been alongside
efforts by successive French governments to promote and protect the French language in the face
of English language dominance both nationally and internationally. Today English remains the
MFL most studied in French schools and so it would appear that the Education Reform Act of 8th
July 2013 is a turning point: a more proactive explicit approach to MFL primary teaching within
France indicating that the French state is moving closer to an integrated Europe.
The proposed communication addresses the first theme of the conference concerning politics and
language teaching and focuses on the written reports provided by the experts and published on
the Conseil supérieur des programmes website. We aim to provide an overview of the key ideas
presented in these reports and to explore the extent to which these appraisals support or diverge
from the objectives set out by both French and European policymakers as regards foreign
language learning at primary level.
References
Line, A. (2005). Enseigner l'anglais de l'école au collège: comment aborder les principaux obstacles à l'apprentissage. Broché
Kramsch, C. J. (1998). Language and culture (Vol. 3). Oxford University Press.
McLean, M. (1990). Britain and a Single Market Europe: prospects for a common school curriculum. Kogan Page.
Lightbown, P. M et al (2006). How languages are learned. Oxford University Press.
Ortega, L. (2014). Understanding second language acquisition. Routledge.
Phillipson, R. (2003). English-only Europe? Challenging language policy. Psychology Press.
Seidlhofer, B. (2003). Controversies in applied linguistics. Oxford University Press, USA.
Sitography
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_FR.pdf
http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid75495/le-conseil-superieur-des-programmes.html
PANEL 3, paper 3
The Demand for and Supply of Linguistic Human Capital in the US, with Some
Recommendations for Action
William P. Rivers, Executive Director, Joint National Committee for Languages, Washington, DC
Richard D. Brecht, Co-Director, American Councils Research Center, Washington, DC
This paper presents results of a 2014 survey of more than 2100 US md- and large-sized employers
on their forecasted 2015 requirements for linguistic and cultural human capital. Conducted by
Michigan State University and the Joint National Committee for Languages, the survey showed
that 11% of responding companies actively seek entry-level professionals with language skills. The
top industries with this demand are professional and business services, manufacturing, and nonprofits and educational services. According to respondents, language proficiency was the third
most important skill set in general, after general communication skills and general business skills,
but ahead of technical skills. In general, language skills are sought in combination with these other
skill sets, rather than as specific competencies, excepting the small number of companies actively
seeking interpreters or translators. Following a detailed examination of these results, we turn to
the supply of language skills in the US labor market, examining the sources of linguistic human
capital using the Market Forces Framework and the Field Architecture Models (Brecht and Rivers,
2005) and the available levels of proficiency produced by these sources. We conclude with an
assessment of the lacunae in the US system and potential mid- and long-term investments, based
on the national effort in 2013 to develop long-term goals for US language policy (Brecht et al.,
2013).
References:
Brecht, R., with Abbott, M., Davidson, D., Rivers, W. P., Robinson, J., Slater, R., Weinberg, A., and Yoganathan, A. 2013.
Languages for All: The Anglophone Challenge. University of Maryland: Center for Advanced Study of Languages.
Brecht, R., and Rivers, W. 2005. “Language Needs Analysis at the Societal Level.” In M. Long, (ed.). Second Language
Needs Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 79-104.
PANEL 3, paper 4
The Establishment and Development of Language Programs in China
Ke Jing, Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), China
Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) offers 65 language programs, the largest number in
China. The establishment and development of BFSU's foreign language programs is closely
related to China's political situation and it's foreign policies of the time. While new language
programs are still being launched due the further development of China's relations with the
outside world, old language programs are also undertaking reforms in order to better tailor our
teaching and research to the needs of the state and society. This paper takes the Albanian program
as a case study to illustrate how language programs in China have been established and
developed as a result of political and societal needs.
PANEL 4, paper 1
English Language Teachers’ Education in Serbia: Paradoxes and Perspectives
Biljana Radić-Bojanić, University of Novi Sad, Serbia
This paper presents a critical view of EFL teachers’ education policy in Serbia, which has been full
of paradoxes. As part of educational reforms, the Serbian Ministry of Education decided a decade
ago that English should be taught since the first grade of primary school. This was consequently
reflected on the demand for EFL teachers and triggered a series of changes in educational policy.
On the one hand, due to a momentary lack of EFL teachers, the Ministry of Education authorized
English departments at Serbian philological faculties to license teachers of other subjects with an
adequate educational background who passed a test of English at the B2 level of the CEFR,
meaning that teachers with a B2 licence were allowed to teach English in the first four grades in
primary schools when there were no EFL teachers. On the other hand, as part of another round of
educational reforms, the Ministry of Education introduced a new demand on EFL teachers
requiring them to have an MA degree, meaning that, instead of the four years necessary to get a
BA in English, teachers now have to study for five years and have an MA in English to be able to
teach in schools. Even though the number of EFL teachers has increased significantly over the
years, the Ministry has not retracted the problematic ‘B2 decision’ but has instead made another
even more paradoxical move by signing an agreement with the British Council according to which
anyone with a certificate issued by the British Council (CAE, CPE, IELTS, TKT) would be allowed
to teach English in primary school, which has caused an uproar among EFL professionals.
Philological universities have risen against this decision and are currently taking a series of
measures to improve the future perspective of EFL professionals in Serbia.
PANEL 1, paper 2
What is a non-native language teacher worth?
Interview-based identity construction of Hungarian teachers of English.
Andrea Ágnes Reményi, Pazmany Peter Catholic University, Hungary
As a follow-up to an EU-wide survey on language teachers’ attitudes towards a possible longerterm teacher mobility EU programme, hour-long interviews were conducted (N = 72) with
Hungarian-as-a-first-language teachers of English as a foreign language. The aim of the interviews
was to understand how in their discourse they relate to the EU mobility or the EU itself, but also
how they construct their identity as teachers. As the hour-long semi-structured, recorded
interviews with a colleague (the interviewer) often turned into informal chats about the teaching
profession, the image of the English teacher was often in the centre of the discussion, thus
discursively constructing and negotiating their identity as teachers.
It turned out, for example, that although the majority are enthusiastic about longer-term teacher
mobility, most interviewees constructed the non-native teacher of English, and therefore,
themselves, as of secondary value. Some consciously adhered to the superiority of the native
speaker / the native speaker teacher (a view called native speakerism, Holliday 2006), others held
that belief in a quite unreflected way. So much so that the latter often found it hard even to grasp
the question whether they wished to go abroad for some time to teach English: they simply could
not picture themselves in such a role, it was incomprehensible for them that working abroad could
mean teaching English. Only a few interviewees considered the issue in a more complex way.
The results carry a message for English teacher trainers: it seems to be vital that we introduce our
trainees to the native/non-native teacher debate, thus working towards empowering them (Bernat
2008) when teaching in an English as a lingua franca context.
References
Bernat, E. (2008): Towards a pedagogy of empowerment: The case of ‘impostor syndrome’ among pre-service non-native
speaker
teachers
in
TESOL.
English
Language
Teacher
Education
www.elted.net/issues/volume-11/1%20Bernat.pdf Downloaded: June 25, 2013.
Holliday, A. (2006): Native speakerism. ELT Journal, vol. 40: 385-387.
and
Development
11.
Online:
PANEL 5, paper 1
Representations of Finland and Finns in Finnish language textbooks
Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi, SSEES/UCL, London, UK
Language textbooks are a powerful tool for moulding students’ view of a society and culture
(Kramsch 1993; Cunningsworth 1995; Risager & Chapelle 2012). Although the texts in language
learning textbooks have been created with a grammar point or a communicative function in mind,
they often contain underlying ideologies. The purpose of my paper is to analyse representations of
Finland and Finns in widely used Finnish language textbooks. The material consists of dialogues,
texts and exercises written for beginners’ Finnish textbooks from the early 1900s to 2013. My
research questions are: 1) Which aspects of Finnish culture are included in the textbooks? 2) What
stereotypical portrayals and what generalisations are made? 3) How does the portrayal of Finland
and Finns change over the years? 4) How does the representation relate to the context in which the
textbooks were written in? The study is qualitative, comparative and critical. The approach
combines content analysis (Krippendorff 2012) and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1995).
The texts are analysed on three different levels. On the micro level, reoccurring topics are
illustrated with quotes from the textbooks. On the meso level the author of the text and the target
audience are identified. On the macro level the underlying ideology and the social processes of the
publication context are determined. The results reveal the authors’ implicit assumptions and
reflect changes in the discourse and Finnish society.
PANEL 5, paper 2
Politics in teaching languages: Can a language teacher stay politically unbiased?
Elena Filimonova, University of Cambridge, UK
Language is inextricably intertwined with culture. Through language we cognize the country(ies)
where this language is spoken, its(their) culture, history, traditions and last but not least politics.
Our image of a foreign culture is not fixed and is created and formed, among others, through
claims and how we percieve these claims. Thus for foreign learners language is the key that opens
the door to the unknown world.
In this paper, I will develop Joseph's claim that language is political from top to bottom (2006).
Extending it to applied linguistics, that would mean that teaching foreign languages is inevitably
dependent on and influenced by current events, national and international ones. Therefore it is
hardly possible to teach languages ignoring language 'external' factors.
In this paper, I will look how textbooks for Russian as a foreign language changed in the last few
decades, reflecting the changes in the political system of the country and discuss the possible role
of the language teacher in students' perception, digestion and interpretation of those controversial
events. I will also refer to some recent events in the life of Russia, and reflect on how their
representation in the media could be deployed in language classes.
Joseph, John E. (2006). Language and Politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
PANEL 5, paper 3
Piotr and a Boy Named Marky Mark: Sources and Resources for Learning and Teaching English
to Polish Children, Youth, and Young Professionals in Postcommunist Poland
Virginia P. Zickafoose
Foreign language instruction in postcommunist Eastern Europe gave witness to the bursting
ambitions of a generation of youth, past legacy of a generation of young professionals, and future
inheritance of a generation of children. In the politics of teaching and learning English to Slavicspeakers after the fall of the Berlin Wall an instructor carried individual agency. S/he had to be
adaptive in handling, for example, a Soviet-era textbook, non-representative of either learning or
teaching community; a rap cassette, with its original and derivative quality of attraction, foreign
but less so to a younger generation than the textbook; or “external” certification and grammar
series steeped in the histories of schooling for the British Empire or political reactions in 1960s
American broadcasting.
In Poland (circa 1991) formal options for learning English, essentially, were four: public schools
with overrun classes and underqualified teachers; afterschool and summer agency courses, part of
the new entrepreneurial economy popping up like currency exchange booths; established
American schools for children of diplomatic families or Poles or foreigners affording them; or
venturesome public-private charter schools put upon by regulations and standards of both
sectors. Options diminished from capitol to province.
On the one hand, the business of providing resources for teaching English was booming, a variety
of methods, textbooks, and institutionalized certificates was literally materializing on the market,
weekly it seemed, all competing for Polish zloties. Some were “internal,” others “external.”
Between American and British competitors it was fierce, one might say a battle between the
“haves” and “have gots” all over East Central Europe.
Sources, on the other hand, were less managed and manageable, ubiquitous, and often
accidental—a Winnie-the-Pooh book on a shelf from someone's stay in England as a cook
presented to read to a child or a cassette tape belonging to a student trying to learn the words to a
song. Such diversity was unpredictable in presentation, making evident that, when pedagogy
lacks material and institutional organization, the educator of the language is the resource. This
paper offers first hand what English language resources, and sources by comparison, revealed
about standardization during the Changes.
PANEL 5, paper 4
Teachers’ experiences and their perspectives on teaching cultural elements through
coursebooks
Saw Thanda Swe, University of Essex, UK
Cultural elements, such as festivals , traditions and customs , and ways of greetings in different
cultures are presented in many EFL coursebooks, and coursebooks still have a major role in the
curriculum, especially for English language courses, therefore I questioned : “ Do teachers use
outside materials for teaching cultural elements ? If so, what are they?”, “Why do teachers adapt
coursebooks with other materials?” “Do teachers think students should learn cultures
through coursebooks?” . The results show that when teachers have to teach cultural elements
through coursebooks, they have to take account of cultural sensitivities. They sometimes have to
avoid teaching some topics in the classrooms depending upon the situations where and who they
are teaching which lead them to do adaptation. As for the materials, teachers have to omit, adapt
and personalize them; and they have to balance what they are asked to teach according to the
coursebooks and their students’ needs and cultural backgrounds. Teachers are concerned about
offending anyone and they seek to have a good classroom atmosphere. They also want to have
activities which every student can participate in, and are therefore careful when choosing
materials and topics. More than half of the teacher-participants in this study considered that
learning cultures through coursebooks is beneficial as students can broaden their horizons and it
helps them to fit into multicultural settings more easily once they have finished their courses of
study.
PANEL 6, paper 1
Embourgeoisement and the eradication of working class representation in the neoliberal era –
the case of English, French and Spanish textbooks
John Gray and Dr. David Block, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK
Analyses of contemporary textbooks for the teaching of modern foreign languages such as French
and Spanish (Coffey, 2013; Ros i Solé, 2013) reveal significant similarities with UK-produced
textbooks for the teaching English as a foreign language. This paper focuses specifically on
representations of the working class in a selection of English, French and Spanish textbooks and
traces the influence of the embourgeoisement thesis and the neoliberal denial of the relevance of
class-based understandings of British, French and Spanish society. The paper begins with a short
discussion of the supposed demise of the working class before moving on to a discussion of what
class means in the highly complex world we live in today. This is followed by quantitative and
qualitative analysis of a set of contemporary English, French and Spanish textbooks. The analysis
reveals a largely superficial treatment of class in general and, when compared with textbooks from
earlier periods, a progressive editing out of working class characters and issues relating to
working class life from these textbooks. We conclude by arguing that this writing out of the
working class from language learning materials can be seen as both a failure to educate students
(by providing them with a very a skewed view of the world) and a simultaneous betrayal of
working class language learners who are denied recognition.
PANEL 6, paper 2
The view from further down the corridor: other disciplines and the politics of (not) teaching
and learning languages
Catherine Baker, University of Hull, UK
This paper starts from the position that the language classroom is not the only classroom relevant
to the politics of teaching and learning languages. Elsewhere in the humanities and social sciences,
too, teachers and learners working with first-hand sources become cultural mediators between
source and target languages as well as between source and target cultures – even if translation and
the politics of mediating between languages are not foregrounded in those disciplines’ teaching
and learning practices. Whereas Comparative Literature has a well-established attention to
translation, for instance, this is far less the case in subjects such as History or Politics, where
language and translation are more likely to be practical issues of access and availability rather
than subjects of enquiry. In History, nevertheless, the QAA benchmark statement considers that
close critical work on source material is ‘essential’ to teaching and learning History in higher
education. Very often, this will require students to work with translated material in source
languages they do not speak – not only in modules where primary sources would largely be in
‘less widely used’ languages (such as the history of south-east Europe, in which the author has
experience) but also, and more than in the past, in modules on perennially popular topics such as
the French Revolution or the Third Reich.
This paper discusses strategies of learning design that negotiate the ‘language gap’, such as the
use of pre-packaged translated document collections, the use of English-original document
collections, and the participation of the tutor as translator. However, it also argues for the political
and institutional contexts of these strategies to be made more visible in the scholarship of teaching
and learning outside the disciplines of languages, literatures and cultures. Ultimately, the politics
of translation and of (not) learning languages must be transparent not just to teachers but also to
students themselves.
PANEL 6, paper 3
Obsolete Languages of the Cold War
Gwen Jones, Open Society Archives, Budapest, Hungary
During the Cold War, the languages of the former Eastern Bloc were regarded as strategically
important for British foreign policy purposes, and thus SSEES and its staff could enjoy a relatively
high status among academic language teachers, as professional purveyors of beneficial, and
necessary, foreign linguistic and cultural knowledge. Since 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet
Union, this attitude has remained largely unchanged, although the roster of strategically
important languages has, of course, been fundamentally revised, at the same time as upheavals in
higher educational funding, provision and access have also taken place.
This paper addresses the continuing influence of historical language-external factors in the postCold War context, and asks how can at least four (in some cases seven) decades of language use be
accounted for and learned, when the latest textbooks and dictionaries simply omit Communist-era
vocabulary and language usage in their entirety. Furthermore, where public spheres were filled
and shaped by comrades' talk, those who wished to speak differently usually chose to occupy the
space 'between the lines', to deploy simile and metaphor, tergiversate and subvert the reigning
linguistic conventions, sometimes using archaic forms. Students today cannot hope to master a
language (or a language formerly known as) without an awareness of these issues, or of the postCommunist, politically-inspired revisions to lexis and usage. This paper asks to what extent
contemporary language instruction can incorporate and build upon knowledge of these obsolete
languages of the Cold War.
PANEL 7, paper 1
Teaching Russian in the North-East England: To whom it may concern?
Polina Kliuchnikova, Durham University, UK
Despite the long history of its presence in the UK, Russian has never been widely spread as a
migrant language. In 2011, 67000 UK residents named it as their main language, but with 40% of
them residing in London or surrounding areas, other British regions hardly witness much of a
‘Russian(-speaking) presence’. However, for many migrants moving to Western Europe from the
FSU countries Russian still bears the image of a ‘world language’. The phenomenon of ‘Russianspeaking-ness’ stays central for their self-identification and identity politics, and their interaction
with the Russophone cultural field continues to be highly ideological and interwoven with issues
of language normativity, sociolinguistic unification, and interlingual associations. One of the main
areas to reveal and reflect on this image of ‘Russian language’ post-Soviet migrants share is
through educational discourse and schooling practices they develop while transferring it to
younger generations.
The representation of Russian as a ‘lingua franca’ for the FSU space has been recently employed
and actively developed by Russian-state authorities through cultural initiatives of promoting the
language worldwide. These activities are both aimed at various regional contexts and attempt to
monopolise the legacy of ‘standardised Russian’. An important backdrop for performing ‘Russianness’ on these two representational levels is the North-East England, a socially, culturally and
linguistically distinctive region of the contemporary UK.
The paper focuses on the clash of representations of Russian and its potential in language learning
in the North-East England: 1. Lay language attitudes revealed through grassroots schooling
activities (performed by post-Soviet Russian-speaking migrants); 2. An official discourse on
Russian language and culture as ‘learnable assets’ (through the activity of a local ‘Russian World’
centre); 3. Demands for Russian as one of various instruments to construct the context of alleged
multilingualism in otherwise linguistically homogenous settings (enacted by regional authorities
and educational institutions).
PANEL 7, paper 2
The tradition of the yakudoku method in ELT in Japan and the language ideologies underlying
Japanese language education
Takako Kawabata, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK
English has spread all over the world as a global language, with increasing numbers of people
learning and using it as a second or foreign language. In the case of Japan, English has been
officially taught at schools since the reconstruction of the education system after the Meiji
Restoration (Meiji Ishin), which occurred after the opening of the country in the Meiji era (from the
mid-1800s to the early 1900s). Since this time, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education has
held an important place in Japan. In the country’s changing conditions, marked initially by the
political realignments after World War II, and later by globalisation and the political economy,
views about EFL education and its purpose have changed drastically from modernisation and
internationalisation to international business in the 21st century. Although EFL methodologies
and practices in Japan have been discussed by some scholars (Kawasumi 1975, Takanashi and
Omura 1975, Hino 1992), little attention has been given to language ideology and its effects on the
dynamics of thinking about EFL education in Japan. Therefore, I examine how language ideology
influences EFL policy, particularly the yakudoku method that is widely adopted in Japanese
schools. I first explain the yakudoku methodology and then analyse how different ideologies affect
the way Japanese and English are viewed. Subsequently, I describe the history of language
education and examine language planning, particularly the EFL curriculum in Japan since World
War II. I then discuss language ideologies, language planning, and the EFL method before
suggesting some propositions relevant to English and foreign language education in Japan in the
era of globalisation.
PANEL 7, paper 3
“We’ve employed you to teach Bosnian, why are you using a textbook for Serbian Language”?
Challenges of a language teacher employed by an agency to deliver a Bosnian course to an
MOD member of staff.
Milena Stajić, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK
Although ‘ British and American English are more distant from each other than any of the four
variants of Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian from any other’ (Ridjanovic 2012), and the
speakers of these languages have no problem in communicating with each other, this paper
discusses the experience of delivering Bosnian language courses to the Ministry of Defence staff
where teachers, employed through an agency, faced the challenge of having to create their own
materials as the existing textbooks for Serbian and Croatian were not acceptable mainly due to the
ignorance of the course organisers to recognise the differences (and/or) similarities between the
languages of the former Yugoslavia
The following questions are examined:
1. If the languages are mutually intelligible does it really matter whether the students are
exposed to a Bosnain/Serbian/Montnegrin or Croatian version of the language?
Particularly in view that there are still no clearly defined (and/or accepted) standards for
Bosnian and/or Montenegrin languages.
2. In the wake of ‘austerity measures’ and ‘public spending cuts’, how justifiable is to treat
these languages separately and have different budgets for Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian
languages and produce separate materials/organise different exams? Anecdotal evidence
suggests that it has been recognised that one UK representative can cover the whole region
(Western Balkans ) for example a defence attaché based in Serbia can be responsible for
both Serbia and Montenegro as well as Bosnia and Croatia as the geo-political interest for
this area declines after the turbulent 90s. Does this indicate that very soon, the policy
makers will become aware that it could be possible to organise and deliver a single course
to equip the incoming incumbent with the necessary ‘language and culture’ skills to be
able to communicate successfully in all four countries of the region?
PANEL 7, paper 4
Learner Perspectives on the Co-existence of English, Slovene, and Minority Languages in
Slovenia
Sonja Novak Lukanovič, Department of Comparative and General Linguistics, University of
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Terrence G. Wiley, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC
This study investigates learner dispositions toward Slovene, English, and minority languages in
Slovenia and probes political and policy factors that underlie the management of these languages.
Background: Slovenia, a former Yugoslav republic of two-plus million, gained independence in
1991, and entrance into the EU in 2004. Historically, the Slovene nation was part of larger
multinational entities. Twentieth century treaty-border changes, however, resulting from two
World Wars and migration, have yielded a relatively homogeneous state, but with significant
minority ethnic groups. The last full census (2002) tallied 1,964,036, of which 83% declared Slovene
ethnicity with 87.7% identifying Slovene as their “mother tongue”. Most non-Slovenes belong to
(1) constitutionally recognised border area Italian and Hungarian minorities, who have strong
rights protections; (2) geographically dispersed Roma community; or (3) 'new minority’ economic
migrants, comprised of Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Macedonians, Montenegrins and Albanians, from
former Yugoslav republics. English occupies a dominant position in the education system (studied
by 85% of pupils in compulsory and secondary education). Legislation restricts foreign language
use in higher education, ostensibly because ‘internationalisation’ requires increased subject matter
instruction in English. This emphasis, however, is the subject of “pro et contra” debate among
academics and politicians.
Recognizing this sociolinguistic situation, Slovene language policy is development-oriented. It
guarantees individuals the right to use their own language and forge links within their language
community to (1) encourage ethnolinguistic pluralism within Slovene society and (2) the
integration of Slovenia into the EU. This study, utilizing survey research and interviews, assesses
the extent to which this plurilingual tradition is still embraced by young people as a favourable
basis for promoting plurilingual education. Data are being collected as of this submission.
Findings will be compared with previous studies that found Slovenians generally perceiving
plurilingualism as a "natural" skill in which other languages in their repertoire include "foreign"
languages, mainly English.
PANEL 8, paper 1
Teaching Polish as a second language in the post-Soviet area. Kazakhstan – case study
Radosław Budzyński, Jagiellonian University, Poland
The history of teaching Polish language in Kazakhstan is very much related to the history of the
Polish community's presence in this country, which can trace its roots back into the early 19 th
century. Many of those Poles, during the years have been isolated from other Polish speakers, and
lost their mother tongue, they werer completely Russified (Konopka 1991). After the collaps of the
Soviet Union a young generation of Poles have a possibility to learn Polish language. What are the
conditions of teaching Polish in the post-Soviet area, and more specifically in Kazakhstan? I work
in north-eastern part of this state, inhabited mostly by Russians, or broadly speaking, the Slavs.
Teaching Polish in the area dominated by other Slavonic languages is quite a task. Globally
speaking Polish and Russian grammars are very similar, for instance: both languages are fusional,
which should be taken as an advantage, as well as common Proto-Slavic roots (Dąbrowska 2010,
Janus-Sitarz 2012). The biggest difficuly with teaching Polish in Kazakhstan is with correct
ortography writing, because Russians and Kazakhs are using the Cyrillic alphabet and Poles are
using the Latin letters. One example to clarify this thesis. Students not always remember that
Russian „e” is transcribed into Polish with two letters „ie”. Besides many words from both
languages are very similar or the same, so it makes it more difficult for the students to recognize
which expressions are Polish ones and which are not. This observation is important from the
viewpoint of teaching communication skills (Miodunka 2005). In my paper I would like also to
rise the issue of the motivation of students to learn Polish. What is more I want to present the
teaching methods which are very efficient and the results my students achieved.
PANEL 8, paper 2
A Georgian teacher in a Russian school with a Georgian ethno-cultural component: strategies
and mismatches in language/culture preservation
Zoumpalidis Dionysios, Institute of Education, Higher School of Economics. Moscow, Russia
The school with a Georgian ethno-cultural component in Moscow, Russia, is the only educational
place where pupils of Georgian origin have the chance, at an official level, not only to learn the
Georgian language, but also preserve and develop their ethnic culture and traditions following at
the same time the Russian curriculum. This allows the pupils to develop bilingual skills in Russian
and Georgian languages in a bicultural environment. Furthermore, the school having ties with
Georgian universities, and a significant support from the local community of Georgians in Russia,
offers pupils an opportunity to choose a country where they would like to follow their studies at a
tertiary level.
In the present study, I am looking at the role of an ethnic Georgian teacher and his/her attempts to
pass on the Georgian linguistic and cultural capital onto the new generation of ethnic Georgians
(aged 13-17) obtaining education outside their motherland. Likewise, I am analyzing how
successful these attempts are in the classroom and if there are any potential (linguistic)
mismatches in light of the established Russian curriculum. In addition, I am investigating the
pupils’ attitudes towards their own language and that of the host country, their linguistic
behaviour during the lesson with a teacher and outside classroom walls with peers. In the present
research, participant observation, quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (group interviews
with students, individual interviews with teachers, administrative staff) methods of data
collection are used.
PANEL 8, paper 3
The Politics of Teaching and Learning Languages: Polish in the UK
Edyta Nowosielska, SSEES/UCL, London, UK
Polish is officially the second most commonly spoken foreign language in the UK. What are the
main factors behind this situation? Can the level of Polish migration be seen as a new kind of crisis
or a slow steady wave, enhancing interest in the language?
In this paper I will be looking at the historical aspects surrounding the teaching of the Polish
languages, linguistics, and area studies; however I will focus mainly on current key narratives, in
order to show and examine the level of presence and the changing significance of teaching the
Polish language in the UK, during the last ten years since Poland’s entry to the UE. I will aim to
explore language education in the context of an ever changing and dynamic societal, political, and
cultural landscape, in the UK-context.
I will try to answer the questions about the extent of political influence in the present approach to
Polish language teaching in the UK. Can it be seen as a political debate, especially in the light of
recent mismatched foreign language education strategies? I will analyse the current situation and
try to find a consolidated framework in the overall approach. I will discuss the opposite directions
such as the discontinuation of the Polish language (among others) A-levels exams as of 2017 and
juxtapose them against the increased presence and popularisation of Polish language teaching in
the mass media in order to reveal connections between political assumptions and classroom
practices. I will explore the role and position of teachers and students. As they are no less than real
cultural mediators in contemporary society, I will argue that the time is now ripe for a radical reevaluation of how we recognize expectations of both sides and how they can be met in the
teaching and learning process.
PANEL 9, paper 1
The Politics of Teaching and Learning Languages in Multi-lingual Vojvodina
Svetlana Pejnović, Education Systems and Policy Analyst, European Commission
The paper proposed is based on the thesis entitled Education in the languages of national minorities in
Vojvodina 2001-2012: between national traditions and European policies, defended on 24 January 2014
at the University Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3.
The paper explores the impact of historical context and of European policies on teaching
languages of national minorities in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina of the Republic of
Serbia.
The choice of Vojvodina is explained by the fact that today, nine minority languages are
represented in its educational system: Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Ruthenian, Croatian,
Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Czech and Romani, as well as Bunjevacki speech.
We analyzed in detail the educational policies and practices relating to national minorities in
Vojvodina, from primary to higher education: teaching models, school network and participation
of pupils, national minorities' access to higher education and training of teachers in minority
languages, implementation of cultural autonomy in the field of education, and finally, promotion
of plurilingualism in the education system.
An empirical study shows that despite the decrease in the number of persons belonging to
national minorities since the end of World War II, the education system in Vojvodina is based on
respect for language rights of national minorities as defined at European and international level.
The historical approach to our research has allowed us to identify historical traditions as a key
factor in the recent developments in education in the languages of national minorities.
Although the European Union does not have a reference model for evaluating the right to
education of national minorities in their mother tongue, through its enlargement policy, it
nevertheless played an important role in the establishment of cultural autonomy in the field of
education in mother tongue of national minorities.
PANEL 9, paper 2
Politics, Language Policy, and Agency: A Case Study from Catalan-Speaking Spain
Joanna Duggan, Research Assistant, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington DC
Terrence G. Wiley, President, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington DC
The role of Catalan in Catalan-speaking regions in Spain has been tightly tied to politics since its
use was prohibited in public education and most realms of public life during the rule of Francisco
Franco (1939-1975). In the post-Franco era, Catalan regained status and was re-introduced as a
medium of instruction in public schools. As the “Catalanization” of education grew in the 1980s
and 1990s, so did tension over the appropriate role of Spanish versus Catalan. This debate
continues today, and in some areas, a trilingual model of education (with English as the third
language) has recently been proposed. Ideological issues impacting language use in schools
remain controversial, especially as the independence movement in Catalonia gains momentum.
This paper presents an in-depth case study that analyzed data on the development and
implementation of a school language policy at an International Baccalaureate (IB) school in a
Catalan-speaking region in Spain. In this region, Spanish (national majority language) and
Catalan (regional minority language) have co-official status, per the Spanish Constitution. The
school’s language policy aims to protect and promote Catalan, meanwhile endorsing
multilingualism and the values of the IBO, and maintaining adherence to regional policies
governing education.
Findings indicate that, while the school has a certain degree of autonomy over development and
implementation of its language policy, the local and historical social, political, and ideological
context retains significant sway over the adoption and practical use and role of Catalan beyond
schooling. Results from analysis of the case study, framed within Corson’s (1999) approach to
understanding language policy in schools, further also illustrate the interaction between macrolevel national governmental rules, the influence of the regional education authority, oversight of
the IBO, and the agency exercised by actors in the school interpreting and implementing micro
policymaking at the classroom level and elsewhere.
PANEL 9, paper 3
The minority language question in Serbia and in ex-Yugoslavia today
Ksenija Djordjević Leonard and Dr. Marijana Petrović, Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier, France
The last census made in Serbia in 2011 counts 7 186 862 inhabitants, 83.32% of which declared to
be of Serbian ethnicity (Nacionalna pripadnost), whereas the rest of the population declared to
belong to one of the minorities. For this communication, we will particularly observe some cases
of minorities whose status, position or importance evolved after the tragic events in the end of the
twentieth century: we will analyse the situation in the north of the country, in Vojvodina, which is
a multicultural and multilingual province in Serbia, and whose model and management of
languages is worth being known, and then we will move southward to Serbia itself where
language policy was undergoing several important changes these last years. Moreover, we have to
add that the statistical approach shows the principal demographical evolutions, but it is
unfortunately not sufficient. Indeed, we also need a qualitative approach in order to get a better
understanding of the reality which is often hidden by numbers, as it has already been shown for
the Valachs for instance. The drastic changing which touched ex-Yugoslavia will be treated
institutionally as well as a result of fieldwork inquiries, in Vojvodina, Serbia and Macedonia. The
minorities obtained the right to have an education in their own language, but some difficulties
have sprung when this bilingual education was to be put in practice, as for instance: what
language or what variety of language should be taught to children? This kind of questions is of
course highly political. We will have a glance to several emblematic minorities and their
languages in the Balkans, as the Valach, the Roma, or the Bosnian, etc. We will try to find some
general criteria which may help us to make a comparison between the different political and
educational strategies which seem to work and why.
PANEL 10, paper 1
Teaching and learning foreign languages in multicultural and plurilingual contexts: The
educational dilemma as a political dilemma
Paola Giorgis, University of Turin, Italy
Language education is widely considered an essential vehicle to full personal emancipation and
realization, as well as a principal means for an informed participation to public debate (Scuola di
Barbiana 1967; Freire 1970). As “no knowledge, no language and no pedagogy is ever neutral or
apolitical” (Pennycook 1994:301), a critical linguistic education is meant to favour empowerment
and agency, and manifest how language(s) and language interactions can reveal asymmetrical
status of power (Fairclough 1989).
Foreign language education pushes all that even further, as it is “the prime promoter of the
foreign perspective” (Kramsch2009:192): observing, reading, speaking about the world through
other words allows both to meet Otherness and to bring to surface the Other within, favouring a
critical awareness of the many ways in which identity and alterity are represented, defined, as
well as questioned or deconstructed in the multicultural contexts of our societies. Unveiling how
difference is a cultural and situated construction, a critical approach to foreign language education
then overtly discloses the cultural and situated relation between the word and the world.
Starting from these premises, I will consider the impact of the political stance on foreign language
education, which, in the last decades, has triggered several, and often contrasting, debates: English
as a global language and a lingua franca (Dewey 2012) versus multilingualism; bottom-up
practices of cross-linguistic interactions (Rampton 1995) versus top-down instructions;
standardization as an “ideology of correctness” (Gal 2013:180) versus linguistic diversities;
language as a norm versus languaging as a process.
I will address these issues in the light of Critical Linguistics and Pedagogy and Intercultural
Education (Abdallah-Pretceille 2008; Gobbo 2011) presenting a qualitative field study in two
educational contexts with adolescent students from different linguacultural backgrounds, and
suggesting how an anthropological approach to foreign language education can work for an
intercultural and emancipatory education.
PANEL 10, paper 2
De-securitizing Turkish: intercultural language education and a legacy of conflict
Ben Rampton, King’s College London, UK
Panayiota Charalambous, European University of Cyprus, Cyprus
Constadina Charalambous, European University of Cyprus, Cyprus
This presentation explores the fit between orthodox ideas about intercultural language education
and situations of acute insecurity. In order to do so it draws on International Relations literature
on ‘securitization’ and looks at the teaching of Turkish as a modern foreign language (MFL) in
Greek-Cypriot education (introduced in 2003) taking into account the recent history of conflict
between the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities. Although these classes were
optional, many students regarded Turks as enemies, and after documenting hostility itself as one
motive for learning Turkish, we describe three teaching strategies used to deal with the powerful
emotions that Turkish evoked: (a) focusing on the language as a code, shorn of any cultural
association; (b) treating it as a local language; and (c) presenting it as a contemporary international
language in a cosmopolitan ambience that potentially transcended the island-specific conflict. In
this way, the Cypriot case calls mainstream language teaching assumptions into question:
exclusively grammar-focused pedagogies display acute cultural sensitivity, and images of
language in globalised world look radical and innovative. For intercultural language education
more generally, it is the combination of language learning as a distinct cultural activity with the
ideological plasticity of language itself that seems especially valuable.
PANEL 10, paper 3
‘French adds to its owner’s culture and general intelligence’. The politics of subject languages
in New Zealand schools: The first fifty years.
Sharon Harvey, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
In publicly monolingual, English dominant countries like New Zealand, why, how, when, where,
which and for whom subject languages are taught in schools, are important questions.
Unfortunately these questions rarely receive the breadth of engagement and discussion they
deserve. They have become even more salient as New Zealand and like jurisdictions experience
unprecedented levels of linguistic and cultural diversity due to migration. In addition
globalisation has meant a greater need for citizens of all nations to be able to interact sensitively
and productively with people from cultures that are quite different from their own. Learning
additional languages (including indigenous languages) can be a key vehicle for promoting
plurilingualism and intercultural competency in young people who will need these expanded
communicative repertoires at home and abroad, in the future. New Zealand, however, has been
slow to embrace the wider debates and demands of quality teaching of subject languages in
schools. In order to better understand the situation this paper presents a Foucauldian ‘tracing
back’ to examine why things are the way they are and to think about how they might be different.
The research is part of a wider historical language policy project investigating the constitution of
subject languages in schools in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Here, I draw on early New Zealand
governmental and departmental policy records to examine how subject languages were
discursively constructed in the fifty years after the Education Act of 1877 and what the key policy
drivers were. Policy frames of colonisation, migration, indigeneity, class and geopolitics will be
taken into account in the analysis. It is hoped that in describing the discursive construction of
subject languages over time it will be possible to understand how contingent and open to change
current policies and practices are.
PANEL 10, paper 4
Contact between languages and learners: exploring language and cultural contact through
cooperative learning
Jelena Ćalić, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL (SSEES/UCL), London, UK
Lily Kahn, Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, UCL, London, UK
Tina Parte, School of European Languages and Culture, UCL, London, UK
Eszter Tarsoly, SSEES/UCL
Language contact along the Danube is a complex matter. The Danube basin includes a linguistic
area of multiple contact situations (the Balkan Sprachbund), while most languages have been
influenced by not only each other but also the dominant languages of the area which were,
historically, Latin, German, and Turkish. Many of the languages of the region have come to be
associated with standardized, official languages of nation-states (e.g. Slovak, Serbian and
Croatian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Romanian) and/or are considered to be pluricentric (e.g. German,
Serbo-Croat). There are several minority languages in the region (e.g. Romani, Yiddish,
Aromanian); some extinct, some endangered, others growing strong. Some of the languages in the
region are seen in a different light depending on the dominant political discourses characterizing
the community of speakers in question. Historically, the linguistic profile of the region has shifted
from multilingual empires and cities to monolingual states and most capital cities, and to the
retention of bilingualism in the countryside. Therefore, despite the monolingual profile that one
can discern while looking at a contemporary political map of the region, there is a complex
continuum of contact situations along the Danube both historically and at present.
Such complex contact situations are particularly revealing about the cultural nature of language
use, namely that using language is a set of social habits, and belonging to a linguistic community
brings with it a set of cultural practices and – on the state level – political attitudes. To explain
language contact – and thus go beyond description – one has to engage with the study of culture,
too.
The proposed paper explores students’ attitudes on a course taught at UCL on the subject
described above. Given students’ different language skills, and, in most cases, lack of training in
linguistics, the course brought about conclusions regarding students’ attitudes to subject
languages, and their (mis)conceptions about nation, state, identity, and language. Our data is
gained from student feedback, a questionnaire – which examined students’ understanding of the
course –, and thought experiment exercises which the students completed throughout the course.
Our teaching method was based on co-operative learning: students often worked in groups,
exploring data, giving feedback and providing explanations to each other. In this paper our
secondary aim is to critically explore the pedagogical aspects of this simultaneous social and
academic learning experience.
PANEL 11, paper 2
English as a lingua franca: fetishism and critique
John O’ Regan, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK
Over the last 15 years or so there has developed a school of thought within English language
education globally which refers to the phenomenon of English as a lingua franca. Based on a
recently published paper in Applied Linguistics and a chapter in an edited collection entitled, ‘The
cultural and intercultural dimensions of English as a lingua franca’, in this talk I explain the context for
the questions which I have raised about ‘ELF’ and also respond to some criticisms which have
been made of my views by ‘ELF’ researchers and others.
Linguistics.
This debate appears in Applied
My talk will begin by explaining the theoretical underpinnings of my article,
particularly in relation to what I refer to as the hypostatization of the ‘ELF’ concept, lingua franca
fetishism, and issues of epistemological and theoretical incommensurability. My argument is that
‘ELF’ is caught in the performative contradiction of appearing to write about ‘ELF’ as if it were
already a language variety, while also insisting that it is not, and that there are problems for ‘ELF’
theory in the way that poststructuralist sensibilities concerning ‘ELF’ are meshed with empirical
data-driven perspectives on knowledge and truth. Part of my concern with ‘ELF’ is that I am
interested in the political economy of English in the world, and do not believe that ‘ELF’ as a field
adequately addresses this aspect of the global circulation of English(es) in its research. These are
some of the issues which I address in this talk.
O’Regan, J. P. 2014. English as a lingua franca: An immanent critique. Applied Linguistics; doi:
10.1093/applin/amt045. First published online: January 15, 2014.
O’Regan, J. P. In press. Intercultural communication and the possibility of English as a lingua
franca. In Holmes, P. and F. Dervin (eds.). The cultural and intercultural dimensions of English
as a lingua franca. Clevedon: Channel View Publications.
PANEL 11, paper 2
Politics, Linguistics and the Teaching of Latin: Twelve Remarks
Daniel Abondolo, SSEES/UCL, London, UK
Latin is a complex object; accordingly and multiplicatively, talk about Latin is complex. And the
situation is complicated further when talk turns to the teaching and learning of Latin. CuItural
and ideological forces come into play; basic theoretical metaphors stemming from the IndoEuropean legacy shape the ways in which grammar is introduced and discussed; and in the
absence of native speaker informants, the description of ‘the language’ is far from unproblematic.
Using case studies, this talk seeks to explore ways in which Latin is somehow different, both as an
object and as a subject of study.
PANEL 11, paper 3
Politics and purism in Romani language standardisation
Amelia Abercrombie, University of Manchester, UK
I look at the standardisation process of Romani in Prizren, and the attempt to bring Romani into
the public sphere. For Romani to be a language that is used beyond the home, or mahalla, it
requires an accepted standard, distinct from surrounding languages.
My research is based on participant observation among Roma, specifically in Romani language
classes, drama and media.
There is a discourse of purism with regard to the lexical content of Romani, which I place in the
contexts of ideologies of purism in the Balkans, and of notions of Romani in other parts of Europe.
Certain variants are considered most pure, and there are attempts to purify the language, which
involve identifying and replacing 'foreign' elements, and constructing language borders.
Hierarchies are present not just in understandings of the different variants, but also in terms of
specific people's authority to select and promote certain norms over others. Regarding language
diffusion, there is a variety of sites where the standard is produced, as well as varying tactics and
debates which arise in these sites. For example in the classroom the teacher has ultimate authority,
whereas in drama rehearsal 'correctness' of language use is more open for debate. In media there
are hierarchies of authority, but these too are often contested and can become the subject of
controversy. These arenas of use and promotion of the standard are of course related to the
politics of minority rights and representation in Kosovo, which affect people's choices in the
languages they speak with their children and the language they choose to educate their children
in.
Overall I argue that while efforts are made to standardise and promote Romani, these are
primarily symbolic. Until Romani is treated as a skill in education and employment it will not
become a standard on a level equal with other languages.
PANEL 12, paper 1
Language Ideologies and Schoolscapes in Hungarian Medium Schools beyond Hungary
Petteri Laihonen, Centre for Applied Language Studies and the Department of Languages,
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Brown has proposed the term schoolscape to cover the school-based material environment where
text, sound, images and artifacts “constitute, reproduce, and transform language ideologies”
(2012). Kress & Van Leeuwen (2006) introduced the notion of multimodal discourse. That is,
pictures, artifacts, figures and the like can be interpreted in the way of texts that are “read”.
Scollon & Scollon in turn emphasize that visual semiotics represents a turn “from the spoken, faceto-face discourses to the representations of that interaction order in images and signs” (2003). That
is, the ‘schoolscape’ can be analyzed as a display or materialization of the ‘hidden curriculum’
regarding the construction of linguistic and cultural identities. In addition, we can investigate the
role the schoolscape has for language education, where I argue that it constitutes a major
affordance (van Lier 2004; Kress 2011). Based on a qualitative analysis of signs and discourses –
gathered during multi-sited fieldwork in 2011-2013 on Hungarian medium educational contexts in
Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine – I ask, how different vernaculars, languages of learning, teaching
and school administration are displayed in the schoolscape. Which language ideologies,
languages, language varieties or cultural and national symbols have hegemony in the schoolscape
and which get erased from it?
Brown, K. 2012. The linguistic landscape of educational spaces. H. Marten et. al. (eds.), Minority languages in the linguistic
landscape. New York: Palgrave, 281–298.
Kress, G. 2011. Discourse Analysis and Education. Rogers R. (ed.) An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in
Education. New York: Routledge, 205–226.
Kress, G. & T. van Leeuwen 2006. Reading images. Routledge.
Scollon, R. & S. W. Scollon 2003. Discourses in Place. Language in the material world. London: Routledge.
van Lier, L 2004. The Ecology and Semiotics of Language Learning. Boston: Kluwer Academic.
PANEL 12, paper 2
‘Learn from others what you can, but don’t ever shun your own’
(Taras Shevchenko): The case of Ukrainian
Marta Jenkala, SSEES/UCL, London, UK
The name «Україна» (Ukraine) derives from the word for ‘borderland’, and Ukraine’s location has
played a critical rôle in its history, geopolitics, trade, culture and language. Ukrainians (and their
predecessors who lived on present-day Ukrainian territory) have been learning foreign languages
since time immemorial. In medieval times, children of the Kyivan princes married into European
royal dynasties and learned their languages.
The Kyiv Mohyla Academy, founded in the seventeenth century, placed great
importance on the learning of classical and contemporary foreign languages. From Cossack times
to the twentieth century Ukrainians, living in their homeland, were obliged to learn, and study in,
the languages of the states under whose rule they lived. The formal teaching and learning of
Ukrainian (which developed from its origins in seventh-century dialects of common Slavic to the
establishment of the modern literary language in the nineteenth century) was dependent on the
political situation at any given time. Under various administrations, the teaching of Ukrainian was
suppressed or subordinated to the study and use of the language of the dominant power. It was
only during the 1920s that the study of Ukrainian enjoyed a short-lived period of normal
development, even this being cut short by Stalinist policies and the subsequent repressions. PostIndependence legislation makes provision for the teaching of
Ukrainian, as the state language, in all schools, and for its use as the language of instruction in
HEIs, but the degree of implementation has varied considerably.
This paper will provide an overview of the diverse language contact situations which have
existed, over the centuries, on the territory of what is modern Ukraine, and how these have
influenced the learning and teaching of Ukrainian.
PANEL 12, paper 3
The politics of early language teaching: Hungarian in the primary schools of the late Dual
Monarchy
Ágoston Berecz, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
I propose a talk on the basis of my eponymous monograph, published in 2013 by Pasts, Inc. at
CEU. The book undertakes an in-depth look at how Hungarian was taught to ethnic Romanian
and German elementary-school children in the Eastern tracts of Dualist Hungary, between the
1870s and the First World War. Disseminating knowledge of the state language to the non-Magyar
half of the citizenry was a policy priority of the Hungarian government, and it embraced both a
growing share of Hungarian classes in the curriculum of non-Hungarian confessional schools and
from the early 1890s on, a mushrooming of state-run Hungarian schools in massively minoritymajority areas. With the exception of localities with a significant native Hungarian presence, the
enterprise conspicuously failed in teaching Romanian children to teach and write Hungarian.
Magyar policy makers sometimes accused Romanian school teachers of sabotaging the
curriculum, but neither post-WW1 testimonies by Romanian former pupils and teachers, nor the
hardly much better results achieved in state-run Hungarian schools support this interpretation.
Beyond attitudinal factors, there were in fact deeper structural problems with primary schools and
their social embededdness, which precluded the success of such policy. In my talk, I will focus on
more specific methodological questions. The Hungarian government started to promote the direct
method at a very early stage, and later mandated it for the teaching of Hungarian. I argue that the
conditions prevailing in village schools in general, and Romanian confessional schools in
particular, did not fit the prerequisites of the direct method.
PANEL 12, paper 4
Teaching and Learning Languages’ In Pest-Buda in the early 19th century: education in a multiethnic city
Zsuzsanna Varga, Glasgow University, Scotland, UK
My proposed paper intends to examine the social-political and ethnic conditions of foreign and
native language teaching of Pest-Buda in the early 19th century.
First and second language
education for the period were regulated by the language regulation of the imperial order of Ratio
Educationis( 1777), which stipulated the teaching of native and foreign languages in multiethnic
Hungary. The move of the University Press and other major administrative units to Buda from
Pozsony/Bratislava provided the schools with educational material, whilst the multi-ethnic city
gave home to a large number of professionals of different language background. The paper will
examine the language situation of the different faith communities and their principles of language
instruction in their educational establishment. Particular emphasis will be paid to the Lutheran
faith community, which placed a particular emphasis on literacy, including girls’ education, and
which played a disproportionately important role in the intellectual life of the city. The paper will
be illustrated by statistics, school histories and also literary and historical biographies that
recollect early 19th education. The paper will illustrate the process of a multi-lingual and multiethnic city becoming Hungarian in language by the mid-19th century.
PANEL 13, INALCO-PLIDAM
'Less-widely used and taught languages : objectives, strategies, policies'
By Thomas Szende, Gilles Forlot, Frosa Bouchereau & Diana Lemay, INALCO-PLIDAM, Paris
This panel features members of the PLIDAM Research Unit of the National Institute for the Studies
of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO -Sorbonne Paris Cité). The objective is to question
the balance of power between languages and the way it impacts language learning and teaching.
Connections between language policies and the development or local and regional identities and
cultures will be examined, particularly in the context of globalization and the defense of
endangered languages. The panel speakers will draw on their teaching and research experience
and fieldwork on minority and/or endangered languages, particularly in Central and Eastern
Europe.
One of the foci will be on the way language appropriation processes are conditioned by the actors
at play – learners, instructors, textbook authors, institution leaders etc.) who strive to create the
continuity or the partitioning of various linguistic and cultural spaces, be it in formal educational
settings or in the new digital universe. Some attention will also be given to the role of the social
representations in the production of language hierarchical discourse and in the (de)legimizing
phenomena. Some case studies, particularly related to the teaching of languages at INALCO, will
be expounded.