Actors and agency in academic language policy and planning

Nearly two decades have passed since Kaplan and Baldauf [1997. Language planning from practice to theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters] drew attention to the dearth of language policy and planning (LPP) in higher education. Despite the continuing inflow of English as an additional language students into Anglophone universities, and a boom in English-medium instruction policies in non-Anglophone tertiary institutions [Dearden, J. (2014). English as a medium of instruction: A growing global phenomenon. British Council], LPP research remains relatively underdeveloped in higher education. We suggest that current understandings of academic language policy and planning in higher education would benefit from contextualised analyses of actors and agency [Chua, C. S. K., & Baldauf, R. B. (2011). Micro language planning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 936–951). New York, NY: Routledge; Zhao, S. H., 2011. Actors in language planning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (Vol. II, pp. 905–923). New York, NY: Routledge; Zhao, S. H., & Baldauf, R. B. (2012). Individual agency in language planning: Chinese script reform as a case study. Language Problems & Language Planning, 36(1), 1–24]. In order to address this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 academic language program planners at different universities across Australia. We examined how the micro-level processes of program development and implementation were both constrained and enabled by the participation of different actor groups, operating at different levels (micro, meso, macro) and each with their own capacity to influence change. We conclude by arguing that coherent university-wide language policies, formulated by decision-making bodies representative of a variety of stakeholder groups and sensitive to program implementation needs at the micro level, represent a step towards improving the current situation.

The Relationship of Instructor Technical Literacy to the Academic Performance of Students in Career Academies

Career Academy instructors’ technical literacy is vital to the academic success of students. This nonexperimental ex post facto study examined the relationships between the level of technical literacy of instructors in career academies and student academic performance. It was also undertaken to explore the relationship between the pedagogical training of instructors and the academic performance of students. Out of a heterogeneous population of 564 teachers in six targeted schools, 136 teachers (26.0 %) responded to an online survey. The survey was designed to gather demographic and teaching experience data. Each demographic item was linked by researchers to teachers’ technology use in the classroom. Student achievement was measured by student learning gains as assessed by the reading section of the FCAT from the previous to the present school year. Linear and hierarchical regressions were conducted to examine the research questions. To clarify the possibility of teacher gender and teacher race/ethnic group differences by research variable, a series of one-way ANOVAs were conducted. As revealed by the ANOVA results, there were not statistically significant group differences in any of the research variables by teacher gender or teacher race/ethnicity. Greater student learning gains were associated with greater teacher technical expertise integrating computers and technology into the classroom, even after controlling for teacher attitude towards computers. Neither teacher attitude toward technology integration nor years of experience in integrating computers into the curriculum significantly predicted student learning gains in the regression models. Implications for HRD theory, research, and practice suggest that identifying teacher levels of technical literacy may help improve student academic performance by facilitating professional development strategies and new parameters for defining highly qualified instructors with 21st century skills. District professional development programs can benefit by increasing their offerings to include more computer and information communication technology courses. Teacher preparation programs can benefit by including technical literacy as part of their curriculum. State certification requirements could be expanded to include formal surveys to assess teacher use of technology.

Educational software in english to the awareness in a preschool education supervised context

Information and communication technologies play an increasingly important role in society, in the sense that all areas and professions make use of digital resources. The school can not be brushed off this reality, aim to create full subjects and integrated in society today. Educational software can be used very early in the education of children, but they must be carefully and monitoring. This article aims to present the results of the use of educational software in English to the awareness of context with children of pre-school education in kindergarten, nursery center Redemptorist Fathers - The smallest fox in White Castle, a 21 group children under 5 years. Early awareness of foreign language such as English can be started with digital multimedia capabilities and various software available on the market. However, the small study described the case reveals some resistance from parents and educators, in the preparation of these to choose and monitor the use of ICT by children, in addition to also highlight the self-interest of the children involved and their learning a few words in English language in different contexts of daily worked. The study opens perspectives on close monitoring needs of such uses and training of educators in the field of use of resources multilingual awareness in pre-school education.

Babxel: búsqueda multilingüe

La Web 2.0 ha tenido un enorme éxito gracias a la posibilidad de una interacción dinámica por parte del usuario, ya no sólo a la hora de participar en elementos colaborativos, como puedan ser los foros, sino en compartir/añadir contenido a la Web. Dos ejemplos claros de este paradigma son YouTube y Flickr. El primero hospeda la mayor parte de los vídeos que podemos encontrar en Internet, y el segundo ha creado la mayor comunidad de fotógrafos existente en la red. Ambos servicios funcionan de una forma similar, el usuario es el que aporta contenidos junto a una información asociada al mismo. Al ser comunidades internacionales, la información añadida por el usuario se realiza en diversos idiomas, por lo que la búsqueda de recursos multimedia en estos sitios es dependiente del idioma de la consulta. En este artículo, presentamos Babxel, un sistema de recuperación de información multimedia y multilingüe, nacido como proyecto de fin de carrera de Ingeniería Informática, como extensión y mejora de FlickrBabel. Babxel aprovecha la capacidad de traducción multilingüe automática para generar más resultados de búsqueda relacionado con la consulta del usuario, resultados que se obtienen de las plataformas mencionadas anteriormente.

Représentations des langues et des identités : le cas de la diaspora serbe au sud de la France

Nous proposons d’interroger, dans cette contribution, les représentations sociolinguistiques des immigrés issus de la diaspora ex-yougoslave, installés au sud de la France, qui vivent au quotidien le contact entre la langue maternelle (langue de la maison ou de l’environnement familial) et le français (langue de l’environnement social). Les réflexions que nous proposons ici s’insèrent dans le projet « Représentations des langues et des identités en Méditerranée en contexte plurilingue » (EA739 Dipralang). Notre étude de cas permet d’explorer les frontières de ce projet (langues de migration plutôt que langues minoritaires d’implantation historique) et le rôle des représentations sociolinguistiques dans la structuration des identités de leurs locuteurs.

Étudiants et apprenants de catalan en Catalogne du nord : écho du conflit diglossique espagnol

Dans le département des Pyrénées orientales, nombreux sont ceux qui apprennent le catalan, langue régionale aux côtés du français. Cet espace géographique plurilingue se rattache à l’entité plus vaste de la Catalogne, berceau de conflits diglossique virulents, au coeur de revendications d’autonomie qui secouent le climat politique actuel en Espagne. Cet article rend compte d’une enquête réalisée dans le cadre du projet «Représentations des langues et des identités en Méditerranée en contexte plurilingue» (EA 739 Dipralang). Il s’agit de mettre en évidence les représentations du catalan et du français chez les apprenants de catalan, qu’ils soient locuteurs natifs, étudiants à l’université, dans les filières spécifiques ou comme option, ou encore qu’ils se destinent à l’enseigner dans les classes bilingues. Nous faisons l’hypothèse que ces représentations diffèrent en fonction de l’implication dans la diglossie français-catalan et qu’elles sont un écho au conflit linguistique propre à la Catalogne. Pour la vérifier, nous utilisons la méthode d’analyse combinée mise au point par Bruno Maurer.

Les Turcs turcophones de France : langues, identités et enjeux culturels

Dans le cadre du projet «Représentations des langues et des identités en Méditerranée en contexte plurilingue» (EA 739 Dipralang), nous avons interrogé les représentations sociolinguistiques de la communauté turque du sud de la France (travailleurs et étudiants), communauté qui continue de pratiquer sa langue maternelle en contexte migratoire. Nous avons plus particulièrement cherché à cerner le rapport à la langue maternelle minorée (le turc) et celui à la langue dominante du pays d’accueil (le français) pour mettre en lumière les liens entre l’attachement à la langue/aux langues et le sentiment d’appartenance au(x) groupe(s). Afin de mieux comprendre la construction des altérités culturelles, nous avons également tenté d’identifier les implications que les représentations sociolinguistiques peuvent avoir sur les plans linguistique et identitaire.