A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Education in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters in Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instructional Studies at the University Of Zululand, 2018 / This study investigated whether the practices of translanguaging exists in Social Sciences classrooms and whether it is effectively adopted (This research was be solely based in Zululand district schools which offer isiZulu as a first language and English as First additional language).The study employed a mixed-methods approach in investigating Translanguaging in grade 9 Social Sciences classroom in the Zululand District. Observations were used to observe grade 9 Social sciences teachers and see how they use language as they are teaching, in order to determine their language of input and language of output. A reading comprehension inventory was administered through Solomon 4 quasi-experiment design by means of a class test in order to determine the learner’s language of input and language of output in the Social Sciences lesson. The main finding from the observation is that, teachers alternate between isiZulu and English, in order to make lessons understood by learners. The lesson was understood better by learners when both languages were used. Results indicate that home languages play a vital role in educational activities of learners because it is the language they are most familiar with. The main finding from the reading comprehension inventory revealed that, when learners used isiZulu as a language of input and English as a language of output they performed better. Furthermore it was discovered that the language of output played no major role in improving reading comprehension scores of learners. The significant factor was the language of input. It was evident that teachers are reluctant to use translanguaging in their lessons because it is not prescribed in the language in education policy; however when they use the prescribed language (English) they do not receive desired responses/ output from the learners and lessons become less interesting. The study recommends a need to review language policies in place and accommodate for adjustments to allow flexibility in teaching and curriculum content. This would enhance comprehension of the content subject and may improve learners’ academic performance in content subjects.

The salience of English as the main language of instruction at tertiary institutions across South Africa has not been without critique. At the University of Cape Town, henceforth UCT, conversations surrounding language and academic success have become bolstered by the rhetoric of decolonisation, necessitating a review of policy and practice. This in turn has opened up research opportunities pertaining to student and staff experiences of language at the institution. This thesis is a response to the urgent need for ethnographic focus on the language situation at UCT and higher education institutions countrywide, where increasingly light falls on the language question within quests for decolonisation and social justice. Focusing the language question within frameworks of decoloniality, glocalisation, translanguaging and the development of African languages in education, this thesis distills ethnographic data to argue that language borders need to be reevaluated in a quest for conviviality informed by the universality of incompleteness, where fluidity, interconnection, and interdependence are prioritised over the current dominance of English. Grounded in rich ethnographic evidence in the form of student interviews and reflections, meeting at the intersection of social and linguistic anthropology, this thesis grapples with the critical questions: “What is language at UCT? And what does language do?”

In the Rwandan multilingual context, an overwhelmingly dominant language of everyday communication (viz.: Kinyarwanda) is vying for space on the national linguistic market with three co-official languages. Of these, two (viz.: English and French) are influential internationally and one (viz.: Kiswahili) is influential regionally. This is a rather unique context of language use; and the present study set out to examine how “Translanguaging” as a teaching/learning strategy is likely to foster subject content learning and language competence development at the secondary school level. In this endeavor, the study specifically aimed (1) to describe the nature of Translanguaging as actually practiced in this particular context; (2) to ascertain the way in which it enhances subject content learning; and (3) to determine how it is likely to improve students’ language competence. The following findings were thus reached. With regard to the nature of Translanguaging; the study found that the aspects of the practice referred to as “Integrated Use of Languages” and “Centre Stage to Home Language” were extensively and usefully harnessed, especially through English-Kinyarwanda/KinyarwandaEnglish codeswitching. At the same time, however, the study found that a most important aspect of Translanguaging, the “Integrated Language Use Planning and Activity Structuring” was not observed, and this represents an crucial defect in the practice. As concerns the way in which Translanguaging facilitates Subject Content Learning, the study found that knowledge is effectively delivered and accessed, even though appropriate expression of that knowledge in the academic context is likely to be a big challenge. Finally with respect to how Translanguaging enhances Language Competence Development, the study found that; of all the “linguistic varieties (Franceschini 2011)” most likely to be used in the context under study; only one (viz.: Kinyarwanda-English codeswitching) is sure to develop rapidly, whereas the other varieties (English, French, Kiswahili, and Kinyarwanda) are likely to be learnt and/or developed moderately, owing mainly to the above mentioned “Integrated Language Use Planning” defect. Overall, it has appeared from the present study that; to a certain extent; it is good for secondary school education that teachers and students have intuitively adopted “multilingual practices” as a teaching/learning strategy. However, it would be highly recommended that the practice be consciously planned and systematically monitored and evaluated. Only in that way, it is suggested, multilingual practices can be fully and beneficially harnessed for concomitant advancement of subject content learning and language competence development / MT 2019

Languaging and translanguaging are very important concepts in science classrooms when considering their role as mediational tools for supporting emergent bilingual students' needs. Languaging, including translanguaging, has to do with how people perceive, connect, and understand the activities and utterances around them through verbal and non-verbal communication in any language. This study positions languaging and translanguaging as mediational tools that can be used for supporting the use of science terms and overcoming second language challenges with them. Emergent bilingual students can benefit from the implementation of languaging characteristics that promote classroom discourse spaces where all their repertoire for responding, and learning can occur. Using a sociocultural-ecological theoretical perspective and mediational analysis, this qualitative study provides descriptive evidence identifying important concepts and characteristics that emerged during languaging and translanguaging moments during naturally occurring classroom discourse among students and teacher. Findings demonstrated that when participants changed their participation and identity roles, extended their talk to negotiate meaning, used background knowledge, and applied language play with the scientific terms (i.e., biology vocabulary), it supported the participants in understanding and using those terms during biology lessons. This study discusses how the above language characteristics, as mediational means during languaging and translanguaging discourse, provided important paths for making meaning of scientific terms. Conclusions and implications include how lessons should provide spaces that welcome such characteristics for their meaningful roles in supporting emergent bilingual students.

Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka hur lärare förhåller sig till elevernas flerspråkighet, samt om elevernas flerspråkighet utnyttjas i klassrumssammanhang. Syftet uppnås och frågeställningarna besvaras genom en kvalitativ intervjustudie. I studien deltar fyra kvinnliga och yrkesverksamma lärare som arbetar inom årskurs F-3. Lärarna berättar vilken syn de har på att eleverna använder sitt modersmål i undervisningssammanhang och även delvis i övriga klassrumssammanhang. Lärarna berättar även om de använder sig av några strategier för att främja elevernas flerspråkighetsutveckling. Vidare talar lärarna om hur eller om de använder elevernas flerspråkighet i klassrummet. Det insamlade empiriska materialet analyseras utifrån den tidigare framtagna forskningen. Studiens resultat visar att de intervjuade lärarna har en generellt positiv inställning till elevernas flerspråkighet. Resultatet visade dock samtidigt att elevernas flerspråkighet inte används i klassrummet i en stor utsträckning. Det blev även väldigt synligt att resultatet och diskussionen blev motsägelsefull.

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Syftet med studien är att öka kunskapen om läsförståelse och läsupplevelser i svenska hos elever med ett annat modersmål än svenska, genom att undersöka två lektioner och synliggöra elevens läsupplevelser i de lektionerna. Tidigare forskning visar att det krävs mer forskning på området läsförståelse ur ett mångfaldsperspektiv för att lärare bättre ska kunna bedriva en undervisning som gynnar läsutveckling hos elever med svenska som andraspråk. De teorier som ramar in studien är sociokulturellt perspektiv, transaktionsteorin och hypoteserna om inflöde och utflöde. Genom att syntetisera dessa teorier och hypoteser uppstår ett användbart ramverk. De metoder som använts för att svara på forskningsfrågorna är observation och intervju. Resultatet visar att eleverna möter olika sätt att arbeta med texter i förberedelseklass och i ordinarie klass men att de upplever ett lärande från båda verksamheterna. I förberedelseklassens undervisning var translanguaging ett dominerande arbetssätt medan ett mer traditionellt arbetssätt där läraren hade det främsta talutrymmet bedrevs i ordinarie klass. Slutsatsen är att eleverna upplever ett lärande i de båda observerade lektionerna men att lärandet inte alltid innebär en utveckling av just läsförståelse utan kan istället innebära att eleven lär sig svenska. Högläsning och translanguaging är arbetssätt som eleverna upplever som gynnsam för deras läsförståelse. / The aim of the study is to provide knowledge about reading experiences and reading comprehension in Swedish of students with a mother tongue other than Swedish, by examining two lectures and highlighting the students’ experiences at those lectures. Previous research shows that more knowledge is needed in the area of reading comprehension from a diversity perspective for teachers to be better able to pursue a teaching that promotes reading development among students with Swedish as a second language. The theories that frame the study are sociocultural perspective, transaction theory and the hypotheses about input and output. By synthesizing these theories and hypotheses, a useful framework has emerged for this study. The methods used to answer the research questions are observation and interview. The results show that students meet different ways of working with texts in preparation class and in regular class, but they experience learning from both activities. In the preparatory class, translanguaging was a predominant way of teaching, while a more traditional way of teaching, where the teacher used the most space for speech, was carried out in regular class. The conclusion is that the students experience learning in both activities, but that learning does not always mean a development of reading comprehension but can instead mean that the student learns Swedish. Reading to the class and translanguaging are teaching methods that students experience as favorable for their reading comprehension.

The aim of this study was to investigate how pedagogues in preschool can support children with Finnish as mother tongue in their language development in Finnish. Previous studies in the field of language development stresses the importance of the child's capability to understand and to make itself understood. Through the perspective of translanguaging, code switching is a natural part of a bilingual person's language, although the language is constantly adapted to the linguistic situation. In qualitative interviews, pedagogues in a Finnish preschool in Sweden described their perception of how code switching affect the language development, how the language development is affected when code switching is not selectable, and how contextual attitudes affect the tendency for code switching. The result showed that code switching increases the possibilities to express oneself, that a well-developed bilingualism has importance for the identity, and that social norms implies consequences to the individual's language practice.

We want to investigate what language norms prevail in leisure centers and how these affect current multilingualism and mother tongue. We will touch on the translanguaging method and consider whether it can be implemented in the leisure center business. The language norm differs between different leisure activities, where some teachers encourage students to speak their own languages with other students with the same language, while other activities are against this.  In order to have a positive development, it is important to have a secure identity. What is meant by identity? Identity is a concept that has different interpretations. In general, it can be said that identity isabout how a person sees themselves and memories from one's life experience, thoughts and feelings (Gudrun Svensson, National Agency for Education, 2018 article 1). There are two different definitions of multilingualism - simultaneous and successive, where simultaneous multilingualism means that the individual learns several languages at the same time and successive multilingualism means that the individual already has knowledge of a language when theystart learning a new one. In this study, the theoretical review of current research and text analysis will be deepened by interviews.The purpose of the interviews is to supplement the knowledge that a review of existing research in the field provides. Based on the research we have used as a theoretical framework, it becomes clear that an activity that rests on a monolingual norm and also bans languages other than Swedish, contributes to insecurity for those students who have a mother tongue other than the majority language.

Flera skolor i Sverige har en majoritet av flerspråkiga elever därav är elever med svenska som förstaspråk en minoritet. Det är angeläget för lärarna att arbeta grundligt med ordförståelsen för att eleverna ska klara av sina uppgifter i svenskämnet. Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilka pedagogiska verktyg svensklärare beskriver att de använder för att nå ut till alla elever. Det sociokulturella perspektivet har varit studiens utgångspunkt. Genom semistrukturerade intervjuer besvaras följande frågeställningar: •Vilka strategier beskriver svensklärare att de har för att nå ut till flerspråkiga elever som inte har ett klassrumsspråk? •Hur beskriver svensklärare att de arbetar med högläsning utifrån ett språkutvecklande perspektiv?Lärarna arbetar språkutvecklande genom olika strategier i klassrummet, bland annat transspråkande, högläsning, inläsningstjänster, visuella stödmaterial och studiehandledare m.m.  Resultatet av intervjuerna belyser att lärarna använder olika verktyg i undervisningen för elevernas språkutveckling. Gemensamt för lärarna är att de skapar stödmaterial på elevernas förstaspråk, som inte är svenska, för att eleverna skall kunna utföra uppgifter i undervisningen. Exempelvis finns läroböckerna på olika språk. Istället för att se flerspråkighet som ett hinder, används det som ett verktyg för språkinlärning. Under högläsningstillfällen får eleverna möjlighet till att utveckla sitt ordförråd. Lärarna i studien är eniga om att förförståelsen är en viktig del av högläsningen. / Several schools in Sweden have a majority of multilingual students, of which students with Swedish as their first language are a minority. It is important for teachers to work thoroughly with the understanding of the word in order for the students to complete their tasks in the Swedish subject. The purpose of the study is to investigate what pedagogical tools Swedish teachers describe that they use to reach all students. The sociocultural perspective has been the basis for the study. Trough semi-structured interviews, the following questions are answered: •What strategies do Swedish teachers describe their way to reach out to multilingual students who do not have a classroom language? •How do Swedish teachers describe working with reading from a language development perspective? The teachers develop the pupil’s language through translanguaging, reading aloud, reading services, visual support materials and study supervisors etc. The results of the interviews highlight that teachers use different tools in teaching for students' language development. Common to the teachers is that they create support material in the students' first language, which is not Swedish, so that the students can perform tasks in the teaching. For example, the textbooks are available in different languages. Instead of seeing multilingualism as an obstacle, it is used as a tool for language learning. During reading sessions, students have the opportunity to develop their vocabulary.The teachers in the study agree that preunderstanding is an important part of the reading.