Onlinevortrag: Linguistically Responsive Teaching - Enhancing Multilingual Students' Epistemological Access in Various Contexts

Soili Norro

Foto: Jemina Norro

An increasing number of students worldwide face the challenge of receiving their basic education in a language other than the one(s) spoken at home. It has been estimated that even forty per cent of the world’s population do not have access to education in a language that they understand. The challenges are similar in both postcolonial school systems, where the language of instruction is often an ex-colonial, exogenous language, and in various contexts created by international mobility such as immigration. The high valuation of the school language may entail denigration of multilingual students’ home languages and thus affect their linguistic and cultural identities.

Teachers’ beliefs are an important aspect in language policy implementation, as they finally decide which languages are used in the classroom. Their beliefs reveal and reflect the language ideologies prevalent in the society and guide their pedagogical practices. In the lecture, I use the data and analysis of my doctoral dissertation to shed light on teachers’ beliefs and practices in the context of Namibia especially.

I also focus on pedagogical practices that will enhance multilingual students’ learning. I use linguistically responsive teaching as an umbrella term for different pedagogies, such as translanguaging pedagogy, and give examples of successful programmes supporting multilingual students’ epistemological access and the construction of their multilingual identities.

Biography:

Soili Norro is a teacher of English and French in Rauma Teacher Training School (Finland). She obtained her PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Turku in May 2023. Her doctoral dissertation focused on Namibian primary school teachers’ beliefs and practices and the language ideologies underlying them. She has also worked as a missionary in Cameroon for several years.