Conference Agenda

This research project is part of the connection between the system of social welfare services for the protection of minors, which in Europe is called Child and Family Welfare (CFW), and the juvenile justice system. In Italy, the Tribunale per i Minorenni, in the future 'Tribunale unico per le persone, i minorenni e le famiglie', deals with both the protection of minors and juvenile offenders. Due to the composition of the different services and professionals present in the juvenile justice system and the strong component of children of foreign origin involved, in this context the relationships between operators and users are characterized by a high degree of diversity and plurality. It is therefore evident that legal professionals, in their daily work, must learn to manage the encounter with otherness characterized by a strong component of diversity in biographical, cultural and linguistic terms.

It is therefore evident the need to make use of specific competences to manage diversity and plurality in the interactions and relationships proper to the juvenile justice system, starting from the awareness that the cultural and normative pluralism that characterizes the life of the child is an unavoidable fact for the legal professional (Mancini, 2019). These competences can be identified in the construct of intercultural competence, as also suggested in the report "The child welfare challenge- policy, practice and research" (Pecora et al., 2009), which includes intercultural competence among the five principles identified to guide interventions in the field of CFW. According to Deardorff, intercultural competence can be defined as "appropriate and effective communication and behaviour in intercultural situations" (Deardorff, 2009, p. XI), while the Council of Europe identifies attitudes, knowledge, understanding, skills and actions as building blocks of intercultural competence (Council of Europe, 2014; 2018).

Therefore, the focus of this study is on the intercultural competence (CIs) used by juvenile law professionals (judge, honorary judge, lawyer, magistrate, juvenile carer, etc.) to manage interactions with young people of different cultural backgrounds. The research's focus is on the aspect of everyday practices since working environments are seen as a special setting that can foster skill development and maturation (experiential learning). As a result, the research examines the forms of in-practice intercultural skills, with a particular focus on contexts supporting the development of these competences. From the analysis of the intercultural competences that emerged from the research, it is planned to construct a professional profile of the intercultural juvenile law practitioner/professional based on models of the Regional Frameworks of Professional Standards. This profile can be used to define what competences may be useful for juvenile law practitioners in increasingly multicultural contexts, but also to build specialized training courses.

The structure of the research methodology is qualitative and involves the use of different tools, one of which is quantitative: semi-structured interviews, questionnaire and focus groups. The research fits into the strand of pedagogical research in that the research design and the researcher's outlook belong to these paradigms. Furthermore, it is an intercultural research as it does not intend to pit immigrants and natives against each other but to address problems related to situations in which cultural differences are at the forefront (Mantovani, 2008). The main epistemological paradigms within which the research is developed are intercultural education (Cohen-Emerique, Bennett, Council of Europe) and intercultural competence (Deardorff, Fantini, Portera), and the child rights paradigm (Convention on the Rights of the Child-CRC-). Furthermore, by focusing on the relational dimension and the interaction between subjects in a systemic framework in which individuals and society influence each other, another theoretical framework is identified in symbolic interactionism (Mead, Blumer and Goffman).

UNESCO recognised that “every human being has a fundamental right of access to physical education and sport” (UNESCO, 1978, pp2), and that it is “the most effective means of providing all children and youth with the skills, attitudes, values, knowledge and understanding for lifelong participation in society” (UNESCO, 2013, pag.6). Furthermore, through sport activities it is possible to promote the development of skills and knowledge needed to create new forms of global citizenship (UNESCO, 2015).
The debate on physical education has been enriched by the publication of the Quality Physical Education Guidelines (UNESCO, 2015). These identify the promotion of physical literacy as a fundamental principle for the implementation of physical education by promoting the maintenance of physical activity throughout the life course (Whitehead, 2010) and enabling an understanding of the learning experience (Lundvall, 2015). Physical education must therefore deal with a subject who lives the experience by being a body in constant transformation (Lipoma, 2016), bearing in mind that the educational value of didactics is realised through the way he/she experiences situations and by giving meaning to the activities in which he/she is involved (Ceciliani, 2018).
However, there is no shortage of criticism of the dominant approaches of the time, which rarely associate Physical Education with “critical pedagogy” and “social justice” (Fitzpatrick, 2018; Hawkins, 2008; Evans & Davies, 2004).
In Italy, there is a general tendency towards traditional and assimilationist approaches (UNESCO Trento, 2020), but a substantial change seems urgent given the high rate of migration linked to global economic processes and the growing number of refugees and asylum seekers fleeing wars, persecution and climate change. In fact, approximately 7 million people holding international protection are hosted in the EU countries (UNHCR, 2021), people who have settled with the hope of finding security, continuing their studies and building a future (Harðardóttir & Jónsson, 2021). A situation that has been exacerbated by the crisis in Ukraine. However, at least in Italy, little or no research is available on the refugee’s experience in an increasingly heterogeneous educational context. (Zoletto, 2016, 149)
Physical education can play a crucial role in integrating young people into their new environment by promoting embodied interactions and interpersonal encounters (Anttila et al., 2018), providing spaces for reflection where they can express themselves and become emotionally close to others (Spaaji, 2015), and following the values-based approach of Global Citizenship Education as defined in the Maastricht Declaration on Global Education 2002.
Physical education teachers and sport educators may be key actors in the process of adaptation of asylum seeker and refugee students to their new life context (Richardson et al., 2018), but the general claim that sport is always an inclusive tool seems controversial as it may expose participants to forms of racism, social exclusion and cultural resistance (Spaaji, et al., 2014).
Against this framework and due to the lack of specific research in the area, the generative research question of this study seeks to explore and examine the experience of asylum-seeking, refugee, or displaced students during high school physical education classes and/or in university settings.

This is a submission for a paper presentation on the theoretical study of a four-year-long place-based and practice-oriented empirical research project on citizenship education and diversity in secondary schools. The further description below explains the full project and the contribution of and to literature. While the research project focuses on educational practices in Antwerp, Belgium, the overarching educational questions are relevant and timely across Europe and beyond.

This research project is set in the highly diverse city of Antwerp in Flanders, the Northern Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. At national and European levels, citizenship education is described as a key educational goal carrying high expectations (Joris et al., 2021; European Commission, 2018, p. 4). However, the understandings of citizenship and what constitutes good citizenship education are contested (Joris et al., 2021; Biesta, 2014, p.5). Recently, the Flemish government adopted explicit citizenship education goals as part of a modernised educational programme (Loobuyck, 2020; Vlaams Parlement, 2018). Decisions surrounding the realisation of the citizenship education goals lie at the meso-level of the school and even at the micro-level of the classroom. Prior studies connect macro-level societal processes, including structural socio-economic inequalities, to the micro-level of the classroom (Clycq, 2016; Nouwen & Clycq, 2016). Antwerp has been considered a “majority-minority-city” since 2019 due to a majority of the citizens having a migration background (Geldof, 2019, p. 368). The emergence of majority-minority cities has prompted policymakers’ contradictory responses, also described as diversity approaches (Celeste et al., 2019). While some approaches focus on cultural homogenisation by stressing one national identity, culture and shared values, others focus on cultural heterogenisation, emphasising a global mindset, cultural empathy and interculturality. These tensions are also found in schools in super-diverse urban contexts like Antwerp. This study explores how these diversity approaches in schools converge or diverge with recently implemented citizenship education practices.

This literature study answers how citizenship education and diversity are related theoretically. Overall, the main research question of the full empirical research project is: How are citizenship and diversity enacted in urban Flemish secondary schools, and when and why do difficulties and opportunities arise? This project is part of the broader European research consortium “Solidarity in Diversity” (SOLiDi) that seeks to identify practices of solidarity in ethnic-cultural diversity as alternatives to national new-assimilationism trends.

A pragmatic approach to the role of theory is taken (Biesta, 2020, p. 8). Centralising the researched problem requires building upon the various streams of literature on citizenship (education), diversity and their relation. Banks (2022) and Biesta (2011; 2014) write on citizenship education and diversity. Biesta argues that “plurality and difference” are approached differently when emphasising social or political citizenship. For social citizenship, difference is considered a problem, while conversely, difference and plurality are important and need protection for political citizenship (Biesta, 2014, p. 2). Another relevant concept is Banks’ citizenship education dilemma, occurring when the “democratic ideals taught in citizenship lessons are contradicted by practices such as racism, sexism, social-class stratification, and inequality” (2022, p. 5). Moreover, earlier empirical studies on diversity approaches at secondary schools, both within citizenship education and beyond, are included (Celeste et al., 2019; Sincer et al., 2019). The project is practice-based, and therefore literature on pedagogy, especially critical pedagogy, is built upon (hooks, 1994; Freire, 1921). Finally, a specific theoretical aim includes exploring the relationship between difference (diversity) and sameness or unity (equality) in education. From a theoretical perspective, various authors write on tensions between diversity and equality (Abu E-Haj, 2007; Banks, 2022; Giroux, 1985; Fraser, 1997). It is questioned if, underlying the assumed tensions, forms of abyssal thinking are present (Santos, 2007).

Discussions around racism have recently propagated that before meaningful antiracism work can take place, societies must become more self-aware in how racist structures control everyday encounters. As outlined in the 2018 FRA report ‘Being Black in the EU’, racism continues to be a prevalent phenomenon in European countries. Especially in countries such as Finland, where racism has largely been ignored, there is a severe lack of tools for addressing systematic racial oppression. Arising from the Fanonian concept of Otherness (1952 & 1963), Ahmed’s theory of affective encounters (2000 & 2007) and Anderson’s exploration of epistemically safe spaces (2021), the article contemplates how to build learning environments that encourage critical reflections on racist structures among young people. More specifically, this paper explores what kind of space could encourage the formation of an affective community where young people, and the facilitator, come together to discuss, feel and learn about racist structures to challenge the abiding silence.

The theoretical framework presents race as a socially constructed phenomenon used to uphold unequal hierarchies of power, which have also reached their way into formal and informal educational spaces. In line with Ahmed (2000, 2007), the article outlines that the western aim to assimilate non-white bodies into constructions of whiteness has resulted in a structural act of Othering that labels individuals racialised as Other as not belonging. In Finland, previous research has problematised its multicultural approaches to antiracism education and emphasised a lack of tools to approach critical conversations. In response, this paper intertwines concepts of learning space and an affective community to suggest ways in which young people can be guided in developing a critical race consciousness.

By examining interview findings with experts (see methodology for details) in line with theoretical frameworks, the paper asks what experts consider essential in building up spaces for young people to begin constructing a collective understanding of race? The analysis is divided into three main categories: dynamics of power within learning environments, what affective encounters might transpire and addressing behaviours that disrupt the sense of community.

As a starting point for learning spaces, we look at Anderson’s (2021) criticism of safe(r) spaces; rather than providing marginalised groups with support and a sense of safety, they have turned into environments that often protect majorities from feelings of discomfort. In turn, epistemically safe spaces (Anderson, 2021) identify systematic inequalities in knowledge production and promote agency of marginalised groups through challenging normative constructions of knowing. The concept of epistemically safe spaces is intertwined with the Fanonian idea of a dehumanising white gaze and Ahmed’s figure of ‘the stranger’ as a production of affective relations between marginalised people and the white majority. To address the research question, the paper examines the concept of an epistemically safe learning space in encouraging young people to explore production of Otherness as an act of racism, which has become normalised in structures of everyday living.

The other key concept, becoming an affective learning community, arises from bell hooks’ thought that gaining a critical outlook on structural oppression requires learning with each other and about ourselves. Therefore, rather than presenting acts of racism as a personal choice and separating individuals between good people and bad racists, the paper addresses how epistemic awareness of systematic oppression and structural inequity might help in forming a sense of learning together as a community. In summary, the paper aims to visualise how epistemically safe learning spaces might reinforce the formation of an affective community where a group of young people become aware to the world from different perspectives while considering what kind of power dynamics their own position in society might reflect.

Concerning the topic of higher education for sustainable development, Rieckmann (2012) and Barth et al. (2007) have addressed key competences for sustainable development. These studies consider future-oriented higher education through the promotion of different types of thinking: a systematic type, an anticipatory type and a critical type. Barth (2011) has also addressed the integration of sustainability in education through changes in higher education; while Barth et al. (2011) have addressed the students’ points of view on higher education as an innovative approach to make changes to education. Among other issues, it has been identified the challenge of transfer sustainable development approaches to universities (Adomssent et al., 2007), analysis of a transdisciplinary approach to teaching sustainability (Scholz et al., 2006) and the ethics of sustainability addressed by Biedenweg et al. (2013). In the case of the Technical University of the North of Ecuador, Barth and Rieckmann (2012) addressed the role of academic staff in guiding higher education towards a sustainable development approach. The study confirmed that competencies of academic staff are an essential prerequisite to achieve a paradigm shift in the approach of higher education for sustainable development. Peer et al. (2011) have addressed the role of universities as agents of change for sustainability. They conducted two case studies on the analysis of infrastructure for waste and energy management, highlighting the contribution of universities to local and regional development. These studies considered a conceptual framework based on the theory of teaching-planning-implementation. Bauer et al. (2018) recognize that Higher Education Institutions are not only virtual locations, but actual buildings that present their own sustainability challenges, stating as for example resource procurement and supply chain management, energy use and waste disposal.

According to Velázquez (2006), the focus of "sustainability on campus" is a recent debate in the discussion of strategies for promoting sustainability in universities. While some projects, programs or initiatives in education, research and communication are being implemented since the early seventies, sustainability initiatives on campus begun until the late nineties. With this research it is expected to expand the knowledge on the adaptation of campuses management and built environment toward a more sustainable system, considering the statement of Sonetti et al (2015) when highlighting the role of management capacities for a social responsibility transition.

The general objective of the research is to create a holistic “Sustainable University” model that enables an “ideal” university campus and built environment as a living laboratory for territorial development. This objective will be addressed through the definition of tools and methodologies for the comparison of sustainable university campuses and its institutional decision-making mechanisms when considering the higher education for sustainable development approach.

As stated previously, though higher education for sustainable development (HESD) has been approached broadly, it has been little addressed the role of territorial management in the context of HESD and its relationship with the concept of “sustainable campus”. Against this background, a Systematic Literature Review is being conducted to address the following research question: “What are the main and common variables that typify a holistic management model of an ’ideal’ sustainable university campus as a living laboratory for territorial development?”. The specific objective of the systematic literature review is to identify the State-of-the-art in the scientific debate of the relationship between the university campus-built environment characteristics and territorial management under the umbrella of higher education for sustainable development.

The central concept of the paper encompasses the learning characteristics achieved and developed through Forest Schools (FS) and the wider implications FS has for pupils and practice. The paper covers the pilot study and results and answers several research questions including: How do the experiences of Forest School support and develop characteristics of learning?

A recent movement in culture originating within the Scandinavian education system created a realignment in pedagogy across Europe that refocused learning on the outdoors and increasingly on Forest Schools (Sääkslahti, 2022). Outdoor education and Forest Schools were received positively by teachers, leading to a paradigm shift emerging within Britain in the 1990s and continues today (Mann et al., 2021). The same shift in practice and pedagogy has been seen in the development of new style playgrounds in Germany that encourage risk taking opportunities as well as the increase in Forest School and other outdoor learning within the UK. The initial influx of Forest School and its adaptation into schools has also begun to be seen within other countries such as America and Canada. Those within formal education have increasingly looked towards alternative provision to support pupils in classrooms but until recently Forest School and other outdoor learning provisions have lacked the research support for it to become an evidence-based practice within schools. This research fits into this year’s conference theme in several ways, it highlights the need for pedagogical change as well as learning context and culture. Forest School itself is also a force for inclusion as it should be available for all.

The pilot study results were derived from the pupils lived experiences and narratives, providing an insight into the lived experiences and possible skills gained through children’s attendance within forest school, meeting a documented need in education currently to provide recommendations for practice. Having multiple roles as researcher, FS leader and educator led to careful consideration of approach therefore, Interpretive phenomenology (IP) formed the epistemological, ontological, and theoretical underpinning of the study to reflect on and embrace the challenges and consideration of insider research. IP is socially constructed, and information is interpreted through roles such as practitioner and pupil, as well as symbols and values (Argarwal and Sandiford, 2022). Using this approach ensured three core benefits: it embraced the idea of insider researcher reducing conflict between researcher and practitioner roles, it supported symbolic and complex meaning to be understood from the words used by the participants within the Forest School context, and thirdly it provided a framework to conduct the research within the ethical guidelines and welfare principles of the Forest School setting. Forest School is grounded within practices and principles that put children’s wishes at the centre of Forest School practitioner’s planning and actions, these principles concur with IP’s theoretical underpinnings.

The paper contains the initial pilot study results and findings derived from this. This includes changes to the study and initial themes drawn from the participant’s discourse. The pilot study allowed reflexivity and introspection which lead to an understanding of the changes required to make the research more impactful and insightful which is reflected within the paper. The pilot study also provided several insights and aligned with theory that outdoor education and Forest School are beneficial and increased understanding in this area which will be covered within the conference session.

The paper and related study are part of a professional doctorate and as such must meet the strict criteria of ethics set out by the University. The paper introduces FS as well as provoking conversation and discussion about the future of learning and implications for future practice.

The 21^st century will bring challenges that call for individuals who can problem-solve, persevere, and innovate (Geisinger, 2016). As educators prepare students for addressing society’s trials, they must focus on helping students develop critical thinking skills. To accomplish this, mathematics education is crucial in expanding students’ abilities to analyse, synthesise, and predict information (Shakirova, 2007). Countries worldwide recognise the need for students to learn these skills and consequently revamped curriculums, teacher education programs, and policies (ACARA, 2022; NCCA, 2016). Although progress in students’ academic achievements in mathematics is evident worldwide, deficits remain (Mullis et al., 2011; Gilleece et al., 2020), signalling a need to investigate how mathematics education can ensure the development of students’ higher-level thinking skills.

This research project investigates how to support teachers in asking higher-level thinking questions in mathematics lessons. Asking students questions requiring higher-level thinking skills can increase their success in mathematics (Davoudi & Sadeghi, 2015) and aid them in developing critical thinking skills that are essential beyond mathematics classrooms (Nappi, 2017). Research indicates that teachers mainly ask lower-level thinking questions which require students to recall or restate information (Boaler & Brodie, 2004; Desli & Galanopoulou, 2015). As a result, this project aims to develop an electronic toolset that guides primary teachers through effectively including dialogue and higher-level questioning in mathematics lessons, named the e-DAQ. In addition to this teacher resource, the e-DAQ aims to be a form of continued professional development (CPD) for teachers, educating them on the importance of these questions and encouraging teachers to reflect on how to increase the use of higher-level questions. Theories on teaching and learning, which guide this research, will be expanded upon by completing this project. The following questions guide the research:

1. Can we collaboratively develop an electronic toolkit for primary teachers on effectively incorporating questioning in mathematics lessons?
2. Will the e-DAQ positively impact teachers’ instruction, and to what degree? Furthermore, will it act as a form of CPD for teachers, expanding their knowledge of mathematics? If so, what makes it an effective form of CPD?
3. How can this research contribute to educational design research theories?

An emerging theoretical framework is being used to guide this research, influenced by pedagogical considerations, constructivism, and cognitively guided instruction. In addition, theories relating to mathematics education, particularly questioning in mathematics education, are essential to the project. As this research also aims to investigate the role the e-DAQ plays in assisting teachers in developing professionally, theories relating to CPD helped to form the evolving conceptual framework. Several themes emerged as critical to developing the proposed framework, including Autonomy, Community, Efficacy, Motivation, and Identity, and therefore was appropriately named the ACMIE Theoretical Framework. The ACMIE Theoretical Framework guided the development of the e-DAQ, its implementation, and future analysis.

Although this research is being conducted in Ireland, the expected outcomes apply to countries worldwide. Countries are reexamining their mathematics curriculums and teacher education programs to meet the demands of the 21^st century that students will face. In addition, the themes generated to develop the ACMIE Theoretical Framework were synthesised from worldwide data on mathematics instruction, student achievement results, and professional development programs. As a result, the e-DAQ has the potential to aid teachers and students outside Ireland. In addition, the valuable perspectives gained on how teachers experience CPD and their values relating to professional learning will benefit international education systems.

Based on the updated Lithuanian Programs of Primary Education, one of the emphasized areas of achievement is problem-solving skills. Problem-solving abilities are an essential part of cognitive domain assessments in international educational research. In such surveys as TIMSS or PISA, part of the tasks requires students to apply mathematical concepts and thinking to make decisions, and thus justify and argue their answers. Therefore, problem-solving and mathematical thinking are important aspects when evaluating educational success (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000). The transfer of knowledge and the development of skills are part of the learning process, the combination of which is the ability to apply the acquired knowledge and skills in unfamiliar new situations, i.e. problem-solving tasks.

Reading and problem-solving in mathematics are two of the main skills taught in the early years of early formal education (Durand et al., 2005). Achievement in mathematics depends on the ability to understand and solve complex problems based on inherent logic (Lipnevich et al., 2016). A major source of difficulty in problem-solving is students' inability to actively monitor, control, and regulate their cognitive processes (Artzt et al., 1992).

To understand the problem-solving strategies, used by students and to determine which difficulties are caused by the insufficient level of knowledge and abilities relevant to the subject of mathematics and which are caused by the improper management of the learning process, complementary methods are used in the study. Mathematics learning difficulties are studied by focusing on the process of solving mathematical problems (Rosiyanti et al., 2021; Nurkaeti, 2018), for a deeper analysis the eye tracking method is applied (Stohmair et al., 2020; Schindler et al., 2019). To reveal a more detailed process of problem-solving, the think aloud method is applied (Rosenzweig et al., 2011; Ericsson, 2006).

The problem is expressed in the following questions: what difficulties do the students have in solving the problem; what are the diagnostic possibilities of eye-tracking technology in the process of problem-solving; what problem-solving strategies are used by students without mathematics learning difficulties; can these strategies be developed as a coping mechanism for students with mathematics learning difficulties?

The object of the research is students' problem-solving strategies as a mechanism for overcoming mathematics difficulties.

Hypotheses

1. When solving problematic tasks, students with a high level of achievement use self-created decision strategies, that are not acquired during the educational process.

2. The eye tracking system determines the cognitive and metacognitive strategies chosen by elementary school students and applied in problem-solving.

The aim is to determine the coping strategies of elementary school students with educational difficulties in learning mathematics.

Piaget's theory of cognitive development will be used in this research. Piaget suggested that children's cognitive development occurs in stages (Papalia & Feldman, 2011). Children themselves are active and motivated to learn, they learn through their own experience, structure, and organized schemes and patterns.

According to Polya, the steps in problem-solving are: understanding the problem, making a plan, executing the plan, and checking the answer (Polya, 1988). Several studies have shown that difficulties in solving mathematics problems can occur at any stage of the action (i.e., planning, doing, and evaluating (Zimmerman, 2000), but most problems occur during the planning and evaluation stages. In this regard, students often show difficulties when planning how to respond to a task, and they are inadequate or lack sufficient strategy concentration to perform all-effort calculations (Garcia et al., 2019).

Metacognitive theory. Metacognitive theories are broadly defined as systematic frameworks used to explain and guide cognition, metacognitive knowledge, and regulatory skills. (Schraw, 1995). Specifically, it refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and evaluate one's understanding and performance.

The rapid changes in the times we live have led to an increase in the importance of scientific skills in our lives. To overcome the challenges of the twenty-first century in the science and technology sector, students need to be equipped with 21st-century skills to ensure their competitiveness in the globalization era (Turiman et al., 2013).

Among the 21st-century skills, the most important ones are numeracy and scientific literacy (Word Economic Forum, 2015; OECD, 2013). Scientific literacy is the ability to engage with science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a reflective citizen (OECD, 2017). It emphasizes the importance of being able to apply scientific knowledge in the context of real-life situations. Numeracy represents the ability to use numbers and other symbols to understand and express quantitative relationships (World Economic Forum, 2015).

TIMSS is the most advanced study that can provide an overview of the results of Romanian eighth-grade students in mathematics and sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, and geography). In 2019, Romanian students obtained a score of 479 points in mathematics (intermediate international benchmark) and 470 points in science (intermediate international benchmark). Analyzing Romania's participation (2007 - 2019) in the TIMSS study, it can be seen that the mathematics scores situate within the range of 458-479, and the science scores situate within the range of 462 - 470.

Unfortunately, the results obtained by the Romanian students within TIMSS 2019 remain below the average of the European countries and far below the regional average, being observed a significant variation in the quality of the national education system: the percentage of students who obtained "advanced" results is only 6% in mathematics and 4% in physics, while the percentage of students with "low" results or below the average-functional level is 70%. Romania recorded a much higher rate than other countries in terms of numerical or scientific illiteracy: 22% of students were not able to use mathematics or physics even in the simplest contexts.

The proposed research investigates the factors that affect the learning process in mathematics and sciences for 8th-grade students. Among the learning factors we will take into consideration, we mention: (1) carrying out experiments during science classes, (2) the way of working in the classroom (teamwork, individual work), (3) frequency of homework, (4) allocated time for homework, (5) self-efficacy towards math and science, (6) positive affect towards math and sciences, (7) teaching methods, (8) private lessons and also demographic characteristics as (9) gender and (10) residence.

The data analysis procedure will be conducted in two steps: (1) Analysis of each predictor’s (1-10) contribution to the total variance of TIMSS results of participants; (2) Comparison between high and advanced benchmark students (highest 25% of scores) and low and intermediated benchmark students (lowest 25% of scores) taking into consideration all the predictors, to see which of them contributes most to the results of high and advanced benchmark students.

Metacognition demonstrates great potential to equip children to become successful learners. Metacognition’s significance for mathematical competence is especially proven (Siagian et al., 2019). Therefore, attention should be paid to metacognition throughout students’ school path.

The most prominent definition of metacognition comes from the psychologist Flavell (1979); it refers to individuals’ knowledge of their own cognitive processes and their ability to regulate these processes. Most theoretical definitions distinguish between metacognition into metacognitive knowledge (later in this paper McKnow) and metacognitive skills (later McSkil) (Desoete & De Craene, 2019). McKnow refers to individuals’ knowledge of how people learn and process information, and it is categorised into strategy, task, and person knowledge (Flavell, 1979). Instead, Conrady (2015) distinguishes knowledge to declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge. McSkil indicates the ability to consider one's actions and, when necessary, correct them (Schraw et al., 2006). Scholars (Schraw et al., 2006) define McSkil into evaluation, debriefing, planning, information management, and monitoring.

Several studies about metacognition in mathematics learning are conducted. Studies have highlighted the significant role of metacognition in performance and supporting the selection of learning strategies and fostering the development of self-regulatory (Desoete & De Craene, 2019). In this study, metacognition is explored more detailed subcomponents of metacognition. The research questions are as follows: what subcomponents of metacognition are recognisable from students’ answers about a problem-solving task, math, and its learning? How do subcomponents differ among different age students?

Governance of primary schools in the Republic of Ireland is an area that is not well researched in the national educational research literature (cf. O'Sullivan and West-Burnham, 2012). According to a recent report from the former Department of Education Chief Inspector of schools, Dr Harold Hislop, “because of their voluntary nature, boards might not be adequately equipped for their significant responsibilities... The voluntary nature of school governance arrangements is not sustainable.” (Department of Education, 2022, p. 237). How individuals understand their roles on Boards of Management is, by extension, also not very well understood.

Therefore, this paper's aim is to explore primary school governance in the Irish context over the last ~20 years, mapping the research literature pertaining to it and distilling key contemporary issues through a comparative analysis with issues arising in other identified national contexts. For example, governance approaches in other OECD countries (e.g. England and Australia, given the substantial literatures on school governance in these other English-speaking contexts) will be explored and commented on regarding how the Republic of Ireland could learn from policy approaches taken in these countries. Additionally, preliminary data analysis from a sample of chairpersons, principals and teachers - three key actors on all primary school Boards of Management - exploring how they make sense of and enact their roles in the contemporary policy and practice context will be shared.

This study first documents the evolution of school governance in the Republic of Ireland through a scoping literature review distilling key issues over the last 20 years since the establishment of the monumental Education Act 1998. It also advances an overview and analysis of international school governance trends against which to situate the Irish 'case'. It then moves to present and synthesise empirical data from actors drawing on a dual conceptualistion of both role theory and sensemaking theory (cf. James et al., 2012).

Since the establishment of boards of management in Ireland in 1975, there has been a gradual separation of the education system and the Catholic Church. These two major power brokers, the State and the Catholic Church, acted as gatekeepers and controllers for the implementation of education policy in Ireland during the twentieth century (O' Buachalla, 1988), including in relation to school governance. In contrast to many countries, the Church's engagement in the education system has given a new layer to an already complex institution, creating difficulties and tensions along the way. This study maps and reviews school governance in Ireland since the establishment of the Education Act of 1998. Since then, a number of other laws/ Acts and policies have followed and presented school leadership and Boards with a ceaseless flow of mandates and regulations that govern every aspect of their work (Simmie, 2012). Therefore, the issue of sustainability of school governance arrangements is key in this presentation.

Given this backdrop, the main research question for is:

1. How do primary school board members (namely, chairpersons, principals and teachers) make sense of and carry out their role (including which supports are offered to them) on contemporary Boards of Management?

2. Which historical legacy issues (e.g. voluntary status of boards) need reform to ensure a more sustainable approach into the future?

Introduction

With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, global initial teacher preparation and development has shifted towards enhancing teacher leading in the pedagogical spaces (Heikka et al., 2021). Teacher leaders are responsible for creating a community of learning within their teams where leadership responsibilities are distributed among themselves (Heikka, 2014). The concept of distributing pedagogical leadership roles to teachers empowers teachers to enact leadership roles thereby improving the pedagogical functioning of the multiple professional staff (Heikka et al., 2021). Initial teacher education programs intend to prepare competent teacher leaders who can influence pedagogical leadership, learning, and learning needs, participate in collective decision-making, resources mobilization for teaching and learning as well as involvement in quality pedagogical improvement (Alsubaie, 2016; Contreras, 2016; Male & Palaiologou, 2015). Through the distribution of pedagogical leadership roles, future teachers are able to design ways of creating and evoking synergy within their pedagogical spaces, where collaborative and collective practices are developed within a focused relationship (Afalla & Fabelico, 2020; Jäppinen & Sarja, 2012). According to Contreras (2016) without proper preparation of high-performing future teachers with pedagogical leadership competencies in school management as well as necessary autonomy in decision-making, there can never be a good school or quality pedagogical improvement in the school. This paper there aimed at exploring the ways through which teacher leading is fortified at the initial stages of teacher preparation in the pre-service teacher education programs in Kenya.

Research Questions

The study was guided by the following questions:

1. How do pre-service teacher education professionals perceive the functions of distributed pedagogical leadership practice?

2. What are the roles of the principal in enhancing teacher leadership through distributing pedagogical leadership responsibilities?

3. What are the challenges faced in the enhancement of teacher leadership through distributed pedagogical leadership practice during initial teacher education preparation?

Theoretical framework

The study was guided by a theoretical framework as advanced by Heikka et al. (2021) and Contreras (2016). According to Heikka et al. (2021) distributing pedagogical leadership is involving teachers in enacting pedagogical leadership to foster curriculum reforms thereby improving the pedagogical functions among the teaching staff. Leadership in a community of practice is a combination of individual and collective responsibilities. This creates an interdependence that helps teachers reach the goals set. Distributed pedagogical leadership is the innermost characteristic of multiple professionals in a learning community where joint tasks and goals are shared (Heikka, 2014). Contreras (2016) opined that teacher leadership is the active participation of teachers in school management in order to generate ideas and ways of improvement and innovation in the community of learning in the school. Teachers and their pedagogical performance in class is the first factor of influences the students' learning (Contreras, 2016).

Project context

The research project is part of the content cluster School Development & Leadership of the project School makes you strong (German: Schule macht stark) (SchuMaS). SchuMaS is an interdisciplinary joint project that accompanies 200 schools in socially challenging situations in Germany. The overall goal of the project is to improve educational opportunities for socially disadvantaged pupils.

Theoretical framework

School leaders[1] are particularly important for school development processes because of their significant influence on the school (both on the school as an organisation and on its members) (Lichtinger & Rigger, 2022, p. 152). As so-called gatekeepers, they decide, for example, whether innovations find their way into the individual school (Bermann & McLaughlin, 1975; Rolff, 2012, p. 15). In particular, a resource- and strength-oriented (positive) leadership approach, which focuses on potentials and strengths instead of weaknesses of employees, represents added value for all involved, both for the employees and for the leaders themselves (e.g. Lichtinger & Rigger, 2022, p. 158). Connections between personality factors and positive leadership have already been proven (e.g. Lichtinger & Rigger, 2022, p. 156).

The key role that school leaders play in relation to school development processes shows the importance of research on the person of the school leader.

Research interest

The research project is to deal with the (professional) biographies of school leaders and to find out how access to the position of school leaders (especially at schools in disadvantaged locations) takes place.

• Where do the school leaders come from? What statements can be made about the habitus of origin of the school leaders?
• What orientations do they have with regard to their own school years? Which (former) student habitus is possibly still recognisable?
• How did they get into their professional position?
• Can (professional) school leader habitus be generated from the data?

Closely linked to this, the leadership style of the school leaders and, in connection with this, their self-image in school development processes are to be surveyed:

• What ideas do school leaders have about what schools must be like?
• What does school development mean to them? What experiences have they had with it?
• Where do they see needs (in relation to the school's internal development process), where hurdles and implementation problems?
• What tasks, goals and visions do they pursue at their school?

The results could be used to generate hypotheses on whether, for example, a certain leadership style is related to certain orientations (e.g. resource-orientation or deficit-orientation) or whether certain orientations can be explained by one's own biographical or professional biographical experiences.

[1] This refers primarily to school principals, but also to other school members with leadership functions.

In order to get in-depth information about the participants, the study took an ethnographic approach where semi-structure interviews, informal conversations and audio diaries were used to collect data. Using the concepts of investment (Norton, 2013), imagined identity (Norton & Toohey, 2011) and imagined community (Norton, 2013) as the analytical lens, the findings showed that all participants experienced academic identity reconstruction and during this process, the role of their L1 is unignorable. There was a significant shift on their academic identity as their aims of studying abroad changed. Before they started their studies in the UK, their imagined identity of an international student focused on promoting their English linguistic competence such as pursuing native like accents, becoming global citizens and emerging into the new community. However, as they began their study in the UK, they started to vague the concept of native speakers and began to view English as lingua franca where they now focused more on the knowledge itself rather than the L2 (English) skills.

Unlike some previous studies (Chang, 2016; Gao, 2011; Crowther, 2020) where improving one’s English linguistic competence and adapting into the new environment are the target goals for international students in an English-speaking country, the participants showed low investment both in promoting their L2 (English) linguistic skills as well as adapting into the new environment. Though their investments in the destination country and English linguistic skills seemed to be limited, they managed to use their L1 (such as using translation tools or working with co-nationals) to integrate into the local community and at the same time, achieved satisfactory academic outcomes. For some participants who self-defined as inadequate L2 learners, they managed to use their L1 competence to make friends with non-Chinese which unexpectedly, benefited their L2 learning. It is also interesting to find that their naming practices in the UK also reflected the reconstruction of their academic identities as well. Some participants stopped using English names but began to use their Chinese names to reflect their Chinese international students’ identities. Some continued to use English names but the Chinese names are revealed under the coats of certain English names.

When it comes to the factors that affected their academic identity (re)construction, the Pandemic was just part of the reason why some of the participants had limited interaction with other non-Chinese in academic work and had low investments in promoting their L2 linguistic skills. The most important reason was affected by their imagined identity—potential job hunters in Chinese labour market. As most of them planned to back to China to seek for jobs, they had little interest to invest in promoting their L2 competence as Chinese labour market values more of their study abroad experience rather than their English competence. Also, unlike previous studies where language barrier (Fang & Baker, 2018) is the main cause of limited interaction with non-Chinese peers, my study discovered something different. The participants’ imagined future identity also affected their interaction with other non-Chinese as they had little possibilities to work in the UK after graduation, they found it less necessary to invest in maintaining friendship with other non-Chinese peers.

Globalization is a dynamic process that affects different cultures around the world in different ways. It permeates cultural borders and in the process leads to the spread of Western ideologies and values around the world(Jensen et al., 2011). The Census Bureau's monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) shows that the total foreign-born or immigrant population in the U.S. hit 47.9 million in September 2022, and there are about 3,000 dual-language programs nationwide. With the development of the global connection, many individuals around the world are becoming members of multiple language and sociocultural networks(García, 2011), more and more immigrants’ parents would like to send their children to accept the bilingual education.

However, the different culture mixed to educated students may influence immigrant students’ identity. In 2020, Bu has studied the Asian students in the larger context of Asian immigrants to analyze how American education has historically shaped the racial and ethnic identity of Asian Americans as a minority group and the cultural meaning of being a member of that minority group during different times(Bu, 2020). Besides, the languages in bilingual education has a significant function, we assume that the languages classroom to be a key site for the construction of learners’ linguistic and multilingual identities.(Forbes et al., 2021)

Therefore, such student will face more than two different culture and language between home and school. In my opinion, both parenting environment and school environment are important for students to construct their identity and development. As for school, promoting students’ identity exploration in school within the curriculum and in relation to the academic content should be adopted as an important educational goal.(Kaplan et al., 2014). As for parents, there was research explored the experiences of immigrants in Canada, the results indicated that youth reported that their parents played a direct role in transmitting culture and influencing their identity in five different ways.(Glozman & Chuang, 2019)

This research will focus on the following questions: For the immigrant students, (1) Will the student choose one of their parents’ cultural identities or both or neither of them? (2) Whether the education change students’ identity? If yes, how does bilingual education change students’ cultural identity?

The rise of international migration has led to a growing number of students studying in a second-language environment. Although these students are often seen as having weaker language skills (Sharma, 2016; Kuo, 2011), language proficiency is crucial for their academic success and social integration (Akanwa & Emmanuel, 2015). In addition to language barriers, international students also face a range of challenges such as cultural differences, social adaptation difficulties, health concerns, educational obstacles, housing problems, insufficient institutional support, and financial hardships, therefore, it is important for universities to provide additional resources and more specific support to meet their academic and social needs (Akanwa & Emmanuel 2015). However, the exact support needed is still unclear due to the diverse backgrounds and complexities faced by international students, including cultural and linguistic adjustments and immigration policies. The term "international" fails to accurately represent this group's diverse subgroups and can lead to overgeneralization or fragmentation (Valdez, 2016; Sharma, 2016). To better understand these challenges, this study categorises subgroups of international students studying in a second language as ‘ISLA students’ (International Second Language Acquisition students) and seeks solutions.

This forms the basis for the the following objectives:

1) to identify the challenges and existing supports of International students who study in a second language context, also referred as International Second Language Acquisition (ISLA) Students;
2) to provide a sustainable and implementational solution for ISLA students;and
3) to develop the formal definition of ISLA Students.

Research Questions:

1. What is the definition of international second language acquisition (ISLA) students?

2. What are the barriers and enablers of ISLA students in higher education ?

To this end, four research aims are set:

• to raise awareness of challenges experienced by ISLA students with regard to knowledge acquisition at higher education;

• to support and enhance international students learning experience through participation in research informed transformative approach;  

• to inform higher education educators’ continuing professional development with regard to the specifics of engagement with ISLA students;

• to contribute to the sustainable development of a transformative learning environment at higher education for all.

Theoretical Framework:

The study will be informed by a combination of Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological System Theory (2005), Lave and Wenger's (2009) Situated Learning theory, and Wenger's Communities of Practice (2011), specifically the concept of legitimate peripheral participation. This conceptual framework provides a comprehensive and integrated lens for examining the complex experiences of ISLA students and their facilitators in higher education. Communities of Practice offer an understanding of ISLA students’ learning in practice through participation in these communities at the higher education level and the challenges faced in such processes (Wenger, 2011). This framework also aids in the development of a formal definition for ISLA students Bronfenbrenner's theory allows for the assessment of ISLA students' barriers and enablers through a holistic system context, as it outlines the various interrelated environmental factors that shape their learning experiences. It also provides a means of understanding how the environment surrounding ISLA students either hinders or facilitates their growth and development, using the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem (Bronfenbrenner & Cole, 1981).

Research has persistently indicated that multilingual pupils thrive academically and socio-affectively when their home languages are included in education (e.g., García & Baetens Beardsmore 2009; Sierens & Van Avermaet 2014). As teachers’ attitudes and beliefs are seen as the basis of their pedagogical actions (Biesta et al. 2015), it is necessary to examine teachers’ attitudes, knowledge, and the practical skills surrounding multilingualism (Barros et al. 2020). Since teachers are in a crucial position to influence the enactment of language policies in their classrooms (Haukås 2016) and overcoming the achievement gap between linguistically diverse pupils and their peers (OECD, 2020), it is vital they have multilingual competences, show positive attitudes towards home languages, and implement multilingual pedagogies (Barros et al., 2020).

Although teachers indicate enthusiasm for the concept of multilingualism, pupils’ home languages are often considered an obstacle for learning school languages (Pulinx et al. 2017). However, research has shown that teachers’ attitudes towards and understanding of multilingual pupils improve when they participate in opportunities to learn about the benefits of multilingualism (Markos, 2012). Similarly, teachers who have participated in teacher professional development (TPD) with a focus on bi- or multilingualism appear to be more likely to view multilingualism as an asset in teaching and learning (Lee & Oxelson, 2006). However, an implementation of inclusive multilingual practices, for example practices based on “pedagogical translanguaging” (Cenoz & Gorter 2021) requires additional teacher TPD to provide resources and knowledge needed to support teaching in linguistically diverse settings (Kirsch et al., 2020).

In this symposium, we will approach recent developments in the field of language attitudes and multilingual practices in education. We will focus on the practices of teachers who have participated in TPD in order to implement sustainable multilingual pedagogies and view their attitudes and their classroom interaction. With this symposium, researchers working in the context of Finland, Norway, and the Netherlands convene to critically appraise the implications that their research has for teaching in linguistically diverse classrooms across European countries.

The first paper will discuss the use of linguistically responsive teaching practices in Finland. The paper covers four types of teacher’s self-reported linguistically responsive practices five years after the introduction of linguistically responsive teaching in the country’s core curriculum, and examines the link between background factors and reported linguistically responsive practices.

The second paper will present Multilingual Approach to Diversity in Education as a viable model for TPD for teachers working with linguistically and culturally diverse learners. The paper will provide a research-based rationale for the model and illustrate how it can be implemented in TPD to help teachers examine their language attitudes and undergo a shift from monolingual ideologies to multilingual teaching practices.

the last paper will focus on attitudes towards the use of multilingualism expressed through classroom interaction. The paper will take a longitudinal view of the quality and quantity of interaction in primary schools in multilingual Friesland, the Netherlands. Hereby, we will show the development of translanguaging practices alongside a TPD program.

The current Finnish core curriculum (EDUFI, 2014) requires all teachers in basic education to be linguistically responsive. However, studies conducted during the previous curricula show that linguistically responsive practices are still scarce (Author 1 et al., 20XX). In this study, we analyze what kind of practices teachers report using after the curriculum has been in use for five years. The data for the study was collected via an online survey in fall 2021. In this study, we analyze teachers’ responses (N = 1030) to 28 Likert scale statements regarding the use of linguistically responsive practices (1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = once a week, 4 = 2–3 times a week). The preliminary results indicate that the three most used practices are: I use visual aids (M=3.69, SD=.64) I give instructions on paper or on the board (M=3.55, SD=.72) I give instructions both orally and in writing (M=3.74, SD=.58). These results are in line with previous research regarding the use of linguistically responsive practices (Author 1 et al., 20XX) with teachers being most comfortable in using semiotic scaffolding to support multilingual learners in their classrooms. Data will also be analyzed using factors previously found in a similar study conducted before the current core curricula (Author 1 et al., 20XX). We investigate how teachers’ report using four types of linguistically responsive practices, namely, identifying language demands, linguistic scaffolding, explicit attention to language, and additional semiotic systems scaffolding. In addition, we will examine whether teachers’ background factors are linked to their reported practices. The results will be discussed more extensively during the presentation, as well as the need for more training in linguistically responsive teaching practices for in-service teachers. Although the current Finnish national core curriculum (EDUFI, 2014) requires all teachers to be linguistically responsive, Finnish teachers’ reported practices seem not to have changed in the 5 years after the curriculum came into force. The teachers still report using easily accessible pedagogical practices, with no special focus on taking multilingualism into consideration. The results of this study benefits teacher educators in the European context in understanding the need for development for both pre-service and in-service teachers’ professional development in order to optimally develop their linguistically responsive practices.and maximize teachers’ skills in supporting their linguistically diverse students’ learning.

Author 1 et al. (20XX) EDUFI (2014). Perusopetuksen opetusuunnitelman perusteet. Available at: https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/perusopetuksen_opetussuunnitelman_perusteet_2014.pdf (referred 29.1.2023)

With classrooms around the world becoming increasingly linguistically and culturally diverse, there is a clear need to support teachers in making a transition from monolingual ideologies and pedagogies to multilingual teaching practices (MTPs) that soften the boundaries between languages and draw on learners’ full linguistic repertoires as a valuable resource (Alisaari et al., 2019; Blommaert, 2010; Cenoz & Gorter, 2013). Multilingual Approach to Diversity in Education (MADE) is a comprehensive, holistic instrument designed to aide teachers, teacher educators, and administrators in designing and implementing optimal pedagogical practices for linguistically and culturally diverse learners in multilingual contexts. The model consists of seven research-based indicators, each with a set of observable and measurable features: 1. Classrooms and Schools as Multilingual Spaces, 2. Developing and Using Teaching Materials, 3. Interaction and Grouping Configurations, 4. Language and Culture Attitudes, 5. Metacognition and Metalinguistic Awareness, 6. Multiliteracy, and 7. Teacher and Learner Language Use. This paper aims to give an overview of MADE and explain and illustrate how it can be implemented as a tool in teacher professional development (TPD). TPD plays a crucial role in supporting teachers in designing and implementing MTPs. It can help raise teachers’ awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of their teaching practices, provide opportunities for teachers to gain knowledge about multilingualism and the supportive role that learners’ existing linguistic repertoires can play in learning processes, allow teachers to assess and alter their attitudes towards multilingualism, and support teachers in the process of developing MTPs that are most suitable for their specific teaching context (Krulatz & Christison, forthcoming). In Norway, due to a rapid increase of linguistically and culturally diverse learners in schools, there have been calls and initiatives for TPD with a focus on multilingualism (e.g., Lorenz et al., 2021; Ministry of Children and Families, 2012-2013). The paper will first present an overview of MADE and provide a research-based rationale for each indicator and its features. Focusing on indicator 4. Language and Culture Attitudes, the presenters will then supply a concrete example of how the model was implemented in TPD for teachers at a multilingual, elementary school in Norway, and how it changed three EAL teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards leveraging their multilingual learners’ home languages in linguistically diverse classrooms. The paper will conclude with general implications for TPD in multilingual settings.

Alisaari, J., Heikkola, L. M., Commins, N., & Acquah, E. O. (2019). Monolingual ideologies confronting multilingual realities. Finnish teachers’ beliefs about linguistic diversity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 80(1), 48-58. Bloomaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge University Press. Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2013). Towards a plurilingual approach in English language teaching: Softening the boundaries between languages. TESOL Quarterly, 47(3), 591–599. Krulatz, A., & Christison, M.A. (Forthcoming). Multilingual Approach to Diversity in Education: A methodology for linguistically and culturally diverse learners. Palgrave Macmillan. Lorenz, E., Krulatz, A., & Torgersen, E. N. (2021). Embracing linguistic and cultural diversity in multilingual EAL classrooms: The impact of professional development on teacher beliefs and practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 105, 103428. Ministry of Children and Families. (2012-2013). Meld. St. 6. Melding til Stortinget. En helhetlig integreringspolitikk. Mangfold og felleskap [Report to the Parliament. A comprehensive integration policy. Diversity and community]. Det Kongelige Barne-, Likestillingsæ og Inkluderingsdepartementet.

In order to ascertain the success of implementing pedagogical translanguaging practices (Cenoz & Gorter, 2021), it is imperative to also examine specifically how the dialogue surrounding these activities is constructed in the classroom (Rabbidge, 2019). In situations wherein classroom interaction is primarily teacher-dominated (Mercer & Dawes, 2014; Walsweer 2015), pupils’ opportunities to participate and co-construct knowledge are often limited (Rabbidge, 2019). Similarly, Author 2 et al. (20XX) showed that translanguaging practices in classroom interaction are often restricted to the symbolic function of translanguaging (Duarte, 2020), such as asking for one-word translations into the home languages but not deepening the conversation based on pupils’ responses. In this paper, we will examine the actions of teachers surrounding the implementation of multilingual activities at the level of classroom interaction. Building on the work of Author 2 et al. (20XX), we examined case studies of three teachers following a TPD trajectory and measured eventual didactic changes based on increasing familiarization with multilingual pedagogies. The current study investigated what changes occur in the teachers’ implementation of translanguaging strategies in primary classrooms as a result of their participation in the 3M Project. It also examined to what extent the quantity and quality of the interaction and multilingual language use evolved, and the presence of dialogic empathy (Macagno et al. 2022). We measured the frequency and quality of translanguaging interactions throughout three measurement points. An in-depth analysis based of recorded video-data of several lessons per teacher (N=123:06 minutes) revealed how opportunities for dialogic interaction arose with symbolic translanguaging. Although these opportunities were not always seized, they provided opportunities for active pupil participation.

Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2021). Pedagogical translanguaging. Cambridge University Press. Duarte, J. (2020). Translanguaging in the context of mainstream multilingual education. International Journal of Multilingualism, 17(2), 232-247. Macagno, F., Rapanta, C., Mayweg-Paus, E., & Garcia-Milà, M. (2022). Coding empathy in dialogue. Journal of Pragmatics, 192, 116–132. Mercer, N., & Dawes, L. (2014). The study of talk between teachers and students, from the 1970s until the 2010s. Oxford Review of Education, 40(4), 430–445. Author 2 et al. (20XX). Rabbidge, M. (2019). The Effects of Translanguaging on Participation in EFL Classrooms. The Journal of AsiaTEFL, 16(4), 1305–1322. Walsweer, A. P. (2015). Ruimte voor leren: Een etnografisch onderzoek naar het verloop van een interventie gericht op versterking van het taalgebruik in een knowledge building environment op kleine Friese basisscholen. Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

Learning a foreign language is a long-term process requiring persistence and a willingness to engage in activities that will help develop communicative competence. An important role on the way to achieving linguistic proficiency is played by L2 grit (Teimouri, Plonsky & Tabandeh, 2022). However, knowledge on the subject is still limited, leading to controversies around the definition of this psychological disposition and its measurement (Oxford & Khajavy, 2021; Khajavy, MacIntyre & Hariri, 2021; Elahi Shirvan, Taherian & Yazdanmehr, 2021). Although a handful of studies provide some insight into the contribution of L2 grit to the development of L2 competence, we still do not know the reasons why learners demonstrate different levels of this trait and subsequently the extent of their L2 achievement (Elahi Shirvan & Alamer, 2022; Teimouri, Sudina & Plonsky, 2021).

Learners’ language mindsets are related to their perceptions of what they can achieve by making an educational effort (Lou & Noels, 2017). Since time spent studying is one of the strongest predictors of language achievement, positive beliefs about learning effort are considered a key motivational factor for language success (Csizér & Dörnyei, 2005). These beliefs about the meaning of the effort undertaken and one’s own L2 abilities may determine the level of L2 grit. However, previous research has not provided a clear and unambiguous pattern of these relationships.

Language education is gradually shifting towards a learner-centred approach. As long as the learner perceives L2 learning as a personal choice and a self-determined goal with personally chosen activities, they will be able to make a persistent and active effort to achieve this learning objective. Being more autonomous may therefore explain a greater disposition to be gritty in meeting an L2 learning goal. Yes, little is known about the relationship between L2 grit and sense of autonomy.

L2 grit, manifest in perseverance in overcoming challenges, and consistent effort that will facilitate linguistic development, may stem from the desire to expand one’s knowledge, develop skills and acquire new experiences, i.e. from curiosity, which involves setting particular goals and tasks to fill the knowledge gap. So far, however, the role of curiosity in language learning has not been researched. Its relationship with L2 grit is also unknown.

The remote learning environment entails additional challenges, so it is important that the learner be equipped with appropriate skills and personal qualities. Two dimensions of readiness for online learning seem particularly important in this context: motivation and self-directed learning. Some previous studies have shown a positive relationship between motivation and L2 grit (e.g., Teimouri et al., 2022; Changlek & Palanukulwong, 2015). Yet, little is known about the association between L2 grit and self-directed learning, even though we may expect this factor to have an important influence. Little research has been conducted on the role of grit in the context of online learning in general. While existing studies (Aparicio, Bação & Oliveira, 2017; McClendon, Neugebauer & King, 2017; Lan & Moscardino, 2019; Liu et al., 2021; Yang, 2021) suggest that grit is important in this context, many of them measured general-domain rather than language-domain specific grit. Nor were the predictors of L2 grit analysed in this learning context.

Taking all these rationales into account, we pose the following research questions:

RQ1: Which characteristics from among language mindsets, curiosity, autonomy, and readiness for online learning measured by its two dimensions: self-directed learning and motivation, determine language-domain-specific grit in remote and hybrid learning settings?

RQ2: What are the relationships between L2 grit and these variables? Which of these factors are particularly important in the complex network of associations with L2 grit?

In many European countries, students learn English as a first foreign language, a situation that is replicated in most federal states in Germany where education is not a centralized task. However, there is no consensus on the ideal starting point for learning a new language. Countries within Europe and regions within countries differ with regard to whether school children start learning English in Year 1 or Year 3 in primary school of schooling or later at secondary level. Despite these differences there has been an overall tendency to shift the starting point and start earlier in primary school. Overall, empirical findings on whether an early or later start better supports the acquisition of an additional language are mixed. For example, positive effects were reported by Ow et al. (2012) from a study conducted in Switzerland while no effects have been found in a study by Tribushinina et al. (2022) with native speakers of Russian. A large-scale study that aimed to address some limitations of previous studies, particularly the non-representativeness of the samples, was a study by Baumert et al. (2020). The authors analyzed data from about 20,000 students from Germany that participated in an assessment based on the national educational standards for English in 2009. The researchers explored the long-term effects of an early start to English instruction on receptive language proficiencies in Year 9 by comparing early starters (Year 1), a middle group (year 3) and late starters (Year 5). Overall, the proficiency levels of the groups differed only marginally.

Learning English became mandatory in almost all primary schools in 15 of the 16 federal states in Germany in 2004/2005. However, it can be assumed that it took some time until all primary school students actually received English instruction. The data for the study conducted by Baumert et al. (2020) were collected only five years after this change to the curriculum. These students left primary school in around 2005 when implementation of the reform had just begun. In particular, we assume that a sufficient provision of trained EFL teachers could not be guaranteed at that time. The number of qualified English teachers at primary schools and teachers’ ability to teach young children a foreign language should have increased by now as more universities provide training for future EFL primary school teachers. There should also be a higher awareness for a need to support the transition from primary to secondary level and may have positively influenced the quality of teaching. This, then, may lead to an advantage for students with an early onset of English instruction over late English learners, including positive long-term learning effects. Taken together, the learning conditions for students learning English early in primary school may have improved. In order to test this assumption, we analyzed data from the consecutive national educational monitoring study conducted by the IQB in 2015 with students in Year 9. However, as previously pointed out, the onset and length of English instruction in school may differ between and within states. The reason is that some schools offered students from our target group voluntary learning opportunities while students at other schools may not have received English instruction due to a lack of qualified teachers. To take these differences into account, we assessed the onset of EFL instruction at the individual level and differentiate between three groups of learners: students who began learning English before Year 3, in Year 3 and those who have were taught English from Year 4 or 5.

Increasing linguistic diversity in many contexts across the globe and the spread of innovative technologies in teaching and learning pose unique demands on language assessment. In linguistically diverse contexts, individuals' language repertoires may embrace various language skills in multiple languages that necessitate the adjustment of existing instruments to different populations (e.g., ethnic groups) and languages (e.g., heritage and foreign languages; see De Angelis, 2021; Schissel, 2019). Furthermore, the dynamic nature of language skills requires using such tests or other instruments that can capture language development. Tests used for cross-sectional measurements are not necessarily applicable to longitudinal designs, requiring comparability of repeated measurements over time (Barkaoui, 2014). In the digital age, these challenges may also be accompanied by the application of new technologies in administration, scoring, reporting, and interpretation of tests (Neumann et al., 2019). Despite the common nature of challenges around educational assessments in multilingual constellations faced in different national contexts, there has been little consideration of the solutions' generalizability beyond national contexts.

The current symposium addresses such assessment-related challenges of multilingual testing and elaborates on coping strategies. Common perspectives will be presented based on the research conducted in different national contexts. The session strives to raise consciousness about the similarity of challenges across the globe in assessing language skills in linguistically diverse contexts in the digital age. The symposium elaborates on solutions to various assessment-related challenges by bringing together cutting-edge research from different national contexts. The objectives of our symposium are:

1. to enhance the knowledge of the similarities of assessment-related challenges in different national contexts and multilingual constellations;
2. to provide insight into strategies to cope with these challenges;
3. to discuss implications for the international applicability of these coping strategies and their transferability across national contexts.

The first paper investigates a C-test's applicability for foreign language development measures in secondary education in bilingual and monolingual students in Germany. Thereby, different scoring methods are used to compare students' receptive and productive skills. The second paper presents the adaptation of the construct of Core Analytic Language Skills (CALS) to Chinese (CH-CALS). The study advances our scientific understanding of CALS as a theory-driven and robust measure of students' literacy development beyond the western languages. The third paper examines the comparability of the standardized Graz Vocabulary Test (GRAWO: Seifert et al., 2017) with its digital, APP-based version (Paleczek et al., 2021). Further, it addresses the differences in the acceptance of the two modalities by students and teachers and discusses the tests' applicability in a school context. The fourth paper explores the multilingual digital learning platform Binogi used by teachers in Canada to assess the learning gaps of middle-grade students in STEM.

Overall, the projects represent different national contexts (Austria, Canada, China, and Germany), allowing for a reflection of single empirical findings from a global perspective. Discussing the measurement of language skills in linguistically diverse contexts in the digital age and exploring the new modalities and tools will enable us to work jointly and elaborate steps necessary for establishing more efficient and valuable educational assessments.

Structure of the session. The session will begin with a brief introductory talk by the discussant, followed by a presentation of papers. After that, the discussant will launch a discussion on the impact of findings on the assessment of language skills in linguistically diverse settings in the digital age.

This contribution considers the applicability of the C-Test for measuring language skills in multilingual students from a longitudinal perspective. A challenge in this context is finding appropriate tests to tackle development in multilingual repertoires (De Angelis, 2021; Schissel, 2019). Tests need to adhere to the classic standards of test quality – objectivity, reliability, validity – and the modalities of their verification (AERA et al. 2014): (1) If multiple languages are measured simultaneously, tests need to be adjusted to the specifics of particular languages while enabling the cross-language comparison. (2) To capture true development in language proficiency as the trait under study, the measurements must be invariant over time (longitudinal measurement invariance, see Cheug & Rensvold 2002). (3) In the case of multilingual learners, tests must also be sensitive to particular aspects of language proficiency at different stages of language development. In the current study, we explore the potential of C-tests to provide a differentiated approach to the assessment of foreign language development in bilingual and monolingual secondary school students in Germany. C-tests are among the instruments that are widely used as a measure of general language proficiency in foreign language testing (Grotjahn 2002). According to their theoretical construct, they should be (1) appropriate for measuring different stages of language development (Aguado et al. 2007); (2) offer different scoring procedures to distinguish between modes of language skills (receptive/productive) as well as between different aspects of language skills (semantic skills/spelling). However, a C-test's applicability for assessing development in multiple languages has not been explored yet. We draw on data from the German panel study "Multilingual Development: A Longitudinal Perspective" (MEZ) students' language skills in the foreign languages English (n = 1987) and French (n = 662). Our analytic strategy comprises three parts: (1) We investigated longitudinal mean differences in the scoring procedures to investigate the C-test's discriminant validity between semantic and spelling skills. (2) We build a latent measurement model of the C-test using confirmatory factor analysis to test for longitudinal measurement invariance. (3) We explored the applicability of c-tests for a digital testing mode by comparing scores gathered in analogous and digital testing modalities. The results of our study provide evidence that C-tests meet the classic criteria for test quality, such as reliability and validity. Further, a C-test meets the additional requirements of longitudinal testing and allows for capturing both general and specific aspects of language skills.

Aguado, K., Grotjahn, R., & Schlak, T. (2007). Erwerbsalter und Sprachlernfolg: Zeitlimitierte C-Tests als Instrument zur Messung prozeduralen sprachlichen Wissens. In H. J. Vollmer (Ed.), Kolloquium Fremdsprachenunterricht: Vol. 27. Synergieeffekte in der Fremdsprachenforschung: Empirische Zugänge, Probleme, Ergebnisse (pp. 137–149). Lang. American Educational Research Association. (2014). Standards for educational and psycho-logical testing. American Educational Research Association Barkaoui, K. (2014). Quantitative Approaches for Analyzing Longitudinal Data in Second Language Research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 34, 65–101. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190514000105 De Angelis, G. (2021). Multilingual Testing and Assessment. Bristol, Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781800410558 Grotjahn, R. (2002). Konstruktion und Einsatz von C-Tests: Ein Leitfaden für die Praxis. In Rüdiger Grotjahn (ed.), Der C-Test. Theoretische Grundlagen und praktische Anwendungen (vol. 4, pp. 211–225). Bochum: AKS-Verlag. Schissel, J. L., Leung, C., & Chalhoub-Deville, M. (2019). The Construct of Multilingualism in Language Testing. Language Assessment Quarterly, 16(4–5), 373–378. https://doi.org/10.1080/15434303.2019.1680679

Non-fiction reading comprehension is a challenging literacy task in upper-elementary grades. In prior research on English- and Spanish-speaking students, Core Analytic Language Skills (CALS) has been found to significantly predict non-fiction reading comprehension, even controlling for vocabulary knowledge. This construct has yet to be examined in Chinese, a language with distinct orthographic features and discourse structure compared to western languages. CALS refers to a constellation of high-utility language skills needed to unpack sophisticated information in non-fiction texts at the lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels. Guided by the operational definition of CALS and based on a systemtic review of literature and corpora in Chinese, this study has three objectives: 1) to develop and validate a theory-driven and psychometrically-robust assessment of Chinese Core Analytic Language Skills (i.e., the CH-CALS Instrument); 2) to explore the dimensionality of the CH-CALS construct and the instrument; and 3) to examine the contribution of CH-CALS to non-fiction reading comprehension in Chinese, controlling for students’ vocabulary knowledge and demographic characteristics. A cross-sectional sample of 248 Chinese students (Grade 5-6) from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds participated in the study. Using classical test theory and item response theory analysis, we found robust reliability evidence for the CH-CALS instrument (alpha coefficient = 0.88). Consistent with prior research in English and Spanish, most tasks in CH-CALS displayed upward trends in the higher grade yet with considerable within-grade variability. The Rasch modeling results supported the unidimensional structure of the CH-CALS instrument. Principal Component Analysis also revealed that CH-CALS loaded onto a single composite score. The aggregated CH-CALS score significantly predicted non-fiction reading comprehension in Chinese, beyond the contribution of grade, socioeconomic status, and vocabulary. This study advances our scientific understanding of CALS as relevant for students’ literacy development beyond the western languages. The CH-CALS construct and its measurement instrument offer a promising tool to enhance language teaching and assessment practices in Chinese elementary classrooms.

Uccelli, P., Galloway, E.P., & Qin, W. (2020). The language for school literacy: Widening the lens on language and reading relations. In Handbook of Reading Research (Vol. V, pp. 155-180). New York: Routledge. Qin, W., Zheng, Y., & Uccelli, P. (2021). Core Language Skills in EFL Academic Reading Comprehension: A Construct and its Assessment. 6.

Vocabulary is a prerequisite for many school-relevant skills. In particular, reading competence (word reading, reading comprehension) is predicted by vocabulary knowledge in kindergarten (e.g., Ennemoser et al., 2012). For second language (L2) learners, this tight relationship is even closer (e.g., Seifert et al., 2019). L2 learners are outperformed by their L1 learner peers in reading tests (e.g., Melby-Lervåg & Lervåg, 2014). In order to adequately support children's reading skills, valid vocabulary assessments are crucial (Ennemoser et al., 2012). Using digital tools can facilitate assessment and it offers some advantages over traditional print methods, namely in administration, automated scoring, interpretation and feedback, as well as student motivation (e.g., Neumann et al., 2019). Although digitalizing print assessments is a natural step in the transition to technology-based assessments (Neumann et al., 2019), digital test results need to be comparable to those of the print version. However, the growing body of international research on the impact of test modality is inconsistent (Blumenthal & Blumenthal, 2020). The paper compares the print version of the standardized Graz Vocabulary Test (GRAWO: Seifert et al., 2017) with a digital, APP-based version (Paleczek et al., 2021) on a sample of n = 400 first grade children. In addition to the validation (teacher assessment for convergent and discriminant validity), feasibility data (survey of students regarding preference of modality) are presented. The GraWo was conducted at the beginning and at the end of the school year in a classroom setting, while one part of the sample received the classic print version fist and the other part was first presented with the digital version via iPads. The aims of this paper are to examine whether the results of the digital test are comparable to those of the print version, to find out how well the test can be used in a school context, and whether there are differences in the acceptance of the two modalities by students and teachers.

Blumenthal, S., & Blumenthal, Y. (2020). Tablet or Paper and Pen? Examining Mode Effects on German Elementary School Students’ Computation Skills with Curriculum Based Measurements. International Journal of Educational Methodology, 6(4), 669 680. https://doi.org/10.12973/ijem.6.4.669 Ennemoser, M., Marx, P., Weber, J, & Schneider, W. (2012). Spezifische Vorläuferfertigkeiten der Lesegeschwindigkeit, des Leseverständnisses und des Rechtschreibens. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie, 44(2), 53-67. Melby-Lervåg, M., & Lervåg, A. (2014). Reading comprehension and its underlying components in second-language learners: A meta-analysis of studies comparing first- and second-language learners. Psychological Bulletin, 140(2), 409–433. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033890 Neumann, M. M., Anthony, J. L., Erazo, N. A., & Neumann, D. L. (2019). Assessment and Technology: Mapping Future Directions in the Early Childhood Classroom. Frontiers in Education, 4, Article 116, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00116 Paleczek, L., Seifert, S., & Schöfl, M. (2021). Comparing digital to print assessment of receptive vocabulary with GraWo-KiGa in Austrian kindergarten. British Journal of Educational Technology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13163 Seifert, S., Paleczek, L., & Gasteiger-Klicpera, B. (2019). Rezeptive Wortschatzleistungen von Grundschulkindern mit Deutsch als Erst- und Zweitsprache und der Zusammenhang zu den Lesefähigkeiten: Implikationen für einen inklusiven Unterricht. Empirische Sonderpädagogik, 4, 259-278. Seifert, S., Paleczek, L., Schwab, S., & Gasteiger-Klicpera, B. (2017). Grazer Wortschatztest – GraWo. Göttingen: Hogrefe.

Learning the language of the school continues to be considered a key factor in the academic success of language learners. Language learners need at least five years to catch up with their native-speaking peers in school (e.g., Cummins, 1981; Collier, 1987; Levin & Shohamy, 2008). During this time, they invest a substantial proportion of their efforts in learning the school language. As a result, some fall behind academically (Cummins, 1989; Cummins, 2000; Collier & Thomas, 1989; OECD, 2016). One of the crucial advantages of digital technologies is that they can incorporate different languages, which provides a unique opportunity for teachers to assess their students in STEM content in languages they know (Stacy et al. 2017). Such technology can provide a more accurate impression of their knowledge and skills in these domains (Educational Testing Service, 2012). Teachers need to learn, however, how to use and implement novel multilingual digital tools. If applied in the right way, such multilingual digital programs can, not only serve as a learning tool for students, but also provide the teacher with insight into the students' true academic skills. In this study, we explored this issue by examining how 17 teachers used a multilingual digital learning platform called Binogi to assess the learning gaps of middle-grade students in STEM. We implemented and evaluated the impact of this online STEM-focused program that combines a highly engaging interface with a choice of several languages across Ontario in schools where there is a greater than average number of plurilingual students. We sought to elucidate the experiences of teachers with regards to using this technology and various strategies to support them in learning to integrate multilingual assessments across the STEM curriculum. Our study reveals the essential role that multilingual resources like Binogi can play in terms of translanguaging pedagogy. It also allows us to identify a number of preconditions for their effective use. In this presentation, I will emphasize that the condition for a fair assessment for these students is a medium to long term assessment that considers the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the students in a perspective of reciprocal knowledge. I will show that in order to distinguish between the academic and language profiles of students, it is necessary, but not sufficient, to assess them in a language in which they feel comfortable.

Cummins J. (1981). Empirical and Theoretical Underpinnings of Bilingual Education. Journal of Education, 163(1),16-29. doi:10.1177/002205748116300104 Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Multilingual Matters Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2001.10162800 Collier, V.P., & Thomas, W.P. (1989). How quickly can immigrants become proficient in school English? Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students, 5, 26-38. Levin, T. & Shohamy, E. (2008). Achievement of immigrant students in mathematics and academic Hebrew in Israeli school: A large-scale evaluation study. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 34(1), 1-14. OECD (2016), Education at a Glance 2016: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris. Stacy, S. T., Cartwright, M., Arwood, Z., Canfield, J. P., & Kloos, H. (2017). Addressing the math- practice gap in elementary school: Are tablets a feasible tool for informal math practice? Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 179.

As the linguistic landscape in European schools has changed due to migration, the teaching of languages associated with migration is often considered a threat to integration and national unity (Extra, 2017; Salö, Ganuza, Hedman & Karrebæk, 2018). Despite this hostile discourse, many students are still given the opportunity to study their heritage language (HL) as part of mainstream education in several European countries (Gogolin, 2021; Pfaff, Dollnick & Herkenrath, 2017; Salö et al., 2018; Woerfel, Küppers & Schroeder, 2020). Such educational provisions are nevertheless under constant pressure, as politicians and the public question its legitimacy (Salö et al., 2018; Soukah, 2022), and have also been practically abolished in countries, such as Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. As a consequence, parents, migrant organisations, and religious communities set up supplementary schools to teach the HL language of their community (Simon, 2018). In the paper at hand, I investigate how Arabic literacy education as part of two Arabic HL settings in Norway and Sweden, respectively served as sites for transculturation of Arabic literacy in the two European countries.

Although movements across borders may contribute to decontextualise certain literacy practices, new practices will naturally emerge through processes of transculturation (Ortiz, 1940; Pratt, 1991). Writing from the Cuban context, where Indigenous, European, African, and Asian cultures clashed and interacted over several centuries, the sociologist Fernando Ortiz (1940) proposed transculturación as a concept to capture the result of this cultural interaction. Ortiz (1940, p. 93) proposed the term as a replacement for the concept acculturation, which he found to be imprecise and insufficient to describe the Cuban context. Although transculturation entails a loss of the previous cultures, it also hails the birth of a new culture, which transcends the previous (Ortiz, 1940, p. 96). As a result of migration over the past few decades, Europe is currently constituted of superdiverse societies (Vertovec, 2007), and processes of transculturation are visible all around us. When Pratt uses the term transculturation, she delineates this concept as the process whereby ‘members of subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted by a dominant or metropolitan culture’ (Pratt, 1991, p. 36). As Pratt (1991, p. 36) asserts, transculturation is a phenomenon of the contact zone.

Students in the Arab diaspora taking part in Arabic heritage language education are situated in-between the cultural, linguistic, political, and religious communities of the Arab world, and their current surroundings. Although Arabic might be considered a language with low prestige in their current setting, the language holds high prestige in the Arab world (Versteegh, 2014). Hence, heritage language education can be described as a contact zone, which Pratt (1991, p. 34) defines as ‘social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power’. In Scandinavia, speakers of Arabic constitute a small minority of the population and Arabic provides limited opportunities in Scandinavian societies. This situation contributes to the asymmetrical relations of power between speakers of Arabic and the society at large. In criticising stable and monolithic conceptualisations of ‘speech communities’, Pratt (1991, p. 37) argues that ‘the idea of the contact zone is intended in part to contrast with ideas of community that underlie much of the thinking about language, communication, and culture that gets done in the academy’. The contact zone is instead a place of encounter and diffusion.

In German schools there is a big amount of different languages which are used, spoken, written and taught in different contexts within different schooling, teaching and social practices. School does not only include “only” German, which is given credit to even in teacher education (for example in NRW, Mercator 2009).

We want to present results of our research on how teenagers report and see their language usage within their school practices. In addition to the concept of “language(s) of schooling” (Boeckmann et al 2013), we consider the whole range of school practices and languages, including their translanguaging practices. By the latter concept we mean “[…] the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually national and state) languages“ (Otheguy, García & Reid 2015: 281).

Our research aims to provide an insight into how teenagers used their language repertoire, including their heritage Russian, at school (inclusive remote learning) during, shortly after and after all of the lockdown, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, in Germany. In order to do so, we will address the following questions.

1. WITH WHOM is WHICH language used in school context, HOW and HOW OFTEN / FOR HOW LONG in order to reach WHICH purpose? School context here means during time of schooling and at the place of schooling.

1. Which SITUATIONS are described by the students, in which it becomes clear that they - or others around them - use translanguaging?

1. What are the significant CHANGES in their use of languages during the German “Lockdown” compared to the time after Lockdown?

Furthermore, using our qualitative interviews we can answer the question of WHAT circumstances or what situations lead to most usage of the heritage language.

Summarized, what we focus on in our research is the full repertoire languages in the day-to-day life of the teenagers. Compared to the model of Hägi-Mead et al (2021) this positions our research not only in the field of “Language systems & Learning Language(s)”, but also in the outspread field of “Language(s) and society”.

Research on multilingual teenagers and their own language agency is scarce. There are results from studies looking at children, at home in the family (eg Crump 2016) but also in kindergarten & first years at school (eg Rydenvald 2018). There are studies looking at the family situation (eg Smith-Chris 2019) or the situation in and with the society (eg Kimura 2015), but rarely are teenagers themselves the subject researched. This presentation with focus on this specific group of people is not common in the HL research, which is why we aim to close this gap a little with our specific research design and focus.

Literacy is generally understood as people’s ways of creating or interpreting meaningful signs, such as printed text or images. While the cognitive view on literacy focuses on literacy skills and abilities, the sociocultural approach addresses literacies as practices of individuals or communities (Kelly, 2010). A similar dichotomy exists regarding literacy in early childhood. In this case, emergent literacy describes young children’s reading and writing behaviours that precede so-called conventional literacy (Sulzby & Teale, 1996). Studies in this area, therefore, often aim to measure young children’s literacy skills and evaluate their school readiness.

In contrast, early literacy addresses young children’s literacy practices as part of a continuous learning process and values their various multimodal ways of engaging with print (Kress, 1997). This child-centred perspective highlights the social aspect of literacy and considers children as active co-constructers of meaning. It allows us to move beyond a focus on formal aspects of literacy learning, such as letter knowledge or phonological awareness, as it foregrounds sociocultural dimensions of literacy, like the function, the associated norms and values, or the personal meanings of books. Many studies have demonstrated the positive impact of children’s early engagement with books and other literacy tools on later language and literacy development (Hall, Larson, & Marsh, 2003; Neuman & Dickinson, 2001) and, consequently, academic success (Dickinson, Griffith, Golinkoff, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2012). By contrast, qualitative studies on young children’s literacy practices and related meaning-making processes are rare (Worthington & van Oers, 2017). Hence, the need for more precise descriptions of early literacy engagement remains. While the term ‘meaning-making’ is frequently used in sociocultural research on early literacy, researchers fail to define it precisely. In this paper, I aim to account for this research gap by ‘mapping’ the meaning-making of young children in the context of their engagement with books. In line with researchers who have studied meaning-making in visual arts or science education (Fredriksen, 2011; Siry & Gorges, 2019), I suggest that meaning-making requires children to connect their past and present experiences meaningfully. Furthermore, making meaning in the context of early reading entails an engagement with the material, pragmatic and linguistic aspects of books.

A considerable number of students in primary schools show reading difficulties (e.g., 15.55% of 3^rd and 4^th grade students in a representative sample of 1633 German speaking children; Moll et al., 2014). This developmental learning disorder is characterized by profound difficulties regarding reading related skills (e.g., reading comprehension, reading fluency and reading accuracy) (WHO, 2022). Moreover, these difficulties tend to persist and may have a negative impact on almost all school subjects as well as the wellbeing of the individuals (Klicpera et al., 1993).

In addition to reading difficulties, often comorbid internal as well as external socio-emotional disorders occur (Gasteiger-Klicpera et al., 2006; Hendren et al. 2018). According to Schulte-Körne (2010), 40-60% of the children with reading difficulties show comorbid deficits in social-emotional skills. A high prevalence is found between specific learning disorders and depression, ADHD, conduct disorder and anxiety disorder (Visser et al., 2020). Moreover, starting from the other perspective, students with social-emotional difficulties often develop reading difficulties (Turunen et al., 2018). This leads to an unfavourable prognosis for the academic development of these children. Yet, it is unresolved which student factors moderate the relationship between reading difficulties and social-emotional deficits. It is possible that social-emotional difficulties reinforce reading difficulties and vice versa (Gasteiger-Klicpera et al., 2006; Hurry et al., 2018). Due to this, early twofold interventions, addressing both reading and social-emotional difficulties (e.g., Boyes et al., 2020) seem to be of utmost importance. If only one of the two difficulties is addressed, the others remain and persist without intervention throughout life.

This paper presents a screening of reading and social-emotional skills of approximately 1200 primary graders in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Regarding reading skills, lexical decoding was assessed and both the students and their teachers provided information on their social-emotional skills (internalizing and externalizing characteristics). To identify those difficulties at an early stage is highly relevant in order to be able to implement appropriate intervention strategies. The collected data offer a current overview of the comorbidity rates of three German-speaking European countries and reveals the potential need for twofold interventions addressing both the reading and social-emotional difficulties.

The screening is part of the project Lubo-LRS, a cooperation project of University of Cologne, University of Teacher Education in Special Needs Zurich and University of Graz; funded by Marga and Walter Boll foundation. The project aims to develop and evaluate a preventive training program fostering social-emotional skills of children with reading difficulties. By focusing on social-emotional challenges that may accompany reading difficulties, students may be strengthened in this regard and psychosocial consequences may be intercepted from the beginning (University of Cologne, 2022). Therefore, the screening (summer 2022) identified students with reading difficulties (the reading skills being one and a half standard deviation below the mean) for the intervention phase (winter 2022 - summer 2023).

In this paper, the following research questions are addressed:

• What is the proportion of first graders with reading and additional social-emotional difficulties in Germany, Switzerland and Austria?
• To what extent are gender differences evident?
• What social-emotional difficulties are particularly prevalent in this sample?

Adequate reading comprehension skills are fundamental for academic success and adult well-being (Lervåg et al., 2018). Adolescence presents a critical stage in reading development. It is the transitional period, as readers are expected to become proficient in decoding and understanding words in isolation and turn to learning of meaning construction from complex texts. Adolescents need to master how to rapidly form a so-called “situation model of text” and integrate new words as they read to build a rich representation of the text which is beyond what is stated explicitly (Kintsch, 1998). This integration process is described by the Reading Systems Framework (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014) which states that excellent readers are characterized by effortless access to orthographic and lexical representations from a written text, while less skilled readers experience difficulties with word and sentence integration. Although studies into cognitive and neurofunctional underpinnings in reading comprehension and its difficulties are not numerous (Landi & Ryherd, 2017), the common agreement is that various combinations of (1) readers’ individual differences, such as reading fluency, vocabulary, free recall, verbal and non-verbal working memory (Spencer et al., 2018), and (2) text parameters, such as sentence and text complexity (Rayner & Pollatsek, 1989; Clifton & Staub, 2011), account for variations in reading comprehension performance (Leon Guerrero et al., 2021)

The current study’s general objective is to investigate readers and text factors contributing to reading comprehension performance, utilizing eye-tracking methodology. Three points constitute the study’s rationale and novelty.

First, over the past 30 years, a vast body of research focusing on eye movements in reading also considered individual differences and stimuli complexity (Rayner et al., 2015). In an eye-tracking study, Kuperman and colleagues (2018) found that syntactic complexity of paragraphs strongly predicted reading comprehension and eye movement behavior in English-speaking university students. However, the findings on effects of syntactic text properties are not always consistent (Arya et al., 2011). Further, lexical units that constrain the way in which parts of discourse are interpreted (Nyan, 2016) add a lot to the text structure and thus, might also contribute to the reading comprehension. For this reason, in the current study, we focus on the role that syntactic complexity, i.e. sentence structures, and lexical complexity, i.e. discourse markers and key nouns used in the text, play in adolescents’ reading patterns.

Second, another point considers study methodology. A huge part of studies focused on words and sentences. Paragraphs, on the other hand, provide more ecological stimuli for reading research, enabling evaluation of reading strategies and overall reading behavior. Furthermore, in the recent decade, new methods for analyzing eye movement parameters emerged. One example is the scanpath analysis, which has significant advantages over analysis of average parameters of fixation and saccade per each area of interest (von der Malsburg et al., 2015). Here, we utilize a scanpath approach to study overall reading patterns and different reading strategies used by readers during sentence and paragraph reading.

Third, while extensive research was conducted on the structural relations between reading comprehension and reading-related skills in the English language (Garcia & Cain, 2014; Rayner et al., 2015), other languages are still understudied (Landerl et al., 2022). The current work focuses on these issues in the Russian language, providing an opportunity to extrapolate existing findings for another language and orthography.

To summarize, the aim of this research is to (1) identify reading patterns characteristic of skilled and less skilled adolescent readers using the scanpath analysis and (2) explore whether and how sentence complexity and reading-related individual differences contribute to reading patterns of skilled and less skilled adolescent readers.

The richness of literacy experiences at home and in settings of early childhood education and care (ECEC) shapes children's language and literacy trajectories and predicts their school achievements (Skibbe et al., 2011; Wasik et al., 2016; Wood et al., 2018). In ECEC contexts, the practice of interactive story reading such as dialogic reading has been given much attention because the rich and meaningful interactions between adults and children during literacy events contribute to children’s development of oral skills in one or several languages (Farver et al., 2013; Whitehurst et al., 1998). While home languages are the foundation on which to develop additional languages (Herzog-Punzenberg et al., 2017), literacy practices in multiple languages are still rare in ECEC (Kirsch & Bergeron-Morin, 2023). More research has emerged in the last years owing to the implementation of multilingual programmes in several European countries or states (e.g. Germany, Switzerland). This is also the case in Luxembourg, where the current project comes from.

Luxembourg has three official languages (Luxembourgish, French, German) but many more are spoken on account of the highly diverse population. At present, two-thirds of the children in ECEC do not speak Luxembourgish as their home language (MENJE, 2022). Following the 2017 Education Act on multilingual education for one- to-four-year-olds in ECEC, educators in day care centres are required to develop children’s skills in Luxembourgish (or French), familiarise them with French (or Luxembourgish) and value the children’s linguistic and cultural backgrounds. To promote language development, the national framework foresees that educators engage children in regular literacy activities in multiple languages, possibly with the assistance of parents inside the centres. A survey in 2020 found that most educators read and told stories in multiple languages, mainly in French, Luxembourgish and German, more rarely in Portuguese, though not every educator read every day (Kirsch & Aleksić, 2021). Like elsewhere, educators are frequently unsure of how to engage children in such complex practices and use translanguaging effectively in this process.

Translanguaging is the strategic deployment of a person’s entire semiotic repertoire to communicate and make meaning (García & Otheguy, 2020). It is the main pillar of translanguaging pedagogies which help teachers leverage the learners’ multilingual and multimodal resources for learning. These critical pedagogies can be transformative for learners and teachers as they empower the learners to connect home and school languages, valued equally. Literacy activities in multiple languages are part of the design of translanguaging pedagogies and have proven to develop students’ confidence in engaging in literacy, deepen their understanding of text, increase the diversity of the texts they produce, and promote their metalinguistic awareness (García & Kleifgen, 2019). There are, however, few studies on multilingual literacy practices with younger children.

Based on a longitudinal mixed-method project in Luxembourg, the present paper investigates literacy practices in multiple languages in three day care centres, focusing on educators who work with three-year-old children. In a qualitative study, we intended, firstly, to explore which literacy activities in which languages the educators offered over one academic year and in which ways they interacted with children. Secondly, based on these findings, we aimed to conceptualize the educators’ practices in relation to several dimensions, being inspired both by Hornberger’s continua of biliteracy (2022) and translanguaging (García, 2016; García & Kleifgen, 2019).

Multilingualism has long been a fact widely across Europe (Gogolin, 1994). Germany, one of Europe's major countries, has traditionally been a destination for immigrants in many different cultural and political forms (Gogolin et al., 2019). The migration movements have come with some interwoven variables, e.g., language, religion, gender, age, legal status as well as ethnic background (Vertovec, 2009). Of these variables, language diversity pertains to the most important factors that can be applicable to educational contexts (Gogolin et al., 2019), which means that schools and classrooms, especially foreign language classrooms are abundant in students with a variety of language backgrounds (Bonnett & Siemund, 2018). However, many areas of the educational system still exhibit the signs of “monolingual habitus” (Gogolin, 2021). It is argued that a “multilingual turn” is needed to attend to the disparity between multilingual society and monolingual approaches applied (Putjata et al., 2022). In order to make this change possible, focusing on teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism can be one of the departure points considering that teachers’ beliefs can play an important role in success and future opportunities of all students, in particular those from different language and cultural backgrounds (Lucas, et al., 2015). Portolés and Martí (2018) found that initial teacher training is beneficial in forming pre-service teachers’ beliefs about multilingual pedagogies. Understanding of teachers’ beliefs is crucial given that teachers’ beliefs are such a substantial predictor of what happens in the classroom (Borg, 2006). Teachers’ beliefs have a considerable impact on how they understand classroom situations, develop their practice, and treat practice-related challenges (Skott, 2015). Fischer (2018) produced the theoretical construct of teachers’ professional beliefs including seven dimensions: epistemological beliefs, beliefs about teaching, beliefs about the teachers’ role (self), beliefs about the students, beliefs about school in general, beliefs about teacher training, and beliefs from a social perspective as well as referring to their beliefs about linguistic and cultural diversity.

Language teachers, including English language teachers, play an important role in supporting students’ multilingualism. However, surprisingly language teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism and multilingual pedagogies have been scarcely examined in the related literature (Haukås, 2016). Considering this research gap, the current study focuses on pre-service English language teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism in the classroom at a state-run university in Germany, University of Hamburg, and seeks to investigate English language teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism in the classroom in depth. In particular, the study aims to answer the following research question:

How can pre-service English language teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism in the classroom be described?

Global education is an approach that aims to increase students' knowledge and awareness of the world they live in by addressing global problems in the lessons (Erfani, 2012; Jacobs & Cates, 1999). In this framework, global issues are handled in the lessons, and education can have a transformative function, rather than being in a structure that conveys information. English teachers have one of the biggest responsibilities in the transformation of foreign language learning from a scope in which only grammar rules and the characteristics of the target culture are conveyed to a scope where global issues are discussed and students have knowledge about various subjects and have the opportunity to convey their opinions by using the learned language as a tool (Byram, 1989; Erfani, 2012; Hosack, 2011; Pratama & Yuliati, 2016). The communicative approach and content-based instruction, which are popular methods of foreign language teaching, also suggest that meaning is significant for language education and language teachers could be considered lucky because they have a wide range of topics to include in their classes (Jacobs & Cates, 1999). Although there is no limitation as to what the global issues are, the ones most mentioned could be listed as gender equality, migration, environmental problems, health, poverty, respect, solidarity, and peace (British Council, 2009; UN, 2023). However, global foreign language coursebooks usually deal with topics regarded as harmless (British Council, 2009; Erfani, 2012; Pratama ve Yuliati, 2016) and they do not focus on controversial topics that affect the different parts of the world although this would be more useful for students in terms of connecting the language learning and daily life issues (Akbana & Yavuz, 2020). On the other hand, it is often emphasized by foreign language teaching authorities such as CEFR and TESOL that global issues are important and should not be ignored in EFL classes (Council of Europe, 2020; Erfani, 2012). Thus, adding national or local materials to the curriculum is important for language teachers because they may be suited to the needs of students more (Jacobs & Cates, 1999).

In light of this situation, it seems feasible to organize English lessons under the scope of global issues (Arslangilay, 2017; Cates, 2002; Yakovchuk, 2004). Considering the age and developmental levels, interests, and future lives of the students, it seems necessary to address global issues, especially in the university environment. For this reason, it is important to investigate the place of global issues in the English courses offered at the university and this study aims to determine the current situation regarding the use of global issues in English preparatory classes by taking the views of English lecturers. The answers to the following research questions are sought in this study:

1 What are the opinions of the English lecturers about using global issues in their lessons?

2 How do the English lecturers use global issues in their lessons?

3 How does the cultural and social profile of the classroom affect the instruction of English lecturers?

Despite the existence of some studies on the use of global issues in foreign language teaching in other countries (Cates& Jacobs, 2006; Erfani, 2012; Pratama & Yuliati, 2016; Yakovchuk, 2004), studies on this are rare in the context of Türkiye (Akbana & Yavuz, 2020; Arslangilay, 2017; Başarır, 2018). Therefore, this study is especially significant for revealing the current situation and guiding the decision-makers and practitioners in terms of utilizing global issues in language teaching.

This qualitative research presents two case studies in the field of secondary education focused on the use of school radio as an innovative educational tool for improving linguistic communication skills, both oral and written comprehension and production, taking into account the needs and interests of students and the sociolinguistic context in which their activities take place. The first case was developed during the recording of the radio adaptation of a play by students with specific educational support needs, and the second one took place during the school radio workshops, made up of voluntary students. In both cases, the different talents of the students are taken into account, promoting learning from critical literacy approaches since reading and writing are not only cognitive processes or acts of (dis)codification, but also social tasks, cultural practices historically rooted in a community of speakers (Cassany & Castellà, 2010). In critically literate environments, students are given opportunities to ask questions, deconstruct stereotypes, co-construct knowledge, and examine multiple perspectives (Cleovoulou, Y., & Beach, P. 2019).

The use of the radio as an educational tool makes it possible to create a link between education and this media, at the same time it allows working on linguistic communication competence from different perspectives. It has achieved high effectiveness in teaching and learning processes through specific didactics that have boosted its use as educational tool. (Araya-Rivera, 2017). It also, contributes to improve students' oral and written expression, promotes comprehension of oral and written texts, learn to listen, to express opinions, to work in groups and to socialise with their peers. The use of the school radio directly transforms the teaching and learning process, stimulating the construction of knowledge, the creativity, the expression of language, the collective participation and the student's participation in the citizenship education.

In addition, it facilitates the acquisition of vocabulary and the improvement of communication for students with poor reading skills and visual deficits, providing a very favourable channel of information and communication and contributing significantly to the integral formation of the student in relation to the four pillars of education: "learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together and learning to be" (Cobo, J., & Torres, P. 2016:320).

The use of radio is intended to make citizens more democratic and supportive, reflective and critical, autonomous and responsible, creative and imaginative, making it a medium that fascinates both students and teachers (López Ayuso, M.A. 2021).

Furthermore, school radio enables the development of critical thinking in students because not only promotes communication within their educational institution, but also transcends into their community. (Apaza Escobedo, Y., 2020).

The research questions of this study are as follows:

What are the opportunities, challenges and problems for the development of communication competence through pedagogical proposals of creative experimentation and collaborative learning based on the use of school radios as a teaching tool?

What limitations and possibilities do secondary education institutions encounter for the design and implementation of educational projects based on the production and dissemination of media content and its integration/articulation with the school curriculum?

One of the pillars of the Council of Europe agenda is to form plurilingual and pluricultural social agents who can successfully use their semiotic and linguistic repertoires during communication (Council of Europe, 2018). Another pillar of language education is including new technologies in the classroom and developing student's multiliteracies, which increasingly becomes a global agenda (United Nations, 2015).

This study aims to use both plurilingual and multiliteracies approaches to develop and validate an innovative pedagogical tool to foster language, plurilingual and critical media awareness of university students. In addition, we aim to contribute to a more global discussion on the intersection of multiliteracies and plurilingual education. To reach this objective we propose an innovative bridging activity for the classroom on Linguistic and Cultural diversity, mostly aimed at future language teachers at a Portuguese University. Bridging activity aims to connect students’ out-of-school activities with the in-school ones developing awareness of students’ informal language use (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008; Yeh & Mitric, 2021).

When developing the bridging activity, we follow Benson (2021) in the idea of focusing the research not only on human interaction, but also on the learning environments the students encounter. In our case, we will focus on online videos/video platforms and the relationship of the students as consumers with these platforms/videos. To do so the students have to document and reflect on their consumption of online videos including video-based platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Netflix or HBO. We consider these informal practices valuable for research and classroom implementation as previous research claims that online videos open opportunities for students to use their plurilingual repertoires through different and combined modalities (Shafirova & Cassany, 2019, Vazquez-Calvo et al, 2022).

The notion of bridging activity is based on the framework of multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015; Gee, 2004) which views literacy as a social practice and focuses on day-to-day language use. As online interaction is a day-to-day practice for most young people, this online language use also should be introduced to the classroom (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015). In our study, we aim for students to develop multiliteracy and autonomous learning skills when watching videos on different platforms including taking into account the affordances of the platforms, the work of algorithms and how it is connected to language varieties in the media. These multiliteracy skills are also connected to several types of language and media awareness including:

Learning awareness. Drawing on Garrett & James (1992) cognitive awareness, we refer to it as the student’s awareness of the language learning when watching, comprehending or reacting to videos in different languages or language varieties.

Plurilingual and pluricultural awareness. Here we are drawing on Byram’s (2012) cultural and language awareness, which goes beyond just paying attention to cultural and linguistic diversity, expanding it to analysis of the “language-culture nexus” in specific contexts. In our case, we refer to it as students’ noticing and reflecting on their daily use of language and cultural varieties when consuming different videos.

Critical language and media awareness. We adopt this term from Tagg & Seargeant (2021) following their idea of its being a fluid and interactional experience of the users. In this study, we aim to understand the students’ awareness of social media algorithms in terms of the appearance of different languages and linguistic variations when they interact with videos.

The main research questions of the study are (1) What design/implementation of a bridging activity can enhance multiliteracy skills and language awareness of university students? (2) How can this design/implementation contribute to the global discussion on the intersection of multiliteracies and plurilingual education?

All networks hold a meeting during ECER. All interested are welcome.

This paper aims to explore children’s agency in language policies and practices of immigrant families as well as their agency in their preschools and compulsory schools. This paper addresses the following research questions:

• How is children’s agency represented in multilingual contexts in families and schools in Iceland?
• How do these schools build on children’s multilingual resources?

The theoretical framework of the study includes family language policy and bi- and multilingual education theories (Cummins, 2021). According to King et al. (2008), the research field of family language policy (FLP) focuses on on how languages are learned, managed and negotiated within families. It brings together research on multilingualism, language acquisition, language policy and cultural studies.

While early approaches to FLP emphasized parental discourse strategy, linguistic environmental conditions and language input according to Curdt-Christiansen (2013), there has been a shift of focus towards issues such as why different values are ascribed to different languages, how parents view bilingualism from different perspectives such as sociocultural, emotional and cognitive, and what kinds of parental capital and family literacy environment are likely to promote bilingualism.

Schwartz (2018) has further discussed agency in interactions between children, teachers and parents. Wilson (2020), emphasizes the unique character of every child’s bilingual experience and her research indicates that children’s perspectives may differ greatly from their parents’, potentially leading to disharmony within the family. However, Fogle and King (2013) have explained that to understand children’s agency, interactions between parents and children should be studied.

According to Lanza (2007), children should be viewed as active social agents who contribute to adult society, while at the same time producing their own culture.

Previous research on second language acquisition agrees on the importance of first language knowledge and skills when developing literacy in a second language (e.g., Antoniou, 2019; Ganuza & Hedman, 2019). In Swedish compulsory school, the linguistic and cultural background of all students are supposed to be promoted. However, one measure in particular supports multilingual students’ simultaneous language and knowledge development, namely multilingual study guidance in the students’ first language (SOU 2019:18). The concept of multilingual study guidance used in this presentation is derived from the Swedish word studiehandledning (see Reath Warren, 2016) and is a short-term, state-financed support, helping multilingual students to reach the learning objectives of all subjects according to the different subjects’ curricula within the frame of the mainstream classroom (SNAE, 2020).

For multilingual students, multilingual study guidance tutors (hereafter tutors) are important key persons, bearing a big responsibility for their educational success (Rosén et al., 2019). However, and due to lack of official institutional identity issues, the tutors are constantly at risk of marginalization. According to Rosén et al. tutors’ opinions are seldom paid attention to. The variation between the individual tutors’ professional positioning and their individual professional prerequisites were found to differ to a great extent. Further challenges to functional multilingual study guidance, such as the shortage of available tutors, qualitative deficiencies, or inaccurate perception of the importance of this support measure have been identified by the Ministry of Education and Research (SOU 2019:18). Many tutors lack a university degree in teaching and learning (SOU 2019:18). Because of the general shortage of availability of tutors, such qualifications are not required for permanent employment (SNAE, 2020).

Whilst tutors are an important link between school and home culture, especially for newly arrived students (Rosén et al., 2020), mainstream teachers meet the students daily in a classroom situation. It has been argued that the tutors’ and mainstream teachers’ combined knowledge, experience, and backgrounds are needed to be able to support multilingual literacy development holistically (Sheikhi, 2019). Many Swedish schools are thus struggling with the implementation of this multilingual support measure (Author, 2018).

In order to shed light on the challenges in interdisciplinary collaboration between tutors and mainstream teachers, this paper turns to the tutors’ perspectives and focuses on how they describe their professional role, work responsibilities and the interdisciplinary collaboration with mainstream teachers for multilingual support and diverse education.

The aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the interdisciplinary collaboration between tutors and mainstream teachers for multilingual support.

The research questions were:

- How do tutors describe their professional role and their work responsibilities?

- How do tutors describe their collaboration with mainstream teachers?

- Does the tutors’ perception of their professional role and work responsibilities influence the interdisciplinary collaboration with mainstream teachers? If yes, in what way?

The study forms part of a wider research project which aims to get a more in-depth view of multilingual support in Swedish compulsory schools. In this paper, however, only results concerning multilingual study guidance tutors and their perspectives on their interdisciplinary collaboration with mainstream teachers as well as their professional role and work responsibilities are presented. By doing so this presentation tries to encourage dialogues about diversity in education and intercultural education.

Following the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have the right to be heard in matters concerning them (United Nations, 1989). Students' perspectives on their lives, are often overlooked (Fylkesnes et al, 2018). There is a contingency among the relational processes of children's socio-cultural environment and the different powers involved around children. Therefore, there is a great need to contextualise their voices within their social, economic and cultural context (Horgan, 2017). Therefore, this article focusses on identifying the structural drivers of discrimination in two contexts that differ significantly along different dimensions. The main goal is listening to the children voices by examining their own experiences (Aldgate, 2010).

In a nation like Norway where inclusive education is an important aspect of ensuring children’s welfare and future possibilities, it is an educational problem when there is not enough knowledge of how exclusion can be generated in an everyday school context. We employ a research design that includes schools from contrasting areas, in order to make visible hidden factors that help create new inequalities for children. Based on prior research and the lack of awareness of how exclusion can generate unequal childhoods in the Norwegian society, we ask: How do children perceive discrimination within their school culture, and which structural drivers for discrimination can be identified in two Norwegian schools?

Critical race theory in the Norwegian context

With the goal of providing a qualitative account of how children perceive discrimination within the school culture, our analysis is informed by intersectionality as an aspect of critical race theories (Gillborn, 2015). Critical race theory (CRT) is a theoretical framework and organizing tool for social justice that base its premises on a notion of white supremacy as the white-ness considered the norm, while all others are anchored in stereotyped racially stigmatised communities (Dixson and Rousseau Anderson, 2018; Yasso, 2005). The aim of this approach is to highlight intersections between race and ability, in order to discuss equity and analyse the context in which social systems reproduce inequality through policies, culturally sustained pedagogy, organisational culture and structured oppression (Alim and Paris, 2017; Cabrera, 2019). Critical race theory contributes to the visibility of racism and white dominance, which is evident in several educational systems (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; 2015; Christian, 2019; Öhrn and Weiner, 2017). An issue in the Norwegian context is also how strong normative cohesion can lead to new forms of exclusion, even though the ideal is to create universal learning opportunities through ignoring cultural differences (Viruru, 2001). Critical race scholars in the Nordic context have responded to egalitarian principles with a contribution of students' participation in the research (Chinga-Ramirez, 2017; Pihl, 2018). This research is scarce and only few scholars have focused on children’s perceptions and experiences of social exclusion or discrimination in primary schools in Norway. Current research mainly focuses on immigrant's self- identity (Chinga-Ramirez, 2017), power relations embedded across students' ethnic, gender, and class identities (Thorjussen and Sisjord, 2018) and racial discrimination (Hagatun, 2020; Hansen et al, 2016). This article investigates the children's perception of diversity and multiculturalism (Leonardo and Grubb, 2018) and Whiteness (Sleeter, 2001, 2016).

Language is a central element of learning and essentially influences the development of students’ conceptions. Students do not only have to understand a language itself but must also apply it to structure their knowledge and conceptions (Beger & Jäkel, 2015; Ikuta & Miwa, 2021). Since the national language is predominant in most biology classes, students need to have a high level of national language proficiency to participate. This monolingual habitus (Gogolin, 1997) constitutes one of the main barriers for second language learners (SLL) in a considerable number of European countries when attending science classes.

As biological phenomena are often complex and abstract, the use of metaphors in biology is common to describe or explain the phenomena (Niebert et al., 2014). According to Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003), people use embodied, physical experiences to understand abstract phenomena in an analogical way. Therefore, metaphors are used in biology education to support students in understanding abstract phenomena (Aubusson et al., 2006). This support can be realised when students transfer (embodied) experiences (source domain) to an unknown/abstract phenomenon (target domain) (Schmitt, 2005).

Due to the fact that metaphors must be understood in a transferred sense, metaphors might even impede conceptual understanding, especially for SLL. In addition, metaphors differ depending on language as well as culture (Danielsson et al., 2018). Therefore, students might not understand (some) metaphors if the language of instruction differs from their first language. In this way, the monolingual habitus would be putting them in a disadvantage in biology classes.

All biology textbooks contain metaphors and with respect to biology education, students need to understand those metaphors (Jahic Pettersson et al., 2020). However, even though metaphors play an important role for conceptual learning in biology, other science language characteristics, such as sentence structure and the use of biological jargon, are more prominently researched (e.g., Zukswert et al., 2019).

The study by Jahic Pettersson et al. (2020) shows first indications that students adapt metaphors of their teachers and textbooks and use their own-built metaphors to understand abstract biological phenomena. However, students often understand metaphors literally or misinterpret them (Beger & Jäkel, 2015) resulting in challenges according to their content learning. Therefore, metaphors put an especially high barrier on learning for SLL.

Since metaphors depend on both languages and cultures (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003), it can be hypothesised that the constructed metaphors of SLL differ from those of native speakers. First indications are shown in the research of Haddad and Montero Martínez (2019) as well as Conrad and Libarkin (2021). This research, however, refers to chemistry, physics or geoscience education and does not differentiate on different first languages.

This study aims at exploring which metaphorical expressions are used by native and non-native German students as an example while talking about biological phenomena and to what extent these metaphorical expressions differ. Beyond that, identified (linguistic) characteristics of students’ conceptions will be compared with those of their science teachers. By doing this, I will discuss to what extent the inclusion of different languages within student conceptions research may be important for biology education. The influence of teachers’ language will be identified by comparing the conceptions of all participants.

This leads to the following research questions:

(1) Which metaphors/ metaphorical expressions are used by students to explain biological phenomena?

(2) What differences can be seen according to characteristics and frequency of the use of metaphorical language between native and non-native students?

(3) To what extent do students use the metaphors of their teachers instead of their own-built metaphors?

Students’ language competences evidentially determine their learning outcomes in STEM subjects to a substantial degree (Bird & Welford, 1995). Societies, particularly in Europe but also beyond, have experienced a constant influx of migrants and refugees in recent decades, which has resulted in an increasing degree of linguistic and cultural diversity in school classrooms (OECD, 2019). Apart from migrant students acquiring the language of schooling and its academic register, large-scale assessment has additionally identified monolingual students with a low socioeconomic status and/or from households with a low level of education in the parental generation, who also struggle to meet the academic objectives (Reiss et al., 2019, S. 77). Consequently, teachers should try to scale down the burdens for an increasingly diverse population of monolingual as well as multilingual students and the integration of language instruction and subject-matter learning is regarded a key strategy to achieve educational justice (Gogolin & Lange, 2011).

To account for this challenge, researchers have developed approaches to the integration of subject- and language-learning like scaffolding (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005) or Translanguaging (García, 2011). So far, there is only scarce evidence from systematically planned intervention studies on the effectiveness of language-responsive teaching approaches from the perspective of individual subject didactics. We want to add to the scientific debate on subject- and language-integrated instruction in STEM subjects by presenting findings from a study that centers the promising Disaggregate Instruction approach (Brown et al., 2010) which has not been widely used in Europe to this day. In the present study we utilize an adapted and optimized version of Brown et al.’s (2010) Disaggregate Instruction which we named Disaggregate Instruction in Chemistry Education (DICE) to tackle the following research questions:

1) To what extent does teaching in accordance with the DICE result in higher student learning growths compared to Scaffolded, language-responsive science teaching designed for this purpose?

2) To what degree do students with diverging competences regarding the language of schooling benefit from the DICE?

The DICE distinguishes itself from other language-responsive approaches (e.g., Scaffolding) as students initially negotiate novel scientific concepts with the help of terminology that they are already familiar with. Only after the learners have developed a general understanding of the concepts, the teacher introduces the corresponding scientific terms and provides opportunities to practice those (Brown et al., 2010, p. 1474). This disaggregation of concept and scientific language learning prevents students from acquiring complex science concepts using abstract mental models and new terminology simultaneously and supports them to purposefully apply the limited capacities of their working memories (Brown et al., 2019). Brown and colleagues (2010) implemented and evaluated the approach with multilingual students studying the concept of photosynthesis in a digital learning environment where the use and presentation of everyday and scientific language varied according to the students allocation to either the treatment (‘disaggregate’) group or the control (‘aggregate’ also called ’textbook’) group (Brown et al., 2010).

Students in the treatment group, who received instruction in accordance with the ideas of Disaggregate Instruction, developed a superior conceptual understanding compared to the control group and were also able to communicate their understanding of the novel concepts in a superior way compared to control group students (Brown et al., 2010).

An increasing number of students worldwide follows (part of their) secondary education in a multilingual setting (Briggs et al., 2018). Although several studies have highlighted that a focus on language is not always an integral part of subject teachers’ teaching in different multilingual environments (Hüttner, et al., 2013; Oattes et al., 2018), very few studies have focused on the kinds of support that are provided.

Considering that multilingual students are a heterogenous group of learners with various linguistic, educational, and cultural backgrounds, it is likely that the type and level of language- and content-related difficulties they meet when learning different school subjects vary. One of the frustrations reported by subject teachers, for instance social studies teachers, is that they often recognize their students’ language-related needs in content-area classrooms, but that they require more specialized knowledge of teaching about language. They also express needs for strategies that enable them to bring a language focus into subjects classes without being constrained by aspects like time and the large quantity of content that needs to be covered (Zhang, 2017; Yoder, et al., 2016).

Given the fact that the number of multilingual students is ever increasing, it is imperative for teachers to reflect on their teaching approaches in order to meet their students’ needs (Duarte & Kirsch 2020). This symposium aims to discuss questions surrounding the opportunities and challenges of a dual focus on language and subject area learning, both from a teacher and student perspective. The objectives of the symposium are: (1) to enhance the knowledge on language- and content-integrated learning across school subjects, (2) to discuss teaching and learning contexts promoting language development and subject area learning, (3) to critically reflect on the existing barriers for improving language- and content-integrated learning in linguistically and culturally diverse classroom environments.

By juxtaposing pedagogical philosophies, didactical approaches and teaching traditions as well as the pupil´s point of view, this symposium is designed to shed light on pedagogical possibilities from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. A certain point of interest thereby are interfaces of teaching and learning acknowledged minority languages and “migrant” languages. It also aims to reinforce the internationalization of the field and help researchers identify new theoretical and conceptual frameworks, and transfer methodology between school subjects. The cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach aims to build bridges between various school subjects, hoping to reduce the tension between disciplinary learning and language development.

According to statistics from the Swedish National Agency of Education (2021-2022), more than 26% of students in compulsory schools in Sweden have acquired Swedish as their second language. Swedish is the official language of the school and society in Sweden. Different types of difficulties that second-language (L2) students meet in relation to texts in civics have still not been extensively researched. Results from a thematic literature review based on studies elaborating on students’ civics learning indicate that although reading texts is central in civics, L2 students’ possible difficulties with reading comprehension of civics texts have not received significant attention in research (Rinnemaa, in press). L2 students’ perspectives are required to better scaffold them in classrooms where civics is teaching. The data in this study is based on thirty-six individual think-aloud (TA) task completions combined with semi-structured interviews with eighteen L2 students in grade nine. The students have various linguistic and educational backgrounds and were recruited from three schools located in two municipalities within a large city in Sweden. The schools represent low, middle, and high socioeconomic status in relation to the parents’ educational background. A four-field model is constructed and used as the conceptual framework and analytical tool. The four-field model is a way of visualizing the complexity of difficulties with texts in civics. The students’ verbal reports are analyzed and categorized using the four key components from the model: a) literacy abilities, b) disciplinary literacy abilities, c) prior knowledge, and d) content-area knowledge. In this presentation, the implication of the findings for teaching and learning civics in linguistically diverse classrooms will be discussed. Examples of language- and content-related difficulties with texts in civics, viewed from L2 students’ perspectives, will be presented. Moreover, the students’ reasoning about the strategies, types of knowledge and abilities that they find meaningful for reading comprehension of texts in civics will be explained. For instance, in contrast to previous research, indicating that difficulties with texts are mainly caused by the difficult language used in them (e.g., Myers & Zaman, 2011, Deltac, 2012), the students in this study report that the simple language and the simplified content in civics texts are problematic for their reading comprehension. They also report that the lack of intercultural perspectives in the civics texts makes it difficult for them to draw on their life experiences and previous knowledge to make sense of the civics themes discussed in the texts.

Deltac, S. M. (2012). Teachers of America's immigrant students: Citizenship instruction for English language learners [Doctoral dissertation, Emory University, USA]. Emory University Theses and Dissertations Archive. https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/6q182k28d?locale=en Dong, Y. R. (2017). Tapping into English language learners' (ELLs') prior knowledge in social studies instruction. The Social Studies, 108(4), 143-151. https://doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2017.1342161 Jaffee, A. T. (2022). “Part of being a citizen is to engage and disagree”: Operationalizing culturally and linguistically relevant citizenship education with late arrival emergent bilingual youth. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 46(1), 53-67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jssr.2021.11.003 Myers, J., & Zaman, H. (2009). Negotiating the global and national: immigrant and dominant culture adolescents' vocabularies of citizenship in a transnational world. Teachers College Record, 111, 2589–2625. Florida State University Digital Library. https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:209947/datastream/PDF/view Rinnemaa. P. (in press). Adolescents’ Learning of Civics in Linguistically Diverse Classrooms: A Thematic Literature Review. The journal of social science education. Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy. Harvard educational review, 78(1), 40–59. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.78.1.v62444321p602101 Skolverket (2022). Läroplan för grundskolan, förskoleklassen och fritidshemmet: Lgr22. [The Swedish National Agency for Education. Curriculum for elementary school, preschool class and after-school care center] https://www.skolverket.se/getFile?file=9718

An increasing number of learners worldwide follows (part of their) secondary education in a second language (Briggs et al., 2018). The types of secondary education that offer education in a second language assume an important role for subject teachers to offer language support (Duarte, 2019). Within these settings, the concept of scaffolding is used to conceptualize the support that allows learners to engage with content in a language they only partially know (Lyster, 2019). Although several studies have highlighted that a focus on language is not always an integral part of subject teachers’ teaching in different bilingual environments (Oattes et al., 2018), very few studies have focused on the kinds of support that are provided. This presentation consists of an overview of the results of an investigation of the types of language scaffolds used by social studies and geography teachers teaching in Dutch secondary bilingual education and their reasons for employing these language scaffolds. Interviews, lesson observations and stimulated recall interviews were conducted to investigate reported practices, actual practices and reasons teachers have for using particular scaffolds. The central research question of the investigation is: ‘which types of language scaffolds do citizenship related subject teachers teaching in Dutch secondary bilingual education use in their practice and which reasons do they have to employ these practices?’ The observation tool and interview scheme build on the concept of whole class scaffolding (Smit et al., 2013) and incorporates language levels and linguistic demands (Lo et al., 2019). Van de Pol et al.’s (2010) distinction between scaffolding goals and means is used to provide further insight in the ways scaffolding of language takes place and the motivations teachers have to engage in it. The outcomes consist of two parts. The results comprise an overview as well as examples of the various types of language scaffolds used by the teachers and the reasons teachers have to use them in their classes. These examples will provide the kind of texture to the types of scaffolding which will increase the chances that the results will be of use not only to researchers, but also to teachers and teacher educators in search of examples of language scaffolding which they can use to their multilingual students’ ever-increasing needs.

Briggs, J. G., Dearden, J., & Macaro, E. (2018). English medium instruction: Comparing teacher beliefs in secondary and tertiary education. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 8(3), 673-696. 10.14746/ssllt.2018.8.3.7 Duarte, J. (2019). Translanguaging in mainstream education: a sociocultural approach. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 22(2), 150-164 https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2016.1231774 Lo, Y. Y., Lui, W. M., & Wong, M. (2019). Scaffolding for cognitive and linguistic challenges in CLIL science assessments. Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education, 7(2), 151-165. https://doi.org/10.1075/jicb.18028.lo Lyster, R. (2019). Translanguaging in Immersion: Cognitive Support or Social Prestige?. Canadian Modern Language Review, 75(4), 340-352. https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.2019-0038 Oattes, H., Oostdam, R., De Graaff, R., Fukkink, R., & Wilschut, A. (2018). Content and Language Integrated Learning in Dutch bilingual education: How Dutch history teachers focus on second language teaching. Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(2), 156-176. Smit, J., AA van Eerde, H., & Bakker, A. (2013). A conceptualisation of whole‐class scaffolding. British Educational Research Journal, 39(5), 817-834. Van de Pol, J., Volman, M., & Beishuizen, J. (2010). Scaffolding in teacher–student interaction: A decade of research. Educational psychology review, 22(3), 271-296.

Using an exploratory research approach, our research team in the spring of 2021 conducted 63 semi-standardised qualitative interviews with students of the „BG/BRG für Slowenen“, a high school genuinely built for members of the Slovene autochthonous minority in southern Austria. This school uses Slovene as main teaching language (in sense of CLIL), while German and English are taught as school subjects, along with other possible languages. The interviews were conducted in Slovenian or in German with the aim of identifying indicators that have an impact on language acquisition of minority school students in Carinthia/Koroška. Over the decades, Slovene minority members were discriminated in southern Austria, but this changed in the 21st century. While Slovene is gaining prestige, fewer pupils of the "Slovene high school" speak Slovene as their first language; many now also come from Slovenia or Italy to to take advantage of the school's multilingual education offer. Our research focused on attitudes and motivation for first, second and third language acquisition, on personal perspectives on the relevances and values of multilingualism and the associated feelings, relationships and identifications. The heterogeneous composition of the interviewees allows for certain comparisons in this study: Some of the interviewed acquaint e.g. Slovene as a foreign language on this school, others as a first-/ second language (mainly the minority members). The study will be repeated in the summer semester of 2023 and will be designed as a longitudinal study. In our presentation, the results of the research on the topic of language acquisition and its frame of reference to emotions and society will be presented. Resulting implications for educational practice will be discussed. Schematised, life worlds of the interviewees will be presented, as they can be understood as another key to successful language acquisition factors of minority and foreign languages in mainly different language speaking environments (with more or less pressure and discrimination on minority language speakers – in comparison with learning a national language).

De Florio-Hansen, I. & Hu, A. (Hrsg.) (2008). Plurilingualität und Identität. Zur Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung mehrsprachiger Menschen. Stauffenburg Verlag. Frenzel, A. & Stephens, E. (2017) Emotionen. In T. Götz (Hrsg.), Emotion, Motivation und selbstreguliertes Lernen (S. 15-77). utb. Morkötter, S. (2016). Förderung von Sprachlernkompetenz zu Beginn der Sekundarstufe. Untersuchungen zu früher Interkomprehension. Giessener Beiträge zur Fremdsprachendidaktik. Narr Francke Attempto. Möller, J. & Wild, E. (Hrsg.) (2020). Pädagogische Psychologie. Springer Pavlenko, A. (2005) Emotions and Multilingualism. Cambridge University Press. Pekrun, R. (2018) Emotion, Lernen und Leistung. In M. Huber & S. Krause (Hrsg.), Bildung und Emotion. (S. 215-231). Springer VS. Rück, N. (2009) Auffassungen vom Fremdsprachenlernen monolingualer und plurilingualer Schülerinnen und Schüler. Interkulturalität und Mehrsprachigkeit, Band 2. Kassel University. Spinath, B., Dickhäuser, O. & Schöne, C. (Hrsg.) (2018). Psychologie der Motivation und Emotion. Grundlagen und Anwendung in ausgewählten Lern- und Arbeitskontexten. Hogrefe Verlag. Vrbinc, M. (2013) Das BG/BRG für Slowenen - eine Schule mit (über-)regionalem Bildungsschwerpunkt. In W. Wolf, S. Sandrieser, K. Vukman-Artner & T. Domej (Hrsg.), Natürlich zweisprachig. Naravno dvojezično (S. 119-124). Leykam.

With the rise in migration globally and increasing childhood multilingualism, there is a growing need internationally to accommodate the diverse range and literacy needs of children with English as an additional language need in classrooms. In the Irish context, studies from over fifteen years and a growing body of recent research point to prevailing organisational and pedagogical challenges in providing appropriate support for our changing school population (e.g., Connaughton-Crean & Ó Duibhir, 2017; La Morgia, 2018; Little & Kirwin, 2019; 2021; Murtagh & Francis, 2011; Nowlan, 2008; O’Duibhir & Cummins, 2012; O’Tool & Skinner, 2018; Smyth, Darmody, McGinnity, & Byrne, 2009). The currently-used model for SEN (DES, 2017), is based on curricular and policy reform at primary level (DES, 2017; NCCA, 2019) and an ad hoc, add on to special educational needs (SEN) approach towards supporting EAL learners (Gardiner-Hyland & Burke, 2018; Quigley, O’Toole, Gardiner- Hyland, & Murphy, 2020). Cummins’s interdependence hypothesis reminds us that “skills developed in one language can be transferred to a second language, provided there is adequate exposure to that language and sufficient motivation” (Ó Duibhir & Cummins, 2012, pp. 31–36). While the Common European Framework of Reference acknowledges the adoption of a plurilingual approach which involves “languages interrelating and interacting” (CERF, 2001, p. 4) and “developing a linguistic repertory in which all linguistic abilities have a place” (CERF, p. 5), within an Irish context, some studies have shown that there is a tendency for teachers to be unaware of the benefits of cross-lingual transfer, unaware of the home literacy practices of children and their families from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and unaware of EAL pupils’ first language proficiency (La Morgia, 2018; Lyons, 2010; Nowlan, 2008). This lack of awareness could have implications for teaching in the multilingual classroom, where acknowledgement, celebration and a consistent integrated use of home languages may be lost to monolingual, deficit approaches to teaching EAL, which Little (2021, p. 12) states is “foolish” and “doomed to failure.”
This paper presents findings from research phase one to three (2019 – 2022) of an initiative established in response to needs identified by ten DEIS schools in Ireland, to support teachers and schools to respond to increasing linguistic and cultural diversity (DEIS is the Irish government policy instrument to address educational disadvantage in schools). Nationally 76,000 primary school children speak a language other than English at home, representing 2 in every class of 30 children (CSO 2017). This figure is far greater for the ten schools involved in the initiative, where influxes of migrant families have changed schools’ demographics to the extent that up to 47 heritage languages are spoken amongst their school populations and between 11-38% of learners have EAL profiles. With an unprecedented emphasis on the importance of affirming cultural and linguistic diversity within schools (Teaching Council 2016; NCCA 2019), the initiative offers customised, relational, inclusive and needs-led approach involving Continuous Professional Development through a Professional Learning Network for Lead EAL teachers and an online Community of Practice with resources available across schools.
This research seeks to analyse the impact of this CPD on evolving teacher knowledge, confidence and practices of teaching EAL learners over time and address the following questions:
1. What are teacher perceptions of the initiative’s impact on their evolving teacher knowledge, confidence and practices of teaching EAL learners over time?
2. What opportunities and challenges do teachers associate with being involved in the PLN and online CoP?
3. How can the initiative support participating teachers and schools to develop collaborative inquiry and reflective practice?

Many theoretical frameworks have been suggested and used to study students’ motivation in learning English as an L2 in higher education (Boo, Dörnyei, & Ryan, 2015). Some of them come from well-known motivational theories, while others have been developed only in the context of L2 learning. This study investigated the motivational factors linked with English language learning motivation in higher education. Specifically, Gardner’s (1985, 2010) Socio-Educational Model, Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009) L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS), and “willingness to communicate; WTC” approach suggested by MacIntyre, Clément, Dörnyei and Noels (1998), and Self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2017) can be given as examples of the motivational frameworks studied as part of this study. A systematic review aimed to clarify the complexity of conceptualization and operationalization of the previously motivational concepts in L2 learning in the literature of the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program and English Preparatory Program (EPP) contexts, and their relation to educational correlates. In this systematic review, the context-related (e.g., instructional materials) and student-related (e.g., learning strategies) correlates of motivation in EPP and EAP context were identified following the guidance of Gough, Oliver and Thomas (2013) and the PRISMA statement (Moher, Liberati, Tetzlaff, & Altman, 2009). Regarding the conceptualization of motivational theories, in-depth systematic review of 30 articles showed that only 16 articles defined motivation clearly and consistently with a motivational theory. Among the remaining 14 articles, there were some articles (n = 9) in which there was a partial consistency between a specific theoretical framework and operationalization of motivation. However, there were a few articles (n = 5) in which, although one of the motivational constructs was consistently measured with a motivational theory, another motivational construct was not measured according to the corresponding theory. The findings regarding the operationalization of motivation in published studies in the context of L2 English learning in EAP programs and EPPs showed that there is an overall consistency between the conceptualization and operationalization of the motivational constructs of the prominent motivational theories. The majority of the articles (n = 17) measured motivation fully consistent with the defined motivational constructs and the corresponding theory. There were six articles that measured motivation partially consistent with a specific theoretical framework. There were two articles in which, although one of the motivational constructs was measured consistently with a motivational theory, another motivational construct was not measured according to the corresponding theory. On the other hand, there were five articles two of which measured motivation in an inconsistent with the theory (as well as the definition) manner and three of which did not operationalize motivation at all. Systematic review of 25 articles revealed that very few studies investigated the correlates (either context-related or student-related) of motivation in the EAP and EPP context and in these few studies motivation was only conceptualized by using WTC construct, L2MSS components, achievement goal theory (Dweck 1986; Dweck & Leggett 1988) or attribution theory (Weiner, 1985; 2000). The overall conclusion is that, the concept of motivation is theoretically disorganized, various motivational constructs overlap with each other, and different terminology is used for the same motivational construct (e.g., intrinsic motivation). These lead to a more general problem: there is not a common understanding of what is motivation in EAP and EPP.

Although grammar is not the central focus when teaching English at schools, it is a vital aspect which contributes to achieving the communicative purposes in mastering a foreign language.

Larsen-Freeman (2003) refers to grammar as a skill that speakers develop creatively to convey a message. She also states that this ability is a communicative resource used both to understand the language received when listening or reading, and to produce the language when speaking or writing for communicative purposes. Speakers choose within their grammatical range the structures that help them understand or express a message in a meaningful way within a given context. On the other hand, Ellis (2009) expresses the need to make learners aware regarding grammar, that is, to develop awareness of the relationship between meaning and form and the existence of certain forms that are correct and not others.

There have been studies concerning grammatical difficulties in different languages in diverse countries around the world. Researchers such as Williams and Evans, 1998; Spada et al., 2005; Ammar and Spada, 2006 have described grammatical difficulty in terms of students’ correct use of grammatical features, considering these grammar features to be more difficult to be learned if many students have difficulty using them in an accurate way (in Alhaysony M. (2017)

There are factors that make a grammatical structure easy or difficult to learn or acquire. Concerning this aspect, it is fundamental to consider the factors that make a structure difficult or easy to learn/acquire. First, it is necessary to look at complexity from the point of view of the grammar structure itself: its form, use, meaning, and salience (the degree to which data is available to learners). Then, complexity can be considered in terms of the pedagogical rules necessary to express the linguistic characteristic in question, and after that, it is possible to focus on complexity, that is to say if learning an aspect of grammar is a problem from the learners’ point of view (Ellis, 2008, cited by De Graaf & Housen, 2009). In the same way, De Keyser (2005) identified three factors that determine grammatical complexity: complexity of form, complexity of meaning, and complexity of form-meaning relationship. It is understood by complexity of form ‘the number of choices involved in picking all the right morphemes and allomorphs … and putting them in the right place (pp. 5-6). The complexity of meaning can be a source of difficulty as De Keyser (2005) calls novelty or abstraction (or both). Articles, classifiers, grammatical genders, and verbal aspects are examples of structures that are difficult to acquire for second language learners, whose mother tongue does not have them, or uses different systems. When the relation between form and meaning is not transparent, the difficulty of form-meaning may appear, for example, due to redundancy (third person singular -s in English) or optionally (subject null in Spanish).

Grammar courses have high failure rates in a southern Chilean university. Pre-service teachers of English must master these contents as they would be responsible for teaching English to younger generations in the region with the lowest educational performance in Chile. This study is focused on research intended to identify the most difficult grammar features to be learned in English as a foreign language by pre-service teachers. Hence, these trainee teachers can grasp their form and use, and then teach these structures more confidently and accurately, being a good model for their students.

After that, a focus group of 8 participants was conducted to confirm and clarify information gathered in the questionnaire.