Conference Agenda

Multilingualism in Europe often contrasts with a seemingly monolingual society. This tension can present obstacles, especially in terms of education and advancement (e.g. Gogolin 1997). Despite the undeniable growth of multilingualism caused by migration movements and its continued existence, monolingualism dominates educational structures. According to Peleman (2023), this is "reinforced by feelings of alienation and dislocation and the fear of losing a national identity in response to the growing complexity of diversity within the society". Regardless to that, several studies have noted the advantages of multilingualism, such as those conducted by acknowledging multilingualism as an advantage rather than a disadvantage can prove particularly beneficial, particularly in the field of education (see Ağırdağ 2014 and Bialystok 2018).

Dirim & Khakpour (2018) attribute the ralation between the multilingual society and the monolingual institutions as a power asymmetry among languages, where certain languages are considered legitimate while others are seen as illegitimate. Consequently,this reproduces power relations, which will be discussed in this symposium by focusing on, how do these power relations affect educational contexts, especially with regard to so-called heritage languages?

In order to discuss this question, the symposium first thematises general structures and organisational forms of heritage language education (in Austria, Switzerland, Sweden). Furthermore will be argued, that a tight interdisciplinary collaboration between all teachers will improve the standing of HL teachers as well as the HL in the school hierarchy (for exclusion of HLE teachers in Germany, see Ayten & Atanasoska 2020).

In a second step, we look how Translanguaging can be used as an empowering tool for students and in teaching, in order to enhance multilingualism for the individual and in the school settings.

Thirdly, in the last section we will discuss the predominance of research on Chinese as a heritage language originating from English-speaking regions, which cannot be directly applied to the European context.

In the symposium, we present various perspectives on didactics, including those at the level of teachers and students' literacy, as well as translanguaging. We examine the hierarchical position of Home Language Education (HLE) in the school system of languages, particularly with regard to second language development. Finally, we broaden the understanding of HLE in Europe by discussing the situation of one of the recently migrated languages. In conclusion, considering multiple perspectives can aid in moving away from a monolingual stance. Monolingualism does not reflect the reality of school or society. Embracing multilingualism as the norm from a broad perspective is crucial for social prosperity in Europe.

The linguistic repertoire of bilingual and multilingual pupils is one of their strongest resources. However, schools still make little use of these multilingual skills in (specialised) teaching, even in an officially quadrilingual country with a long history of immigration such as Switzerland. School teaching is orientated towards the norm of monolingualism in the language of instruction, although the social reality is characterised by linguistic superdiversity (Blommaert, 2015; Vertovec, 2007). Pupils who grow up bilingual or multilingual are disadvantaged by monolingual language practice, the concept of "monolingual habitus", as Ingrid Gogolin (1994) called it, and are unable to utilise their entire repertoire of linguistic resources for learning. Based on Bourdieu's distinction between legitimate and illegitimate languages (Bourdieu, 1982/ 1991), the delegitimisation of languages of migration in the Swiss education system is the starting point for subsequently addressing the untapped pedagogical potential of multilingualism in the growing migrant population (Martin-Rojo, 2011). The practical-orientated research project "From A, like Arabic to Z, like Zulu. Language diversity in post-migrant Switzerland" explored the question of how teachers of the heritage language (HL) and regular teachers can work together to practise integrated language support (Zingg & Gonçalves, 2022). As part of the project, the HL and mainstream teachers observed each other. This qualitative approach by means of observations was continuously reflected upon, supplemented with further training sequences and resulted in documentation of the jointly designed teaching units (Heller, Pietikäinen & Pujolar, 2018). The project, supported by the Federal Office of Culture (Switzerland), aimed to use action research (Altrichter, Posch & Spann, 2018) and the model inclusion of HL teachers in the mainstream structure to overcome monolingual superiority and break down the linguistic stigmatisation of these illegitimate languages of migration, and to critically rethink current models of teaching the so-called legitimate languages.

Altrichter H., Posch, P. & Spann, H. (2018). Lehrerinnen und Lehrer erforschen ihren Unterricht. 5. grundlegend überarbeitete Auflage. Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt. Blommaert, J. In K. Arnaut, J. Blommaert, B. Rampton M. & Spotti (Eds.). (2015). Language and Superdiversity (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315730240 Bourdieu, P. (1982). Ce que parler veut dire. L’économie des échanges linguistiques. Paris: Fayard. English version 1991: Language and Symbolic Power (J.B. Thompson (ed.), Cambridge: Polity Press. Gogolin, I. (1994) Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Münster: Waxmann. Heller, M., Pietikäinen, S. and Pujolar, J. (2018). Critical Sociolinguistic Research Methods. Studying Language Issues That Matter. New York: Routledge. Martin-Rojo, L. (2013). (De) capitalising Students Through Linguistic Practices. In Language, Migration and Social Inequalities, edited by Alexandre Duchêne, Melissa Moyer and Celia Roberts. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Vertovec, St. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6), 1024–1054. Zingg, I., & Gonçalves, M. (2022). Línguas (i)legítimas ou 'o que falar quer dizer': o caso da Suíça. Sisyphus, Journal of Education 10 (3): 265–293. https://doi.org/10.25749/sis.27255

In schools in Germany, the prevailing "monolingual habitus" (Gogolin 1994, translated) collides with the pupils’ plurilingual' (*) reality while simultaneously creating a language hierarchy (Dirim/Khakpour 2018, 215). By conferring legitimacy upon certain languages considered foreign and denying it to other languages categorized as migrant, like Arabic, Farsi, Turkish or Yoruba, a discriminatory power dynamic emerges. This dynamic reinforces the notion that some languages, are intrinsically superior to others. In the context of schools, especially concerning learning and academic achievement, this hierarchical system leads to a deficit-oriented perspective on pupils' abilities, which is often associated with their migrational multilingualism. This situation results in to the underutilisation of existing resources and creates tension between the plurilingual reality of pupils and the monolingual habitus of schools. Therefore, it is important to find ways to resolve this tension through pedagogical and didactic means in the classroom. It introduces at least five different patterns of children's use of Translanguaging in written narrations, which were generated as part of my doctoral research (Savaç, forthcoming). This presentation examines Translanguaging as a didactic strategy to address the issue of developing and enhancing literacy skills in classrooms. The presentation aims to explore the didactic and pedagogic use of these patterns in skill-based approaches. Secondly, it will illustrate that children's translanguaging is not only a problem-solving or coping mechanism but can also be an aesthetic stylistic device for writing fictional texts. Thirdly, it will demonstrate how translanguaging can be beneficial in learning situations for acquiring knowledge of genres in different languages and for composing texts aesthetically using their entire language repertoire. From an educational perspective, this highlights how Translanguaging can assist in transcending the dominant monolingualism in learning contexts by embracing plurilingualism. - ---------------------------- *: The term plurilingual is referring to the different kind of languages and language varieties like dialects or accents at the same time (e.g. García, Barlett, Kleifgen 2007).

Canagarajah, A. (1999). Resisting linguistic imperialism in English language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dirim, İ./ Khakpour, N. (2018): Migrationsgesellschaftliche Mehrsprachigkeit in der Schule. In: Dirim, İ./ Mecheril, P. (Hgg.): Heterogenität, Sprach(n), Bildung. S. 201-225. García, O., Bartlett, L. & Kleifgen, J. (2007). From biliteracy to pluriliteracies. In P. Auer & L. Wei (Ed.), Handbook of Multilingualism and Multilingual Communication (pp. 207-228). Berlin, New York: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110198553.2.207 Gogolin, I. (1994): Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Münster: Waxmann. Jenkins, J. (2006): Current perspectives on teaching world Englishes and English as a lingua franca. In: TESOL Quarterly 40 (1), 157-181. Savaç, A- (forthcoming): Mehrsprachiges Schreiben. Dissertation. University of Hamburg.

Statistically, the status of heritage language education in Austria (currently: Muttersprachlicher Unterricht/Erstsprachenunterricht) is well documented; there are a few recent studies on certain aspects of heritage language education in Austria (Hawlik 2021; Schrammel & Geldner 2022; Unterköfler-Klatzer et al. 2022), however in-depth studies are not yet available. This topic has received little attention in Austria, both from a scientific and a social point of view (Dalton-Puffer, Boeckmann & Hinger 2019). A research project by four universities of teacher education in the Austrian provinces of Carinthia, Styria, and Burgenland aims to fill these gaps. Using qualitative and quantitative research methods, heritage language teachers and school administrators have been interviewed about the training and professional development of heritage language teachers, their role and position in school teams and the organisational and methodological implementation of heritage language education. This presentation firstly sheds light on the most important project results. They are one more step towards scientific and systematic research into heritage language teaching in Austria and are aimed on developing measures to professionalise teachers and strengthen the role of heritage language education in research and practice. Secondly, a further focus of this presentation is on the tension between heritage language education and “German as a second language education” in Austria, which - politically promoted and propagated - increasingly occupies the most important position in the Austrian educational landscape concerning "intercultural education" (by a wide margin). For some time now, a trend can be observed: The number of schoolchildren with first languages other than German is rising, while the number of enrolments in heritage language education is falling. The latest political drafts for curricula at teacher training colleges only propagate German as a second language. This seems problematic from the perspective of critical intercultural pedagogy.

Dalton-Puffer, C., Boeckmann, K.-B. & Hinger, B. (2019). Research in language teaching and learning in Austria (2011–2017). Language Teaching, 52 (2), 201–230. Fleck, Elfie (2011): „Der muttersprachliche Unterricht: Schulrechtliche und schulorganisatorische Rahmenbedingungen“. In: Kroatisches Kultur- und Dokumentationszentrum (hKdc) und Landesschulrat für das Burgenland, Hg.: Der Weg zur Mehrsprachigkeit. Eisenstadt, 37–46. Rainer Hawlik (2021). How do teachers of mother tongue tuition in Austria perceive their role? In: Education in the North, Volume 28 (1) Wayfinding Conversations: rethinking education to disrupt marginality, https://www.abdn.ac.uk/education/research/eitn/journal/636/ Schrammel, B. & Geldner, A. (2022). Der Muttersprachliche Unterricht als Teil der sprachlichen Bildung in Österreich. Zeitschrift für Deutsch im Kontext von Mehrsprachigkeit, 38(1+2), 175-188. Unterköfler-Klatzer, Dagmar; Ressmann, Markus; Wutti, Daniel (2022): „Lehrer/innen des Muttersprachlichen Unterrichts in Kärnten/Koroška“. Gegenwärtige Situation und mögliche Professionalisierungsmaßnahmen. In: Elena Stadnik, Hg.: Sprachenvielfalt und Mehrsprachigkeit im Unterricht. Linguistische, sprachdidaktische und bildungswissenschaftliche Beiträge zur sprachlichen Bildung. Wien: Lit-Verlag, 263–273

With the trend of global mobility and immigration, the Finnish government has been promoting integration and multiculturality since 1990. According to the Finnish National Agency for Education (FNAE), Heritage Language (oma äidinkieli) lessons aim to protect and develop immigrant students’ competencies in their heritage languages and cultures. Among the research on different heritage language (HL) programmes in Nordic contexts, few studies have paid sufficient attention to the Chinese language. Given the increasing number of Chinese immigrant families in and beyond Finland, the past decade has witnessed a growth of immigrant pupils in the Chinese HL programme (FNAE, 2011; 2022). The enrolled number of pupils has doubled compared with that of 2010, reaching over 850 Chinese HL learners in the Autumn term of 2021 (FNAE, 2022). This article aims to systemically review 20-year publications of Chinese HL courses in European contexts. Following Cooper’s (2017) guidance for research synthesis, the author will search relevant publications in both English (e.g. Web of Science and Scopus) and Chinese (i.e. CNKI) databases according to this paper’s research scope. Then, the author will set inclusion and exclusion criteria for abstract screening and eligibility for the next phase of in-depth review. The in-depth review results will summarise the research trends (e.g. focus, sites, participants, methods, and key findings) and suggest future research directions (e.g. new speaker identity, curricula and translanguaging pedagogy, parent-teacher partnership, teacher training and inclusion). More importantly, as many studies on Chinese HL have been conducted in traditional immigration contexts, mainly in Anglophone countries (Pu, 2019), this paper is expected to shed light on the understanding of HL education in Europe – which endows with multilingualism - by showing the complexity of HL education in European contexts.

Cooper, H. (2017). Research synthesis and meta-analysis. SAGE Publications, Inc, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781071878644 FNBE (Finnish National Board of Education). (2011). Omana äidinkielenä opetetut kielet ja opetukseen osallistuneiden määrät vuonna 2010. FNBE (Finnish National Board of Education). (2022). Omana äidinkielenä opetetut kielet ja opetukseen osallistuneiden määrät vuonna 2021. Pu, C. (2019). Teaching Chinese as a heritage language. In C. Shei, M. M. Zikpi, & D.-L. Chao (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Language Teaching. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315625157-11