1,720,976 research outputs found
SAREP, Study abroad research in European perspective
No full textSAREP is a COST-funded transnational project involving 100+ researchers across Europe which runs from 1 May 2016 – 30 April 2020.
In the context of increasing international education and study abroad at both European and international level, this project explores the nature, experiences, benefits and limitations of study and residence abroad in the case of second language learners who participate in such international exchange programmes. We do so through a multi-thematic prism, drawing on research relating to the learner’s linguistic, intercultural, social, personal, academic and professional development, reflecting the folk-belief in the wide-ranging benefits that can accrue to the learner in a study abroad context. With a view to exploring the specificity of those benefits from a trans-disciplinary perspective, the project includes researchers working on different European languages among study abroad learners in different target language cultures, thereby offering insights at pan-European level into the potential of study abroad to enhance multilingual development and intercultural awareness among citizens of contemporary Europe. The project offers different insights into the complexity of study abroad as a context of second language learning through both quantitative and qualitative analysis, drawing on wide-ranging methodological approaches and tools of investigation. At a time when increased importance is attached to foreign language learning at European level, the project illuminates wide-ranging factors which may impact study abroad as a context which can facilitate such an aim to varying degrees
TICKET, Transnational Intercultural Competence through Knowledge Exchange and Training
No full textThe project aims to provide academics and professional staff with holistic skills in intercultural competence (IC) that will allow them to enhance internationalisation and improve social-educational delivery across the higher education sector. TICKET responds to the increasing diversity of higher education, by generating opportunities for staff to develop the requisite IC skills to take advantage of the benefits and confront the challenges arising from the expanding number of intercultural encounters and collaborations that take place within the classroom and workplace.
TICKET also seeks to foster social inclusion through promoting diversity by developing social, civic and intercultural competences within staff communities. The project will tackle discrimination, segregation and racism by equipping staff with relevant intercultural competence skills and helping them to engage with under-represented and disadvantaged student and staff groups such as BME, refugees, LGBTQ and persons with disabilities.
Specifically, TICKET will create a modular Training Programme to support staff in their IC skill development, flexible ICT Tools which can be tailored to varying institutional contexts, a Toolkit aimed at supporting all staff as they engage with IC related professional development and a Handbook and Framework for Policy Makers. HEIs will be able to use the TICKET outputs to enhance their own internationalisation initiatives and CPD programmes for staff.
Seven universities will participate as Partners in the project – University of Edinburgh, University of Amsterdam, University of Granada, Jagiellonian University of Krakow, University of Bologna, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Freie Universität Berlin. Additionally, the Coimbra Group network, European University Foundation and Complutense University of Madrid will act as Associate Partners to help the consortium ground and disseminate the project results
Interculturality as collaborative identity management in language education
No full textJust over ten years ago, Block (2007, p. 2) called the increasing attention that second language
researchers – and social scientists at large – were giving to the construct of ‘identity’ an “obsession”.
Since then, the identities of those who use, learn or study a language have been investigated in greater
detail (e.g., Benson, Barkhuizen, Bodycott & Brown, 2013; Clarke, 2008; Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2009;
Edwards, 2009). It may seem that intercultural language education is lagging behind this tendency.
However, a number of publications (e.g., Kramsch, 2009; Rivers & Houghton, 2013) suggest that,
considering contemporary global societies, the intercultural goals of language learning and teaching
can be better promoted by replacing the notion of ‘culture’ with that of multiple ‘identities’ or
‘subjectivities’. More specifically, language education can aim to make students capable of selecting
the language resources available to them in order to express their (developing) desired identities and,
at the same time, to recognise the multiple identities that their interlocutors put forth in a given context
(Borghetti, 2016). To make the case for this ‘identity-related intercultural language education’, the
article reviews and discusses a number of studies which, from different perspectives, have already
argued for a more prominent role of the construct of ‘identity’ in the field of second language
education
How parents’ perceived value of the heritage language predicts their children’s skills
Full text linkThe growing field of family language policies (FLPs), defined as overt and explicit planning in relation to language use among family members, has garnered increasing interest. FLPs influence child–caretaker interactions and are closely linked to child language development and acquisition. This study investigates the impact of FLPs on children’s proficiency in their heritage language (HL). Employing a multi-method approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 53 multilingual parents to explore their beliefs, ideologies, and language management within the family context. Concurrently, their children were administered standardized tasks in their heritage language (HL) to assess receptive vocabulary skills and morphosyntactic comprehension. Our findings indicate that parents’ perceived value of the HL significantly correlates with their children’s language performance, going beyond the influence of reported domestic language usage
Parents’ and Children’s Emotional Well-Being and Language Beliefs in Heritage Bilingual Families
Full text linkThe present study aimed to examine how parents' psychological characteristics and positive beliefs about multilingualism predict children's emotional well-being in 51 multilingual families with an immigrant background. Parents were interviewed to assess their beliefs about multilingualism and completed a battery of questionnaires assessing depression, anxiety, psychological distress, parental competence, quality of life, and acculturative stress. They also completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), which assessed their children's socio-emotional and behavioral characteristics. The results from regression analyses showed that parents' depressive symptoms were significant concurrent predictors of children's conduct problems. In contrast, higher acculturation stress was associated with more emotional problems and better prosociality in children, although the stronger predictor for the latter variable was parents' self-efficacy. Positive beliefs about bilingualism were not related to children's well-being. The discussion highlights the importance of targeting parents' depressive traits and acculturation stress as possible risk factors for children's emotional and behavioral problems. Conversely, fostering parental self-efficacy may promote children's prosociality
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Exploring Intercultural Learning and Second Language Identities in the ERASMUS Context
No full textThis chapter investigates a teaching activity from the European project Intercultural Education Resources for Erasmus Students and their Teachers (IEREST), which is titled 24h Erasmus Life and was conducted at the University of Bologna with 33 participants. Students and teachers worked online for six weeks using forums, videoconferences, chat rooms, and a course blog. The authors gathered data from the blog postings and employed thematic analysis, focusing on the students’ language experiences, including identity-related features of language proficiency, linguistic self-concept, and second-language-mediated personal development. The outcomes of this study contribute to understanding the multifaceted nature of second language identity development during study abroad and its links to intercultural learning within a non-essentialist theoretical framework. Some pedagogical implications for mobile student preparation are also considered
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