Evlang

Language Awareness in

Primary School

 

LINGUA

1998 - 2001

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Istituto Universitario Orientale - Napoli

Zentrum für Schulentwicklung (Graz)

Université René Descartes Paris 5

Université Stendhal Grenoble III

Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres de La Réunion

And in Switzerland …Centre de Linguistique

Appliquée de l’Université de Neuchâtel

Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l’Education de

l’Université de Genève

Institut pédagogique Neuchâtelois

Institut Romand de Recherches et de Documentation

Pédagogiques

General aim of L.A.

•Contribute to the construction of solidary societies,which are multilingual and culturally plural .

Aims of Language Awareness :We expect Language Awareness to have positive effects on the pupils concerning the three following areas :

A) The development of positive attitudes and perceptions : 1) openness towards the cultural and linguistic diversity 2) motivation to learn languages ;

Aims of language awareness :

B) The development of metalinguistic/ metacommunicative skills (abilities for observation and reasoning) and cognitive skills that will facilitate students to acquire skills for languages, including the language(s) used at school, different or not to the mother tongue(s) (development of skills) ;

Aims of Language Awareness:

C) The development of a linguistic culture (= language related knowledge) which 1) underlines or supports some components of the above attitudes and skills; 2) constitutes a set of references that lead to a better understanding of the multilingual and multicultural world in which the pupil is living.

Objectives :

Some examples :

Know that at the same time there are differences and ressemblances between languages

Analyse non-familiar languages by using differences and similarities which are different to those commonly used when analysing familiar languages.

Value bilingual/plurilingual people regardless the status of the languages which they can speak.

Know that languages –and cultures- are open worlds, exchanging their elements according to their historical genesis or the contacts between people.

Deduce a principle of syntagmatic organization through the observation of regular patterns in different statements in a non-familiar language.

Distinguish non-familiar sounds in non-familiar languages (identify them without confising them with other sounds)

A word on history …

•1980s – United Kingdom – Language Awareness (Eric Hawkins)

•1990s – Europe – different experiments (Eveil aux langues, Eveil au langage et ouverture aux langues, also : Begegnung mit Sprachen, Sprach-und Kulturerziehung … )

The purpose of the Evlang programme

Verify the achievement of our expectations by:

- the implementation of a course (1 to 1,5 years) – last two years of Primary School

- the evaluation of its effects

Developped activities :

Production of didactic materials

See the materials

(ppt)

Quick !

See the materials(video)

Evlang - Eveil aux langues

Projet Socrates/Lingua 42137-CP-1-97-1-FR-Lingua-LD

---------------------------------

Les langues, jour après jour

 Niveau 1 : premières découvertes

 Conception:  Groupe de travail d’Evreux :

Christine Malot Rose-Marie Marchais Guylène Pin Martine Rousset

  Université René Descartes Paris V  Michel Candelier

 

 Evlang - Eveil aux langues

Projet Socrates/Lingua 42137-CP-1-97-1-FR-Lingua-LD

---------------------------------

Le Petit Chaperon Rouge

Conception : 

Ecole de Provence, MarseilleBruno Pufal, Anne Barral, Marie-Louise Bial, Karine Borivent, Geneviève Chaudeaux, Françoise Favre, Michèle Lalande, Ketty Laroche, Sophie Laurent, Christiane Regaire, Brigitte Rouquerol, Nathalie Valère, Isabelle Villecroze

Ministère de l'Education Nationale et de la Recherche Anne Guyon

 Université René Descartes - Paris V Michel Candelier, Dominique Macaire

Developped Activities :

Teacher training for the implementation of the course (2 to 3 days of training )

Developped Activities :

Quantitative and qualitative evaluation

The didactic approach :

the « pedagogy of L.A. »

Video Diapos.

next

The languages presented in the

didactic materials

Afrikaans

Albanian

Alsatian

Arabic

Basque

Berber

BrazilianPortuguese

Breton

Bulgarian

Catalan

Chinese

Corsican

Croat

Czech

Danish

Dutch

English

Finnish

French

Gaelic Irish

Galician

German

Greek

Haitian Creole

Hebrew

Hindi

Hungarian

Italian

Japanese

Judaeo-Spanish

Kannada

Khmer

Korean

Khmer

Korean

Kurdish

Latin

Luxemburger

Malagasy

Malinke

Mandarin

Martinique Creole

Mauritian Creole

Mongolian

Mooré

Nahuatl

Norwegian

Occitan

Persian

Polish

Portuguese

Reunion Creole

Romani

Romanian

Russian

Schwyzertütsch

Serbo -Croat

Slovene

Spanish

Swahili

Swedish

Tagalog

Tamasheq

Tamil

Turkish

Vietnamese

Welsh

Wolof

That is 66 languages, and among them there are …

• 11 languages from Africa

• 14 languages from Asia

• 6 languages from America …

Quantitative evaluation

Institut de Recherche en Economie de l’Education de

l’Université de Dijon

(IREDU – Sophie Genelot)

Months Evlang Control

SPAIN 8 38 92

SPAIN 13 277 29

ITALY 13 293 103

LA REUNION 8 109 43

LA REUNION 13 89 135

FRANCE METROPOLIS 8 358 116

FRANCE METROPOLIS 13 328 222

SWITZERLAND 13 400 211

TOTAL 1892 951

Evlang Control

With control of the following differences :

Pupils’ socio-demographical characteristics

Age, sex, parents’ job, parents’ level of studies

School context

Social composition of the class, class heterogeneity, size of the class

Metalinguistical skills

4 out of 5 sub-samples in 13 months

Structure de- /re-composition

3 sub-samples out of 8

Oral discrimination - memorisation

Explanatory hypothesis :

The activities that were likely to develop

decomposition-rconstruction skills were less frequently

used than the listening activities.

Attitudes

Interest towards diversity

All of them except for 2 sub-samples in 8 months

Openness to what is non-familiar

2 sub-samples out of 8

Explanatory hypothesis :

Achieving openness towards what is non

familiar is a much more challenging task than

simply experiencing an interest for it.

The extent of its impact is generally rather limited

(that is usually the case in this kind of evaluations)

But …

… the effect appears to be related to the duration

Including for those variables with effects that are of little significance in the whole of the classes, that is to say for an average duration of 35 hours.

Duration - evolution of the skillsDuration - evolution of the skills

30 h 40 h 50 h 60 h

Oral discrimination - memorisationStructure de- / re-composition

Duration - evolution of the skillsDuration - evolution of the skills

30 h 40 h 50 h 60 h

Oral discrimination - memorisationStructure de- / re-composition

Duration – evolution of the attitudesDuration – evolution of the attitudes

30 h 40 h 50 h 60 h

Interest towards diversityOpenness to what is non familiar

Duration – evolution of the attitudesDuration – evolution of the attitudes

30 h 40 h 50 h 60 h

Interest towards diversityOpenness to what is non familiar

School achievement

Effect on the attitudes

High school achievements

Low school achievements

Concerning the skills :

Link is unclear

Language of the school

1 sub-sample out of 8, and 1 « doubtful »

However :

Many experimenter teachers think that there is an effect on the abilities in the language of the school.

Development of abilities in the language used at school

Explanatory hypothesis :

At this late level of Primary School the duration of the

Evlang course is incapable of influencing a situation which

is already firmly rooted.

Desire to learn languages

In Switzerland: the number of

languages increased

In France :

Minority languages,

migrantlanguages

Language awareness and other subjects

• an interdisciplinary workthat contributes to

the development of

• transversal abilities

Contribution to the aims of :

• World’s discovery

• History

• Arts

• Music

• Mathematics• etc.

Developement of transversal abilities :

• understanding /formulating a problem• look for indications

• ability to reason

• listening and cooperating with others• present a point of view

The ideas expressed in this document might not agree with those from the European Commission.

The program Evlang in France has received the support from the Délégation Générale à la langue francaise (Ministère de la

Culture)

We would like to thank all of the pupils and teachers that have taken part in the Evlang project

Thank you to all of the people that let us use their picturesin this presentation.

Project Janua linguarum –The gate to languages

Programme of activities 2000-2004ECML - Graz - Council of Europe

and … Comenius (European Commission)

http://jaling.ecml.at/