Broken itineraries and back translation Helen.Avery@ju.se LPP, Lund, 17-18 June 2015

Aims of Mother Tongue Tuition Teaching the subject Mother Tongue Studies should aim to having pupils develop knowledge in and about their mother tongue. (...) In this manner, the pupils should be provided with the opportunity to develop their language, their identity and their understanding of the surrounding world. Instruction should also contribute to pupils’ knowledge about how to express own opinions and thoughts in different kinds of texts. They should also be stimulated to express themselves through other aesthetic forms of expression. (National syllabus for Mother Tongue Studies)

Aims of Mother Tongue Tuition Instruction should provide pupils with the resources to develop their cultural identity and become plurilingual. Through instruction, pupils should therefore be given the possibility to develop their knowledge about cultures and societies where the mother tongue is spoken. Instruction should also contribute to pupils developing a comparing approach to cultures and languages. (National syllabus for Mother Tongue Studies)

develop but not learn

Underlying ambiguities of the notion of ‘mother tongue’ Languages defined as geographically placed outside Sweden Placing the pupil’s language development in the frame of first language and second /additional language acquisition L1 > L2 Ignoring bi- and plurilingualism, issue of heritage languages, transnational families, language revitalisation, different conditions for different languages connected to language history, national liberation movements, writing systems, etc. Ignoring issues of oracies, dialects, sociolects, translanguaging, codeswitching, multimodal expression etc etc etc ….

Intersections language and socio-economic background Expectations on parents Expectations on communities Expectations on countries of origin Construction of hierarchies & construction of dependency relationships Effects on qualifications, knowledge systems, social and geographical mobility ….

science politics

Theory - Practice

Sequencing Starting points Constellations Speed Alliances ….

Metastudies Cross-national evaluations Feeding steering systems (indicators, measurements, evaluation…) Cumulative – fixed reference (factors, variables…)

territoriality

Theory - Practice Decision-makers practitioners researchers

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