RUMACCC Projects 2004
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- Community Languages in Secondary Schools
- Community Languages in Early 21st Century Australia
- Address in Some Western European Languages
- Scandinavian Languages in Australia
- Evaluation of the Network Languages Plans
- Raising Children in More than One Language
- Victorian Government LOTE Reports
- Facilitating Chinese for All: Teaching Mandarin in a Mixed Background Class
Community Languages in Secondary Schools
Researchers: Michael Clyne, Claudia Rossi Hunt, Irene Liem, Tina Isaakidis and Germine Youssef
Completion date: 2004
Funding: SPIRT Grant from the Australian Research Council
This project, conducted with funding from the ARC in collaboration with industry partners, the Victorian Department of Education and Training and the Catholic Education Office was completed in April 2004.
The aim of developing models to cater for the diversity of the student population in the Arabic, Chinese, Greek, and Spanish programs and utilizing community resources in the languages has been realized in a number of ways including the development of activities for students with different degrees and types of background and those with no prior knowledge of the language. Among the activities are the collaborative production of electronic newsletters in Spanish, visits to and interactions in day care centres for elderly Spanish speakers, transactional interactions in Mandarin and Greek in shopping centres, and discussions with visiting speakers in Modern Standard Arabic. The development of resources has been explored to help speakers of Cantonese and Lebanese varieties to learn Mandarin and Modern Standard Arabic respectively. Attention has been paid to the development of biliteracy and the value of LOTE study for those with English problems. A special study has been conducted on the advantages of bilinguals learning a L3 and the value of L3 in the maintenance of bilingualism and developing beyond this. Three information booklets have been produced for schools: Some Common Fallacies about multilingualism and Second Language Acquisition; Catering for Linguistic Diversity ad Utilizing Community Resources in Language Programs; and More Languages, More benefits. The project team was comprised of Tina Isaakidis, Irene Liem, Claudia Rossi Hunt, Germine Youssef, and Michael Clyne.
Community Languages in Early 21st Century Australia
Researchers: Michael Clyne, Sue Fernandez, Judy Hajdu, Tibor Endrody and Anusha Premarajah.
Expected completion date: 2004
Funding: ARC Discovery funding
This ARC-funded project encompasses several sub-projects, all of which have made significant progress during the past year. The research relating to community languages resources in the media, libraries, public services and education has concluded, resulting in two published journal articles and one forthcoming one. The Hungarian sub-project is in its final stages, with preliminary findings to be presented at a focus group meeting in late November. The Tamil sub-project is underway, commencing with a focus group meeting in May; data collection consisting of interviews with Tamil families from a range of backgrounds has commenced and will continue into 2005. Researchers in the Hungarian and Tamil studies are Michael Clyne and Sue Fernandez, with additional research assistance from Tibor Endrody and Judy Hajdu for Hungarian, and Anusha Premarajah for Tamil.
Address in some Western European Languages
Researchers: Leo Kretzenbacher, Catrin Norrby, Jane Warren, and Michael Clyne.
Expected duration: 2004-2006
Funding: ARC Discovery grant
This ARC-funded project concerns changes in the address systems (pronouns, first names/titles/surnames, letter heads) in three languages, French, German and Swedish and to what extent the existing address paradigms reflect sociopolitical change. Address is an integral part of interpersonal communication as it both reflects and influences social relations and hierarchies. The study of address systems thus has significance for linguistics and others researching social structures and social change.
The present project is the first large-scale study of address pronoun use covering three important European languages and two major language groups (Germanic and Romance). Furthermore, it constitutes the first cross-linguistic study of address pronouns with a focus on regional contiguity, specifically in an area of Europe that has, since World War II, been moving towards political, social and economic integration, but where identification with local cultures still remains strong. The three languages, given the different local cultures, provide an extremely useful context for comparative research within a clearly defined region of the world. In addition, the project will provide a new and innovative model for the sociolinguistic analysis of address pronoun use in European languages.
The project will lead to a deeper understanding of important cultural values that can benefit the increasing cross-cultural communication between Australians and people in other countries, especially in Europe. In addition, the project will be of direct benefit to language teaching in Australia. Although correct use of address pronouns is critical to the mastery of a language and it is notoriously difficult, at present very little time is spent on the appropriate learning of their use by Australian students. This situation partly reflects the lack of detailed information about their use available to teachers and educators. It is expected that the results of this project will assist substantially in correcting this problem.
Within the domain of address, the project focuses on such issues as regional, national, social, generational and gender variation, language contact, and political factors. A range of data collection techniques are being used in the project, including: participant observation, focus groups, social network interviews, an internet survey of companies on address in the workplace and language specific chat groups on address forms. The researchers are Leo Kretzenbacher, Catrin Norrby, Jane Warren, and Michael Clyne. The local RAs are mentioned under 1, and there are in-country RAs in Göteborg, Leipzig, Mannheim, Montpellier, Paris, Va(a)sa, and Vienna. The project has progressed well throughout 2004. Most of the in-country RAs have finished their focus groups and are well on the way to finishing the network interviews. Members of the research team have met with each of the in-country RAs at various stages throughout the year to monitor their progress and have also conducted participant observations in the countries concerned. Data is being processed and analysed as it is received by the local RAs. Several journal publications based on the first wave of data received have been or are in the process of being published.
Scandinavian Languages in Australia
Researchers: Catrin Norrby and Belinda Ross
Expected completion date: 2004
Funding: School of Languages grant-in-aid
This project, run by Catrin Norrby, with the assistance of Belinda Ross and supported by grants-in-aid from the School of Languages SOL is largely completed. Data collection, questionnaires with Swedish LOTE students, took place over 2 years, 2003 and 2004, although one more interview will take place in late 2004. The preliminary results have been presented at a conference and Catrin plans to write up the results in article in late 2004.
A further plan is to expand the project to include other parts of Scandinavian / Swedish life in Melbourne, focusing on the Swedish church as the hub of much of the Scandinavian activities.
Evaluation of the Network Languages Plans
Researchers: Professor Michael Clyne and Sue Fernandez
Completion date: 2004
Funding: Department of Education and Training tender
RUMACCC was approached by the Department of Education and Training (DET) to conduct an evaluation of the Network Languages Plans, which had been compiled by school Networks across Victoria as a result of recommendations in the report Languages for Victoria's Future. The evaluation was conducted over a nine-week period, resulting in a report to DET. The researchers, Sue Fernandez and Michael Clyne, presented their findings to a meeting of MACLEM (Ministerial Advisory Committee on Languages, ESL and Multicultural Education) on August 9th 2004.
Raising Children in more than one language
Presenters: Michael Clyne, Robert Debski and Susanne Döpke
Completion date: 2004
Funding: Victorian Multicultural Commission
RUMACCC conducted two workshops for parents this year, organized by Community Languages Australia and funded by the Victorian Multicultural Commission. One in October was held at the University of Melbourne and attended by about 120 parents. Speakers were Susanne Döpke, Robert Debski and Michael Clyne. The other took place in Adelaide, attended by about 90 parents, and with Döpke and Clyne as the speakers. There are plans to hold a workshop in Geelong early in the new year.
Meredith Bartlett and Sandra Leane have now completed work on the Deafness Council of Victoria funded information booklet Raising Deaf Children Bilingually in Australia. The booklet focuses on raising children bilingually in Auslan and English and is aimed primarily at hearing parents. The booklet was launched by the University of Melbourne Vice Chancellor Kwong Lee Dow in February 2003 and has been widely distributed to organizations and individuals. Workshops based on the booklet have now been planned for three different rural locations in 2005.
Supplementary funding has also been received from Deaf Children Australia to caption the video Growing Up with English Plus, which presents a number of ways to raise children bilingually.
Victorian government LOTE reports
Researcher: Yvette Slaughter
Completion date: 2005
Funding: Department of Education and Training tender
The Department of Education and Training has approached Yvette Slaughter to write the 2003 and 2004 governmental LOTE reports. The reports present a comprehensive overview of language study in Victorian government schools and will be undertaken through RUMACCC.
Facilitating Chinese for all: Teaching Mandarin in a mixed background class
Researcher: Irene Liem
Completion date: 2005
Funding: School of Languages and the Association for Independent Schools, Victoria
The project, which is being undertaken by Irene Liem, follows on from findings in the SPIRT research project which undertook to investigate the language background of students in four community language programs, namely, Arabic, Chinese, Greek and Spanish. The project explored the effect of diversity of student backgrounds in LOTE programs. This follow up project focuses on Chinese students and aims to gain a better understanding of the issues that arise in mixed background classes in Chinese independent schools at the lower secondary school level.
The first stage of the project has been funded by the School of Languages at the University of Melbourne and was conducted in November 2004. The project involved a sociolinguistic survey and a diagnostic test for students at two Melbourne schools. Funding for the second stage of the project is being sought from the AISV (Association of Independent Schools in Victoria) and will be undertaken in 2005. in the second stage. A module of activities with differentiated and collaborative tasks will be developed and implemented in classes with the aim of providing a seminar and publication on this issue in late 2005.