1. Learning processes and products in Swedish immersion (SWIM)
Immersion programmes are today the most radical language education programmes developed for majority language speakers and with no risk of endangering the first language development of students. Immersion programmes are designed for initially monolingual persons who would not otherwise naturally come into extensive contact with other languages and cultures. An early introduction of a new language and a new culture within the immersion programme and authentic daily contact with two languages and cultures affects the students’ construction of conceptual worlds and opens them up for constructing knowledge on the basis of two languages and two cultures.Immersion has a solid theoretical base for its implementation, which is not always the case in other bilingual education programmes. The evaluation studies conducted since mid 1980s at the University of Vaasa are well-known both nationally and internationally.
The research area SWIM includes two large projects and studies conducted by individual researchers.
Project: Conceptual Worlds in Swedish Immersion, Concept-Im,
(www.uwasa.fi/pohjoismaiset/forskning/koi/)
In early total immersion programmes early language learning and subject teaching in a second language (L2) are optimally combined and therefore immersion provides ideal conditions for predicting the role and importance of different future key components within advanced content-based language learning. The Concept-Im project makes full use of the long experience of immersion research and immersion teaching developed during two decades at Scandinavian Languages Unit at the University of Vaasa. Furthermore, the project benefits from the unit’s strong research profile on language for special purposes (LSP) and terminology. By using the two areas of expertise Concept-Im aims at developing and evaluating stages in the content learning process, a contribution to the demands which the Common European framework of Reference for Languages has pointed out. The expected results of the project can be applied to all content and language integrated programs in Europe e.g. in the development of curricula and methods used in education.
The material of the project is based on a large corpus material, which has been collected by researchers at the University of Vaasa during 2004–2009 and consists of written and oral production by more than 660 (including pilot material) immersion students in different grades (grades 3, 6 and 9) in three different Finnish cities (Vaasa/Vasa, Turku/Åbo, Espoo/Esbo), classroom observations and teacher interviews. The material of the corpus focuses explicitly on the exploration of the development of conceptual worlds and concept systems.
Project: Multiple Languages in Immersion, Multi-Im
In Finland immersion is developed for Swedish (or Finnish) as L2, but teaching of other languages is integrated in the immersion programmes as well. The programme has thereby been developed from the original Canadian bilingual programme to a programme aiming at multilingualism. The Multi-Im project addresses directly both European and global issues of high importance for a multilingual and intercultural future. The communicative competence of students in several languages is regarded as crucial in many European countries. While several languages are traditionally offered during the compulsory education period in most European countries, the prevailing system of separate language classes tends not to produce students who are motivated enough to reach the expected competence level.
The Multi-IM project aims at exploring multilingual dimensions within Swedish immersion programmes. The current project includes three different research components:
- an updated national survey on early total Swedish immersion programs offered in Finland. The questionnaire has a special focus on the teaching of additional languages in immersion and the teaching arrangements provided within these additional languages
- a nationwide follow-up study of the results of Swedish immersion students in the national matriculation exam
- multilingual competence and perceptions of multilingualism among immersion students and immersion teachers. The research approach is three-folded and includes sociolinguistic perspectives (e.g. How do students and teachers define the societal status of the individual languages of the program?), psycholinguistic perspectives (e.g. Do immersion students perceive themselves as multilingual speakers?) and didactic perspectives (e.g. Do teachers of individual languages in immersion benefit from the multilingual competence of their students?)
2. Language learning and language pedagogy (LangLePe)
Research on language learning and language pedagogy has its’ base in the history of the humanities at the University of Vaasa of teaching languages in a school of business. The teaching methods have constantly been developed by doing action research on issues related to mother tongue and foreign language skills needed at work. Research in the research area Language Learning and Language Pedagogy has its’ emphasis on language learning through different teaching methods and approaches (e.g. FinTandem), teaching materials and new media as well as on teacher training programmes. A central viewpoint is the dialogue between the learner and the teacher perspectives. The studies approach language competence via communicative competence with a special reference to the pluridimensionality of language development.3. Languages, contact and identity (LCI)
The research area Language, contact and identity is a newcomer in the ReACT research group. The research network started to evolve in spring 2010 when new and thematically related studies were initiated and got external financial support. Within the LCI research area, individual researchers have a common interest in language contact and its impacts on the language identity of persons. In contrast with the other two research areas of ReACT the research focus is not mainly centred on formal teaching settings but on how intra- and interlinguistic contacts relate to both individuals and group members.The studies within LCI can mainly be classified in accordance with two different orientations. The first orientation includes interlinguistic variation among migrants (e.g. studies of migrants in the city of Virrat and the city of Närpiö) and intralinguistic variation (standard varity vs. dialect) among individuals. Theoretical construction builds on sociolinguistically and psycholinguistically based theories as well as on situated learning and communities of practice.
The other orientation is text-based and explores how intra- and interlinguistic contact is manifested in different text genres (fiction and non-fiction). Comparative studies on e.g how Finnish, Swedish and Finland-Swedish newspapers present the same kind of news as well as on national steering documents (e.g curricula for mother tongue teaching [Swedish] in Swedish and Finland) are conducted by doctoral students. A subproject within this orientation is the recent TITT-project (Tvåspråkighet i text/Bilingualism in texts), which was started in autumn 2010 and where bilingualism (Swedish and Finnish) in non-fiction texts (children’s, YA and adult literature) are analysed in Finland-Swedish literary texts. The aim of this project is to find new methodological tools to analyse bilingualism in literary texts by analysing passages of actual language switches in texts and by describing the explicity/implicity of bilingual markers used by authors and their consequences for mono-and bilingual readers. The theory behind this project is predominantly influenced by linguistic sociology.
