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Internship Report Schakelprogramma at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences

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MA Multilingualism

Internship Report

Schakelprogramma at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences

Mengyang He – S3595579

Placement Supervisor: Mirjam Günther-van der Meij

University Supervisor: Joana Da Silveira Duarte

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Table of Contents

Introduction ... 2

Description of the Placement ... 2

Descriptions of Tasks and Learning Objectives ... 2

Motivation ... 2

Background ... 3

Research Questions ... 4

Method ... 4

Results ... 5

Discussion and conclusion ... 10

Limitations and reflections ... 10

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Introduction

Description of the Placement

NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences (NHL Stenden Hogeschool) has campuses in Leeuwarden, Emmen, Meppel, Assen, Groningen and Terschelling in the Netherlands and overseas campuses in Indonesia, Qatar, South Africa and Thailand. The Schakelprogramma is a one-year program preparing refugee background students to study in higher education in the Netherlands. There are other similar programs in different places in the Netherlands, such as the preparatory year program in Groningen. It is the first year for the Schakelprogramma at NHL Stenden Leeuwarden. It started from September 2018. The program offers various courses including Dutch (including NT2 which is Nederlands als tweede taal/Dutch as a second language), English, Cultural Diversity and Multilingualism, Mathematics and coaching. The instruction languages mainly are Dutch and English. All the students are over 18 years old. Students who were recruited for this program had at least B1 level of Dutch and A2 level of English. Their education background should be the equivalent of at least HAVO (senior general secondary education, (Nuffic, n.d.)) or MBO level 4 (the highest level in senior secondary vocational education and training, (Nuffic, n.d.)). The ideal situation is that their Dutch level will be above B2 level after the program and they are going to a Dutch higher education institute in the beginning of the following academic year.

Descriptions of Tasks and Learning Objectives

For this internship, I attended some meeting about the refugee topic, for example, the Critical Skills for Life and Work meeting in March. I also observed the language use and interaction in the classroom and the analysis of that is the focus in this report.

How to do a class observation, how to analyze the data I obtain, how to use statistics to find answers to questions and what multilingualism looks like in the real world not just from the cases in the literature are the skills I can practice. Analyzing and relating multilingualism to the theory I learnt in the class are the main learning objectives.

Motivation

I chose this internship because a) the classroom in this program which includes Dutch, Frisian, English and the language of refugee students is a perfect showcase of multilingualism so that I can see what language strategies people use and in which situations b) it is a great opportunity to practice what I learned in the classroom such as how to use R from “Essential Statistics” c) I always like stories and I would love to know stories from different people including refugee background immigrants.

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Background

The population of global refugees was 25.4 million by the end of 2017 which was the highest known number in history and has increased for six years continually (UNHCR, 2017, p. 2). 48% of them were over 18 years old and 52% were under the age of 18 (UNHCR, 2017, p. 3). The biggest country of origin of refugees in 2017 was Syria because of the Syrian civil war. More than 6.9 million Syrians fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Germany, Iraq, Egypt, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands and other 117 countries (UNHCR, 2017, p. 14). In 2017, the population of refugees in the Netherlands was 103,860 and the number of asylum seekers was 5,818 (VluchtelingenWerk Nederland, 2018). Syria, Eritrea, Morocco, Algeria, and Iraq were the top five countries of origin of first-time asylum applicators in the Netherlands (VluchtelingenWerk Nederland, 2018). The country of most refugees settled in the Netherlands in 2015, 2016 and 2017 was Syria (Eurostat, 2019).

Highly educated refugees are refugees who have enrolled in higher education (Glastra & Vedder, 2010). They can enroll in universities either in their home or host country. 37% of youth around the world attend higher education but only 1% of refugee youth go to higher education (UNHCR, 2017). In the Netherlands, attending higher education means going to HBO (university of applied sciences) or WO (research universities).

In the EU, the employment rate of refugees was 56% and this number was 9% lower than that of autochthone inhabitants. The unemployment rate of refugees was 19% which was 9% higher than the unemployment rate of autochthone inhabitants (Dumont et al., 2016). The employment rate of low-skilled male refugees was about 55% and that of high-skilled male refugees was about 65%. Nearly 70% of high-skilled female refugees were hired while only about 30% of low-skilled female refugees had a job (Dumont et al., 2016). Going to higher education does not only mean having a higher chance to be employed but also facilitates transition (Taylor & Sidhu, 2012; Wright & Plasterer, 2010, as cited in Crea, 2016), improves language and technical skills, gains a sense of accomplishment, and buffers some negative influences associated with being a refugee (Crea, 2016).

For immigrants, language is central for both the integration process and social and economic position in the labor market (Van Tubergen, 2010; Yao & Van Ours, 2015). The more proficiently immigrants speak the local language, the more likely they are going to find a job with a higher salary (Chiswick & Miller, 2001; Van Tubergen & Kalmijn, 2009). For example, the employment of refugees who speak the local language at a beginner’s level is 27% but the employment of refugees who master the local language at an intermediate level is 59% in the EU (Dumont et al., 2016). They are also more likely to have a closer relationship with local people (Martinovic, Van Tubergen & Maas, 2009).

The Schakelprogramma at NHL Stenden Leeuwarden or other preparatory programs for refugees can improve the proficiency of local language(s) and increase their chances to go to higher education which appears to be a sustainable way to help them in the long run.

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Research Questions

There are two research questions:

1. What languages appeared in the class?

2. What multilingualism approaches did teachers and students use in the classroom?

Method

I observed 10 classes in total (see in Table 1) and used a video camera borrowed from NHL Stenden to record. Before the recoding, I gained permission to film from both teachers and students. Filmed video can make it possible to both analyze or reanalyze at a later time and study the complex processes (Hiebert et al., 2003). Moreover, it helps integration of quantitative and qualitative information and communication with real examples (Hiebert et al., 2003). For each class, the video was divided into 18 or 36 pieces of 5 minutes and these pieces were labeled with numbers from 1 to 18 or 36. Then for every 90 minutes, one fragment was chosen randomly in R. These 12 fragments were used to as samples to represent each class to be analyzed (see in Table 1)

Table 1.

Classes been observed in this internship

Course Duration Language of

instruction

Date Fragment

Coaching 90 min Dutch March 13th 11 to 15 min

Coaching 90 min Dutch March 27th 21 to 25 min

Dutch (NT2) 180 min Dutch March 13th 66 to 70 min,

141 to 145 min

Dutch (NT2) 180 min Dutch March 27th 36 to 40 min

86 to 90 min

Mathematics 90 min Dutch May 20th 41 to 45 min

Cultural Diversity and

Multilingualism

90 min English February 25th 51 to 55 min

Cultural Diversity and

Multilingualism

90 min English March 11th 6 to 10 min

Cultural Diversity and

Multilingualism

90 min English March 18th 21 to 25 min

Cultural Diversity and

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Multilingualism Cultural Diversity and

Multilingualism

90 min English April 8th 61 to 65 min

Results

In total, 12 fragments of 5 minutes of observation from 4 different classes were selected and analyzed (see in Table 2).

Table 2.

Language use in the selected video fragments

Course Language of

instruction

Language appeared Detail

Coaching Dutch Dutch A Syrian student gave

a presentation in Dutch; two teachers interacted with him in Dutch

Coaching Dutch Dutch, Arabic Four Syrian students

were preparing a Dutch presentation they were to give; they used Arabic with each other when they were preparing; two teachers talked to each other in Dutch; two teachers had conversations with students in Dutch

Dutch (NT2) Dutch Dutch, Arabic,

English

A teacher used Dutch with students to discuss a Dutch exercise; Arabic students and Persian student used Dutch and English to discuss the exercise

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Dutch (NT2) Dutch Dutch, Arabic, English

A teacher used Dutch to discuss the exercise with students; the teacher used Dutch to explain also tried to ask that in English and Arabic; Syrian students used Arabic to communicate with each other

Dutch (NT2) Dutch Dutch, Arabic,

English

A teacher used Dutch to discuss a Dutch exercise with students; students used Arabic and English with each other

Dutch (NT2) Dutch Dutch, Arabic,

English

Teachers used Dutch with each other; Arabic students used Arabic with each other; a few English sentences appeared, for example, “what is the language test?” “Dutch language test”; “come on” said by one student

Mathematics Dutch Dutch A teacher used Dutch

to teach math concepts and Dutch math terms

Cultural Diversity and Multilingualism

English English, Arabic,

Portuguese A teacher used English to give instructions of the receptive multilingualism activity; Portuguese and Arabic were used in the activity; students commented in English; the teacher used English

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to comment and explain

Cultural Diversity and Multilingualism

English English, Dutch A guest lecturer gave an English

presentation about differences in Syria and the Netherlands; some Dutch words with Dutch pronunciation for Dutch education system, such as MBO, HBO; “Nederlands” were used for “Dutch” but with English

pronunciation Cultural Diversity

and Multilingualism

English English, Dutch,

Frisian

A teacher compared English, Dutch Frisian to teach some Frisian simple phrases; the teacher used English to explain

“translanguaging”; the teacher said “Dankjewel” to a student when she gave back the teaching material used before Cultural Diversity

and Multilingualism

English English A teacher used

English to give feedback to students’ presentation; students interacted with the teacher in English Cultural Diversity

and Multilingualism

English Dutch A group of students

gave a presentation in Dutch about cultural differences and their experiences in the Netherlands

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This table shows that among the 12 fragments, 4 are monolingual (3 Dutch and 1 English), 2 are bilingual (1 Dutch and English and 1 Dutch and Arabic) and 6 are trilingual (4 Dutch, Arabic and English; 1 English, Dutch and Frisian; 1 English, Arabic and Portuguese).

Among all the classes, Mathematics was the one with the least interaction between students and the teacher. Mathematics in this Schakelprogramma was quite a challenge for both teachers and students because they had to learn math with Dutch which was the language students did not master very well yet. Basically, math class here was a kind of CLIL (Content and Language Integrate Learning) which is to learn a non-language subject through a foreign language (Marsh, 2002). During my internship with students and teachers, I found that the biggest challenge in the math was the Dutch language. The math taught in the program was not that difficult and the key was to getting familiar with Dutch math terms.

Cultural Diversity and Multilingualism was the course with the biggest range of languages and language approaches. English was the language of instruction. During the class about Frisian, the teacher used translanguaging which is “the use of the learner’s full language repertoire in teaching and learning” (García, Johnson, & Seltzer, 2017). This can optimize students’ learning capacity out of the monolinguistic learning limitation (García & Wei, 2015). There was also a receptive multilingualism activity in this class. Receptive multilingualism means speakers each communicate in different languages, not use a lingua franca, and understand each other. A famous example is Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish people can understand each other when they speak their native language (Braunmüller, 2013). In the class, the teacher used Portuguese and a student used Arabic, with onomatopoeia, and body gestures as the extra-linguistic factor, to solve a problem together. Moreover, I observed that the only Persian student in this Schakelprogramma could understand most of the content when her classmates talked in Arabic even though she did not speak Arabic which is also a good example of receptive multilingualism. Sometimes she would use a lingua franca such as English or Dutch or code-switch between these two languages to communicate with her Syrian colleagues. Code-switching means people change languages or varieties of the language. This can be between but also within a sentence (Bracey, 2013), as appeared in the classroom as well. For example, the lecturer used MBO and HBO (both with Dutch pronunciation) in his English presentation. Apart from that, during my internship, I noticed that Dutch-related things were always referred to in Dutch, for example, “Nederlands” instead of “Dutch”, no matter in which class. The existence of Cultural Diversity and Multilingualism increases students’ language awareness. Language awareness was defined as “explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use” (ALA, 2019). This can help students be more open-minded and practice and reflect on the multilingual language use (Hélot et al., 2018).

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Figure 1. one of the teaching materials used in Cultural Diversity and Multilingualism to help

students learn Frisian

In the NT2 class, the teacher always used Dutch to teach and discuss but she also tried to use “what is that in Arabic and English” to translanguage and increase students’ language awareness. During one coaching class, functional multilingual learning appeared when four Syrian used Arabic to prepare the presentation and when they were ready, they switched to Dutch. Functional multilingual learning means students can use their home language or other language to facilitate learning (Nagel et al, 2015). Functional multilingual learning also appeared in different situations in different classes, for example, two Arabic students used Arabic to understand one Dutch sentence in the NT2 class.

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Discussion and conclusion

In the Schakelprogramma, Dutch, English, Arabic, Frisian and some other languages such as Portuguese were used in the class. The majority of the class in the program had at least two languages. Code-switching, Content and Language Integrated Learning, functional multilingual leaning, receptive multilingualism, lingua franca, translanguaging, and language awareness were all used in class in the different subjects and by several teachers.

In the program, there was no rule or limit for which and how many languages students were allowed to use. This multilingual environment can help students be open-minded towards different languages and cultures, feel the equality among different languages, make the full use of and expand their linguistic repertoire and optimize their learning outcomes.

Limitations and reflections

I have only been able to analyze a part of the video-observations. It prooved difficult for me to analyze everything because a) the format of the video is MTS not the common formats like MP4, AVI, FLV or WMV so it is rather difficult to use many programs to analyze the video directly; b) sometimes several conversations happened at the same time in the classroom which makes one camera recording not enough; c) my Dutch is not good enough to be able to understand everything being said and my knowledge of the other languages was not adequate to understand the content of what was being said.

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References

ALA. (2019). About language awareness. Association of Language Awareness. http://www.languageawareness.org/?page_id=48. Accessed 8 Jan 2019.

Bracey, H. (2013). "baby, te amo": Code switching as a way to develop and limit intimacy in multilingual, romantic relationships. The Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography, 3(2), 12-22. doi:10.15273/jue.v3i2.8239

Braunmüller, K. (2013). Communication based on Receptive Multilingualism: Advantages and Disadvantages. International Journal of Multilingualism, 10(2), 214-223. doi:10.1080/14790718.2013.789524

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Dumont, J. C., Liebig, T., Peschner, J., Tanay, F., & Xenogiani, T. (2016). How are refugees faring on the Labour Market in Europe? A first evaluation based on the 2014 EU Labour Force Survey ad hoc module. European Commission DG Employment Working Paper, (1).

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