4 May 16:00-18:00 EEST | Minerva Plaza K232, Siltavuorenpenger 5A & Zoom
Focus: Multilingualism and language awareness
The event is co-organized by the Africa Research Forum for Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Helsinki (AfriStadi) and the Global Innovation Network for Teaching and Learning (GINTL).
To receive the Zoom link or to have coffee in the event, please register below by 29 April.
Speakers & Topics
Ibrahima Abdoul Hayou Cissé
(Institut de Pédagogie Universitaire, Bamako)
Ibrahima Abdoul Hayou Cissé will speak about multilingualism in Mali from various perspectives. Around 60 languages are spoken in the country. However, these languages are not equal in terms of not only political status and geographical distribution of speakers but also in terms of attitudes and domains of usage.
The talk is a journey into the heart of linguistic diversity in Mali through a description of individual (child and adult) and social multilingualism thus revealing mismatch between linguistic and ethnic identities, and geographical mobility and inter-ethnolinguistic marriages as main factors shaping multilingualism.
It will, in particular, address issues such as language attitudes vis-à-vis French (official language but spoken by only about 17% of Malians and learnt almost exclusively at school), Bambara (the most widely spoken language in the country but perceived as a “colonial” in some regions in the country) and Minianka (an ethnic group reported to have negative attitudes towards its own mother tongue). Patterns of oral language usage (characterized by translanguaging), domains of usage (formal and non-formal settings) and the coexistence of various writing systems also will be covered to present a holistic picture of multilingualism in Mali.
Josephine Moate
(University of Jyväskylä)
Josephine Moate will focus on the introduction of a language awareness (LA) pathway as a cross-curricular theme recently introduced into class teacher education at the University of Jyväskylä (JYU). This pathway is a response to the increasing diversity that is part of Finnish society and education in Finland and has been developed as part of an Erasmus+ project “Linguistically Sensitive Teaching in all Classrooms” (Listiac).
The LA pathway has been the focus of the JYU partner and begins in the first year of teacher education and continues until the final teaching practice. The LA pathway comprises eight steps explicitly integrated into existing courses and activities. Josephine’s talk will explain why and how the pathway has been developed within the Finnish context, as well as the benefits and challenges of developing the pathway.
