Description
In the Netherlands, 40% of learners enrol in Vocational Education & Training (VET) after completing secondary education. VET prepares students for a specific occupation, which they eventually carry out in environments where others may speak no or limited Dutch. However, VET teachers are uncertain how to harness students’ multilingual competences to support learning and communication in multilingual work environments (Authors, XXXX). Despite varied experiences of multilingual encounters, VET students tend to have limited awareness of existing multilingual competences, a limited set of interaction- and mediation strategies and frequently experience problems in code switching and language retrieval (Authors, XXXX).To address this, in a design study VET teachers (N=9) and teacher educators (N=4) of Dutch and English co-designed a series of four lessons for eight different vocational contexts. The designs were evaluated through class observations, student interviews, teacher logs and analysis of learner products. Results show that the designs were successful in raising awareness of multilingual competences and in training multilingual language strategies suited to the workplace. The analysis also yielded a set of design principles that are applicable across vocational training contexts.
| Period | 21 Mar 2024 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Multilingualism on my mind |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Bergen, NorwayShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |