Teaching bilingual adolescents for whom English is a heritage language or who have lived in an Anglophone country, and who are studying in Czech secondary school English classrooms: the students’ perspective

• Název práce v češtině: Výuka angličtiny na českých středních školách z pohledu bilingvních žáků, kteří mají anglofonního rodiče či žili v anglofonní zemi
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Teaching bilingual adolescents for whom English is a heritage language or who have lived in an Anglophone country, and who are studying in Czech secondary school English classrooms: the students’ perspective
• Klíčová slova: žáci s anglofonními rodiči, žáci po návratu z anglofonní země, angličtina jako cizí jazyk, případové studie, angličtina pro rodilé mluvčí, diferenciace výuky, výuka žáků s anglofonními rodiči, vzdělávání nadaných žáků, vzdělávací potřeby žáků, úzkost, motivace, jazyková úroveň, ochabování jazykových schopností
• Klíčová slova anglicky: heritage language learners, returnees, English as a foreign language, case study design, English language arts, differentiated instruction, heritage language teaching, gifted education, needs in the language classroom, language anxiety, motivation, language proficiency, language attrition
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2013/2014
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Ústav anglického jazyka a didaktiky (21-UAJD)
• Vedoucí / školitel: PhDr. Tomáš Gráf, Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 25.06.2014
• Datum zadání: 25.06.2014
• Schválení administrátorem: zatím neschvalováno
• Datum potvrzení stud. oddělením: 01.07.2014
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 09.02.2015 09:00
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 20.01.2015
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 09.02.2015
• Odevzdaná/finalizovaná: odevzdaná studentem a finalizovaná
• Oponenti: prof. PhDr. Aleš Klégr

Zásady pro vypracování

In the most recent years, Czech secondary schools have seen a major increase in the number of students who are either bilingual or at least significantly more advanced than their peers in one or more languages other than Czech. This situation often stems from the fact that these children or teenagers have a non-Czech parent, that they have spent a part of their life abroad, that they have a high aptitude and motivation for learning languages and have been encouraged to attend foreign language courses from a very early age, or from a combination of the above factors. These students have a great potential to further improve their language skills, but they also have to cope with a number of very specific problems. Ideally, they should be taught in a way which would get them involved in the lessons to the benefit of the whole class, while also developing their skills as language users. Unfortunately, it seems that Czech secondary school teachers are generally rather ill-equipped to deal with similar situations and often lack in methodological know-how.
The aim of the thesis is to focus on English language classes and to investigate the research that has so far been made on the topic of teaching bilingual and heritage language students, as well as to map the current situation in secondary schools in Prague from the perspective of these students.
The theoretical part of the thesis will look at the research that has been made in the field of bilingualism, with a focus on the practical challenges faced by bilingual speakers (affective issues, transfer from one language to the other, loss in precision of expression in both languages, etc.), as well as at research concerning teaching in mixed-level classrooms, where teachers have to accommodate for students who at a given point in time have very different needs. The thesis will in particular examine studies conducted with heritage language learners who were attending lessons in mainstream foreign language classrooms.
The practical part of the thesis will primarily be qualitative and will consist of a set of case studies conducted in the form of in-depth semi-structured interviews with students who have the experience of being (quasi-)bilingual and taught in a Czech secondary school.
As its final outcome the thesis should present a set of guidelines or ideas, based both on theoretical findings and on what the interviewees will have to say, that could prove helpful in pointing teachers in the right direction when it comes to identifying the weaker aspects of highly proficient learners’ language skills and deciding what methods and techniques to use to successfully teach these students. These tentative guidelines could hopefully be further elaborated in subsequent works.

Seznam odborné literatury

Bilingualism (definitions and challenges)
Bialystok, E. (2001). Bilingualism in development: language, literacy, and cognition. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, A. (2013). Multicompetence and Second Language Assessment. Language Assessment Quarterly, 10(2), 219–235. doi:10.1080/15434303.2013.769551
Gonzáles, J. (Ed.). (2008). Encyclopedia of bilingual education. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Genesee, F. (2002). Portrait of the Bilingual Child. In V. Cook (Ed.) Portraits of the L2 User, 1(2), 167.
Hornberger, N. H. (2004). The continua of biliteracy and the bilingual educator: Educational linguistics in practice. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7(2-3), 155–171.

Teaching heritage language learners
Berardi-Wiltshire, A. (2013). Reframing the foreign language classroom to accommodate the heritage language learner: A study of heritage identity and language learning motivation. New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics. 18(2), 21-34.
Kondo-Brown, K. (2010). Curriculum development for advancing heritage language competence: Recent research, innovations, and a future agenda. The Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 30, 24-41.
Primven, D. (2010). Bilinguality and Giftedness in a Canadian Public School: Toward a New Approach to Accommodating Bilinguals Within a Monolingual Classroom. Journal for the Education of the Gifted. 34(2), 303–326.
Shinbo, Y. (2004). Challenges, needs, and contributions of heritage language students in foreign language classrooms. (Unpublished master’s thesis). The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Valdés, G. (1995). The teaching of minority languages as academic subjects: Pedagogical and theoretical challenges. The Modern Language Journal, 79(3), 299–328.
Valdés, G. (2005). Bilingualism, heritage language learners, and SLA research: Opportunities lost or seized? The Modern Language Journal, 89(3), 410–426.
Webb, J. B. & Miller, B. L. (Eds.). (2000). Teaching heritage language learners: Voices from the classroom(pp. 201-204). Yonkers, NY: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
Wiley, T.G., Kreeft Peyton, J., Christian, D., Moore, S. C. K. & Liu, N. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of heritage, community, and Native American languages in the United States: Research, policy, and educational practice (pp. 263-271). New York and Washington, DC: Routledge and Center for Applied Linguistics.

Language learning after life or study abroad
Amuzie, G. L., & Winke, P. (2009). Changes in language learning beliefs as a result of study abroad. System, 37(3), 366–379. doi:10.1016/j.system.2009.02.011
Choi, J.-Y. (2003). A study on returnee students’ participation in English classes (unpublished master’s thesis). Sookmyeong Women’s University, Seoul, South Korea.
Grimshaw, T., & Sears, C. (2008). `Where am I from?’ `Where do I belong?’: The negotiation and maintenance of identity by international school students. Journal of Research in International Education, 7(3), 259–278. doi:10.1177/1475240908096483
Hansen, L. (1999). Second Language Attrition in Japanese Contexts. Oxford University Press, USA.
Kang, D.-M. (2014). The effects of study-abroad experiences on EFL learners’ willingness to communicate, speaking abilities, and participation in classroom interaction. System, 42, 319–332. doi:10.1016/j.system.2013.12.025
Kanno, Y. (2000). Bilingualism and Identity: The Stories of Japanese Returnees. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 3(1), 1–18. doi:10.1080/13670050008667697
Song, J. (2011). Globalization, Children’s Study Abroad, and Transnationalism as an Emerging Context for Language Learning: A New Task for Language Teacher Education. TESOL Quarterly, 45(4), 749–758. doi:10.5054/tq.2011.268059

Mixed-level classroom and differentiated instruction
Kanevsky, L. (2011). Deferential Differentiation: What Types of Differentiation Do Students Want? Gifted Child Quarterly, 55(4), 279–299. doi:10.1177/0016986211422098
Manning, S., Stanford, B. “Pokey”, & Reeves, S. (2010). Valuing the Advanced Learner: Differentiating Up. The Clearing House, 83(4), 145–149. doi:10.1080/00098651003774851
Olthouse, J. M. (2013). Multiliteracies Theory and Gifted Education: Creating “Smart Spaces” in the Language Arts Classroom. Gifted Child Today, 36(4), 246–253.
Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.