Thematic Session
Organizer
Marina Mattheoudakis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, marmat@enl.auth.gr
The teaching of Greek as a second/foreign language (L2) was born in the 1980s, at that time being considered a “newly constituted field of study” (Moschonas, 2017, p.30). Forty years later, the educational contexts where Greek is taught as L2 have increased and become more varied, mainly due to global migration and digital technologies. Relevant research in Greece and abroad indicates that the educational and socio-cultural contexts where Greek is taught as L2 differ widely, thus creating different needs and expectations regarding material production, teacher training, instructional practices and learning outcomes (Mattheoudakis & Maligkoudi, forthcoming). As a result, it has transpired that Greek as L2 is an umbrella term that covers a large number of various educational contexts sharing a single common feature: the instruction of Greek to multilingual learners who are not L1 speakers of Greek. Due to the variability of socio-cultural contexts where Greek is taught as L2, there is a pressing need for studies that will raise educators’, researchers’ and policymakers’ awareness of their differences and similarities as well as of their significant implications for all stakeholders – families, educators, learners (cf. Kramsch, 2018). The proposed thematic symposium aims to focus on the instruction of Greek to multilingual learners and highlight the complexity of the categories of ‘Greek as heritage language’ and ‘Greek as foreign language’. The rising number of Greek heritage speakers as well as the relatively recent introduction of Greek as a foreign language to immersion programs in the US (Mattheoudakis, 2020), have led us to reconsider the dividing lines between those two categories of learners as, apart from any differences between them, they both include multilingual learners of Greek. This stance also aligns with the ‘multilingual turn’ in language education (Lytra et al., 2022; Lytra, 2023), which focuses on the study of multilingual language use across a wide range of contexts and participants. The papers of this thematic symposium will present and discuss four different educational contexts – in Europe and the US – where Greek is taught to multilingual learners in primary, secondary and tertiary education. Our presentations are expected to shed light on the role of linguistic diversity and the impact of the socio-cultural context on Greek L2 learners’ education.
Kramsch, C. (2018). Is there still a place for culture in a multilingual FL education? Langscape Journal, 1. doi 10.18452/19039
Lytra, V. (2023). Appraising the ‘multilingual turn’ in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. In S. Ainsworth, D. Griffiths, G. Macrory, & K. Pahl (Eds.), Multimodality and multilingualism. Towards an integrative approach (pp. 3–14). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Lytra, V., Ros i Solé, C., Anderson, J., & Macleroy, V. (Eds.) (2022). Liberating language education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Mattheoudakis, M. (2020). An American and Greek language integrated curriculum a dual language immersion program: The case of Odyssey Charter School. In F. Soumakis & T. G. Zervas (Eds.), Educating Greek Americans. Historical perspectives and contemporary pathways (pp. 129–154). Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mattheoudakis, M., & Maligkoudi, C. (forthcoming). Exploring Greek as a second language in Greece and beyond. Routledge Publications.
Moschonas, S. (2017). The discovery of Modern Greek as a second language. In E. Agathopoulou, T. Danavasi, & L. Efstathiadi (Eds.), Selected Papers on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics from ISTAL 2015 (pp. 27–50). Thessaloniki: School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Papers
Maria Kaliambou
Yale University
maria.kaliambou@yale.edu
The presentation focuses on the Modern Greek language program within the Hellenic Studies at Yale University. The language program at Yale implements several innovative pedagogical strategies to address the challenges within the field. Through interdisciplinary connections and projects that extend teaching and learning beyond the confines of the curriculum, Yale’s program aims to enhance the visibility of Modern Greek within the Yale community and beyond. The presentation will demonstrate the “Heritage Meets Heritage” project, one of the pedagogical and research initiatives in which the Modern Greek program at Yale participates. It is a collaborative research project among several languages at Yale University, targeting to empower and support heritage learners from different languages (Lee-Smith, A and Alexandrov, S. 2023). The project aims to unite heritage students from various language departments at Yale, and study their linguistic and cultural patterns (Fairclough, M. and Beaudrie S. 2016). The paper will mention briefly the history, the purpose, the characteristics, and the various phases of the project, and will conclude by focusing on the Modern Greek case.
References
Fairclough, M., & Beaudrie, S. (Eds.) (2016). Innovative strategies for heritage language teaching: A practical guide for the classroom. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
Lee-Smith, A., & Alexandrov, S. (2023). Heritage meets heritage: Empowering and supporting heritage language learners. The Language Educator, (Spring 2023 issue), 29–36, plus online content. American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
Vally Lytra
Goldsmiths, University of London
v.lytra@gold.ac.uk
In this presentation, I investigate the multilingual, multimodal, and multisensorial resources a group of children draw upon in their creative text-making and talk about texts at a pre-kindergarten class at a Greek heritage school in Switzerland. I present examples from one of the video recordings where the children are sharing and discussing their text-making with the researcher/educator and the teachers. The study adopts a translingual and transcultural orientation to language and language learning. This orientation takes a broad view of language that encompasses children’s full range of semiotic repertoires, aesthetic resources, and multimodal practices (Lytra et al., 2022). It proposes a dynamic, fluid, and contingent understanding of language and highlights the interdependence of language and culture. It embraces not only the instructional and formal aspects of language learning but also emphasises the multimodal, multisensory, aesthetic, personal and affective elements. In this sense it moves away from dominant rationalist and pragmatic approaches to language teaching and learning. It focuses on the transformative process of language learning and how it might reconfigure existing communicative resources and nurture new ways of being, seeing, feeling, and expressing in the world (ibid; also, Leung & Scarino, 2016; Phipps, 2019; Ros i Solé, 2016). The presentation offers important insights for the development of Greek heritage language pedagogy in early years (Lytra et al., 2023), and implications for practice in diverse early language education contexts more broadly addressing ‘the current scarcity in research-based strategies for language teachers, who are struggling to apply an effective curriculum for early language learners’ (Schwartz & Minkov, 2022, p. 21).
Marina Mattheoudakis
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
marmat@enl.auth.gr
References
Baker, C., & Wright, W. E. (2021). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (7th ed.). Multilingual Matters.
Lindholm-Leary, K. J., & Genesee, F. (2014). Student outcomes in one-way, two-way, and indigenous language immersion education. Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education, 2(2), 165–180.
Georgia Nikolaou
Odyssey Charter School & University of Pennsylvania
Georgia.nikolaou@odyssey.k12.de.us
References
Agha, A. (2007). Language and social relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Anastassiadis-Symeonidis, A. (2015). Grammar of the Modern Greek academic language within the scope of linguistics [in Greek]. Proceedings of 10th ELETO Conference “Hellenic Language and Terminology”, 12-14 November. University of Athens, Greece.
Anastassiadis-Symeonidis, A., & Fliatouras, A. (2004). The distinction between learned and colloquial in Modern Greek: definition and classification [in Greek]. Proceedings of ICGL6, 18-21 September 2003. Department of Philology of the University of Crete, CD-ROM.
Anastassiadis-Symeonidis, A., & Fliatouras, A. (2018). From the learned register of Modern Greek to Ancient Greek: Research proposals and educational perspectives [in Greek]. In Studies for Greek Language (April 2017). Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Anastassiadis-Symeonidis, A., Fliatouras, A., & Nikolaou, G. (2018). The dictionary of the learned level of Modern Greek. In J. Čibej, V. Gorjanc,I. Kosem, & S. Krek (Eds.), Proceedings of the 18th EURALEX International Congress: Lexicography in global contexts (pp. 631–640). Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts.
Kamilaki, M. (2009). The learned elements in communication amongst young people: sociopragmatological investigation of the variety [+_LEARNED] [in Greek] [PhD Thesis]. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
Laughlin, V. T., Wain, J., & Schmidgall, J. (2015). Defining and operationalizing the construct of pragmatic competence: Review and recommendations. In ETS Research Report Series, 1–43. https://doi.org/10.1002/ets2.12053
Snow, M. A., & Brinton, D. (Eds) (2017). The content-based classroom: New perspectives on integrating language and content (2nd ed.). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.