Abstract
The paper examines the language acquisition management cycle perpetuated by the state language acquisition policy in the Czech Republic and how it is dealt with in thematically oriented biographical interviews conducted with Czech mothers rearing children in families where multiple languages are used and transmitted. It analyses the discursive resources and narrative strategies used to construct biographical accounts in order to investigate the emic perspective on the micro-macro interplay of the language acquisition management cycle. Although the analysed narratives deal with experiences involving children with plurilingual family backgrounds, they seem to reproduce the discursive resources underpinned by the monolingual self-perception of Czech society. The analysis suggests that this is a result of comprehensive sense-making processes. On the one hand, mothers construct accounts of some of their activities in terms of the adjustment designs formulated on the macro level. On the other hand, some of them challenge the role of mere “implementers”, assigned to them within the language acquisition management cycle, through their narratives.
The original version of this chapter was revised. A correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75963-0_15
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Notes
- 1.
Statistics show that there is a relatively constant number of intermarriages between Czech and foreign citizens over the last five years (Český statistický úřad [Czech Statistical Office], 2015). Unfortunately, there are no statistics available concerning the mother tongue or languages of children enrolled in Czech schools. The only statistics available concern their citizenship in terms of being a Czech citizen or not (see Český statistický úřad [Czech Statistical Office], 2015). As children in plurilingual families where at least one parent is Czech usually hold the Czech citizenship, there is no data available as to how many of these children actually attend Czech schools.
- 2.
Language acquisition here means all the processes through which individuals become familiar with a language and develop their skills in it. The term “language acquisition” is used interchangeably with the term “language learning” and covers both conscious and unconscious processes.
- 3.
Česká republika [Czech Republic]. (2013, November 10). Zákon č. 561/2004 o předškolním, základním, středním, vyšším odborném a jiném vzdělávání (školský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů [Act no. 561/2004 about preschool, primary, high school, colleges and other education (school law), in the wording of subsequent ammendments]. http://www.msmt.cz/file/19743. Accessed 15 January 2015. Further: Act no. 561/2004
- 4.
Complexity here means that the different phases of the language management process are split between different actors who conduct their activities in different spatial and temporal contexts.
- 5.
Some more general documents, such as the National Plan for Foreign Language Education (Národní plán výuky cizích jazyků [National Programme for Teaching Foreign Languages], n.d.) or the White Paper issued by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (2001), define the general objectives of public education, including, to some extent, with regard to language acquisition. The details of what is to be taught at schools, however, are provided for elsewhere, especially in the binding Framework Education Programme for Elementary Education issued by one of the Ministry’s departments (Odbor, 2013).
- 6.
Accordingly, the learning contents that are (potentially) relevant for language acquisition are split into two different domains in the Framework Education Programme (Odbor, 2013): foreign language teaching and mother tongue education. The two domains, in turn, provide the basis for delineating subjects taught during compulsory education (foreign language and second foreign language, on the one hand, and Czech language and literature, on the other). The objectives of foreign language education are linked to language skills as defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (ibid., p. 18). Both foreign languages are taught from a complete beginner level with the aim of reaching A2 and A1 levels, respectively.
- 7.
In terms of mother tongue education, pupils are expected to develop not only basic skills in language education as such, but also skills needed to understand other educational domains (Odbor, 2013, p. 17). The Czech language is not only the language of instruction throughout the curriculum, it is also taken for granted as pupils’ mother tongue and attributed corresponding weight as an overall tool with respect to cognition and individual development as well as social cohesion. Pupils leaving public schools should, apart from possessing certain other skills, “acknowledge the [Czech] language as a means through which the nation has evolved historically and culturally, and therefore as an important force unifying national society” (ibid., p. 18 – our English rendition).
- 8.
For instance by the fact that school attendance in the first nine years is compulsory in the Czech Republic.
- 9.
In biographical accounts, an individual’s life may be depicted in three manners: life as lived, life as experienced, life as told (Sloboda, 2011, p. 285). Analogically, by analysing biographies, we may find out how things were, how individuals experienced them and how they integrate them into their accountable, retrospective versions of their own lives (ibid.). While there may be doubts about the factuality, i.e. about how things were in reality, of any biographical account, the tools the individuals use to make their biography tellable and accountable, i.e. the narrative strategies and discursive practices, provide sound analytical material. Moreover, these practices and strategies offer insights into the cognitive structures of the biographer, i.e. into how the person in question has experienced his or her life, and how that life is being communicated to the interviewer.
- 10.
All mothers took part in an initial thematically oriented biographical interview and with the majority of them a follow-up interview was realised as well. In the follow-up interview the interviewers posed questions in order to clarify and/or exemplify accounts from the first interview. However, even the follow-up interviews are of narrative nature and contain a great amount of accounts from the respondents’ biographies.
- 11.
We use the following transcription conventions: […] part of the transcript omitted; (0.2) pause, length in seconds. Names and other personally identifiable information concerning the research participants have been changed.
- 12.
Her husband is a Serb from Bosnia and Herzegovina, their children are: f-17, m-15, m-11.
- 13.
Faculty schools cooperate with universities and are therefore known to be “up-to-date” on teaching methods and in other respects. Schools with extended language instruction used to take pupils only from third grade upwards and subject to an entrance exam.
- 14.
Her husband is from France, their children are m-7, m-5.
- 15.
Her husband is from Tanzania, their children are: m-10, m-0.
- 16.
Magdalena Hromadová.
- 17.
Meaning the school.
- 18.
We can assume that this plan was devised in the context of considerations that language acquired in an interactional setting in the family should further be developed by some sort of formal language education. However, Mrs. T’s account of her son’s language proficiency expressed earlier could have been rationalised, i.e. formed at some later moment in the biographical time, e.g. under the influence of the encounter with the educational setting.
- 19.
We use the word “plan” to refer to Schütze’s term “action scheme”, which is a structure used in biographical narratives that may be described as the “intentional principle of one’s biography” (Schütze, 1983, p. 288 – our own rendition). “Educational plan”, then, refers to the principle applied by mothers in relation to the family’s decisions on school enrolment.
- 20.
On a scale from one to five, with one being the best mark.
- 21.
Her husband is from France, their children are: m-7, m-5.
- 22.
Meaning Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.
- 23.
It is also worth noting that the reinvented home-schooling curriculum actually further developed this aspect. The family has decided to teach their son not just the required English curriculum contents for the given school year but to prepare him for an international certificate examination.
- 24.
However, the accounts of school enrolment are potentially relevant also with regards to the other biographical identities of our respondents. Especially the decision about when children should be enrolled in an educational institution at pre-school level is closely related to mothers as professionals.
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Özörencik, H., Hromadová, M. (2018). Between Implementing and Creating: Mothers of Children with Plurilingual Family Background and the Czech Republic’s Language Acquisition Policy. In: Siiner, M., Hult, F., Kupisch, T. (eds) Language Policy and Language Acquisition Planning. Language Policy, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75963-0_3
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