Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Active Biliteracy? Students Taking Decisions About Using Languages for Academic Purposes

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Language Alternation, Language Choice and Language Encounter in International Tertiary Education

Part of the book series: Multilingual Education ((MULT,volume 5))

Abstract

From the perspective of language-as-a-resource it seems logical that multilingual students would use their available languages to engage with conceptually challenging academic texts and contexts. Hornberger’s continua of biliteracy model provides a framework within which the use of more than one academic language can be described. This model is used as a possible heuristic to investigate students’ language practices at higher education level. Building on an earlier study conducted with South African students by van der Walt and Dornbrack, this chapter reports on five multilingual students who study at a German university and who volunteered to be interviewed about their learning practices. This qualitative study makes no claims for multilingual students in general but speculates on the possibility of ‘active biliteracy’ as a prerequisite for multilinguals to use their languages for learning purposes. In the context of the continua of biliteracy model, the concept of active biliteracy is fleshed out as a notion that could prove useful in explaining why some students maintain an almost diglossic separation between academic and social language use.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Descendants of ethnic Germans who emigrated to Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, mostly to the Lower Volga. Many of them were sent to Kazakhstan by Stalin during WWII. Since the 1980s they were allowed to leave the Soviet Union and its successor states and many of them repatriated to Germany.

References

  • Altbach, P.G., and Jane Knight. 2007. The internationalization of higher education: Motivations and realities. Journal of Studies in International Education 11: 290–305.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Canagarajah, Suresh. 2002. Multilingual writers and the academic community: Towards a critical relationship. English for Academic Purposes 1(1): 29–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • García, Ofelia. 2009. Bilingual education in the 21st century. A global perspective. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haberland, Hartmut, and Karen Risager. 2008. Two pilot studies of multilingual competence in international programmes at Roskilde University. In Higher education in the global village, ed. Hartmut Haberland, Janus Mortensen, Anne Fabricius, Bent Preisler, Karen Risager, and Susanne Kjaerbeck, 41–65. Roskilde: Roskilde University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hornberger, Nancy. 2007. Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: An ecological approach. In Bilingual education: An introductory reader, ed. Ofelia Garcia and Colin Baker, 177–194. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hornberger, Nancy. 2009. Multilingual education policy and practice: Ten certainties (grounded in indigenous experience). Language Teaching 42(2): 197–211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hornberger, Nancy, and Ellen Skilton-Sylvester. 2000. Revisiting the continua of biliteracy: International and critical perspectives. Language and Education 14(2): 96–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Myers-Scotton, Carol. 1993. Social motivations for codeswitching: Evidence from Africa. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruiz, Richard. 1984. Orientations in language planning. The Journal for the National Association for Bilingual Education 8(2): 15–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schumann, Adelheid. 2008. Interkulturelle Fremdheitserfahrungen ausländischer Studierender an einer deutschen Universität. [Intercultural alienation experiences of foreign students at a German university]. In Mehrsprachigkeit und Multikulturalität im Studium, ed. Annelie Knapp and Adelheid Schumann, 32–43. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Setati, Mamokgheti, Jill Adler, Yvonne Reed, and Abdool Bapoo. 2002. Incomplete journeys: Code-switching and other language practices in Mathematics, Science and English language classrooms in South Africa. Language and Education 16(2): 128–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Söderlundh, Hedda. 2008. Language practices in Swedish higher education: Results from a pilot study. In Higher education in the global village, ed. Hartmut Haberland, Janus Mortensen, Anne Fabricius, Bent Preisler, Karen Risager, and Susanne Kjaerbeck, 97–102. Roskilde: Roskilde University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Söderlundh, Hedda. 2013. Language choice and linguistic variation in classes nominally taught in English. In Language alternation, language choice and language encounter in international tertiary education, ed. Hartmut Haberland, Dorte Lønsmann, and Bent Preisler, 85–102. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van der Walt, Christa, and Jacqui Dornbrack. 2011. Academic biliteracy in South African higher education: Strategies and practices of successful students. Language, Culture and Curriculum 24(1): 89–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Curriculum Studies, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Christa van der Walt

Authors
  1. Christa van der Walt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christa van der Walt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Culture and Identity, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

    Hartmut Haberland

  2. Dept. of Int'l Business Communication, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Dorte Lønsmann

  3. Dept. for Culture and Identity, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

    Bent Preisler

Appendix

Appendix

Semi-structured Interview Schedule: Bilingual Learning

  1. 1.

    Language background:

    1. (a)

      Home

    2. (b)

      Language use at school – school exit examination results

    3. (c)

      Language use at university

  2. 2.

    What kind of student are you? What is your average score across modules?

  3. 3.

    Growing up:

    1. (a)

      Parents’/extended family’s use of language?

    2. (b)

      Were you read to? Encouraged to read? Did this happen in different languages?

    3. (c)

      What did you read? In which languages?

    4. (d)

      Your earliest memory of another language/different languages?

  4. 4.

    Parents’/adults’ influence on reading? Was there easy access to books in your home?

  5. 5.

    Study habits: parents helped with homework?

  6. 6.

    How do you study? Summarise? Memorise?

  7. 7.

    If you struggled to understand difficult academic texts, what did you do?

  8. 8.

    Do you have different patterns of study in different languages?

  9. 9.

    Do you find some texts more difficult than others? Why? How do you cope?

  10. 10.

    Do you translate when reading/studying/writing?

  11. 11.

    Your advice to first year students in your position:

    1. (a)

      The best way to deal with complex texts/assignments?

    2. (b)

      Best way to study material not in L1 or best language?

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

van der Walt, C. (2013). Active Biliteracy? Students Taking Decisions About Using Languages for Academic Purposes. In: Haberland, H., Lønsmann, D., Preisler, B. (eds) Language Alternation, Language Choice and Language Encounter in International Tertiary Education. Multilingual Education, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6476-7_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation