What is it in Swedish?

Translation requests as a resource for vocabulary explanation in English mother tongue instruction

Kirsten Stoewer

The present chapter investigates teacher-initiated translation requests as spontaneous vocabulary teaching during English mother tongue instruction in Sweden. The collection-based analysis draws on a corpus of 30 hours (11 weeks) of video-recordings of compulsory school-age students. The analysis shows how the teacher routinely draws on the local availability of two shared languages to accomplish a variety of actions: to check students’ comprehension of topicalised vocabulary; to engage the entire cohort; to perform medium repair; and to prompt student production of the target language. The findings may be of relevance for numerous types of bi- and multilingual settings, where language alternation serves to augment the teaching and learning of languages as well as other subject matter.

Keywords: language alternation, mother tongue instruction, English as a heritage language, translation requests, conversation analysis, vocabulary teaching, transitions

Published online: 01 November 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.295.05sto

Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Filipi, Anna

2019. In Multilingual Education Yearbook 2019 [Multilingual Education Yearbook, ], ► pp. 25 ff.

Ro, Eunseok

2021. Using PowerPoint slides as a resource for coordinating understanding during presentation consultations at an L2 speaking center. Applied Linguistics Review 0:0

Stoewer, Kirsten & Nigel Musk

2019. Impromptu vocabulary work in English mother tongue instruction. Classroom Discourse 10:2 ► pp. 123 ff.

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