Teaching English as the third language: The case of young Boyash Romanian speakers in Croatia

master's thesis

• Title (croatian): Poučavanje engleskog kao trećeg jezika: slučaj mladih govornika bajaškog rumunjskog u Hrvatskoj
• Author: Iva Varga
• Mentor: Stela Letica Krevelj (mentor)
• Mentor: Petar Radosavljević (komentor)
• Committee member: Renata Geld (predsjednik povjerenstva)
• Committee member: Petar Radosavljević (član povjerenstva)
• Granter: University of Zagreb; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; (Department of English language and literature); Zagreb
• Defense date and country: 2020-07-15, Croatia
• Scientific / art field, discipline and subdiscipline: HUMANISTIC SCIENCES; Philology; Anglistics

Abstract

Multilingual pedagogy has become a popular teaching approach across the world since students are often multilingual speakers. This study focuses on a class of young Boyash Romanian speakers in Croatia who are learning English as their third language. The Boyash are an ethnic minority group living in Croatia, who speak Boyash Romanian as their mother tongue, whereas Croatian is Croatia’s official language, and the official language of schooling. The three languages used in the classroom were... More English, Croatian and Boyash Romanian, and the study looked into how the three languages were arranged according to the four classroom discourse frames proposed by Pennington: lesson frame, lesson-support frame, institutional-support frame, and commentary frame. The study also aimed to capture the teacher’s perspective related to teaching the Boyash students. The English lessons were observed and recorded, and a semi-structured interview was conducted with the teacher. The results showed that neither of the four classroom discourse frames contained a single language, since the classroom represents a multilingual environment. Extensive code-switching between English, Croatian and Boyash Romanian was present during English lessons. Croatian and Boyash Romanian were used for clarification, disciplining the students and giving feedback, but also for dual-referencing and motivating the students. It was difficult to predict how the classroom would be different if the students had another language as their mother tongue, but the teacher would surely have more access to materials if it were a language that was researched more than Boyash Romanian. Moreover, the students could be more motivated if they came from a community which gave a greater importance to children’s education and encouraged them more than the Boyash generally do. Less

• Keywords: the Boyash; classroom discourse frames; code-switching; multilingualism; multilingual pedagogy; third language acquisition
• Language: english
• URN:NBN: urn:nbn:hr:131:687154
• Study programme: Title: English Language and Literature (double major); specializations in: Linguistics, Literature and Culture, Translation, TEFL; Course: TEFL; Study programme type: university; Study level: graduate; Academic / professional title: magistar/magistra edukacije engleskog jezika i književnosti (magistar/magistra edukacije engleskog jezika i književnosti)
• Type of resource: Text
• File origin: Born digital
• Access conditions: Open access
• Created on: 2020-07-16 17:07:14