TEACHING RESOURCES
TEACHING RESOURCES
What teaching approaches and materials are successful?
How does the teaching strengthen identity and interculturality?
Your Language Counts! tried out new ways of teaching home languages in schools in the Netherlands, Sweden, and Finland. Pupils in regular secondary schools, in newcomers settings and in heritage language schools were involved.
The pilot presents a range of practical learning and teaching activities under four headings: language, identity, interculturality and knowledge. These represent the perspectives that researchers and this project position as key to home language teaching, and which all support learning in different but overlapping ways. The languages involved in Your Language Counts! were Arabic, Somali, Turkish, Ukrainian and Persian.
For many of these and other languages there is a sea of printed and online teaching materials available, but for some languages it is not, or it is hard to find.
Activities:
Identity Texts (pilot): Students create self-identity collages using mixed media. They respond to prompts like "I am...", "I remember..." to map their identity in relation to their hometown.
Language Line: Chronological mapping of the languages students and their family members speak. Includes a search into their town’s language history and gathering information from other students in the school.
Hometown Dialogue:
Pair activity: Students answer reflective questions (e.g., "What inspires you most in relation to your town?") and discuss their language practices in different contexts (e.g., with family vs. friends).
Movement activity: Students physically position themselves to show how languages (e.g., Turkish, Dutch) are present in their life.
Homework: Write a paragraph about oneself.
. Social Life Sharing: Students and teachers share pictures of social interactions in their hometown environments for a group discussion.
See Handbook Chapter 4 for the full description of the pilot. And go to the Platform for the materials.
