Education for plurilingualism: Metalinguistic awareness in early instructed language learning

Current research on language learning and education for plurilingualism has shown that it is important for pupils who are learning a new language to make use of the languages they already know. Pupils are better able to do this when they have a high degree of what is called "metalinguistic awareness" (MLA), which means that they are able to use what they know about language in general as a means of making sense of what they are trying to learn. Though researchers agree that MLA is important, it is not well understood in early instructed language learning (learning a language at elementary school). Against this background, the MetaLearn research project investigates young learners' MLA and its development in early instructed language learning and explores how MLA can be promoted in the classroom. In its first year, MetaLearn developed a test to assess MLA in the Norwegian context. This "MetaLearn-test” was pre-tested with 350 pupils from seven Norwegian elementary schools in May 2021 with the purpose of constructing two parallel tests with equal levels of difficulty and discrimination, which is necessary to be able to compare pupils of different grades and to map development over time. Since October 2021, MetaLearn has followed the development of 175 pupils at five different schools, from the beginning of third to the end of fourth grade. The pupils all took the MetaLearn-test, as well as standardized tests of Norwegian and English language proficiency, logical thinking, and reading fluency in Norwegian. In addition, MetaLearn collected relevant background information, such as participants’ home language(s), through a parental questionnaire. In its second year (2021/2022), MetaLearn conducted the first and the second round of data collection. In the spring of 2023 the project concluded its data collection with a third and final round. Data from the three administrations of the MetaLearn-test confirmed that the test worked as intended, and that the two parallel tests were equally difficult and can be used to map development over time. MetaLearn also studies teachers’ thoughts and opinions about MLA and aims to explore how MLA can be promoted in the classroom. To this end, MetaLearn developed and administered a questionnaire which investigates teachers’ attitudes towards MLA. Additionally, the MetaLearn team interviewed all participating teachers of English and Norwegian with the help of an interview guide developed in the project. After that, some of their teaching was observed and, finally, a personalized follow-up interview was conducted based on teachers’ answers in the first interview and the classes observed. In addition to tracking MLA development, the project includes a classroom intervention in which children engaged in translation-based activities. By inviting learners to draw comparisons across languages, translation activities have the potential to promote metalinguistic thinking. The aim of the intervention is to investigate how this potential can be exploited in the classroom. To this end, the MetaLearn team developed and piloted a series of translation-based tasks based on the conceptualization of translation as an act of mediation. A selection of the tasks was then used in the intervention part of the project in three participating schools. The intervention included audio-recording the pupils while they collaboratively worked on the tasks over the course of one semester. The pupils’ translated texts and transcripts of group discussions will provide insight into the pupils’ metalinguistic thinking and the potential of such activities for promoting MLA. For Norway, MetaLearn will provide an urgently needed background for promoting plurilingualism in all pupils - whether children with Norwegian as their home language or children with a minority language background - which can help schools and teachers to empower all pupils to exploit the full potential of their language competence and to provide a firm basis for them to develop as plurilingual citizens.

The state of the art in language acquisition research and education for plurilingualism suggests that it is important for pupils to draw on the languages they already know when they are learning a foreign language. This strategy is facilitated when pupils have what is called metalinguistic awareness (MLA), which means that they can make use of metalinguistic knowledge in specific instances, i.e. knowledge about language in general, rather than about a language in particular. MLA has been identified as an important element in fostering plurilingualism. Despite its apparent importance we still know little about MLA and especially about how it develops in instructed language-learning, in Norway and internationally. MetaLearn's overarching objective is therefore to map, for the early stages of formal education, (a) how metalinguistic awareness develops in its interdependency with a set of contextual, individual, and language-related variables, and (b) whether and how learners' MLA can be promoted in the classroom. MetaLearn thereby contributes substantially to the advancement of research on MLA, internationally and nationally. For Norway, MetaLearn also provides an urgently needed background for promoting plurilingualism in all pupils, whether children with Norwegian as their home language or children with a minority language background, which can help schools and teachers to empower all pupils to exploit the full potential of their language competence.