Multilingual Dynamic Assessment for Language and Content learning: Addressing Sociolinguistic Diversity in India’s Primary schools

• Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Jacopo Torregrossa
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Angewandte Sprachwissenschaften, Computerlinguistik
• Förderung: Förderung seit 2024
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 547529143

The present project intends to design, implement and evaluate the construct of multilingual assessment in primary government schools in India in which English is taught as a subject or as the medium of instruction (EMI). Children attending these schools grow up and live in a highly linguistically diverse society which embraces multilingualism in the individual speaker primarily in oral language usage with code-mixing/translanguaging as a natural mode of communication. The vast majority of learners in government schools come from underprivileged socioeconomic backgrounds associated with no or minimal home literacy support and lack of any input in English in spoken or written mode. Thus, code-mixing with English and the regional languages is common in teacher-talk and teacher-pupil interaction as a reflection of sociolinguistic practices and a way to scaffold language and content learning. School-based assessment, however, has always been unilingual. This project aims to promote continuity among teaching, learning and assessment through the active exploitation of learners’ entire language repertoire. A step to this direction is the use of dynamic assessment (DA), which forms an integral part of students’ learning process: students unable to provide a correct answer are supported with prompts that facilitate progress within the assessment tool and with follow-up assessments. DA thus offers a more fine-grained picture of students’ content and language abilities than traditional, static forms of assessment, since it considers actual learning outcomes as well as learning potential. Furthermore, DA creates an opportunity to learn by making assessment equitable. The first objective is to quantify and qualify the use of code-mixing in pedagogical activities in English language classrooms using classroom observations using audio recordings. The second objective is to examine whether DA affects students’ English language and content learning over time, and whether a multilingual vs. unilingual (English-only) DA differentially affects learning progress and outcomes. We will recruit three groups of children attending Grade 4 in government schools in two sites, New Delhi and Guwahati. The students will be assessed with a) traditional, static assessment b) English-only DA and c) multilingual DA following a longitudinal design. The findings will have ground-breaking implications for the assessment of content and language learning outcomes, promoting a paradigm-shift in multilingual DA, as informed by equity in education and a holistic view of learning, whereby learners are allowed to rely on the totality of their language resources. There is high potential for extending the findings to multilingual contexts outside India, particularly in the Global South, where language education policies seek to address conflicting demands of high linguistic diversity in the population, English as a global language and the need to promote local languages in the curriculum.

• DFG-Verfahren: Sachbeihilfen
• Internationaler Bezug: Großbritannien
• Partnerorganisation: Arts and Humanities Research Council
• Kooperationspartnerin: Professorin Ianthi Maria Tsimpli, Ph.D.