Moving Language: Language as lived experience in a government language-learning institute in Sweden

Language proficiency and competence are key concepts in social debates and policies related to migration and integration. Researchers concerned with critical aspects of language teaching and socially just pedagogy stress the... [ view full abstract ]

Language proficiency and competence are key concepts in social debates and policies related to migration and integration. Researchers concerned with critical aspects of language teaching and socially just pedagogy stress the need to problematize constructs of language, language learning processes and language learner roles that reflect the contexts and experience of privileged language learners (e.g. Coffey, 2010; Gray, 2012), and to explore language and language learning beyond linguistic proficiency and consider them as social acts that are part of a person’s lived experience (e.g. Ros i Solé, 2013; Busch, 2014, Rydell, 2016).

This paper reports on a study designed to document the lived experience of language in a group of adult migrants in a government language-learning institute in Sweden. 11 participants from two levels of basic language instruction at a government adult language center in a Swedish municipality took part in the study. The participants were asked to discuss and write about their own experiences of language and language learning in weekly classroom tasks. The discussion was mainly conducted in Swedish, but the participants were also encouraged to use any of their other languages. The tasks were followed by individual and group interviews. The purpose of the study is to understand not only what we do with language but also how we construct and valorize our language use and perceive ourselves as (trans)languaging subject. The paper presents initial findings from the study and discusses implications for future research and possible implications for language pedagogy.