Read more about supporting multilingual approach and competences
1. The use of heritage languages in the everyday interactions
Research have shown how the use of heritage language in the everyday interactions within the families could empower vulnerable parents and stimulate children’s development and learning (Engle et al., 2011).
Therefore we are focusing on activities that could empower marginalised parents and caregivers in the role of co-educators, and thus enriching the home-environment.
The family structure in the marginalised families often (more frequently than in non-deprived social settings) indicates the alternative parenting and caring patterns and it is important to take into account also another care givers than biological parents. Therefore we are looking for the ways of considering the family and wider community involvement into the childcare and not focusing the caring role on one unique person, typically mother (Klíčová, Nováková 2004).
Studies pointed out the need to prevent the risk of linguistic-marginalization of migrant families by encouraging the use of heritage languages in the everyday interactions. The activity is intended as a stimuli for parents and children to experience pleasant multilingual communication/dialogue in the home environment and with the wider community.
Research shows how a sense of well-being and belonging is vital to children as they learn about and explore the world around them. We also know that this is particularly true with migrant children, although it can not be generalized. By designing the activities that encourage parents and children to work together on these issues, we could reinforce their sense of belonging and attachment to their neighborhood and community.
In the designed activities we are aiming at using a trialogical approach (Moel at el. 2012, Paavola, 2015) in stimulating an object-driven learning process. By doing this, we also create the opportunity for participants to transfer the accompanying practice (multilingual interactions for developing the multilingual object) to other situations by re-using the same object.
In the context of contemporary Czechia we need to take into consideration the usual family history of coming into the Czechia from Slovakia after the end of Second World War, whilst it is not unusual that school children do not know much about such family history and that their grand grand parents were using fluent Romany as well as Slovakian language, respectively another languages (Sidiropulu-Janků 2015a, 2015b). In the same time, the ethno-minor language competence in Romany seems to be melting away (Červenka 2009, Obrovská, Kissová 2018 – preliminary ISOTIS results), partly due to assimilation efforts of both, socialist political system and families themselves – in accordance to state politics, as well as in reaction to disapproving reactions from social surroundings on Romany language and ethno-cultural identity (Obrovská, Sidiropulu-Janků 2018 – preliminary ISOTIS results).