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Simultaneous Parallel Code Use

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Language Development across the Life Span

Part of the book series: Educational Linguistics ((EDUL,volume 34))

Abstract

Despite many positive implications of having one lingua franca in academia, the use of English in teaching and learning inevitably has many dimensions including challenges for content mastery. To date the impact of the use of English on instruction and especially on learning in the Expanding Circle (Kachru B, Standards, codification, and sociolinguistic realism: the English language in the outer circle. In: Quirk R, Widdowson H (eds) Teaching and learning in the language and literature. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 11–30, 1985) countries has not been adequately researched. The term simultaneous parallel code use is introduced to describe an academic context where the curriculum input is mainly in English and the output is in the first language, in this case, Icelandic. The study focuses on how students experience working in the situation of simultaneous parallel code use as they negotiate meaning between a receptive language (English) and the language of production (Icelandic). The findings also suggest that despite self-reported high English proficiency, many students experience language-related challenges when extracting meaning from reading materials written for native speakers of English.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There are other factors that impact reading such as level of cognitive development, but these are not relevant for university students.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland

    Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir & Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir

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  1. Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir
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  2. Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir
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Correspondence to Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir

  2. University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir

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Arnbjörnsdóttir, B., Ingvarsdóttir, H. (2018). Simultaneous Parallel Code Use. In: Arnbjörnsdóttir, B., Ingvarsdóttir, H. (eds) Language Development across the Life Span. Educational Linguistics, vol 34. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67804-7_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67804-7_9

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