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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ An investigation of the teaching of Greek as an additional language in the mainstream classroom Case studies of four junior secondary classrooms in two mainstream schools Karagianni, Charalampia Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. 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Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 An investigation of the teaching of Greek as an additional language in the mainstream classroom: Case studies of four junior secondary classrooms in two mainstream schools Charalampia Karagianni Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Education and Professional Studies School of Social Science and Public Policy King’s College London May 2016 Abstract This thesis is focussed on Greek as an Additional Language (GAL) in junior secondary schools in Greece. The necessity of incorporating a GAL dimension in the mainstream classroom has emerged in the last 20 years as rising numbers of immigrant pupils have been entering the Greek public school system. This has placed new challenges on mainstream teachers who are now expected to teach their subject to a culturally and linguistically diverse pupil population. Despite this change in the school population, the Greek educational system has not, so far, attempted to differentiate the national curriculum, considered different approaches to curriculum design, and offered support to mainstream teachers so that they can meet the needs of all pupils. This thesis explores the pedagogical principles and teaching practices that mainstream teachers working in junior secondary schools employ so as to teach the curriculum subject Greek to children from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. A qualitative research approach was adopted to collect and analyse observation and interview data. Multiple case studies of four teachers were carried out in order to examine the knowledge, beliefs and practices of experienced Greek language teachers who have been tasked with supporting immigrant pupils‘ language learning in mainstream classrooms. The data analysis draws on current international literature in the field of additional/second language education. The findings show that the participant teachers‘ beliefs and practices, although partially overlapped with additional language teaching principles, were largely conceptualised in terms of Greek as a mother tongue. The majority of the participant teachers, influenced by the national curriculum, felt that they only needed to adjust some aspects of their teaching practice and to apply some generic teaching strategies to facilitate immigrant pupils‘ learning. They also believed that immigrant pupils who were in the process of learning GAL should be given support outside the mainstream classroom. The findings of this investigation contribute to our understanding of the ways in which the Greek education system can be reformed to address the GAL dimension systematically in mainstream schools in terms of pedagogy and teacher education. 2 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisors, Professor Constant Leung and Dr Nick Andon for their expertise, unflagging support and advice throughout my PhD journey. Their mentoring and meticulous comments have contributed significantly to my development as a researcher and a writer. This research project would have not been achievable without their continuous guidance and help. I must express my gratitude to Loukas, my husband, for his endless support, patience, understanding, encouragement, and for never failing faith in me over the last five years. My deepest appreciation goes to my beloved parents for their unfailing love and continuous support emotionally and financially. Many thanks also go to my colleagues at King‘s College London for their encouragement and wishes. Special thanks go to Dr. Joanna Charalambous and to Dr. Yuan-Li Tiffany Chiu for their helpful discussions, support and constructive comments on my thesis drafts. I also thank the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust for a grant towards my tuition fees for my third year of studies, and the Department of Education and Professional studies at King‘s College London for specific conference bursaries that helped me participate in several conferences throughout these years. Finally, yet importantly, I would like to thank ‗Anna‘, ‗Elena‘, ‗Maria‘ and ‗Andreas‘, the four Greek language teachers who willingly took part in this research, opened the door to their classrooms and shared their ideas, thoughts and pedagogy with me. Thanks also go to the head teachers and the pupils of the two schools for their acceptance, as well as to the Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs for providing me with permission to conduct this research in the two public schools. 3 Table of Content Abstract ................................................................................................................ 2 Acknowledgements .............................................................................................. 3 List of Tables ..................................................................................................... 11 List of Figures .................................................................................................... 13 List of Pictures ................................................................................................... 13 List of Appendices ............................................................................................. 14 List of Electronic Appendices .......................................................................... 16 Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................... 18 1.0. Background .................................................................................................. 18 1.1. The terminology ........................................................................................... 20 1.2. Aims of the thesis ......................................................................................... 22 1.3. Outline of the thesis ..................................................................................... 24 Chapter 2: Greek as an Additional Language in Junior Secondary Schools ............................................................................................................................. 26 2.0. Introduction .................................................................................................. 26 2.1. Linguistic diversity in Greek junior secondary schools ............................... 26 2.2. Greek educational policies on minority education ....................................... 34 2.2.1. Description and critique of ‗cross-cultural schools‘ .......................... 35 2.2.2. Description and critique of integration and support classes .............. 37 2.2.3. European-funded projects .................................................................. 40 2.2.4. Brief comments .................................................................................. 47 2.3. GAL teaching in the mainstream classroom ................................................ 49 2.3.1. Policy stance underlying Greek mainstream classrooms ................... 50 2.3.2. Conceptualisation of GAL through curriculum subjects in the mainstream classroom ................................................................................. 53 2.3.3. Reconsideration of the conceptualisation of GAL ............................. 59 2.4. The role and education of Greek language teachers .................................... 62 4 Chapter 3: Teacher Professional Knowledge Base and Expertise................ 66 3.0. Introduction .................................................................................................. 66 3.1. Language teacher professional repertoire - theory and practice .................. 67 3.1.1. The relationship between theoretical and practical knowledge ......... 67 3.1.2. Teacher cognition as a central part of teacher professional repertoire ..................................................................................................................... 70 3.1.3. Brief comments .................................................................................