RESEARCH
ASSITANTSHIPS
Ongoing
Visible Voices Project
Funding agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) – Partnership Development Grant
Principal investigator: Dr. Angelica Galante, McGill University
Collaborators: Dr. Enrica Piccardo, University of Toronto-OISE; Dr. Faith Marcel, Niagara College; Ms. Loly Rico, FCJ Refugee Centre; Melina Castro Caroprezo, FCJ Refugee Centre
February 2023 – present
The project aims to develop, use, and assess the effectiveness of online, interactive, audiovisual plurilingual instructional materials specifically designed to address the linguistic, social, professional, and personal needs of--and as such to empower--refugee and undocumented (no status) adult learners of English as an additional language in the city of Toronto.
Advancing agency in language education
Funding agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) – Insight Grant
Principal investigator: Dr. Enrica Piccardo, University of Toronto - OISE
Collaborators: Dr. Angelica Galante, McGill University; Dr. Geoffrey Lawrence, York University; Aline Germain-Rutherford, University of Ottawa; Martine Pellerin, University of Alberta; Ulrike Kugler, Goethe Institut (Toronto)
May 2021 – present
The project aims to examine teacher beliefs, knowledge, and practices pertaining to plurilingual, action-oriented, and technology-assisted second language learning. For Phase 1, English, French, and German second language (L2) teacher participants (~200) from across Canada will be surveyed, and a representative sample will be invited to participate in classroom observations and focus group and individual interviews. For Phases 2-4, the research team will collaborate with teachers to identify key challenges of plurilingual pedagogy, identify ways to concretely address these challenges in the classroom, develop effective plurilingual pedagogical materials and practices, and evaluating said resources and strategies. The Canada-wide study aims to simultaneously contribute to emerging theories and developing practices of action-oriented language teaching and plurilingualism, while also supporting teachers as agents of pedagogical and policy change.
Completed
Supporting and assessing language teaching and learning through plurilingual and digital pedagogy (PluriDigit)
Funding agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) – Partnership Engage Grant
Principal investigator: Dr. Angelica Galante, McGill University
Collaborators: Dr. Enrica Piccardo, University of Toronto - OISE; Dr. Faith Marcel, Niagra College; Débora Oliveira, José André Teodoro-Torres, Abraço Cultural (Brazil)
March 2021 – present
This study investigates the effectiveness of using a digital platform (i.e., VoiceThread) with plurilingual speaking L2 tasks in developing learners' oral, online, and plurilingual and pluricultural competences in their L2, as well as teachers' digital and plurilingual and pluricultural competences. Participants are teachers and students from Brazil, who are teaching/learning English, French, Arabic, and Spanish. This international collaboration aims to develop and examine concrete online plurilingual tasks that teachers can adapt to their own contexts and that they can use to inform their current and future practice, especially in an increasingly online L2 educational environment precipitated by the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
Facilitating the shift from monolingual to plurilingual language teaching
Funding agency: Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture (FRQ-SC) – NP
Principal investigator: Dr. Angelica Galante, McGill University
November 2019 – February 2021
Using a collaborative approach among researchers and L2 teachers of English, French, and Spanish, this study examined the process of implementation of plurilingual instruction and its potential benefits on students’ learning in language programs. Following a mixed methods research design, we collected data from teachers and students through diaries, semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and a scale that measures plurilingual and pluricultural competence (PPC). The main goal was to examine how plurilingual strategies can be done online. In addition, we explored affordances of online plurilingual instruction and how it could positively affect students’ language learning as well as PPC levels over time. This study produced video tutorials that can guide teachers in implementing the plurilingual shift and is initiating a pedagogical repository online to facilitate the delivery of plurilingual instruction digitally.
Language policies and language pedagogy for multilingual speakers across Canada
Funding agency: McGill University/Department of Integrated Studies in Education
Principal investigator: Dr. Angelica Galante, McGill University
June 2020 – August 2020
I conducted a literature review on language policy and planning in higher education L2 learning contexts in Canada during this short-term early research project. The literature review aimed to inform a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant application.
Approches plurielles dans la formation des enseignants de français langue seconde
Funding agency: Concordia University
Principal investigator: Dr. Diane Querrien, Concordia University
March 2020 – May 2020
This study collected data from a cohort of pre-service French as a Second Language teachers enrolled in a year-long program in French didactics. The goal was to examine how teacher education courses can be tailored to include a plurilingual and pluricultural dimension, and to investigate if such courses would be effective in positively influencing student teachers' PPC, as well as their beliefs, knowledge, and practices pertaining to plurilingual pedagogy. Data were stemmed from student teachers' course work (e.g., reflection entries; essays; presentations; and lesson/task development assignments), the PPC scale, and a questionnaire.
Producing and processing simplex and complex words in second language German
Funding agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
Principal investigator: Dr. Mary Grantham O’Brien, University of Calgary
August 2019 – September 2019
This multi-sited project aimed to investigate how L2 German learners in Montréal (i.e., speakers of L1 French) process and produce specific lexical items in the L2. I ran experiment trials with participants using a PsychoPy package, and also collected short speech samples in L2 German based on tense-specific prompts.
Examining the linguistic and cultural experiences of Canadian residents
Funding agency: Concordia University
Principal investigator: Dr. Angelica Galante, Concordia University
October 2018 – April 2019
This project was part of the validation process of the PPC scale. In addition, this mixed-methods study also investigated the plurilingual and pluricultural identities and PPC of 250 Montréal residents, their reasons for identifying as plurilingual and pluricultural or not, as well as the socio-demographic factors that relate to their PPC levels and linguistic identities. Read the results of the study in this manuscript published in the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.