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Research at RCM

The activities at RCM focus on applied research in the area of schools, public administration and society. The projects are conducted on behalf of the federal government and are designed to develop foundational knowledge or provide a basis for decisions. In addition, synthesis reports on the current state of research in selected fields are prepared. RCM projects are often conducted in collaboration with research partners from all language regions in Switzerland.

This web page provides an overview of all RCM research projects, which can be searched using keywords or the names of participating researchers.

Click here for research projects that are not part of RCM.

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The settling-in phase in day-care centres for children and parents with limited knowledge of the local language

International and Swiss studies alike have shown that early language promotion in the context of pre-school settings has a positive impact on a child’s scholastic success. In view of the current state of research and the various challenges facing professionals in early education, however, many questions remain unanswered and further research findings are needed. One question addresses the transition from the family to pre-school settings like day care centres.

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Acquistion of reading and writing skills in adult migrants with differing levels of literacy

Project management
Marie-Anne Morand

Supervision
Thomas Studer

Team
Alexis Feldmeier

(Santi Guerrero Calle research manager till August 2021)
(Romeo Wasmer research assistant till January 2022)

Comparatively little research has been conducted on how adult migrants – both those with low literacy skills (non-literates) and those who have competence in a non-Latin alphabet (non-roman alphabet literates) – acquire reading and writing skills, and scholarly findings on the subject are correspondingly sparse. This condition is all the more surprising as specialist discourse on the topic of “literacy levels in adults” has long revealed that traditional differentiations between so-called...

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Assessment of speaking skills in German as a foreign language

Project management
Elisabeth Peyer

Supervision: Prof. Dr. Thomas Studer

Team
Gabriela Lüthi, Nadia Ravazzini
When asked about their goals, students learning a foreign language generally say they want to speak the language. Despite the value placed on speaking, however, various studies on the foreign language competence of Swiss school students reveal that many learners have difficulty in meeting the learning outcomes set for spoken language (Peyer et al. 2016, Wiedenkeller/Lenz 2019).

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Benefits of multilingualism for Switzerland

Individuals and society at large (APSIS)
Project management
François Grin
Team

Scientific partnership, regular consultation with: Federal Statistical Office (FSO); Institute for multilingualism (IOM)

Linguistic and cultural diversity is of particular importance to Switzerland and its residents, all the more because it is tightly bound with the long-term political, social and cultural history of the country. It is often referred to as an “asset” or even a “treasure”, with some going so far as to claim that it is essential to the very existence of the country.

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Swiss learner corpus SWIKO

Project management
Thomas Studer, Anita Thomas
Team
Nina Selina Hicks, Eva Wiedenkeller, Katharina Karges

(Eva Wiedenkeller and Katharina Karges till 2019)

SWIKO is a multilingual learner corpus describing learner language according to principles of corpus-linguistics. The corpus is an umbrella project developed during the 2016–2019 research period and being further developed in the 2021–2024 period. It incorporates data from other projects at the Research Centre on Multilingualism. SWIKO can currently be accessed via a request to the Institute of Multilingualism.

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Digital technology and vocabulary learning in vocational education

Project management
Raphael Berthele, Isabelle Udry
Team
Petra Buser, Cédric Diogo

Cédric Diogo (-06.2022)

Vocabulary is the basis for receptive and productive language use. Influential theories on second language acquisition and learning consider vocabulary and grammar to be complementary, rather than opposing elements of language. Vocabulary is viewed as an integral component of learner grammars that is worth promoting and consolidating in the foreign language classroom. In recent years, digitialisation has seen the development of many learning apps and platforms that provide new opportunities...

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Digital translation tools in foreign language teaching and learning

Project management
Raphael Berthele, Isabelle Udry
Team
Petra Buser, Cédric Diogo

(Cédric Diogo -06.22)

Digital translation tools and dictionaries have become an indispensable part of language use. DeepL, Leo and Co. are used extensively and for various purposes, however, their benefits for foreign language teaching and learning remain contested. Some consider these tools to be of educational value, while others express their doubts on the sustainability of their contribution to language learning.

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Digitization and the development of oral interaction skills (DICOI)

Project management
Anita Thomas

 

    Team
    France Rousset

    Didactic partnership: Centres de Formation Professionnelle de l'Etat de Fribourg (CD-CFP) 

    The aim of the DiCoi project is on the one hand to produce teaching material from recordings of authentic conversations (spoken language corpora) and on the other hand to describe the longitudinal development of interaction skills (over 2 years) from recordings of free interactions. Spoken language corpora can be used as a resource for foreign language teaching with the aim of providing exposure to the authentically produced but contextualised target language.

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    Evolution of patois in French-speaking Switzerland

    Predictions regarding vitality, the linguistic system and language practices
    Project management
    Yan Greub
    Team
    Marinette Matthey, Raphaël Maître
    Research cooperation with the Glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande - GPSR

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    Multilingualism in a health crisis

    Project management
    Alexandre Duchêne, Renata Coray
    Team
    Emeline Beckmann, Alejandro Santano Suárez

    Scientific partner: Stefano Losa, Daniela Kappler, SUPSI-DFA

    This research project performs a retrospective analysis of the challenges posed by Swiss multilingualism during the Covid-19 pandemic. Continuous communication with the population is necessary in times of crisis – indeed, communication is an essential aspect of crisis management, be it to provide information about the current situation, health issues and distancing rules, or to explain work-related rights and obligations, access to emergency financial aid, and even educational matters....

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    Immersion and bilingual education programmes in Switzerland

    A critical literature review and bibliographic database
    Project management
    Daniel Elmiger
    Team
    Verena Tunger, Aline Siegenthaler
    In Switzerland, language immersion and bilingual education programmes have been both promoted and in demand for quite some time. The topic has also been the focus of numerous scholarly studies that, however, are not always known or accessible. In addition, there is a degree of uncertainty about which findings can be compared or generalised. This project aims to collect existing scholarly literature and documentation and to analyse the information according to theme.

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    Assessing profession-related language skills of language teachers

    Project management

    Direction: Wilfrid Kuster (PHSG), Mirjam Egli (PH FHNW) c/o Center for Teachers’ Language Competences (PHSG, SUPSI, HEP Vaud, UNIL)

    Team
    Thomas Studer

    Alice Bracher (HEP|PH FR)
    Katharina Karges (till 2021)
    In cooperation with PH FHNW, PH Luzern and PHSG

    The aim of this project is the empirically-based development of assessments to test the profession-specific language skills in teachers of French, English and Italian as a foreign language in primary and secondary schools.

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    WETLAND

    Further development and applications of the Swiss learner corpus SWIKO
    Project management
    Thomas Studer
    Team
    Nina Selina Hicks
    In line with the strong presence of usage-based approaches to language description and research in language acquisition, research in corpus linguistics has intensified and diversified in recent years. This applies equally to corpus-based and corpus-oriented research into language acquisition as well as to applied pedagogical research. Nevertheless, research gaps and desiderata remain. For instance, in regards to learner corpora, certain bias towards English as the target language, intermediate...

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    The diaspora rumantscha in German-speaking Switzerland

    Focus on families
    Project management

    Dr. Claudia Cathomas, lic.phil. Flurina Graf, Institut für Kulturforschung Graubünden

    Two-thirds of all Rhaeto-Romanic speakers live outside the Rhaeto-Romanic homeland, yet the specific linguistic conditions for Romansh speakers outside the traditional language region have not yet been studied in detail.

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    Literacy development for adult migrants: literature review

    Project management
    Thomas Studer, Peter Lenz

    Project supervision

    Team
    Santi Guerrero Calle
    Literacy courses designed for adult migrants have been offered for decades in countries experiencing significant immigration. The recent past has seen an increase in research on the teaching and learning processes that are involved in successful and sustainable literacy development for adult migrants in a non-native language and that therefore should be taken into account in literacy classes; nevertheless, significant research gaps remain. Current practice in literacy development for...

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    National inventory of bilingual education: the current situation in Switzerland

    Project management
    Daniel Elmiger
    Team
    Verena Tunger, Aline Siegenthaler
    The Inventar des zweisprachigen Unterrichts (inventory of bilingual education) provides an overview of bilingual education in Switzerland, specifically of all bilingual education programmes currently in progress (2021/2022 school year) at compulsory schools and upper secondary schools.

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    Literature synthesis on student exchange in compulsory schooling and at the upper secondary school level (LiSa)

    Project management
    Sybille Heinzmann
    Team
    Catherine Ferris, Kristina Ehrsam, Linda Grimm, Thomas Roderer
    Language exchange activities are widely viewed as a means of promoting language and intercultural competence and as a way to motivate students to learn a foreign language. Indeed,  recently, educational policy has strengthened its commitment to advance and intensify language exchange.

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    Language aptitude: why and how to assess it?

    Project management
    Isabelle Udry, Raphael Berthele

    Scientific partner: 
    Hansjakob Schneider, PHZH

    Team
    Jan Vanhove, Carina Steiner, Amelia Lambelet

    Amélia Lambelet

    The potential to learn foreign languages varies from one individual to the next and has been investigated by many researchers as of the early 1950s. Individuals’ ability to learn foreign languages relies on various elements that have been identified and grouped under the term language aptitude (ability to retrieve, identify and memorise sound sequences belonging to foreign languages, ability to identify meaningful common features etc.). Another area of the research focuses on emotional/personality...

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    Innovative forms of assessment

    In-depth study on competence-based assessment of receptive skills
    Project management
    Peter Lenz
    Team
    Katharina Karges, Nina Bechtiger, Thomas Aeppli, Malgorzata Barras

    (associated thesis project)

    If the aim is to measure how well learners can actually use a foreign language, then competence-oriented testing with near-authentic tasks is the method of choice. There is, however, a need for renewal in the design of such test tasks, especially because real-world language use often uses electronic channels. Chat, Internet searches and the like are part of everyday life. In addition, computer-based testing has increasingly become the norm in recent years, especially in the field of...

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    Immersion and content-oriented language teaching

    Didactic sequences and insertion into primary school’s curriculum
    Project management

    Laurent Gajo, UNIGE
     

    Team

    Gabriela Steffen, Ivana Vuksanović, Audrey Freytag (UNIGE)

    This project aims at documenting and discussing the conditions for implementing bilingual teaching at primary school level based on two main issues:

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