English as a Foreign Language: Perspectives on Teaching, Multilingualism and Interculturalism 1527542874, 9781527542877

Citation preview

English as a Foreign Language

English as a Foreign Language: Perspectives on Teaching, Multilingualism and Interculturalism Edited by

Fotini Anastassiou and Georgia Andreou

English as a Foreign Language: Perspectives on Teaching, Multilingualism and Interculturalism Edited by Fotini Anastassiou and Georgia Andreou This book first published 2020 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2020 by Fotini Anastassiou, Georgia Andreou and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-4287-4 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-4287-7

CONTENTS

Introduction ............................................................................................... vii Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 English and Heritage Languages from a Multilingual Perspective: Challenges and Possibilities for Integration Mariana Bono and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 20 Learners of English as a Foreign Language in Greece: The Factors of their Heritage Language and Literacy Fotini Anastassiou, Georgia Andreou and Julie Baseki Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 40 Interculturality, Internationalization and Intercomprehension: Possibilities with English in the Mix Kyria Rebeca Finardi, Felipe Furtado Guimarães and Nathielli Souza Moreira Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 54 CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools? Valentina Piacentini and Ana Raquel Simões Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 84 Exploring New Paths in English Teaching for Prospective Primary Teachers: Corpus-based Language Teaching from a Communicative/Intercultural Perspective Rosita Maglie and Mario Marcon Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 110 Students’ Motivation and Attitudes towards English as a Foreign Language Natassa Stylianou-Panayi

vi

Contents

Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 137 Creative Writing and Reading Tasks in English: Exploring the Potential of Students’ Creativity in the Learning Process and its Application as a Methodological Tool in Class Minka Ivanova Paraskevova Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 167 Assessment of Literacy Levels of Teachers in a Turkish EFL Context Banu Inan- Karagul, Mehmet Altay and Do÷an Yuksel Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 186 Exploring Foreign Language Learning with EEG and Eye-tracking: What Can Online Tools Add to the Story? Roberto A. Ferreira and Carolina Bernales Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 211 Dyslexia-friendly Teaching in Greek EFL Classrooms Maria Reraki Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 238 Mirrors and Windows Made of Language: The Case of Greek Dyslexic and Non-Dyslexic Children Composing in Both Greek and English as a Foreign Language—A Linguistic-Cognitive Analysis Julie Baseki, Georgia Andreou and Fotini Anastassiou Editors and Contributors ......................................................................... 275

INTRODUCTION

The main purpose of this book is to introduce readers to ongoing research on teaching English as a foreign language and to highlight recent trends in theories of acquisition, teaching, and development of communication and intercultural skills. Ever since the importance of multilingualism has been largely acknowledged, more and more research has been conducted on the acquisition and learning of a second language, a third language and a foreign language. This is mainly because of the vast mobility of populations between countries and mixed marriages (Barnes, 2005). Since there are far more multilinguals compared to monolinguals in the world (Tucker, 1998), it is just as important to investigate the way bilinguals use their languages while still in the process of learning their second or third language or a foreign one. A child’s ability to communicate in more than one language is surely a complex ability and thus represents a complex phenomenon, too. This phenomenon entails acquiring more than one grammatical system as well as language learning processes that are not part of a single vacuum. Grosjean (2001) has proposed his language mode hypothesis according to which a bilingual’s languages are active to varying degrees when an interaction takes place; that is, there is a base language and then there are other languages that can be activated to varying degrees. As English as a third language is increasingly recognized as a common world reality, research around this particular subject certainly provides useful answers to questions regarding the most desirable pedagogical method when teaching English at school: What are the strategies that students use when learning foreign languages? What is the best age for introducing additional languages in the school curriculum? And what is the attitude of the pupils that learn a foreign language—and English in particular, since it is a global language? According to Crystal (2003: 4), a global language takes up this role when it is “a priority in a country’s foreign language teaching even though this language has no official status”. In addition, the concept of a heritage language is deemed as a rather significant one, now that research has finally focused on this crucial factor, since bilinguals often learn English as a foreign language while

viii

Introduction

speaking one or even two languages already (Anastassiou and Andreou, 2018). Migration and globalization have been two factors that have rapidly transformed today’s societies into multicultural ones. Multiculturalism is the outcome of different cultures living together or approaching one another, especially when these cultures are called to coexist in the same place. The term “multicultural” defines a social reality and describes a situation that involves people from different cultural backgrounds, while the term “intercultural” describes the process of exchange between different cultures—that is, the process of this interaction between individuals or groups of people with different cultural backgrounds (Guoming, 2010). Therefore, multiculturalism refers to the coexistence of different cultures whereas interculturalism refers to a dynamic relationship which is formed through the interaction of people who come from different cultural backgrounds. While multiculturalism simply refers to the coexistence of different cultures, interculturalism concerns the process of this coexistence. Thus, the purpose of multiculturalism is its evolution to interculturalism, and the notions of multilingualism and the acceptance of diversities and the customs of people coming from different cultures are deemed obvious attributes of today’s societies (Samovar, Porter and Stefani, 2000). Intercultural education has gone beyond the limits of just school education and is perceived as a new pedagogical response to a continuously changing cultural reality. The rapid transformation of societies into multicultural ones demands changes at a sociopolitical level and a significant coordination of all authorities and institutions, as well as the development of strategies that enable a smooth coexistence of all people. The sociopolitical challenges became more apparent in education as more and more children that came from migrant families were enrolling in schools that were not prepared to implement multilingual and intercultural education yet (Andreou and Anastassiou, 2014). What became apparent was that several Western countries that were used to sending out migrants were now becoming the host countries for migrants from different parts of the world. This new situation called for decision making and actions that would facilitate intercultural education and would provide all of the stakeholders (e.g., parents, educators, school administrations and pupils) with all the necessary guidelines, methodologies and tools. The key factor in the acceptance of diversity has not been met adequately and what has been the norm in most schools was the effort to assimilate pupils that came from migrant backgrounds. In particular, there has been a lot of effort to teach pupils the host country language as a second or foreign one (which is

English as a Foreign Language

ix

understandable for the whole educational system) without taking any special steps to include teaching of the heritage language of these pupils, too, or to include teachers that came from the same heritage background of these pupils within the school (Anastassiou, 2014). “Intercultural competence and skills” as a term has been used to identify the prospect of an ‘intercultural opening of the host country; it is the ability to function effectively across cultures, to think and act appropriately, and to communicate and work with people from different cultural backgrounds— at home or abroad’ (Leung, Ang and Tan, 2014). The steps that a society may take in order to implement specific policies and strategies within school lead to the development of intercultural awareness, competence and skills that may indeed broaden the outcomes of an educational system. English as a foreign language is the first foreign language usually taught in most schools and, in that sense, English has become a medium of international communication and a medium of development of intercultural skills. The very notion of communicative competence, like the other aspects of culture and communication, is a diverse concept which varies across cultures as a result of different levels of expected participation, different beliefs, different social situations, different types of knowledge, and different values and standards (Zhang and Zhang, 2015: 56). Intercultural communication competence can be defined as a person’s ability to engage in productive intercultural dialogues of meanings and relationships with people from different cultural backgrounds. To make the intercultural interaction productive, one needs to have the ability to construct meaning and rapport with people from different cultural backgrounds through appropriate and effective use of verbal and nonverbal language (Song, 2009). The objective of English language teaching as an international language has much in common with intercultural communication. Thus, English language teaching should be oriented towards the promotion of intercultural competency education through English. Furthermore, current research being conducted with psycholinguistic tools used to tap into L2 learners’ cognitive processes involved in second language and foreign language learning has a lot to offer when it comes to understanding the principles that govern learners’ L2 knowledge and their cognitive processes. This knowledge may provide a clearer picture of the nature of language learning and, consequently, may inform second/foreign language pedagogy. Another aspect of teaching additional/foreign languages is the one entailed in teaching learners with learning difficulties. Researchers (e.g., Bialystok, 2001; Bishop and Snowling, 2004) have

x

Introduction

explored the different ways language learning processes affect the development and skills of learners that have literacy difficulties or dyslexia. A common finding in the studies on dyslexia language learning is that dyslexic language learners will continue to struggle with the acquisition of their literacy skills in the new language system (Reraki, this volume). Also, according to Asker-Arnason et al. (2012), studying writing from a dynamic point of view, through process-oriented rather than product-oriented research, might offer a “window to cognition” in writing. In that sense, studying dyslexic learners’ L2 writing is a field that can enhance our knowledge regarding the way these learners acquire foreign languages and promote the improvement of foreign language teaching methodology. The collections of contributions in the present volume will give the reader a general idea of where research on English as a foreign language is heading in the areas of teaching, pedagogy, intercultural and multilingual studies, and teaching students with learning difficulties. The authors situate their research within current debates in terms of theory and empirical data. In the present volume readers will find several chapters discussing issues of English as a foreign language in a wide variety of settings, countries and orientations, coming from Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, the UK and the USA. Mariana Bono and Silvia Melo-Pfeifer discuss conceptual issues surrounding the term “heritage language”, focusing on its semantic potential and limitations from a multilingual perspective. They review the literature with a focus on how the label “heritage language” and the epistemological framework it springs from compare with other concepts and research orientations in the field of foreign language education in different geographical contexts. They then attempt to conceptualize the notion of linguistic heritage from an integrated multilingual perspective that advocates the inclusion of the speakers’ competence in their heritage language within a larger, heterogeneous, plural and dynamic set of communicative resources, which usually includes English. When we talk about “heritage language”, we rarely think about English. Hence, in the scope of this volume, the authors intend to think about how learning English (mainly in the case of recently arrived migrants) in Anglophone countries or as a foreign language in non-Anglophone countries can compromise, hinder, or encourage the acquisition and maintenance of heritage languages.

English as a Foreign Language

xi

Fotini Anastassiou, Georgia Andreou and Julie Baseki focus on the factors of heritage language and literacy. They studied bilingual children that came from immigrant families but were born and raised in Greece. The majority of these children had only acquired literacy in Greek, while literacy in their heritage language, Albanian, was not promoted by their families and the education system. According to the findings, the children who had been taught and had acquired literacy showed greater attainment of English as a foreign language. The implications of this study point to the importance of the factor of promotion of biliteracy in learning a foreign language. The factor of literacy can help us build better curricula and provide the speakers with the much-needed certainty that formal education in their heritage language is valuable too. Kyria Rebeca Finardi, Felipe Furtado Guimaraes and Nathielli Souza Moreira review the concepts of interculturality and internationalization of higher education, discussing the relationship between these concepts and foreign languages in general and English in particular, drawing on some considerations regarding the use of an approach for the teaching-learning use of foreign languages known as the intercomprehension approach. According to Finardi and Csillagh (2016), no account of multilingualism is complete without considering the role of English in it nowadays. Additionally, according to Finardi (2017), the intercomprehension approach may be a relevant solution for including other languages apart from English in the curricula of Brazilian schools, especially after the educational reform that made the teaching of English mandatory and thus jeopardized the offering of other foreign languages in public schools in that country. The review offered here concludes that interculturality, internationalization and intercomprehension are related insomuch as the intercomprehension approach and interculturality can help to mitigate negative effects of internationalization, such as the strengthening of the hegemony of English as the academic lingua franca. Valentina Piacentini and Ana Raquel Simões discuss a CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) project in the Portuguese school context and focus on possible plurilingual and intercultural implications experienced by participants in this project. Previous studies have shown that students’ foreign language skills benefitted from CLIL; however, research has yet to be developed to understand if CLIL—recognized as a possible plural approach for plurilingual and intercultural education—might be a significant opportunity to foster students’ awareness of Otherness. Piacentini and Simões designed a descriptive-explanatory case study of the CLIL-type “English Plus” project (with the English use/learning integrated with

xii

Introduction

History and Science education, in 2010–2013 and since 2014 onwards, respectively), and they present, here, participants’ relationships with English and foreign languages in general. The results reveal that CLIL students show an affective dimension of plurilingual competence, with a clear awareness of Otherness, and that the experience with English through the project can foster their curiosity and capability for other languages and cultures, although English teaching practices are mainly oriented to varieties and cultures of the UK and USA. Rosita Maglie and Mario Marcon discuss teaching and learning in the field of early foreign language acquisition in English. They focus on developing intercultural awareness and pluricultural competence through the use of children’s fiction and instructional strategies as reconciliation tools. The study uses children’s literature and instructional strategy (i.e., corpusbased language teaching) to reconcile emerging and consolidated theory and practice in the field of English as a foreign/second language (EF/SL). The two-parent family portrait displayed in children’s literature has undergone undeniable changes. Children may live in two-parent families, but also in single-parent families, adoptive families, foster families, divorced families, blended/stepfamilies, etc. Therefore, traditional nuclear family representations quietly condition children to reinforce stereotypical family images. Accordingly, this study helps teachers of (very) young learners use common corpus-based techniques to teach a new language and at the same time integrate children with all sorts of backgrounds into their programme so that all of them understand that differences in language, culture, religion, gender and ability are good. Queer children’s literature promotes the idea that families with gay parents are in many ordinary ways just like other families, thus endorsing gender equity and social justice. Natasa Stylianou-Panayi discusses the factor of motivation, intrinsic or extrinsic, integrative or instrumental, as an important factor for a learner’s success. Many different types of motivation have also been proposed depending on the context of language learning. Previous studies have shown that achievement was influenced by motivation (Dornyei, 1990) or that learners had positive attitudes towards the learning of the English language and were highly motivated at the same time (Che Mat and Yunus, 2014). Also, measuring variables such as effects of motivation, language anxiety, intercultural learning or students’ attitudes towards a second language can also be influenced by other variables such as age, gender and background. The current study focused on examining seventhand tenth-grade students from state and private schools in Cyprus

English as a Foreign Language

xiii

regarding motivation and attitudes towards learning English as a foreign language. The results showed that there are statistically significant differences in motivation between gender and age, since tenth-grade students had higher means in motivation. Minka Paraskevova presents a research project that studies the role of creativity in the classroom and links it to the learning process of students. It further discusses an investigation of acceptability, suitability and possible benefits to the learner of creative language reading and writing tasks in the process of English language learning in higher education in Bulgaria. Also, she studies whether students’ creativity could be used as a tool for successful language acquisition and reflective practice in higher education and how it could be applied in practice. Through the application of participatory action research and creative teaching practices, the project empirically tests the responses of the learners according to their skills, age, abilities and interests and evaluates learners’ autonomy and confidence with the completion of each task and the level of reflective practice with the target language. The overall result was that there is a gradual updating of knowledge and creative practices from the visual and concrete to the imaginative and abstract learning and thinking. The study also showed possibilities for how tutors could make language learning more varied and fit for the language abilities of learners by designing materials to nurture learners’ creative thinking. Banu Inan-Karagul, Do÷an Yuksel and Mehmet Altay discuss assessment as one of the most important learning/teaching processes when the quality of instruction is taken into consideration. Even though teachers use assessment for many different purposes, such as achievement, diagnosis and progress, how much teachers are aware of their assessment literacy levels and how they make use of them for their own educational context still remain issues that have not been adequately addressed. The authors’ study investigates the assessment literacy levels of EFL teachers working in different schools (state and private) in Turkey. The data of this study were initially collected by means of an assessment literacy questionnaire adapted from Vogt and Tsagari (2014), and then focus group interviews were carried out to identify the assessment literacy awareness levels of the teachers. The researchers aimed to refer to multiple data sources to be able to contribute to the validity of the findings of the study. The analysis of the data reveals important findings related to the participant teachers’ assessment-related backgrounds and their perceived needs together with their awareness levels.

xiv

Introduction

Roberto Ferreira and Carolina Bernales examine two online research methods that have gained ground in applied linguistics in the last decade: eye-tracking and electroencephalography (EEG). Eye-tracking is based on the eye-mind hypothesis, according to which what is fixated on by the eye is being processed by the mind. Thus, by tracking people’s eye movements, researchers can identify what readers are attending to and make inferences about the amount of cognitive effort that is required to process a given stimulus. EEG is an electrophysiological technique that can record brain activity directly on the scalp while participants are performing a task (e.g., reading a word, translating a word from one language to another). Both eye-tracking and event related potential (ERPs) have been used to investigate a diverse range of areas pertaining to L2 and foreign language acquisition, such as reading, listening, writing, translation, language assessment, lexical access and representation, and syntactic ambiguity resolution. In this chapter, the authors discuss the scope of questions eye-tracking and ERPs can help applied linguists answer, as well as their limitations when investigating L2/foreign language learning in more ecological contexts. Maria Reraki discusses her attempt to develop dyslexia-friendly environments in three primary EFL classrooms in Greece with the participation of the EFL teachers. The author introduced the dyslexia-friendly practices to the teachers as a way of enhancing the inclusion and support of learners with dyslexia. As a whole classroom approach was followed, the impact of the dyslexia-friendly practices was also explored with reference to the dyslexic students’ EFL peers. Positive outcomes were shown regarding all learners’ motivation, with less significant changes shown in their performance. This is probably due to the limited time in which the dyslexia-friendly practices were employed (seven weeks). The chapter looks into the use of inclusive practices in EFL settings along with potential developments in the field of English language teaching for learners that struggle with the acquisition of literacy skills. Julie Baseki, Georgia Andreou and Fotini Anastassiou aimed to investigate the effect of spelling, as an intrinsic part of transcription ability, on the overall quality of the written compositions produced and on how composing higher-level processes relate to product characteristics. InputLog enabled them to investigate the writing profiles of dyslexic and non-dyslexic children and assess composing skills in both Greek and English as a foreign language through two different approaches to writing assessment, dictation passages and picture-elicited narratives in both languages. According to their results, children with dyslexia scored

English as a Foreign Language

xv

significantly below their peers regarding overall text quality, and they produced shorter and less cohesive/coherent texts. Dyslexic writers’ spelling profiles, as well as their revising and pausing behaviour, seem to be lagging rather than deviant, while both revising and pausing behaviours indicate that spelling has been the main concern for both groups of writers and confirm the dyslexics’ deficient error detection mechanism.

References Anastassiou, F. (2014). Children learning English as a third language (L3): A study on their L3 speech production. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Thessaly, Greece. Anastassiou, F. & Andreou, G. (2018). Code mixing of trilingual children; a discussion on trilingual data. Rivista di Psicolinguistica Applicata (RiPLA), special issue "L3 Lexical Construction Processes: New Perspectives and Current Issues" XVIII/2, 55-69. Andreou, G. & Anastassiou, F. (2014). Multilingualism and language learning: The case of Greek – Albanian children learning English as a third language. Proceedings of the International Conference ‘Education across Borders’ (pp. 378-383). University of Western Macedonia (Florina), Faculty of Education. Asker-Árnason, L., Ibertsson, T., Wass, M., Wengelin, Å., & Sahlén, B. (2010). Picture-elicited written narratives, process and product in 18 children with cochlear implants. Communication Disorders Quarterly. 31 (4) 195-212. Barnes, J. (2005) Early Trilingualism: A Focus on Questions. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Bialystok E. (2001) Bilingualism in Development. Language, Literacy, & Cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bishop D.V.M., & Snowling, M.J. Developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment: Same or different? Psychological Bulletin. 130:858–886. Che Mat, S. S., & Yunus, M. (2014). Attitudes and motivation towards learning English among FELDA school students. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 8 (5), 1-8. Crystal, D. (2003). English as a Global Language. Second edition. Cambridge University Press. Dörnyei, Z. (1990). Conceptualizing motivation in foreign language learning, Language Learning, 40, (1), 45-78.

xvi

Introduction

Finardi, K. R. (2017). What Brazil can learn from Multilingual Switzerland and its use of English as a Multilingua Franca. Acta Scientiarum (UEM), v. 39, - 219-228. Finardi, K. R and Csillagh, V. (2016). Globalization and linguistic diversity in Switzerland: insights from the roles of national languages and English as a foreign language. In: Grucza, S.; Olpinska-Szkielko, M.; Romanowski, P. (Eds.). Advances on understanding multilingualism: a global perspective. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Edition. Grosjean, F. (2001) The bilingual’s language modes. In J. Nichol (Ed.), One mind, two languages: Bilingual language processing (pp. 1 – 22). Oxford: Blackwell. Guoming, C. (2010). Foundations of Intercultural Communication Competence. Hongkong: China Review Academic Publishers Limited. Leung, K., Ang, S. and Tan, M.L. (2014), Intercultural Competence. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behaviour, 1:4889-519. Samovar, L.A., Porter, R.E. & Stefani, L.A. (2000). Communication Between Cultures. 66-69; 79-81. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Song, Li. (2009). Teaching English as Intercultural Education Challenges of Intercultural Communication. Intercultural Communication Research. Vol.1., 268. Tucker, G. R. (1998) A global perspective on multilingualism and multilingual education In J. Cenoz and F. Genesee (eds) Beyond Bilingualism: Multilingualism and Multilingual Education (pp. 3-15). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Vogt, K, Tsagari, D. (2014). Assessment literacy of foreign language teachers: Findings of a European Study. Language Assessment Quarterly, v.11, n.4, 372-402. Zhang, X & Zhang, J. (2015). English Language Teaching and Intercultural Communication Competence. International Journal for Innovation Education and Research, 55-59, Vol. 3 No.8.

CHAPTER ONE ENGLISH AND HERITAGE LANGUAGES FROM A MULTILINGUAL PERSPECTIVE: CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES FOR INTEGRATION MARIANA BONO AND SÍLVIA MELO-PFEIFER

1. Introduction Defining the notion of heritage in linguistics and language education is not an easy task. Heritage studies are a relatively new field of research, especially in Europe, where it is still under construction (Kagan & Dillon, 2008) and where, depending on national research traditions, several terms coexist to name the relationship between speakers and a language whose status can be highly volatile. Depending on the speakers and their circumstances, the same language can be referred to as their mother tongue, langue d’origine, home language, heritage language, second language, or foreign language. Heritage language (HL) as a construct is so deeply intertwined with others that its definition depends on how we portray the whole picture. While it is always possible to narrow the focus to the dynamics between a home language and a national language (as is often done in SLA studies with the pair L1/L2 (source language/target language), such an approach implies a duality that is now seen as clearly inadequate to describe the complexities of language profiles and linguistic landscapes in late modernity (Melo-Pfeifer, 2019). More often than not, these terms have to be pluralized in order to dress a fair portrait of the individual’s linguistic repertoire. In a European context, the notion of HL appeared until recently under different labels, embedded (or even hidden) in the literature of bilingualism and code-switching. Increasingly, heritage studies represent an emerging area of research devoted to multilingual competence and third language acquisition.

2

Chapter One

In our previous research dealing with Portuguese migrant populations in Germany and Portugal, we noted the apparently undistinguished use of several concepts to name these speakers, as well as to define their language of origin and to promote its use and maintenance (Melo-Pfeifer & Schmidt, 2012). These different concepts circulate in theoretical and empirical research, in individual discourses and on legal texts. They include “heritage language” (Cummins & Danesi, 1990; García, 2005; Valdés, 2005); “migrant languages”; “langue et culture d’origine” (Bertucci & Corblin, 2007), “Herkunftsprache” (Bauer & Chlosta, 2010), “home language” (Little, 2010) and sometimes even “mother tongue” (Ghaffar-Kucher & Mahajan, 2013) or “first language” (Montrul, 2005). More recent is the use of “emergent bilinguals” (García & Kleifgen, 2010). Concepts are both tools for thought and action and a consequence of those processes (Mercer, 2000). They are actualized in social and discursive practices whereby they acquire cognitive, volitive, affective, and ideological undertones. Because they depend on social dynamics, concepts are unstable and may be used to fulfill an array of functions, even if some of those functions are not explicitly acknowledged by the institutions or the individuals who use them. Since every concept is rooted in an epistemological tradition and possesses a discursive history of its own, the above-mentioned terms have different semantic properties; they convey different perceptions of self and other, of language status, language needs and linguistic repertoires (García, 2005). Far from being neutral, the constructs used to designate immigrant languages to frame language policies, for instance, can have a critical impact on the development of educational programs geared towards language maintenance, the assimilation into the host society through mastery of the national language, or the promotion of linguistic diversity through foreign language instruction. Each label has its own connotations and problems and is more or less permeable to multilingual reconfiguration. This chapter attempts to clarify the theoretical relationships that the notion of heritage establishes within the field of language teaching and learning, particularly from the perspective of the acquisition and development of a multilingual competence, a term that generally refers to the language practices deployed by multilingual speakers. The notion of multilingual competence aims to replace a segmented vision of language skills. It stands for a holistic, multi-faceted and dynamic set of resources that can be construed and shared in context to meet specific discursive needs, and that evolves to reflect the speaker’s life experience (Coste, Moore & Zarate, 1997; Bono & Melo-Pfeifer, 2012). It encompasses all previously

English and Heritage Languages from a Multilingual Perspective

3

acquired linguistic competences (whether in a mother tongue, a foreign or heritage language).

2. Heritage Language: semantic networks and their implications In the North American tradition, the term heritage language has been used to portray three different sociolinguistic realities (Fishman, 2001). It can refer to the indigenous languages spoken by Amerindian communities, the languages of immigrant minorities and colonial heritage languages. These flexible categories raise a number of problems when it comes to analyzing the relationship speakers entertain with their languages and what it means to be part of a minority. Indeed, heritage languages are generally considered to be minority languages, but a language with a local minority status (as is the case of Spanish in the United States) can double as an international language of global reach. Likewise, a heritage language can have several millions or a few thousand speakers; it can have an important presence in the school curriculum of a given country or region, or be absent from it (compare Spanish and Portuguese in the US). A heritage language can also be mainly perceived as the community language of a stigmatized group (the Arabic-speaking communities in post 9/11 America, as referred by Bale, 2010). The minority status usually attributed to a HL cannot therefore be the only factor to account for the different sociolinguistic situations in which heritage speakers may find themselves and the way they relate to their languages (Carreira & Kagan, 2011; Bono, 2016). Beyond demographic considerations, we know that from a social and emotional perspective, the home language of immigrant groups can be or become an unwanted heritage, especially when it identifies the speaker with a stigmatized minority or when the prevailing national mindset – as it is voiced in social and institutional (including educational) discourse – promotes a monolingual path to success, both in academic and economic terms: “heritage sometimes carries a negative connotation, pointing out to the (ancient, primitive) past rather than to a (modern, technological) future” (Hornberger & Wang, 2008: 16-17). Similar remarks have been made by García, who has objected to the use of the term “heritage” in the United States on the grounds that its rear-viewing perspective denies languages other than English the vitality that one would associate with languages which are currently spoken by millions of speakers in the country and abroad. She further argues that the widespread adoption of

4

Chapter One

this concept is a politically motivated attempt at silencing the word “bilingual” and replacing it with “heritage languages”: In fact, for many of us, Spanish is no more our heritage language than English is. Both languages form part of our bilingual and transcultural identities, and perhaps it is our bilingualism that is our heritage, a heritage important in our globalized world, but increasingly denied to U.S. citizens in U.S. global politics (García, 2005: 603, our emphasis).

After providing several examples that attest to the phasing out of the words “bilingual” and “bilingual education” from the national discourse, García warns that recognition of HL in education can be a fallback position, not conducive to the realization of the nation’s potential for bilingualism and biliteracy. In francophone research, the term langue d’origine is intended to designate “rather vaguely, the language spoken in the learner’s original environment, and it is not always clear whether by ‘environment’ we refer to the family or the home country” (Vigner, 2009:37, our translation). In its reference to a home country and the family, this definition is close to the German notion of Herkunftssprache (Bauer & Chlosta, 2010; Kniffka & Siebert-Ott, 2009). According to Bauer and Chlosta, the term describes the languages spoken by migrants workers or refugees and their families (Bauer & Chlosta, 2010: 242). A crucial area of study in European research concerns the integration in the school system of children with an immigrant background and the role of their home languages in the development of academic competence and the acquisition of the national language (Auger, 2010; Kniffka & Siebert-Ott, 2009; Vigner, 2009). Kniffka and Siebert-Ott argue that the offer of HL classes for these pupils follows the idea that good knowledge of the mother tongue favors the acquisition of a second language. An important aspect of this success lies in the coordination of first and second languages’ foundations, especially regarding the initial processes of learning to read and write (Bauer and Chlosta, 2010: 158, our translation).

European scholars pursue a research agenda that aims to develop an integrated perspective for the teaching and learning of the heritage language alongside the language of the host country, with the overarching goal of promoting the development of competences in both (see studies included in Fürstenau & Gomolla, 2011).

English and Heritage Languages from a Multilingual Perspective

5

At a different level, language of origin hints to a social and emotional connection with the language of the community. While this may be the case for the first generation of migrants (Moussouri, 2010), it can be counterproductive to attribute an origin (a country of provenance, a specific religious or linguistic affiliation) to subjects who do not recognize themselves in these categories and for whom their origin relates back to a past that they wish to put behind (Bertucci & Corblin, 2007). The idea of “origin” can be taken to imply that the individual belongs elsewhere; it can be construed as social stigma by the speakers themselves and/or other members of the society. Additionally, there may not be a single geographical origin but several, as individuals (and their families) go through different experiences of mobility that multiply their sense of where they come from and explain where they stand at a given point in time. Identifying oneself with a particular origin or provenance can also be a matter of personal choice, an act of agency, a (re)creation based on social representations of languages and cultures. Finally, heritage speakers can distance themselves from their origins in certain circumstances and assert them in others, depending on contextual elements and the way in which they perceive their interlocutors and are perceived by them. A recent publication in English by the Council of Europe, “The linguistic and educational integration of children and adolescents from migrant backgrounds”, features the term “home language” to refer to “the language(s) spoken at home by children and adolescents from migrant backgrounds” (Little, 2010:11), a definition that firmly locates the home language within the realm of the family and the community. Its authors are careful to acknowledge that the home language need not be the sole language of the family: “the term is used without prejudice to the fact that in many cases the language of schooling may be adopted as a language of at least some home communication by at least some family members” (idem). The reverse situation also needs to be pointed out, namely, that the use of the term may restrict the discursive space invested by this language to the home and the community, ignoring its potential to occupy other spaces and serve a combination of purposes. The terminological fluctuation permeating heritage studies may help to explain sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic issues, and illustrates the complexities related to the use of these concepts when trying to understand how citizens come to terms with their language itineraries (Little, 2010), their identity and their place in society. It also throws light on the expectations of the host community regarding immigrants’ achievements, their linguistic needs, their abilities, and the challenges they face.

6

Chapter One

Depending on where they find themselves in their new country, migrants can be variously designated as “heritage speakers”, “heritage language learners”, “host country’s language learners”, “culturally and linguistic diverse”, “members of a linguistic minority”, “recently arrived”, “having to surpass linguistic barriers” or “with special needs”. Each of these labels carry semantic connotations that entail images of immigrants as either already having, or having yet to acquire, legitimate linguistic resources, as possessing or being dispossessed of a means of socialization and a viable path to success. As an alternative, García and Kleifgen (2010) have proposed the use of “emergent bilinguals”, a less biased term to refer to subjects who are in the process of acquiring the national language. Each of these designations has its advantages and drawbacks; each carries ideological, ethical, educational and political undertones; each can alternatively erode, ignore or value the heterogeneity of multilingual repertoires and discursive practices (Hélot & Ó Laoire, 2011). We will come back to these issues in section four hereafter.

3. Heritage languages within a multilingual perspective: reshaping a research field Taking into account the challenges raised by the conceptual and terminological issues discussed in the previous section, we argue that the term heritage language is more adequate and carries less negative connotations than the designation language of origin. Unlike the notion of home language, it can be used to describe communicative practices that are not necessarily restricted to a domestic context and to specific interlocutors within that context. Furthermore, heritage languages benefit from an “in-between” status in terms of mother tongue/foreign language and formal/informal instruction. Heritage language learners’ productive and receptive skills are quite heterogeneous and asymmetrical – often with highly developed listening comprehension and interaction skills (MeloPfeifer & Schmidt, 2012:3). From a terminological and methodological viewpoint, it appears critical not to isolate the heritage language as a separate entity in the linguistic repertoire, but to approach it from a resolutely multilingual, integrated perspective, in which the speakers’ competence in their HL is recognized as belonging to a larger, heterogeneous, plural and dynamic set of communicative resources (Bono, 2016; Faneca, Araújo e Sá & Melo-Pfeifer, 2016). In heritage studies, particularly in North America, the notion of linguistic heritage is sometimes used to depict an unchanging and unchangeable

English and Heritage Languages from a Multilingual Perspective

7

state of affairs, and heritage speakers’ competence (their oral and written production, their pragmatic performances) is more often than not measured against the kind of competence displayed either by native speakers of the same language or by speakers who learn it as a foreign language. Most studies to date follow this contrastive approach and deal with the advantages and the drawbacks experienced by heritage speakers when they attempt to use and/or to learn the HL. Equally, most empirical analyses exhibit a normative approach and focus on the deviation from the standard variety as spoken by an idealized native speaker. Linguistic proficiency remains the main criterion that enables the analyst to assess HL speakers and learners’ competence (Kagan, 2005). In the context of instructed language learning, a considerable number of publications deal with heritage speakers’ learning advantages and difficulties with regards to specific aspects of the language (phonetics, the lexicon, syntax…) and the concept of ‘interference’ is central to their arguments (see, for a synthesis, Kagan & Dillon, 2008). Heritage speakers are usually credited with an advantage related to their extended lexical resources and their strong oral comprehension and production skills, which constitute a set of prior knowledge that can be activated for the purposes of further language learning. On the other hand, the fossilized “deviant” forms used by the local community and developed through extensive contact with English (or the national languages of European countries) are considered to pose a challenge to the learning process. Once again, comparative approaches prevail, and the empirical data tend to come from language courses where heritage speakers are enrolled alongside traditional “foreign language” learners. However, it is now clear that the notion of deficit (a result from the comparison against the so-called native speakers) cannot and should not be used to account for heritage speakers’ language production. Their linguistic resources have intrinsic value and are deployed to perform very specific functions, which are clearly shaped by the speakers’ lived experiences. To a large extent, the roles and values with which heritage languages are invested depend on the speakers’ linguistic awareness and on the degree of development and maturity of their multilingual competence, not only in terms of their knowledge of other languages, but also with regards to their attitudes, motivation and the images that they form of different languages and cultures. As Blommaert states, There is nothing wrong with that phenomenon of partial competence: no one needs all the resources that a language potentially provides (…). Our

Chapter One

8

real “language” is very much a biographical given, the structure of which reflects our own histories and those of the communities in which we spend our lives (2010: 103).

From a multilingual perspective, the heritage language becomes one among many other mobile semiotic resources (Blommaert, 2010, that are developed, adapted, valued or devalued, with varying degrees of effort, according to the social context and the communicative situations in which heritage speakers are involved. If we follow Blommaert, this set of communicative and – we would like to add – cognitive resources are acquired as a result of the experiences of mobility that the speakers undergo during their lifetimes, as far as these experiences expose them to contact with different interlocutors and a range of discursive practices. Hence, heritage speakers’ linguistic biography is a crucial factor to understand the “puzzle” of their language resources, particularly in order to make sense of their beliefs about their linguistic heritage and the way in which the HL is used, transmitted and learnt. A multilingual approach to the notion of heritage language (Melo-Pfeifer & Schmidt, 2013) underscores the following issues: -

-

-

From a sociolinguistic perspective, the HL may or may not be directly related to migration; there is a multiplicity of contexts in which mobility takes place. Additionally, the concept of linguistic heritage may need to be pluralized, for example, to describe bilingual families living in a third culture (for example, the child of Italian-Albanian parents living in Germany). Finally, this is a construct that, in many situations, lacks a real-life referent in those cases in which the language has not been transmitted to the younger generations, with the resulting language shift and the creation of new linguistic repertoires (see Cook, 2003, on language attrition). From a social and emotional point of view, the HL can be, simultaneously, a reality its speakers may want to hide to avoid being associated with a particular group and a label imposed from the outside, with the ensuing potential for conflict at an affective level: “To categorize children based on their alleged, reconstructed, fantasized provenance is to determine those origins for them, to fossilize them, to choose them on their behalf” (Castellotti, 2010 :89, our translation). From an educational perspective, the HL can be a language of instruction (for example, in the so-called European sections offered by some high schools in Europe, in bilingual schools…) and/or a

English and Heritage Languages from a Multilingual Perspective

-

9

language that exists outside the classroom, that children acquire in their communities before or while attending school; it can also be part of the school curriculum when taught as a foreign language. Each of the possibilities in terms of the academic status (or lack thereof) of the HL bears on the social images surrounding the language in question and its varying degrees of legitimacy. In terms of language acquisition and language use, the HL is first learnt at home in early childhood (in which case it can be said to approach the notion of “mother tongue”), but, if the language is also taught within the school system, its mother tongue status then shifts to a foreign language status. We go from a language spoken within the family to a language that is not (or is no longer) the main language of communication for the speaker. When this shift takes place, factors such as the mode (informal, formal) or the order (L1, L2) of acquisition may not suffice to account for the characteristics of the heritage language and its speakers/learners.

In sum, a HL is a community language, generally transmitted from one generation to another in a society where this language coexists with others, and that is part of the speakers’ multilingual repertoire. Valdés (2005) and García (2012) among others have referred to the interdependence and the cross-fertilization of linguistic resources within an enlarged communicative competence (see also Melo-Pfeifer & Schmidt, 2012). It is important to note at this point that the HL is not necessarily the first or the sole language acquired during early childhood, nor it is always vowed to suffer from language attrition, despite the dominant role played by the national language in most aspects of the speakers’ life and social interactions, or the learning of further languages, notably English, at school. Finally, the considerable variation between individuals needs to be acknowledged when attempting to define what constitutes a heritage language: “a critical component of this definition has to do with identifying continua of proficiencies, reflecting the tremendous variation in heritage language observed by researchers” (Polinsky & Kagan, 2007:370). Researchers working from different theoretical and analytical frameworks agree that the maintenance of a HL, its intergenerational transmission and its role in keeping a community together depend largely on the language being valued and accepted by both the migrant community and the host community (Tse, 2001). The impact of social representations on intercultural encounters being both undeniable and unavoidable, it is critical to study the images associated with heritage languages, not only by the linguistic majority (other-representation) but also by the heritage

10

Chapter One

speakers themselves (self-representation) (see Melo-Pfeifer & Schmidt, 2014 on shared social representations of heritage speakers and learners).

4. Perspectives on a research agenda 4.1. Heritage languages in language policies and legislation Understanding concepts and their semantic networks from an emic perspective is critical when we seek to involve subjects in discussions about national and international language policies and to broaden public understanding of language guidelines, linguistic relationships and educational linguistic policies (Ricento, 2006). Public understanding of political issues that bear on immigration and linguistic, cultural, and economic integration is highly relevant, since it underpins legislation and is simultaneously influenced by legal texts and their enforcement (Shohamy, 2006). When immigrants face financial or political struggles, when they are alienated by critical problems regarding the near future and the urgency of integrating into the host society, they do not always engage in discussions related to language education in their own language. Because of social pressure and prevailing discourses valuing skills in the language of the nation, the right to maintain the “original language” and the affective and cognitive potential of its use become secondary concerns, reinforced by social representations (Castellotti & Moore, 2002) and reproduced by several social actors (teachers, school administrators, politicians…) through different means of communication. From the perspective of the host country, immigrants are expected to integrate pacifically into the host society and to learn its language(s) if they intend to stay. Issues related to the affective and cognitive assets associated with bilingualism are again quite distant from these concerns. Instead, the questions of productivity and linguistic and cultural distance are frequently raised as part of public and political debates to support or criticize language policy initiatives, particularly at school (Hélot & Ó Laoire, 2011). As Hélot and Ó Laoire underline, “responses from the state can either collide with the demands from the local community, or be tacitly accepted and met with no resistance” (2011: XV). Both perspectives are visible on legal texts related to immigration language policies, which reveal the image a society has of its immigrants and their linguistic needs, in terms of maintaining and using their languages, depending on their hypothetical and dynamic life projects.

English and Heritage Languages from a Multilingual Perspective

11

These legal texts also project a self-image for the immigrants, the rights they should reclaim, the needs they are supposed to have and the actions they should engage with, since laws become visible in the linguistic micro politics of everyday life (namely at work or at school) and in public debate (because of language policies’ cost-effect relationship or the integration of immigrants). Besides, concepts used to name immigrants and their languages as well as intervention measures are differentiated and may convey different images of migration dynamics, actors, needs and expectations. In fact, as García and Kleifgen claim, the use of different terms contributes to construe different scenarios (2010:3), and has major consequences for children, parents, teachers, policy makers and communities. A closer look at the terms used in legal documents in different languages may help to discover the hidden agendas in language education.

4.2. Patterns of self-determination among heritage speakers In the light of the complex and multidimensional layers of meaning attributed to the concept of heritage in the fields of language acquisition and language education, and given the inextricable link between language and identity, patterns of self-determination and self-categorization among HL speakers are a valuable topic of research to refine our understanding of critical social and emotional issues underlying HL use and HL learning. As mentioned in the previous section, speakers’ emotional attachment to their language (whether they present and represent themselves as heritage speakers, and how this position interacts with other definitions of the self) is as important as their actual linguistic ability. The label “heritage speaker” cannot and should not be automatically assigned on the basis of biographical information alone. In the emic perspective outlined, among others, by Hornberger and Wang (2008), HL speakers are defined not only by their familiar or ancestral ties to a particular language, but also – and crucially – by how they exert their agency in determining whether or not they are HL speakers and/or HL learners (see also Hornberger, 2005: 607). How do speakers negotiate (appropriate, accept, reject, subvert, and eventually transmit) their linguistic and cultural heritage? How much agency are they afforded in these processes? In any case, the different ways in which speakers position themselves are revealing of social dynamics in which language is one among many other factors in play. Cross-disciplinary research appealing to discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, educational studies and social psychology is needed to further our understanding of the driving forces behind language development and

12

Chapter One

growth on the one hand and, on the other hand, language attrition and language loss. Finally, for the field of heritage linguistics and HL education to succeed in accurately portraying these speakers, old ideas about what is a language have to give way to theoretical and empirical frameworks in which languages are fully recognized as discursive constructions (as opposed to hermetically sealed systems) which undergo extensive cross-fertilization and constant change (Blackledge & Creese, 2010:31). In language contact situations and multilingual environments, personal narratives constitute a promising area of study to gain in-depth knowledge of the language practices and representations amongst HL speakers. The need to understand these language practices (largely unappreciated and unrecognized within the educational institutions and society at large) arises equally from the notion that discourses about language play a fundamental role in the way people create and attribute meaning to both social and linguistic practices and to the relationships between groups. Personal narratives give voice to cultural and historical conceptions of language and provide access to socially situated systems of representations. The study of discourses about heritage languages, their maintenance and their growth, and of the lived experiences of their speakers, is extremely valuable and can be expected to remain a fruitful line of research because it throws light on the complex forms and the symbolic dimensions underlying language learning and language use among heritage speakers.

4.3. A multilingual perspective on HL teaching and learning As far as language education is concerned, a significant body of research – particularly in North America – is devoted to studying the ways in which the school can work towards preservation and transmission and against a potential loss (Valdés et al., 2008). As an increasing number of colleges and universities develop special tracks in their language programs specifically geared for heritage speakers, the question of how a HL should be taught (as a foreign language? as a native language?) remains open. Many scholars have pointed to the damaging effects of the disconnection between early education and secondary and post-secondary education in this respect. In early education, the languages spoken at home and in the community have to give way to the national language, the mastery of which is regarded as the sine qua non condition for overall academic achievement. When foreign language instruction is introduced in the curriculum (national differences notwithstanding, at some point in middle school), the nature of preexisting competences and their impact on further

English and Heritage Languages from a Multilingual Perspective

13

language learning are far from being a focal point, and when educators do pay attention to them, they overwhelmingly adopt a monolingual perspective whereby incomplete, partial knowledge is seldom recognized as a strategic asset. In the North American context, Cummins (2005) has described a “no win” logic by virtue of which the school system deprives children of the very same resources it aims to develop. The school will ignore, and sometimes effectively suppress, heritage linguistic resources in schoolchildren while simultaneously claiming to develop competence in foreign languages “often the very same languages and often in the very same children” (Hornberger, 2005:606). Similar remarks have been made in a European context, (see, for example, Coste, 2008 on the role of the national language in the schooling of children in France), where efforts to promote multilingualism fall short of any significant attempt to support the teaching of HL (De Bot & Gorter, 2005). Valdés et al. (2008:107) argue that reflecting on the role that educational institutions should play in language maintenance and language enrichment is one of the greatest challenges facing the field of HL teaching. A multilingual perspective on instructed language learning has the potential to significantly contribute to an integrated approach that goes beyond a dynamics of conflict between language maintenance and the development of new competences in English and other (national) languages, and emphasizes transfer and cross fertilization of linguistic resources. Heritage languages represent valuable resources to learn English as a second or foreign language, provided that pedagogical practices are implemented to allow them to co-exist and interact in the classroom (for instance, through translanguaging pedagogies and practices; see García & Wei, 2014, for an in-depth discussion). Studies involving heritage speakers who learn additional languages suggest that early multilingualism and multiliteracy are predictors of enhanced language learning skills and overall academic performance: “for minority language children who have maintained their heritage language and supported it with literacy knowledge, we can expect superior third language performance relative to other minority language children who do not read or write in their heritage language” (Swain & Lapkin, 1991:640; see also Cummins, 2008; Tucker, 2008).

14

Chapter One

5. Conclusion HL studies are a relatively young field within a discipline founded upon binary models (learning and teaching a second language to native speakers of another language) and a “no difference” assumption that implies that all language acquisition processes are equal and follow the same stages, regardless of the speaker’s repertoire (De Angelis, 2007). Since heritage speakers straddle the boundaries between first and second language acquisition, they do not fit into traditional models of language learning. The interest and the advantages of approaching the study of heritage language education from a multilingual perspective are many. Research devoted to third or additional language acquisition has contributed to build consensus around the idea that previous learning experiences (both in formal and informal environments) and prior linguistic knowledge, however partial this knowledge may be, have a positive effect on further language learning (Bono, 2011; Hoffman & Ytsma, 2004; De Angelis, 2007; Moore & Gajo, 2009). To a certain extent and despite significant differences in the contexts and cultures surrounding language teaching and learning, most heritage language learners are revisiting a language acquired in their childhood. However, following years of formal education and socialization in the national or majority language, the learning process is filtered by their knowledge and competence in this language, which has to all effects become dominant in these speakers’ lives. The resulting learning experience, which some describe as re-acquisition (see, for instance, Valdés, 2005), is not altogether different from the acquisition of a third language. Heritage learners are exposed to and expected to learn a language or a variety of that language or certain skills in the language that are different from the competences they have acquired at home. Further research will undoubtedly throw light on the cross-linguistic interplay between different but interconnected systems: the HL spoken at home and in the community, the HL as it is taught at schools, colleges and universities, the mainstream language, and other languages commonly offered within foreign language programs.

References Auger, N. (2010). Élèves nouvellement arrivés en France. Réalités et perspectives pratiques en classe. Paris: Éditions des archives contemporaines. Bale, J. (2010). Arabic as a Heritage Language in the United States. International Multilingual Research Journal, vol.4, n. 2, 125-151.

English and Heritage Languages from a Multilingual Perspective

15

Bauer, R. and Chlosta, C. (2010). Sprachlernvoraussetzungen: Nachbarund Herkunftssprachen. In W. Hallet and F. Königs (eds.), Handbuch Fremdsprachendidaktik. Klett. Bertucci, M.-M. and Corblin, C. (Ed.) (2007). Enseigner les langues d'origine. Le Français aujourd'hui, n.158. http://www.cairn.info/revuele-francais-aujourd-hui-2007-3.htm. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010). Multilingualism, A Critical Perspective. London: Continuum. Blommaert, J. (2010). The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bono, M. (2011). Cross-linguistic interaction and metalinguistic awareness in TLA. In G. De Angelis and J.-M. Dewaele (ed.), New Trends in Crosslinguistic Influence and Multilingualism Research. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 25-52. Bono, M. (2016). Las lenguas de herencia, entre lo proprio y lo extranjero. In S. Melo Pfeifer (ed.), Didática do Português Língua de Herança. Lisboa. Lidel, 28-49. Bono, M. and Melo-Pfeifer, S. (2012). La compétence plurilingue dans une perspective socio-constructiviste et (co-)actionnelle. In G. Alao, M. Derivry, S. Yun-Roger and E. Suzuki (2012), Didactique plurilingue et pluriculturelle: l’acteur en contexte mondialisé. Paris: Éditions des Archives Contemporaines, 61-72. Carreira, M. and Kagan, O. (2011). The results of the National Heritage Language Survey: implications for teaching, curriculum design, and professional development. Foreign Language Annals, vol. 44, n.1, 4064. Castellotti, V. (2010). Les enseignants de “langues (et cultures) d’origine” - Chronique d’une disparition opportune?. In L. Cadet, J. Goes and J.M. Mangiante (eds.), Langue et Intégration - Dimensions institutionnelle, socio-professionnelle et universitaire. Bern: Peter Lang, 83-94 Castellotti, V. and Moore, D. (2002). Social Representations of Languages and Teaching. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. URL http://www.coe.int/T/E/Cultural_Cooperation/education/Languages/La nguage_Policy/Policy_development_activities/Studies/CastellottiMoor eEN.pdf. Cook, V. (Ed.) (2003). Effets of the second language in the first. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Coste, D. (2008). Éducation plurilingue et langue de scolarisation. Les cahiers de l'Acedle, vol. 5, n.1, 91-107.

16

Chapter One

Coste, D., Moore, D. and Zarate, G. (1997). Compétence plurilingue et pluriculturelle. Strasbourg: Division des politiques linguistiques, Conseil de l’Europe. Cummins, J. (2005). A Proposal for Action: Strategies for Recognizing Heritage Language Competence as a Learning Resource within the Mainstream Classroom. The Modern Language Journal, vol. 89, n. 4, 585-592. Cummins, J. (2008). Introduction to Volume 5: Bilingual Education. In J. Cummins and N. Hornberger (eds.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 5, Bilingual Education. New York: Springer, xiii-xxiii. Cummins, J. and Danesi, M. (1990). Heritage languages: The development and denial of Canada's linguistic resources. Our Schools/Our Selves. Toronto: Garamond Press. Dabène, L. (dir.) (1989). Les langues d'origine des populations migrantes: un défi pour l'école française. LIDIL, 2, Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. De Angelis, G. (2007). Third or Additional Language Acquisition. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. De Bot, K. and Gorter, D. (2005). A European Perspective on Heritage Languages. The Modern Language Journal, vol. 89, n.4, 612-616. Faneca, R.; Araújo e Sá, M. H. and Melo-Pfeifer, S. (2016). Is there a place for heritage languages in the promotion of an intercultural and multilingual education in the Portuguese schools?. Language and Intercultural Communication, vol. 16, n. 1, 44-68. Fishman, J. (2001). 300-plus years of heritage language education in the United States. In J. Peyton, D. Ranard and S. McGinnis (eds.), Heritage Languages in America: Preserving a National Resource. Mc Henry, IL & Washington, DC: Delta Systems and Center for Applied Linguistics, 81-98. Fürstenau, S. and Gomolla, M. (2011) (ed.). Migration und schulischer Wandel: Mehrsprachigkeit. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. García, O. (2005). Positioning Heritage Languages in the United States. Modern Language Journal, vol. 89, n.4, 601-605. García, O. and Kleifgen, J. (2010). Educating Emergent Bilinguals. Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Language Learners. New York: Teachers College Press. García, O. and Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging. Language, Bilingualism and Education. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Ghaffar-Kucher, A. and Mahajan, A. (2013). Salaam! Namaste!: Indian and Pakistani Community-based efforts towards mother tongue language maintenance. In O. García, Z. Zakharia, Z. and B. Otcu

English and Heritage Languages from a Multilingual Perspective

17

(eds.), Bilingual Community Education and Multilingualism. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 74-86. Hélot, C. and Ó Laoire, M. (2011) (eds). Language Policy for the Multilingual Classroom. Pedagogy of the Possible. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Hoffman, C. and Ytsma, J. (eds.) (2004). Trilingualism in Family, School, and Community. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hornberger, N. (2005). Opening and Filling up Implementational and Ideological Spaces in Heritage Language Education. The Modern Language Journal, vol. 89, n.4, 605-609. Hornberger, N. and Wang, S. (2008). Who Are Our Heritage Language Learners? Identity and Biliteracy in Heritage Language Education in the United States. In D. Brinton, O. Kagan and S. Baukus (eds.), Heritage Language Education: a new field emerging. New York: Routledge, 3-35. Kagan, O. (2005). In support of a proficiency-based definition of heritage language learners: the case of Russian. International Journal of Bilingual Education, vol.8, 213-221. Kagan, O. and Dillon, K. (2008). Issues in Heritage Language Learning in the United States. In N. van Deusen-Scholl and N. Hornberger (eds.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education. vol. 4, 143-156. Kniffka, G. and Siebert-Ott, G. (2009). Deutsch als Zweitsprache. Paderborn: Schöningh UTB. Little, D. (2010). The linguistic and educational integration of children and adolescents from migrant backgrounds. Brussels: Council of Europe. http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Source2010_ForumGeneva/ MigrantChildrenConceptPaper_EN.pdf Melo-Pfeifer, S. (2019). Business as usual? (Re)conceptualizations and the multilingual turn in education. The case of Mother Tongue. In E. Vetter & U. Jessner (ed.), International Research on Multilingualism: Breaking with the Monolingual Perspective. Berlin: Springer. Melo-Pfeifer, S. and Schmidt, A. (2014). Représentations croisées de la communauté portugaise, des enseignants et des apprenants de portugais langue d’origine en Allemagne. Enjeux et perspectives didactiques. In J. Aguilar, M. Leclère, and C. Brudermann (ed.), Langues, cultures et pratiques en contexte: interrogations didactiques. Paris: Riveneuve, 125-148. Melo-Pfeifer, S. and Schmidt, A. (2013). "Dessine-moi tes langues et je te dirai qui tu es": le rapport des enfants lusodescendants au portugais

18

Chapter One

comme Langue-Culture d’Origine en Allemagne. Recherches en didactique des langues et des cultures, 10-1. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/rdlc/1512 (retrieved 19.04.2018). Melo-Pfeifer, S. and Schmidt, A. (2012). Linking Heritage Language Education and Multilingual Repertoires Development: a Case Study with Portuguese Pupils in Germany. Educational Studies on Language and Literature, vol. 12, 1-30. URL http://l1.publication-archive.com/ public?fn=document&id=2497&repository=1 Mercer, N (2000). Words and Minds: How We Use Language to Think Together. London: Routledge. Montrul, S. (2005). Second language acquisition and first language loss in adult early bilinguals. Exploring some differences and similarities. Second Language Research, vol. 21, 199-249. Moore, D. and Gajo, L. (2009). Introduction. French Voices on Multilingualism and Pluriculturalism: Theory, Significance and Perspectives. International Journal of Multilingualism, vol. 6, n.2, 137-153. Moussouri, E. (2010). Pratiques didactiques et représentations : un outil pour la conception d’une formation destinée aux enseignants des langues secondes/d’origine. Les Cahiers de l’ACEDLE, vol. 7, n.2, 139-168. URL http://acedle.org/IMG/pdf/Moussouri_Cahiers-Acedle_7-2.pdf. Polinsky, M., and Kagan, O. (2007). Heritage languages: In the ‘wild’ and in the classroom. Language and Linguistics Compass, vol.1, n.5, 368395. Ricento, T. (2006). An Introduction to Language Policy. Theory and Method. Oxford: Blackwell. Shohamy, E. (2006). Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches. New York: Routledge. Swain, M. and Lapkin, S. (1991). Heritage language children in an English-French bilingual program. Canadian Modern Language Review, vol. 47, 635-641. Tse, L. (2001). Resisting and Reversing Language Shift: HeritageLanguage Resilience among U.S. Native Biliterates. Harvard Educational Review, vol. 71, n.4, 676-708. Tucker, G. R. (2008). Learning other languages: the case for promoting bilingualism within our educational system. In D. Brinton, O. Kagan, O. and S. Bauckus (eds.), op. cite, 39-52. Valdés, G. (2005). Bilingualism, Heritage Language Learners, and SLA Research: Opportunities Lost or Seized? The Modern Language Journal, vol. 89, n. iii, 410-426.

English and Heritage Languages from a Multilingual Perspective

19

Valdés, G., González, S., López García, D. & Márquez, P. (2008). Heritage Languages and Ideologies of Languages: Unexamined Challenges. In D. Brinton, O. Kagan, O. and S. Bauckus (eds.), op. cite, 107-130. Vigner, G. (2009). Le français langue seconde. Comment apprendre le français aux élèves nouvellement arrivés. Paris: Hachette Éducation.

CHAPTER TWO LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN GREECE: THE FACTORS OF THEIR HERITAGE LANGUAGE AND LITERACY FOTINI ANASTASSIOU, GEORGIA ANDREOU AND JULIE BASEKI

1. Introduction Multilingualism is nowadays perceived both by the general public and by scholars as a quality that needs to be preserved and built on. In fact, monolinguals are in today’s world more of a rarity and there is a continuous interest among people to learn as many languages as possible. Over the past decades, there has been an increasing migration and mobility of populations which has led to cultural diversity among the people and, as a result, to the phenomenon of multilingualism (cf. Cruz-Ferreira 2006 and works cited within). Also, families whose members come from different ethnic and/or national backgrounds are increasing globally (Cruz-Ferreira 2006; Tokuhama-Espinoza 2001). Children growing up in multinational families are often in contact with more than one language through their parents, and in some cases these heritage languages are supported by the linguistic system of the wider community’s language. Multilingualism has been something natural in several societies. However, there are still many societies where only recently has multilingualism been acknowledged and therefore has become the focus of more research. This latter observation applies to Greece too, since the vast and rapid advent of immigrants has now created a versatile linguistic environment within public schools. There are nowadays a great number of children who are being raised as bilinguals (they speak their heritage language and Greek,

Learners of English as a Foreign Language in Greece

21

which is the official language of the community they grow up in) and they begin being taught their third language, English, as a foreign language when they are around the age of seven years old. Therefore, these children are more experienced in terms of language learning compared to their classmates who only speak Greek and are being taught their second language, English, with a foreign language learning methodology. In Greece there is one official language, Greek, and the languages of migrants and minorities that exist in the country are confined within the family environment as well as the specific language community. The status of the language is perceived by its own speakers as a lower one, especially in view of their integration in their host country. Moreover, children growing up in a multilingual family possess unique qualities and diverse needs, which have been the focus of literature (CruzFerreira 2006; Tokuhama-Espinoza, 2001, inter alia). Moreover, Hoffman (2001) has clarified the difference between transient and recurrent trilingualism. Transient trilingualism occurs after decreased usage of one of the three languages until it is eventually forgotten, absorbed by the other two languages or even never completely acquired, so that eventually the speaker becomes a bilingual or monolingual with a background in trilingualism. This quite common phenomenon is more likely to happen in childhood trilingualism, in instances where one of the languages becomes functionally unimportant so that in time the child loses the contact with the linguistic input as well as contact with the heritage language in a different country. Furthermore, it is most common to encounter “recurrent trilingualism”, in which each of the three languages has its own functions and relates to a specific domain, and thus each one is preserved and developed by the individual to a greater or lesser extent. However, the three languages are unlikely to be equally developed in every area of communication. One or even two of the three, although firmly established, is likely to be used less than the other two or the most dominant one, as shown in Hoffman (2001) and Cruz-Ferreira (2006). It is expected that one of the three languages will outperform the other two, as a natural result of the education being given in the most socially accepted language. According to Fishman et al. (1971), the possibility of balanced bilingual speakers is considered to be rare: “Bilinguals who are equally fluent in both languages (as measured by their facility and general correctness) are rarely equally fluent in both languages about all possible topics; this phenomenon is a reflection of the fact that societal allocation of functions is normally imbalanced and in complementary distribution rather than redundant” (Fishman et al., 1971, in MacSwan, 1999: 30). A similar logic can also be seen with trilingual speakers. Cenoz (2003: 72) states: “Third

22

Chapter Two

language acquisition presents more temporal diversity than second language acquisition.”

2. English as a third and foreign language Research in learning English as a third language has attracted significant attention in recent years. Jessner indicated that “in a growing number of countries worldwide English is learnt and taught as a third language” (2006: 2). Thus, English is seen as a factor in the formation of trilingualism since it is one of the languages the majority of multilinguals speak. English is actually a lingua franca and although this term is used according to Crystal (1995: 454) to mean “a medium of communication for people that speak different first languages”, Cenoz and Jessner (2000: 248) point out that in the specific case of Europe “lingua franca” should be also used for people speaking different second languages. Moreover, Hoffmann and Stavans (2007) point out that most of the research on trilingualism focuses on individuals who acquire or learn a third language in a school context (e.g. Cenoz and Genesee, 1998; Cenoz, Hufeisen, and Jessner, 2001)—just like our case that will be explained later on—or immigrant minorities who learn a third language in social contexts (Baetens-Beardsmore, 1993). Also, the majority of these studies look into the development of a third language after the development of one or two other languages. In most European countries English had been taught as a second language with a foreign language methodology; however, nowadays it is common that it is taught as a third language, such as in the case of immigrants from non-European countries who learn the official language of the country they have settled in and also study English at school. Research into trilingualism also looks at bilingual children’s acquisition of the third language through schooling. Studies of this kind have been carried out with linguistic minority children in the United States (e.g., Klein, 1995; Thomas, 1988), Canada (Bild and Swain, 1989; Genesee, 1998), Belgium (Jaspaert and Lemmens, 1990) and the Basque Country (Cenoz, 1998), among others. Furthermore, recent literature promotes the learning of more than one language as a way to ensure cognitive advantages (compared to monolinguals) (Bialystok et al., 2004). However, there is another side to this multilingual aspect of English. Although there are an ever-growing number of people learning English as a foreign language, it seems that native English speakers are on the verge of becoming a rarity. As Graddol (2006) points out, monolingual English

Learners of English as a Foreign Language in Greece

23

graduates may soon find themselves in a disadvantaged position since young people from other non-English-speaking countries nowadays have their mother tongue, English and another language. Therefore, they have an advantage in their professional careers since they are being taught English—in most cases, as a startup and then more languages follow—as schoolchildren. On the contrary, the British Council (2007) seems to warn of the lack of motivation and encouragement English schoolchildren seem to be getting to learn other languages due to the effortless communication that they enjoy by having a lingua franca. On top of that, today’s mass communication medium, the internet, has proved to be more multilingual and less English-dominated than originally thought. Recent data (Nunberg, 2000) has shown that more and more software is allowing users to select the language he/she will use, and the same goes for the websites around the world. Although English continues to be one of the most used languages, the mobility of the world population and the tendency of the Diaspora to use its own language to communicate within social media and chat rooms have created a multilingual requirement for the internet itself. In this way less-used languages have been flourishing and they keep gaining ground. Hence, people that have been living away from their birth countries, as well as their children, have nowadays more incentives and more motivation to maintain their heritage language. Although English is for the time being indeed a lingua franca and the medium of communication for people coming from many different language backgrounds, it seems that this kind of domination is not going to be the case in a few years’ time. Besides, this English language domination has been having a negative effect on people whose mother tongue/first language is English, since they do not have enough incentives to learn and use other languages too. Multilingualism can be achieved when both sides make an equal effort to approach the same goal; otherwise, it is a less effective struggle. In that sense, the European Union “1 plus 2” recommendation, which aims to promote the learning of one’s mother tongue/first language plus two other languages, has been trying to increase the languages being learnt and spoken among the European citizens. This recommendation had been also trying to ensure that the domination of just one language will not prevail for much longer and that less popular languages will not be less privileged in that sense. Moreover, the perception of a certain language’s prestige may in the long run hinder the learning and usage of other languages and thus hinder multilingualism as perceived and implemented by the European Union (see more at the EUNIC Recommendations on language learning, 2006).

24

Chapter Two

The majority of the schoolchildren in Greece learn English as a second language with a foreign language curriculum and methodology. In fact, English is the first foreign language that Greek pupils usually start with since there is the belief that it is a global language and the most useful one for their professional future lives. The vast majority of the children have attended foreign language classes and they have also sat the relevant language exams to gain the certificates required. Nowadays, the multilinguality of the children in Greece has moved even further forward since during the last 20 years or so pupils coming from migrant families have made up an increasing number of the schoolchildren. These children bring their own linguistic experiences into the classroom, and they are learning English as their third language since they speak their heritage language, they speak and are being taught Greek, which is the wider society’s official language, and they are also learning English at school. In most cases among these migrant communities the children are not being taught their heritage language. Only recently did Albanian migrant families start to consider ways to help their children learn their heritage language in afternoon language schools (Anastassiou and Andreou, 2014; Chatzidaki and Xenikaki, 2012; Gogonas, 2007, 2009). This is because most of these communities are still trying to adjust to the Greek reality and have not managed to reinforce their children’s heritage languages by formal instruction. It is rare that children have literacy in their heritage languages (Gogonas, 2009) and this is mostly because of the status their languages have in Greek society. Their parents focus on their children’s education mainly in Greek since they aim for their optimal integration into the Greek society. Therefore, their children become literate only in Greek when they enter school age.

3. The factors of age and literacy and their relation to the development of L2 and L3 acquisition and foreign language learning Cenoz (2003) stated that there are a number of factors connected to the acquisition of the third language. Some of these factors are: the age in which the individual started speaking the third language, the context each language was used for, and the background and conditions in which each language was obtained. These factors play an important role in whether or not bilingualism will contribute to L3 acquisition. As far as the age factor is concerned, it has been suggested that early learners in non-instructional settings tend to show near-native speech compared to later learners, although Munoz and Singleton (2011: 4) have proposed a more critical

Learners of English as a Foreign Language in Greece

25

approach to this generalization and thus they refer to the view of Cook, who insisted that the focus should be on L2 users in their own right rather than in comparison with native speakers. Cook, though, did point out that, “ultimate attainment is a monolingual standard rather than an L2 standard” (2002: 6). To this point, Hyltenstam and Abrahamsson (2000: 155) have remarked that there has not been research on post-pubertal L2 beginners showing a level of proficiency identical to that of a native speaker. They also recognize that the more closely we study very early L2 beginners the more we realize that, at the level of subtle detail, they also tend to differ from monoglot native speakers. Hyltenstam and Abrahamsson sum up the issue by stating that “younger learners acquire second languages automatically from mere exposure, while older learners have to make conscious and labored efforts” (2000: 152). As pointed out by Andreou and Galantomos (2009), though, the very idea of a native speaker goes back to the widespread belief that one’s particular language, one’s lingua nativa, was biologically inherited (cf. Christophersen 1988). Also, Scovel (1988) claimed that those who begin to be exposed to an L2 after age twelve cannot ever “pass themselves off as native speakers” (Scovel 1988, 2000). Long (1990: 274) interpreted results on accent in the same way as Scovel (1988), but also proclaimed that exposure to the L2 before age fifteen is necessary to achieve acquisition of L2 morphology and syntax to native levels. Safont Jorda (2003) and Sanz (2000) pointed out that the bilingual speakers who showed better progress in English compared to monolinguals had also acquired a wider spectrum of writing and communication skills. Moreover, Eisenchlas, Schalley and Guillemin (2015) have pointed out the importance of literacy skills in children’s minority languages, too, since they enhance their overall language proficiency. In our study we aimed to investigate the factors that might have played a more influential role in our participants’ L3 higher attainment. We focused on children who were attending primary school at the time of data collection and were all using their L1s (either Greek or Albanian) while still in the process of learning their English at school. We aimed to investigate the profile of the more successful L3 learners in relation to the language biographies of our participants and their L3 levels of proficiency. All of the participants had been in the process of attaining their A1 level of proficiency in English according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (abbreviated as CEFR). According to Cenoz (2003) in the study of additive trilingual children who were in the process of acquiring the third language, most of the studies

26

Chapter Two

took place in Spanish-Catalan and Spanish-Basque school classrooms where bilingual children were learning English as a third/foreign language. These studies, that also include the ones by Sagasta Errasti (2003), Safont Jorda (2003) and Sanz (2000), point out that bilinguals, who also showed better progress in English compared to monolinguals, had also acquired a wider spectrum of writing and communicating skills. Education is considered to be a component in determining any advantages of trilingual learners over bilinguals. It cannot be considered, though, as the determining factor in language proficiency. According to MacSwan (1999), the embodiment of literacy as a factor of communicative language proficiency can be quite problematic. MacSwan believes that if literacy is considered to be part of language development, from the aspect of language proficiency, it can be problematic because language acquisition and/or learning and literacy are not necessarily interdependent. In view of the current literature we aimed to explore whether children that had acquired literacy in one of their L1s (Greek in this case—see this paper’s methodology section for an analysis) through formal instruction would show higher levels of proficiency in their L3 (English).

4. Methodology of the study The methodology chosen for this study was initially based on research conducted by Cenoz (2001). She asked bilingual primary school children to narrate a picture book by Mercer Mayer (1967) in their third language, English, which was the language that they were being taught as a foreign language at school. This research also aimed at finding the characteristics that may have influenced the participants in their L3 speech production. For this research, the same series of picture books was used in order to elicit the children’s free narration. In particular, we used the picture book A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog, and the children were not familiar with the book before their interview. Before the narration procedure, the participants were each asked to fill in a questionnaire which aimed at obtaining information regarding their language biography history. This information was planned to be correlated later on with the data that would come from the analysis of their narrations.

4.1. The participants All of the children that took part in this study came from Albanian migrant families and they had been born and raised in Greece. Their parents had come to Greece about twenty years prior to this study. The participants’

Learners of English as a Foreign Language in Greece

27

first two languages were Albanian and Greek, and they were learning their third language (English) in school. At this point we need to clarify that not all children had the same L1 according to their statements. The 49 participants of this study were randomly chosen, their ages ranged from nine to twelve, and they were all attending public primary schools with a monolingual curriculum. To these children English is a third language taught as a foreign one, although for the majority of their classmates English is the second language learnt as a foreign one. Therefore, our participants were more experienced regarding language learning compared to their classmates, since they had been learning their third consecutive language. One important factor is the fact that our participants had been literate only in one language prior to learning their L3 (English) since they had not received any classes in their heritage language, Albanian, and they had not been introduced to formal aspects of their heritage language in any way.

4.2. Level of the participants’ L3 (English) After the narrations had been transcribed a corpus was built for this research. During the study of the produced “texts” the participants were categorized into three different sublevels of A1 English language levels: A1 low, A1 medium, A1 high. This classification was necessary as not everyone had achieved the same level of A1 at the time of the study. The classification was done by analyzing the produced texts and then assessing them according to the “can do” statements set by the CEFR guidelines. In order to classify each one of the texts we invented three sublevels within the A1 level since there were children who had different attainments of their L3 and of the A1 level. Therefore, all of the texts were assessed and categorized into the appropriate sublevel of A1. This way, the narration in their L3 acted as an assessment tool, too, indicating their levels of English. The assessed texts would ultimately be used along with the data gathered from the questionnaires to locate those factors that may have been more influential in more successful third language learning and a profiling of the most successful L3 learners would finally be attempted. Although, the “can do” statements describe the language capabilities a learner must show in order to be assessed as an A1-level speaker, we had to rate our participants’ competences according to three sublevels. This assessment was done on the basis of their produced texts. However, in

Chapter Two

28

order to verify the assessments, another rater with significant experience in English language exams was asked to assess the produced texts and a discussion for each one of them was had to make sure that all of the texts would be classified based on a unanimous decision. Therefore, the assessment and classification of the texts—and, basically, of the children who produced them—was done in a safe manner and was verified by two raters. Below we present examples from children who were assessed according to the three sublevels of A1 that we had defined as A1 high, medium and low. A1 high: “The boy and his dog goes to the river. He continues to go the river and then he sees a frog on the river. Then he try to catch the frog and then he fall down. So he’s in the river. Then he ȕȖȒțİ [=got out] with a bucket in his head and the frog IJȠ țȠȡȩȚįİȣİ [=was mocking him]. Then the frog IJȠȣ ȟȑijȣȖİ [=got away from him]. The boy shouts to his dog to catch the frog. Then they ĮȞİȕĮȓȞȠȣȞ [=got up] on the tree and try to catch the frog. Unfortunately he catch his dog and the frog escape. Then the frog go to a rock. And he see the boy to shout. Then they leave river and the frog is unhappy. The boy and his dog go to his home and the frog is alone at the river. He follow the footsteps of them and he arrive home of the boy and he see the boy in the bathroom. So and the frog goes in the bathroom and it go inside in the bath where are the boy and his frog. Finally they all are happy.”

Learners of English as a Foreign Language in Greece

29

The reason that this text was assessed as A1 high is because this child had produced a rather fair narration of the picture book. He was able to understand his task thoroughly and he managed to get all of the main information regarding the plot of the story. Also, some of the English grammar issues he faced during his narration were not so crucial to his communicative purpose. His language repertoire was quite rich with regard to the A1 level and most of his vocabulary is to the point. The few times he needed some help to overcome the need for certain vocabulary knowledge that he might have lacked, he overcame this obstacle by seeking the appropriate word in Greek. He used adverbs and conjunctions in a meaningful way, showing his knowledge of their proper use, and he showed a command of his first phrasal verbs. Also, his few Greek transfers were located in the proper word order where the English one would appear. Therefore, he showed a good command of English and he was assessed as an A1 high sublevel learner since his basic communicative needs were met. A1 medium: “And the boy looked the frog. The frog look the boy and the boy ȜȑİȚ [=says] to the dog to go out. The boy jump into the tree and catch the frog and dog. The boy ʌĮȓȡȞİȚ IJȘȞ ĮʌȩȤȘ ȖȚĮ ȞĮ IJȠ ʌȚȐıİȚ țĮȚ IJȠ ıțȣȜȓ [=gets the net to catch the dog] and the boy catch the dog no catch the frog. The boy catch the dog and put in the water. The frog go to the rock. The boy ijȦȞȐȗİȚ [=yells] and frog look the boy. The boy go and the frog is sad. Boy and dog go a front and the frog is back to the river. The frog look the footsteps of the boy and dog and go to the house of the boy. Boy go to the toilet and ʌȜȑȞİIJĮȚ [=washes himself] and frog look. The boy happy because look the frog and the frog go to ıIJȘ ȝʌĮȞȚȑȡĮ [=bathtub]. Boy dog and frog is friends.”

Chapter Two

30

This participant was assessed as A1 medium due to her lack of communicative means during her narration. In particular, her vocabulary repertoire was a bit poor, she showed some difficulty in producing correct grammatical structures and she did not exhibit command of the cohesive devices. She seemed to lack the flexibility to overcome her difficulties by producing Greek equivalents every time she could not come up with the word she aimed for in English and, what is more, she resorted to code switches in Greek by creating full utterances in order to get her message across. However, she showed an understanding of the task and she managed to narrate the picture book in such a manner that allowed the addressee to follow the sequence of the events. Her overall narration was well organised and any words that were not English were correctly situated in the place of the English equivalents, thus indicating her linguistic awareness. A1 low: “I see one boy with his dog to walk in a park. The boy ȕȜȑʌİȚ țȐIJȚ [=sees something] go to see the frog and ʌİȡʌĮIJȐİȚ ıIJȠ ȕȠȣȞȩ, ıțȠȞIJȐijIJİȚ ıİ ȑȞĮ ȟȪȜȠ [=walks on the mountain, trips over a wood] and throw down in a river. The boy throw down in the river and see the frog. The frog ʌȘįȐİȚ ȥȘȜȐ, IJȠ ʌĮȚįȓ IJȡȠȝȐȗİȚ IJȠ ıțȣȜȓ, IJȠ ʌĮȚįȓ ʌȐİȚ ȞĮ ʌȚȐıİȚ IJȠ ȕȐIJȡĮȤȠ [=jumps high, the kid scares the dog, the kid tries to catch the frog]. ȉȠ ʌĮȚįȓ ʌȚȐȞİȚ IJȠ ıțȣȜȓ, Ƞ ȕȐIJȡĮȤȠȢ ʌȑijIJİȚ țȐIJȦ, IJȠ ȕĮIJȡȐȤȚ ȞİȣȡȓĮıİ [=The kid catches the dog, the frog falls down, the frog is angry]. The boy go to his house, the frog țȐșİIJĮȚ ȝȩȞȠ IJȠȣ [=stays on his own] and the frog go to the boy’s house. The boy and his dog țȐȞȠȣȞ ȝʌȐȞȚȠ [=are having bath]. The frog ȝʌĮȓȞİȚ ȝȑıĮ ıIJȘ ȝʌĮȞȚȑȡĮ [gets in the bathtub] and the boy, dog and the frog are friends.”

The above text was assessed as A1 low sublevel due to the poor English vocabulary the child showed. There is a presence of nouns and articles but other than that the child seemed to be unable to express herself in a satisfactory and meaningful way in English. If it wasn’t for the transfers from Greek, she would not have been able to narrate the story and therefore she is really a beginner even within the A1 level standards.

Learners of English as a Foreign Language in Greece

31

5. Results We distinguished between two groups of children—i.e., those that had learnt their L2 only at home and those that had learnt it at school too. We aimed to see whether the way they learnt their heritage language would influence these children’s L3 proficiency and more specifically whether the children who have heritage language literacy would show higher levels of attainment of their L3, a language that they had also learnt at school and had acquired literacy skills in. For the children that had learnt their heritage language, Albanian, only at home and had not acquired any literacy skills in Albanian, their heritage language did not seem to have a higher positive influence on their L3 production. More precisely, 37% of them were assessed as high A1 sublevel in their L3, while 46% of them were assessed as low A1 sublevel, which raises some issues regarding the matter in question. Interestingly, the children who had learnt Greek at school, too, showed greater A1 level attainment; 57% of them were assessed as high A1 sublevel and 36% of them were assessed as A1 medium. Very few children (7%) were assessed as low A1 sublevel. Therefore, children who had also learnt their L2 at school within an instructed context showed greater proficiency in their L3 (English). Of course, these children had already acquired their L2 (Greek, in this case) in a naturalistic manner. However, they had also enhanced their language knowledge by learning its structural and grammatical features as early as six years old, when they entered the first class of primary school. This finding is statistically significant according to the Freeman-Halton Test, p = 0.023. Therefore, the factor of learning a second language by means of formal instruction was found to be an influential one in enhancing these participants’ overall L3 level.

6. Discussion of the results Munoz (2010) found that when a foreign language is learnt by means of formal instruction, older children showed higher proficiency compared to the younger ones. The formal instruction learning method differs significantly compared to the naturalistic one and Munoz suggests some crucial points: (1) instruction is limited to two to four sessions of approximately 50 minutes per week; (2) exposure to the target language during those class periods may be limited in both source (mainly the teacher) and quantity; (3) the target language is not the language of communication between peers; (4) the teacher’s oral fluency in the target

32

Chapter Two

language may be limited; and (5) the target language is not spoken outside the classroom (Munoz 2010: 41). Furthermore, the contexts of acquiring an L2 compared to those of acquiring a foreign language differ significantly (Cenoz, 2003), and research has turned its focus towards this area of investigation since scholars have been trying to answer questions regarding the optimal age for the onset of instruction of a foreign language. These participants have been learning their L3 (English) as a foreign language by means of formal instruction. However, Munoz mainly focused on the age of onset regarding their L2 proficiency, whereas we aimed to see their overall attained proficiency in that specific time in which this research took place in order to have an overview of their L3 A1 level. It is assumed, though, that the amount of exposure was also influential in their L3 language proficiency, although we could not have a picture of the quality of their instruction since this was not a research focus and it was not a longitudinal study. For a more detailed discussion on this matter and the time of onset of formal instruction, see Munoz (2010) and Cenoz (2003), among others. However, Cenoz (2003) does mention in her longitudinal study that better results were obtained by the older learners in terms of oral proficiency (as shown in one of the tasks that her participants performed). Since our own study involved a free narration task, it could be suggested that older children tend to be better in their oral productions or even better narrators. However, this should be further investigated, possibly by studying several tasks and comparing their performance in each one of them. This study only included the free narration task in order to gain results from the children’s spontaneous speech production. As far as the factor of literacy is concerned, our findings indicated a positive influence in relation to L3 attainment. Our participants’ L3 was introduced to them at around the age of seven to eight years old, and they already had experience in how a language is structured with all of its basic elements through their formal instruction in their L2 (Greek). At this point it is pointed out that these participants have been fluent in Greek from an early age and they also had attained literacy in this language when they entered primary school. Therefore, their L3 seems to have had a solid ground to grow on as far as literacy and the basic structures of language are concerned. Also, the language strategies used the first time they learnt a language, with its grammatical and structural constraints, may have been used when they learnt their L3 at school with a foreign language methodology. According to Odlin (1989), learners who have highly developed language skills (such as reading, writing and richness of

Learners of English as a Foreign Language in Greece

33

vocabulary) in their native language will most likely find that these skills facilitate second language acquisition. Maybe this could be the case with L2 highly developed language skills when it comes to L3 learning. Odlin, however, mentions that the effects of high L1 literacy might be connected with the transfer of training. Furthermore, Murphy (2003) has pointed out that most studies have so far been conducted with children attending secondary school or even university. Therefore, studies which focus on primary school pupils may be useful in that they pose a question regarding literacy issues. This study did investigate the factor of literacy and its effect on the L3 proficiency, and it gave statistically significant results. Murphy (2003: 12) also suggested that “since much of the research on multilingualism comparing speakers of different social and educational backgrounds is done from a sociolinguistic rather than a psycholinguistic perspective, future L3 acquisition research needs to take educational background into account since it relates directly to metalinguistic awareness”. In that sense, we may assume that our participants had higher metalinguistic awareness since they had been learning their L2 through formal instruction, thus pointing to the parameter of the educational background. We may also assume that it may be the case that the children who had acquired their L2 (Albanian) only by contact with a naturalistic environment (their families, their friends and the general community they live in) may have lacked the development of their metalinguistic awareness skills (at least in the same degree as the rest of the participants who had stated that their L2 was Greek and had also acquired literacy skills). As we mentioned earlier, this may be because none of our participants had been attending any classes in the Albanian language and therefore they had not developed any literacy skills in it (either as an L1 or an L2). Sollars (2002: 8) also pointed out that there are cases of children who acquire their first literacy in a second language or in a foreign language. In such cases, “there may be little information or meta-linguistic knowledge related to reading skills to transfer from the knowledge of a previous language”. To that end, we need to stress that in this case the children who had lower degrees of attainment of their L3 (English) had no literacy skills in their L2 (Albanian in this group of our participants), and therefore they lacked their L2 training of transfer during the acquisition of their L3. Since they had not received any formal instruction in their L2 (Albanian), there does seem to exist some sort of “literacy gap” which was created between their L1 (Greek) and their L3.

34

Chapter Two

In this line of reasoning, it seems that L2 instruction (Greek) may have served as a kind of “bridge” for those children who showed higher attainment of their L3. Therefore, more research on this matter could reveal interesting facts and probably verify this presumption about the sequence of literacies: if there is L1 literacy and then directly L3 literacy and if the pivotal role of L2 literacy is absent from the literacy sequence, then L3 overall attainment might be influenced. This could be connected with existing literature which states that in order for a second language literacy to be achieved L1 literacy must be established as firmly as possible. Additionally, Schalley, Eisenchlas, and Guillemin (2015: 1) argued that, “If high levels of proficiency in a minority language (including the mother tongue) are to be achieved, literacy in this minority language is essential—if a written form of the language exists.” In that respect, if L2 literacy (the minority language in this case) is not established at all this might mean that L3 competencies might be delayed to some degree, depending as well, of course, on the personal characteristics of each learner.

6. Conclusion So far, research (see Sollars, 2002) has indicated that children, who already have solid literacy skills in a language seem to be more equipped to acquire a new language efficiently. Our finding is therefore showing that literacy obtained through formal instruction may also enhance L3 proficiency when this is also acquired within a school context. The steps followed by a learner from his/her first and especially from his/her second language learnt in a formal context may pave the way for a firmer establishment of the third language. Therefore, it would be rather interesting to see if these findings were proven to be the case in similar studies on L3 acquisition—that the children’s L2 was also acquired through formal instruction—as this could provide pedagogical insight for language learning methodologists and teachers. A taught language may also create a different attitude on behalf of the children since it is connected with future usage too. Also, a comparison with another group of participants with a different combination of languages would be interesting. For example, if instead of Albanian we had Swedish- or French-heritage speakers the picture would probably be different in the corpus produced, especially due to the “higher” status of these specific two languages in Greece. It could be the case that the amount of transfer produced by such languages could be bigger, since according to Gogonas (2009) Albanian children were found to be self-aware because of their

Learners of English as a Foreign Language in Greece

35

heritage language’s “lower” status in Greece. Last but definitely not least, the sequence of the literacies acquired in the languages of a multilingual child may be found to be very important for one’s future language learning success. Therefore, research in multiliteracies could be proven to be a very significant field of research and a rather enlightening one for our understanding of the abilities and the strategies a speaker/learner uses. Also, since literacy might be connected in a learner’s mind with future usage of a specific language, it could be the case that children who do acquire literacy in more of their languages feel that these are all “important” and valuable languages. Given the psychological parameters that are interconnected with languages and their socioeconomic statuses, literacy could increase successful language learning and this could mean that fewer languages are left aside when more “prestigious” languages appear in one’s linguistic environment.

References Anastassiou, F. & Andreou, G. (2014). Multilingualism in Greece: A study of speech production of trilingual children. In ȃ. Lavidas, ȉ. Alexiou, ǹ. Sougari, Major Trends in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics 2, Selected Papers from the 20th ISTAL (pp. 187-198). London: Versita Ltd. Andreou, G. & Galantomos, I. (2009). The native speaker ideal in foreign language teaching. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 6.2, 201–208. Baetens-Beardsmore, H. (Ed.). (1993). European models of bilingual education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Bialystok, E. (2001). Metalinguistic aspects of bilingual processing. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 21: 168-181. Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., Klein, R., & Viswanathan, M. (2004). Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: Evidence from the Simon task. Psychology and Aging, 19, 290 –303. Bild, E. R., & Swain, M. (1989). Minority language students in a French immersion programme: Their French proficiency. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 10(3), 255 –274. Cenoz, J. (2001). The effect of linguistic distance, L2 status and age on crosslinguistic influence in third language acquisition. In J. Cenoz, B. Hufeisen & U. Jessner (eds.), Crosslinguistic influence in third language acquisition, 8–20. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cenoz, J. (2003). The Influence of Age on the Acquisition of English: General Proficiency, Attitudes and Code-mixing. In María del Pilar

36

Chapter Two

García Mayo & María Luisa García Lecumberri (eds) Age and the Acquisition of English as a Foreign Language, 77-93. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cenoz, J. & Genesee F. (1998). Psycholinguistic perspectives on multilingualism and multilingual education. In J. Cenoz and F. Genesee (eds) Beyond Bilingualism: Multilingualism and Multilingual Education, 16-32. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cenoz, J. & Jessner, U. (2000). Expanding the scope. Sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic and educational aspects of learning English as a third language in Europe. In Cenoz, J. & Jessner, U. (eds.) English in Europe: the acquisition of a third language. Multilingual Matters. Cenoz, J., Hufeisen, B. and Jessner, U. (eds) (2001). Cross-linguistic Influence in Third Language Acquisition: Psycholinguistic Perspectives. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Chatzidaki, A. & Xenikaki, I. (2012). Language choice among Albanian immigrant adolescents in Greece: The effect of the interlocutor’s generation. MENON: Journal of Educational Research, 1 (1) 4-16. Christophersen, P. (1988). Native speakers and world English. English Today 4.3, 15–18. Cruz-Ferreira, M. (2006). Three is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment. Clevedon, UK; Buffalo, NY: Multilingual Matters. Crystal, D. (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language" (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Eisenchlas, S. A., Schalley, A. C. & Guillemin, D. (2015). Multilingualism and Literacy – Attitudes and Policies. International Journal of Multilingualism 12 (2): 151–161. E.U.N.I.C. (2006) Brussels: Recommendations on language learning, http://www.eunic-brussels.eu/asp/dyn/detailed_1.asp?dyndoc_id=7 Fishman, J. A., Cooper, R. L. & R. Ma., et al. (1971). Bilingualism in the Barrio. Bloomington: Language Science Monographs, Indiana University. Genesee, F. (1998). A case study of multilingual education in Canada. In J. Cenoz & F. Genesee Eds.), Beyond bilingualism: Multilingualism and multilingual education (pp.243 – 258). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Gogonas, N. (2007). Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Language Maintenance in Second Generation Migrants: A Study of Albanian and Egyptian students in Athens. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Sussex, United Kingdom.

Learners of English as a Foreign Language in Greece

37

Gogonas, N. (2009). Language Shift in Second-Generation Albanian Immigrants in Greece. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 30(2), 95-110. Graddol, D. (2007). English Next, Why Global English may mean the end of “English as a Foreign Language”, British Council, The English Company Ltd. Retrieved from: www.britishcouncil.org/files/documents/learning-research-englishnext. pdf, 28th of July 2013. Hoffmann, C. (2001). The status of trilingualism in bilingualism studies. Looking Beyond Second Language Acquisition: Studies in Tri- and Multilingualism, J. Cenoz, B. Hufeisen, and U. Jessner (eds.), 13–25. Tubingen: Staufenburg. Hoffmann, C. & Stavans, A. (2007). The evolution of trilingual code switching from infancy to school age: The shaping of trilingual competence through dynamic language dominance. International Journal of Bilingualism, Vol. 11, No. 1, 55– 72. Hufeisen, B. (1998). L3-Stand Der Forschung – Was Bleibt zu tun? In B. Hufeisen and B. Lindemann (eds) Tertiarsprachen: Theorien, Modelle, Methoden (pp. 169-185). Tubingen: Stauffenburg. Hyltenstam, K. & Abrahamsson, N. (2000). Who can become native-like in a second language? All, some, or none? On the maturational controversy in second language acquisition. Studia Linguistica 54.2, 150–166. Jakobson, R. (1953). Results of a joint conference of anthropologists and linguists. International Journal of American Linguistics 19(2): 11-21. Jaspaert, K., & Lemmens, G. (1990). Linguistic evaluation of Dutch as a third language. In M.Byram and J. Leman (Eds.), Bicultural and trilingual education: The Foyer model in Brussels (pp.30 –56). Clevedon:Multilingual Matters. Jessner, U. (2006). Linguistic Awareness in Multilinguals: English as a Third Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Jessner, U. (2008). Teaching third languages: Findings, trends and challenges. Language Teaching (2008), 41:1, 15–56. Cambridge University Press. Jessner, u. & Cenoz. J. (2007). Teaching English as a Third Language. In Cummins. J. and Davison, C. (eds.) International Handbook of English Language Teaching. Springer International Handbooks of Education, Vol.15, Section 1: 155-167. Kemp, C. (2009). Defining Multilingualism. In Aronin, L. & Hufeisen, B. (eds.) The Exploration of Multilingualism: Development of Research

38

Chapter Two

on L3, Multilingualism and Multiple Language Acquisition. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Klein, E. (1995). Second versus third language acquisition: Is there a difference? Language learning; 45: 419-465. Long, M. (1990). Maturational constraints on language development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 12, 251–85. MacSwan, J. (1999). A Minimalist Approach to Intrasentential Code Switching. New York and London: Gargald Publishing, Inc. McArthur, T. (ed). (1992). The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford: OUP. Munoz, C. (2010). On how age affects foreign language learning. Advances in Research on Language Acquisition and Teaching: Selected Papers, GALA, 39-49. Muñoz, C. & Singleton, D. (2011). A critical review of age-related research on L2 ultimate attainment. Language Teaching, 44, 1-35. Murphy, S. (2003). Second language transfer during third language acquisition. In: Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics 3(2): 1-21. Nunberg, G. (2000). Will the internet always speak English? Language in a wired world. American Prospect, 11 (10): 40-43. Odlin, T. (1989). Language transfer. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Safont Jorda, M. (2003). Metapragmatic awareness and pragmatic production of third language learners of English: a focus on request acts realizations. International Journal of Bilingualism; 7: 43-51. Sanz, C. (2000). Bilingual education enhances third language acquisition: Evidence from Catalonia. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21: 23-44. Schalley, A. C., Eisenchlas, S. A. & Guillemin, D. (2015). Multilingualism and literacy: practices and effects, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 19(2):1-9. Scovel, T. (1988). A Time to Speak: A Psycholinguistic Inquiry into the Critical Period for Human Language. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Scovel, T. (2000). A critical review of the Critical Period Hypothesis. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 20, 213–23. Sollars, V. (2002). Issues in multi-literacy. European Centre for Modern Languages, Council of Europe Publishing. Thomas, J. (1988). The role played by metalinguistic awareness in second and third language learning. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 9(3), 235 – 246.

Learners of English as a Foreign Language in Greece

39

Tokuhama- Espinoza, T. (2001). Raising Multilingual Children: Foreign Language Acquisition and children. Westport, Conn.: Bergin and Garvey. Walqui, A. (2000). Contextual Factors in Second Language Acquisition. Retrieved 26 July 2013 from: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/digest_pdfs/0005-contextualwalqui.pdf

CHAPTER THREE INTERCULTURALITY, INTERNATIONALIZATION AND INTERCOMPREHENSION: POSSIBILITIES WITH ENGLISH IN THE MIX1 KYRIA REBECA FINARDI, FELIPE FURTADO GUIMARÃES AND NATHIELLI SOUZA MOREIRA

1. Introduction The redefinition of the notions of space and time, caused by increasing displacements of people, along with the expansion of the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), which are propelled by the process of globalization, have impacted the flow of information, changing the way people relate to and with local and current global contexts and realities. Education in general, and higher education in particular, have also been affected by these changes, which have become more evident in the contemporary process of internationalization of higher education, recently linked to a globalized economy of the knowledge industry (Shin & Teichler, 2014, Yonezawa, 2014). According to Finardi (2015), globalization and ICTs also changed the way we use, produce and circulate information and how we use, teach and learn languages. Finardi and Porcino (2016) claim that ICTs, in the form of the internet, have given greater “voice” to the peripheries, though Finardi and Porcino (2014) remind us that not all effects of globalization are positive, as can be seen in the commodification of education and the threat to local cultures and languages imposed by global tensions. In that sense, Andreotti et al. (2015) claim that globalization can be violent and threatening to local cultures. 1

A somewhat similar version of this paper was submitted for publication in Portuguese at Revista Ilha do Desterro.

Interculturality, Internationalization and Intercomprehension

41

The close relationship between the terms "globalization" and "internationalization" leads them to be taken as synonyms (Jenkins, 2014; Teichler, 2014) or to be understood as if internationalization is a consequence or agent of globalization. Briefly, we can define globalization as referring to the increase in activities between borders, maintaining the permanence of these borders, while internationalization proposes a blurring of these borders. Knight (2003: 2) defines internationalization as the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension in the purpose, functions or offerings of higher education. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 2001) considers the process of globalization to be facilitated by the development of ICTs and, despite posing a challenge to cultural diversity, it creates the conditions for a new dialogue between cultures and civilizations. UNESCO asserts that respect for cultural diversity with tolerance, dialogue and cooperation, within an environment of mutual trust and understanding, can be the best means to guarantee international peace. The multiplicity of cultures and languages, fostered by the mobility of people, has become the focus of political discussions between states, devoting efforts to the elaboration of immigration, language and internationalization policies to deal with the tensions that emerge in these encounters. Such policies involve intercultural relations, intercultural management, communication management, intercultural communication, identity negotiation, and conflict resolution (Ramos, 2013). As such, interculturality is a key in this context, which is why we devoted this chapter to reflect on its role in the current global context of internationalization and globalization.

2. Interculturality UNESCO’s universal declaration of cultural diversity states that cultural diversity is a heritage of humanity. It further states that all people have the right to express themselves, in the language of their choice, especially their mother tongue. Beyond this, it states that all people have the right to quality education and training which fully respects their cultural identity; and all people have the right to participate in the cultural life of their choice and to conduct their own cultural practices as long as they respect human rights and fundamental freedoms (UNESCO, 2001). The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has a Cultural Diversity Observatory that is responsible for producing

42

Chapter Three

information and knowledge, as well as addressing the challenges of protecting and promoting cultural diversity. The European Union has a Fundamental Rights Agency, which has drawn up a Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union with an article dealing with cultural, religious and linguistic diversity under Title III (Equality). Cultural diversity and multiplicity implies linguistic, cultural and behavioral heterogeneity that requires practices, strategies, policies and skills to manage the complexity of relationships between people (Ramos, 2013). The current world scenario shows that the issue of cultural diversity and the affirmation of differences have impacted the way nations (and their individuals) deal with global and local issues. We can identify two opposing movements: standardization, in which globalization tries to homogenize; and partitioning, whereby local identities strive to assert heterogeneity in an opposing movement, with emphasis on local values of 'nationalist' discourses such as those recently observed in the United States (Donald Trump), the United Kingdom (Brexit), and in France (Marine Le Pen), for example. Immigrants and international students represent the superdiversity of the present day. Issues such as motivations, patterns, trajectories and the process of insertion into the labor and housing market, previously categorized according to their nationality, ethnicity, language and religion, are now considered in the category of migrants (Blommaert, 2010 cited in Liberali; Megale, 2016: 96). Thus, migration (and, we would add, international academic mobility) cannot be considered equivalent to a "cultural encounter" (Ramos, 2013: 348), since it can occur in a harmonious or traumatic way, often requiring (but not necessarily assuring) a social, psychological, cultural, historical and economic setting and settling (among other aspects) of the new culture. The process of acculturation can take place by assimilation, integration, separation or marginalization (Berry, 1989). Assimilation occurs when a (minority) group appropriates elements of another (majority) group, with the loss of the cultural patterns of origin, to adapt to an unequal situation between the groups, that is, the immigrant group adopts the culture of the society that welcomes them. Integration presupposes the partial conservation of the culture of origin, while still participating in the new society. In this model, the values of the new culture are adopted, while still maintaining values of the culture of origin. In the process of separation, there is an attempt to maintain cultural identity, preserving the culture of origin, without seeking relations with the new culture, in a form of

Interculturality, Internationalization and Intercomprehension

43

rejection of the dominant culture. Finally, in the process of marginalization, the majority group prevents participation in local institutions through discriminatory practices whereby the migrant loses the right to participate in life in the new society and loses his/her identity of origin when trying to assimilate the new culture; resulting in being excluded from the two cultures (Ramos, 2013). According to this model of acculturation, the pressure on migrants would be greater in "monocultural and assimilationist" societies and less in "tolerant and pluralist" societies (Ramos, 2013: 349). Still, according to Ramos (2013), to move and live in this environment of diverse cultures, some skills are necessary, including: a) Individual skills: allowing for balanced interactions between individuals, with flexibility and relativization of principles and models, avoiding discrimination and intolerance; b) Intercultural skills: such as linguistic, communication and pedagogical skills; to facilitate in the creation of dialogue and awareness, promoting inclusive actions and educating citizens to be culturally sensitive; c) Citizenship skills: that allow democratic access to societies and institutions. These skills may be more specific, such as the intercultural competence proposed by Ramos (2013) and which includes (emphasis added), the following skills: a) To know oneself and one's own culture, being aware of one's cultural identity; b) To understand reference frameworks and cultural codes; c) To develop attitudes such as empathy, flexibility and interest in other cultures, to deal with conflicts, to cooperate and to negotiate; d) To understand how behaviors are culturally determined, developing the ability to see the world under the prism of another culture; e) To avoid ethnocentrism; f) To avoid rapid and superficial assessments, putting oneself in the other's place; g) To be alert to the signs of non-verbal communication, respecting the communication styles of each culture; h) To promote intercultural teacher training; i) To welcome linguistic diversity and to promote the learning of foreign languages;

44

Chapter Three

j) To use social media to raise awareness about interculturality and face prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination; k) To promote the development of digital competences and intercultural communication, allowing the sharing of ideas, information and learning. Thus, intercultural communication is important not only in the context of international interactions but also in local contexts where there are encounters (and mismatches) of cultures. Given the role that languages play in building identities, cultures and realities (Mendes & Finardi, 2018), we believe that they can represent a path to intercultural development, opening a space for intercultural tolerance (European Commission, 2006).

3. Interculturality and languages According to Finardi (2014), additional languages (L2s) are important for: 1) maintaining national cohesion (Finardi & Csillagh, 2016); 2) expanding access to information (Finardi, Prebianca & Momm, 2013; Finardi & Porcino, 2014); 3) expanding access to online education through Massive Online Open Courses [MOOCs] (Finardi & Tyler, 2015); 4) social inclusion of immigrants and refugees (Ortiz & Finardi, 2015); 5) circulating academic production (Finardi & França, 2016); 6) fostering internationalization of higher education (Finardi, Santos & Guimarães, 2016) and 7) promoting a sustainable internationalization of higher education (Finardi, 2017b). The internationalization of higher education and the search for new teaching and learning approaches that allow access to broader educational contents and the development of learners’ autonomy have paved the way for the offer of MOOCs. However, Finardi and Tyler (2015) showed that almost 85% of MOOCs are available only in English, thus corroborating Finardi, Prebianca and Momm’s (2013) claim that some knowledge of English is necessary to increase access to online information. Regarding the role of English in the process of internationalization of higher education, it is usually seen as the language of science and “takenfor-granted [as the] lingua franca of higher education,” as discussed in Mazak and Herbas-Donoso (2014, 2015, cited in Caruso, 2018: 69). Yet, it is important to bear in mind that the dominant role of English in higher education puts non-English speakers at a disadvantage (Hamel, 2013). Because the use of English texts in multilingual contexts may lead to translingual practices, we think that translanguaging could be an

Interculturality, Internationalization and Intercomprehension

45

alternative to both stimulate multilingualism and to fight against the assumed monolingual hegemonic position of English as the only language of science. Translanguaging is defined by García (2009: 140) as “the act performed by bilinguals of accessing different linguistic features of various modes of what are described as autonomous languages, in order to maximize communicative potential” and as the act of selecting strategically communicative features within the same linguistic repertoire (García 2012: 1). In this sense, we see an interface between translanguaging and the intercomprehension approach, described later on in this chapter. Translanguaging is not the same as codeswitching, which refers to switching between two languages. Instead, translanguaging considers bilingualism not as the simple sum of two languages, i.e., an additive bilingualism, but as a dynamic bilingualism, as defined by García (2012: 1-4). Here and in the context of internationalization of higher education, the notion of multilingualism should consider contemporary globalized societies and plurilingual trajectories. Referring to the practice of translanguaging in higher education, Baker (2001: 281–282, cited in Caruso, 2018: 67) emphasizes that language planning is necessary to ensure that the languages used are equally developed and have an equal status. This might mean, for example, an input in one language (e.g. reading a text) with the output in another language (e.g. the discussion around the text), during the same teaching/learning activity, very similarly to what happens during activities in the intercomprehension approach and perhaps similarly to what happens in the so called English Medium Instruction (EMI) classes in the context of international courses and programs in higher education (for example Taquini, Finardi & Amorim, 2017). Baker (2001: 281–282, cited in Caruso, 2018: 67) lists four potential advantages of translanguaging as a pedagogical practice: 1) it may promote a deeper and fuller understanding of the subject matter; 2) it may help the development of the weaker language; 3) it may facilitate connection between the school and home and cooperation; and 4) it may help the integration of fluent speakers with early learners. By using translanguaging as a pedagogical practice in higher education, international students may have the possibility to use their full linguistic repertoire in facilitating content learning and intercultural communication. In this way, they also have the opportunity to build multilingual identities.

46

Chapter Three

Regarding the role of multilingualism and English language teaching in Brazil, Law 13.415 of 2017 made the teaching of English as a foreign language mandatory in schools, rendering the teaching of other foreign languages (such as Spanish, French and Italian) optional, thus strengthening the role of English as an international language in the country (Finardi, 2014) while jeopardizing other foreign languages in general and multilingualism in particular. Finardi and Csillagh (2016) claim that no account of multilingualism can make do without considering the role of English nowadays and Finardi (2017) claims that, given the role of English in Brazil today, other language teaching approaches (such as the intercomprehension approach and, we add, translanguaging) are necessary to guarantee multilingualism. The intercomprehension approach [IA] (for example, Araujo e Sá, 2014; Carrasco Perea, 2010; Tost Planet, 2005) aims at developing mutual understanding between different languages in interactions where people communicate in their own language. The intercomprehension approach is not an alternative method to learn all the skills of a given language nor an approach to learn multiple languages simultaneously, but a multilingual approach to develop comprehension in L2s. From the point of view of language skills, IA implies awareness of linguistic proximity, exploring the similarity and proximity of linguistic elements (lexical, phonological, morphological, and syntactic) to aid understanding. These elements are often underutilized in most L2s teaching approaches, due to the tendency to consider linguistic closeness more as a problem for L2s learning than as a resource in the acquisition of L2s. One of the main objectives of IA is to emphasize the proximity between languages in order to increase the intercomprehension between languages that share common characteristics in certain elements. IA can be used to promote multilingualism at all levels of education, and we believe that it can be an interesting alternative for higher education in order to stimulate a sustainable internationalization based on interculturality. In two studies carried out in Brazil regarding the role of languages in the development of citizenship and in the promotion of internationalization, Finardi, Santos and Guimarães (2016) concluded that foreign languages play a very important role in the process of building a global citizenship that promotes internationalization, and Finardi and Guimarães (2017) added that English is the main language used in this context, very often

Interculturality, Internationalization and Intercomprehension

47

downplaying the role of other foreign languages in the process of internationalization. The process of language learning with IA offers the following advantages: a) the process of acquiring linguistic competence is part of the knowledge that the learner already has; b) IA is an approach that provides the development of a highly collaborative work between languages, since learning is based on constructs where the source language and the target language work in tandem. Considering that the spread of scientific information takes place primarily through writing and in English (Finardi, Prebianca & Momm, 2013), IA can contribute to the access of university students to the contents available in foreign languages, and, we would add, if used in tandem with translanguaging, it may offer a multilingual approach to internationalization and an interesting alternative to the hegemonic use of English in the process of internationalization through the offer of EMI classes. IA also allows for the anchoring of the similarities between languages, fostering foreign language learning autonomously in a short period of time, in addition to awakening learners’ self-confidence and the desire to develop other language skills, offering an alternative to the hegemony of English as an academic lingua franca and the scientific production of the Anglo-speaking countries (Hamel, 2013). Araujo and Sá (2014) summarize the benefits of the IA in the university context in the MIRIADI project report: a) IA as a way of opening up to multilingualism in educational contexts where the learning of a single foreign language is privileged; b) IA as an appreciation of previous knowledge in languages; c) IA as a form of validation of theoretical acquisitions; d) IA as a way of promoting interdisciplinary and interlinguistic work, proposing diverse representations of teaching and learning languages; e) IA as a way of developing technological skills in pedagogical environments once it can be used in face-to-face or distance learning environments; f) IA as a way of opening up to other languages and other cultural universes, especially in cases where curricula favor the study of a single foreign language (usually English);

48

Chapter Three

g) IA as a motivation factor through collaborative work within multilingual groups. Languages are one of the most important and effective means of accessing others and their cultures. In the context of learning with the intercomprehension approach, the more one learns the target language, the more the source language is improved and, as previously suggested, when used together with translanguaging approaches, it may raise sensitivity and respect for other languages and cultures fostering interculturality. In a world of increasingly hybrid boundaries and identities (Mendes & Finardi, 2018), the role of languages in the construction of these identities and in the maintenance of world peace has to be reconsidered.

4. Interculturality and internationalization transfer of educational models? Akkari and Gohard-Radenkovic (2008) observe the transfer of educational models from the Northern to the Southern Hemispheres, suggesting that a misalignment of the technological, economic, political and cultural contexts between the North and the South destabilizes partnerships, reinforcing cultural stereotypes. Akkari and Gohard-Radenkovic return to Rose's (1991) model of lesson-drawing between countries, which imply full or partial adoption of educational proposals. We can draw a parallel between this model and Berry's (1989) proposal for acculturation and Hornberger's (1991) proposal for bilingual education, in the sense that there is a tension in the negotiation (or imposition) between global and local values. Akkari and Gohard-Radenkovic (2008) suggest a structural difficulty for cooperation, namely, the inequality between the parties. Inequality can manifest itself in different levels: organizational, financial, technological and (in)stability. Examples of this are projects where (the lack of) local infrastructure, such as internet access, may hamper crosscountry cooperation. Another example is the difference in pedagogical training, as in the case of Brazil (super-politicized) and of Switzerland (sub-politicized). Another example would be the use of languages usually the language of the strongest partner (from the North) is used for communication and work. According to Akkari and Gohard-Radenkovic (2008), in the context of international cooperation, the use of stereotypes expresses a tendency

Interculturality, Internationalization and Intercomprehension

49

towards ethnocentrism - a view of the "normality" of "our" practices and of an "abnormality" of "other" practices. Such stereotypes have an ideological function, related to real conflicts and discrimination, or to what Andreotti et al. (2015) call "violence" in the process of internationalization. In this context, we notice changes in higher education with pressures on universities that are going through an internationalization process (or normalizing according to an ethnocentric standard). One of the most evident forms of this movement is the implementation of offshore campuses and the commodification of education, as already detailed by Finardi and Porcino (2015) as two of the negative effects of globalization. Finardi (2014) refers to the role of English in this system. In a comparative study between the reality of universities in Turkey and Brazil, Taquini, Amorim and Finardi (2017) found that the proportion between public and private universities is about 75% (public) and 25% (private), respectively, in Turkey, which explains, in part, the phenomenon of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in Turkish higher education institutions as a strategy to be accepted by the European Community. In Brazil the ratio is inverted with 75% private and 25% public universities, which is why Finardi and Ortiz (2015) found that internationalization was more important for public institutions than for private ones in Brazil, due to the size of the domestic market and the apparent lack of need to seek external financing in the form of foreign students’ fees in private institutions. We think it is important to think of a more balanced model between public and private universities as well as of internationalization agreements between the North and the South, as proposed by Hamel (2013), Vavrus & Pekol (2015) Finardi, Santos & Guimarães (2016).

5. The interface among interculturality, internationalization and intercomprehension As we hope has become evident in our account, interculturality, the internationalization of higher education and the intercomprehension approach are related in our current context, insofar as internationalization reinforces the hegemony of English and Anglo-speaking scientific production, while interculturality and the intercomprehension approach can serve to combat this hegemony by broadening access to education and information, increasing global sensitivity and integration in a more peaceful way. Since internationalization is a relatively new phenomenon in

50

Chapter Three

Brazil, our proposal to connect it to interculturality and intercomprehension clashes with ongoing trends to implement foreign models without the necessary adjustments to the local scenario – trends that also occur in other countries, especially those with incipient internationalization in the realm of education. Moreover, this proposal clashes with recent governmental decisions, which favor English as the only foreign language to be taught in Brazilian public schools. The intercomprehension approach, if used in line with translanguaging and the broader notion of interculturality, can serve to increase sensitivity and closeness between languages, peoples and cultures. We believe that the process of Brazilian internationalization, led by public announcements such as Capes PrInt (a public call for Brazilian universities to internationalize) and programs such as the defunct Sciences without Borders, can benefit from a broader, critical, intercultural and multilingual view through more inclusive approaches such as the intercomprehension approach and by promoting more inclusive language and internationalization policies By proposing a new approach to foreign language teaching/learning/use in Brazil, in order to deal with laws, rules and attitudes, which favor a single foreign language, we expect this approach could be expanded to other countries and institutions. Thus, it could be used to promote diversity and respect to other languages and cultures, and to create a more active response to foreign internationalization models that could obliterate local values of culture and language.

References Akkari, A. and Gohard-Radenkovic, A. (2008) Coopération internationale: entre accommodements interculturels et utopies du changement. Paris: Harmattan. Andreotti, V.O., Stein, S., Ahenakew, C. and Hunt, D. (2015) Mapping interpretations of decolonization in the context of higher education. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, v. 4, n. 1, 21-40. Araujo e Sá, M.H. (2014) Atouts et possibilités de l'insertion curriculaire de l'intercompréhension. Report published in the Miriadi project. Retrieved from: . Access: 18 jul. 2017. Berry, J. W. (1989) Acculturation et adaptation psychologique. In: Retschitzky, J.; Bossel, M.; Dasen, P. (Eds) La recherche psychologique. Paris: Hamarttan, 1989. 135-145.

Interculturality, Internationalization and Intercomprehension

51

Carrasco Perea, E. (2010) Intercompréhension (s): repères, interrogations et perspectives. Synergies Europe 5. Retrieved from: . Access: July 18, 2017. Caruso, E. (2018). Translanguaging in higher education: Using several languages for the analysis of academic content in the teaching and learning process. Language Learning in Higher Education, 8(1), 6590. European Commission. (2006). Europeans and their languages. Special Eurobarometer 243. Finardi, K. R. (2014). The Slaughter of Kachru's Five Sacred Cows in Brazil: Affordances of the Use of English as an International Language. Studies in English Language Teaching. v. 2, 401-411. Finardi, K. R. (2015). Current trends in ELT and affordances of the inverted CLIL approach. Studies in English language teaching. v. 3, n.4. Finardi, K. R. (2017). What Brazil can learn from Multilingual Switzerland and its use of English as a Multilingua Franca. Acta Scientiarum (UEM), v. 39, - 219-228. Finardi, K. R and Csillagh, V. (2016). Globalization and linguistic diversity in Switzerland: insights from the roles of national languages and English as a foreign language. In: Grucza, S.; Olpinska-Szkielko, M.; Romanowski, P. (Eds.). Advances on understanding multilingualism: a global perspective. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Edition. Finardi, K. R. and França, C. (2016). O inglês na internacionalização da produção científica brasileira: evidências da subárea de Linguagem e Linguística. Intersecções. Jundiaí, ed. 19, ano 9, n. 2, 234-250. Finardi, K. R. and Guimarães, F.F. (2017). Internacionalização, rankings e publicações em inglês: a situação do Brasil na atualidade. Estudos em Avaliação Educacional (Online), v.28, 600-626. Finardi, K. R.and Ortiz, R.A. (2015). Globalization, Internationalization and Education: What is the Connection? IJAEDU- International EJournal of Advances in Education. v. 1, 18-25. Finardi, K. R. and Porcino, M.C.S. (2014). Tecnologia e metodologia no ensino de inglês: impactos da globalização e da internacionalização. Ilha do Desterro. Florianópolis, n. 66, 239-282. Finardi, K. R. and Porcino, M. C. (2015). O Papel do Inglês na Formação e na Internacionalização da Educação no Brasil. Revista Horizontes de Linguística Aplicada, v. 14, 109-134. Finardi, K. R. and Porcino, M. C. (2016). Facebook na ensinagem de inglês como língua adicional. In: Julio Araújo; Vilson Leffa. (Org.).

52

Chapter Three

Redes sociais e ensino de língua: o que temos de aprender. 1ed. São Paulo: Editora Brasileira Comercial, v. 1, 99-115. Finardi, K. R., Prebianca, G.V. and Momm, C.F. (2013). Tecnologia na educação: o caso da internet e do inglês como linguagens de inclusão. Cadernos do IL, Porto Alegre, n. 46, -193-208. Finardi, K. R. and Santos, J.M.; Guimarães, F.F. (2016). A relação entre línguas estrangeiras e o processo de internacionalização: evidências da coordenação de letramento internacional de uma universidade federal. Interfaces Brasil/Canadá. Pelotas, v. 16, n. 1, - 233-255. Finardi, K. R. and Tyler, J. (2015). The role of English and technology in the internationalization of education: insights from the analysis of MOOCs. In: International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies. EduLearn 15 Proceedings. Barcelona: IATED, 11-18. García, O. (2009). Education, multilingualism, and translanguaging in the 21st century. In Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Robert Phillipson, Ajit K. Mohanty & Minati Panda (eds.), Social Justice through Multilingual Education, 140–158. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. García, O. (2012). Theorizing translanguaging for educators. In Christina Celic & Kate Seltzer (eds.), Translanguaging: A CUNY-NYSIEB guide for educators, 1–6. New York: Cuny-Nysieb. https://www.cunynysieb.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Translanguaging-GuideMarch-2013.pdf/. Hamel, R. (2013). L’anglais, langue unique pour les sciences? Le rôle des modèles plurilingues dans la recherche, la communication scientifique et l’enseignement supérieur. Synergies Europe, (8), 53-66. Hornberger, N. H. (1991). Language planning and internationalism. Planning for higher education. 19 (3), 11-21. Jenkins, J. (2014). English as a lingua franca in the international university: the politics of academic English language policy. New York: Routledge. Knight, J. (2003). Updating the definition of internationalization. International Higher Education. The Boston College Center for International Higher Education. n. 33. Liberali, F. C. and Megale, A. (2016). Elite bilingual education in Brazil: an applied linguist’s perspective. Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, v. 18, n. 2, 95-108. Mendes, A. R. M. and Finardi, K. R. (2018). Linguistic Education Under Revision: Globalization and EFL Teacher Education in Brazil. Education and Linguistics Research, v. 4, 45-64.

Interculturality, Internationalization and Intercomprehension

53

Ortiz, R. A.and Finardi, K. R. (2015). Social Inclusion and CLIL: Evidence from La Roseraie. In: International Conference on Education, Research and Innovation 2015, Sevilha. ICERI2015 Proceedings. Madri: IATED, 2015. v. 1. 7660-7666. Ramos, N. (2013). Interculturalidade(s) e mobilidade(s) no espaço europeu: viver e comunicar entre culturas. The overarching issues of the European space. Porto: Editora da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, 2013. 343-360. Rose, R. (1991). What is lesson drawing? Journal of public policy. v. 11, 3-30. Shin, J.C.and Teichler, U. (2014). The future of the post massified university as the crossroads. New York: Springer. Taquini, R., Finardi, K.R. and Amorim, G. (2017). English as a Medium of Instruction at Turkish State Universities. Education and Linguistics Research, v. 3, 35-53. Teichler, U. (2014). Higher education and the future social order: equality of opportunity, quality, competitiveness? In: Shin, J.C.; Teichler, U. (Eds.). The future of the post massified university as the crossroads. New York: Springer, 183-203. Tost Planet, M.A. (2005). Les projets européens d’intercompréhension entre locuteurs de langues romanes. Retrieved from: . Access: July 18, 2017. Unesco (2001). Declaração Universal sobre a Diversidade Cultural. Retrieved from: . Access: May 26, 2017. Vavrus, F. and Pekol, A. (2015). Critical Internationalization: Moving from Theory to Practice, FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education: 2: (2), Retrieved from: . Access: May 26, 2017. Yonezawa, A. (2014). The internationalization of the university as a response to globalization: an East Asian perspective. In: Shin, J.C. and Teichler, U. (Eds.). The future of the post massified university as the crossroads. New York: Springer, 59-71.

CHAPTER FOUR CLIL: A WAY TO DEVELOP COMMUNICATIVE AND INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCES IN SCHOOLS? VALENTINA PIACENTINI AND ANA RAQUEL SIMÕES

1. Introduction 1.1 An overview about the CLIL approach First coined by Maljers and Marsh in 19941, the idea of “Content and Language Integrated Learning” (CLIL) arose in the ‘70s and ‘80s from immersion programmes in Québec. The term used in French is EMILE (Enseignement d’une Matière par l’Intégration d’une Langue Etrangère) and the Spanish version is AICLE (Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenidos y Lenguas Estranjeras). All acronyms are associated to “any dual-focused educational context in which an additional language, thus not usually the first language of the learners involved, is used as a medium in the teaching and learning of non-language content” (Marsh, 2002: 2). In 2002, it was estimated that the CLIL approach in Europe involved about 3% of schools (Marsh, 2002), but the number has been increasing significantly. According to Eurydice Report (2006, commenting on 30 European countries), in most countries, the languages that are taught within CLIL are either foreign languages, as the case in Austria, France, Spain or United Kingdom, or other official state languages (Finland, Italy, etc.). There are also cases of the use of minority languages, for example 1

The relevant interview can be retrieved from www.tesol-spain.org/uploaded_files/files/LeonorMartinez_The_Essence_of_CLIL-Interview_with_David_Marsh.pdf

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

55

Breton, Catalan, Occitan in France, Russian in Estonia, Ukrainian in Romania or Sami in Finland, Norway and Sweden. In some cases, certain minority languages are a majority language in neighbouring countries (the Slovenian in Austria, which is a majority language in Slovenia). It is also clear that English is the most common language used in this approach. In terms of school levels, CLIL is offered at both primary and secondary schools in a large number of countries; programmes and activities in a foreign language also exist at preschool level in some countries (Belgium, Finland, Italy, Romania, Spain and United Kingdom). Nowadays, the CLIL methodology is also widely used at the tertiary level and in adult learning (Eurydice Report, 2017). Any curricular subject may be targeted by CLIL, albeit, at high school grades Mathematics, Sciences, Geography, History and Economics tend to be preferred in this provision. Over the last ten years, CLIL projects and initiatives have been also growing in countries not identified before, such as Cyprus, Denmark or Portugal. When considering the use of the CLIL concept for the very different approaches listed in the above-mentioned 2006 report or for the CLIL implementation models outlined by Coyle (2005), it is clear that CLIL is flexible and there is no formula for the organization of such initiatives (Lasagabaster, 2008), which calls for conceptual clarification (DaltonPuffer, 2007). Since 1995, with the White Paper on Education and Training, the importance of European citizens becoming competent in European languages besides their own is revealed. CLIL was listed, in 2003, as one of the methods to improve language teaching in the Action Plan for language learning and linguistic diversity, created by the European Commission. Numerous other recommendations have shown the importance of developing plurilingual and intercultural competences and CLIL is indicated by Beacco and colleagues as one of the possible strategies to promote plurilingual and intercultural education (2010). Furthermore, it is recognized as one possible initiative for language education in Europe, together with intercomprehension and other propaedeutic approaches, in the 2011 Civil Society Platform on Multilingualism. Therefore, CLIL emerges as a European solution for advancing foreign language (FL) learning. Though sharing theoretical underpinnings and methodological concerns with the Canadian immersion in bilingual education (Evnitskaya and Morton, 2011), differences have appeared over time in CLIL programmes: for instance, the “non-nativeness” of teachers and students or readapted/scaffolding teaching materials (Lasagabaster and Sierra,

56

Chapter Four

2010), or the degree of collaboration between language and non-language teachers (Pavón Vázquez and Ellison, 2013). Based on Cenoz (2015), CLIL also shares essential properties with CBI (Content-Based language Instruction), differing characteristics being due to specific educational contexts. CLIL is assumed as an alternative to Communicative Language Teaching (Coyle, Hood and Marsh, 2010) or a way of extending it (Dalton-Puffer, 2007; Lasagabaster and Sierra, 2010). According to the Krashen’s 1982 theory on Second Language Acquisition, languages are learnt while they are used. If students are not exposed in their daily lives to the FL they are learning at school, the effort invested can be wasted (Langé, 2002). CLIL classes are authentic learning environments to achieve “communicative competence in the target language through […] everyday classroom activities” (Dalton-Puffer and Nikula, 2006: 241). Since the FL is used for learning content, learning and using a language are simultaneous (Ting, 2010). As opposed to traditional FL classes where the form and structure of a foreign language are the main object of knowledge construction, within CLIL settings the mastery of Content (non-language, specific subject which is represented through language) and the acquisition of Language are a “dual focus” of both teaching and learning, according to referential conceptualizations of CLIL as an educational approach (e. g., Marsh et al., 2011 and Coyle et al., 2010). Previous CLIL studies have indeed shown that students’ attitudes and motivation towards language learning, among other cognitive gains (Pavón Vázquez and Ellison, 2013), as well as foreign language skills (Dallinger, Jonkmann, Hollm and Fiege, 2016; Koller, Leucht, and Pant, 2012) benefitted from CLIL. As stated by Pavón Vázquez and Ellison, “there is no template for planning CLIL lessons, because each subject and context is highly unique” (2013: 72), but in the CLIL-4Cs Framework it is highlighted that the interrelationship between the 4Cs may lead to effective CLIL (Coyle et al., 2010: 53-56): students learn the subject or a theme (Content, to be understood as new knowledge, skills and understanding) and related Cultural and academically specific issues, with the Cognitive processes involved; at the same time, they Communicate and learn how to use the languages OF, FOR and THROUGH learning2 (the so called “language 2

OF: specific subject language [key lexis and phrases, as well as grammatical structures and discourse functions associated with the theme (to define, to explain, to report, etc.), which the learner needs for knowing how to use thematic words]. FOR: general academic language students have to learn for operating effectively in

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

57

triptych”, cf. Coyle). In making the language use authentic for the specific need to understand content and to construct meaning (Coyle et al., 2010), CLIL promotes speaking not from the teacher but from the learner, who thus becomes central in the learning process (Ting, 2010). Hence, one may also state that quality CLIL implementation fosters learner autonomy and cooperative learning, self and peer formative assessment and requires intention and process visibility (Mehisto, 2012), as well as the development of a “language-supportive pedagogy” (Clegg, 2007) also through a diversity of teacher scaffolding strategies. Actually, challenges encountered using an additional language increase teacher awareness of learner linguistic needs (Blanchard, Masserot, & Holbrook, 2014; Marsh, 2012) and “may favour a more profound treatment of content” (Escobar Urmeneta and Evnitskaya, 2014: 178). Major difficulties are caused not by using a foreign language, but by the methodology or lack thereof used in CLIL classes (Barbero, 2006). Time is, in fact, one of the constraints identified in several studies on the provision of language learning methodologies. Milton and Meara (1998), for instance, agree that learners do not have sufficient time to apply what they have learned. This idea is also portrayed by authors more specifically focused on CLIL programmes (Beacco et al., 2010; Coyle et al., 2010; Marsh and Langé, 2000). Curriculum and policy constraints, as well as restrictive existing material, are other obstacles described by Coyle and colleagues (2010). In defiance of these aspects, CLIL is acknowledged as a “change agent”, in converting “monolingual learning contexts into bilingual experiences” and moving “towards a more equitable distribution of linguistic and social capital” (Coyle, 2013: 244–245). CLIL is also a “change agent” in entailing “language-sensitive content teaching” strategies favourable for preparing CLIL and non-CLIL teachers who work in CLIL-like contexts in European schools; actually, due to the increasing migratory phenomena, conversational and academic competence levels3 in the schooling language

a CLIL unit (to present a project, to work in groups, etc.), not varying from one subject to another one. THROUGH: not possible to foresee by the teacher but emerging when the learners neither have it nor possess the resources to produce it; important for recycling and extending the student’s repertoire. 3 BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) dimensions (cf. Cummins, 1987). The former are the communicative skills which almost all native speakers have; they are used in oral communication even though they can also be found in written form, for example in email communication. The latter, on the other hand, is the proficiency

58

Chapter Four

among learners are heterogeneous (Wolff, 2012). However, “[equipping] CLIL teachers to bear the challenge of that change” is unquestionable (Pérez Cañado, 2016: 217), as much is as the need for a CLIL teacher to have her/his own intercultural competence developed (Michael Byram, 2008; Campos, 2009), which are challenges to confront for a quality CLIL-based education.

1.2 Intercultural potential of the CLIL approach CLIL, as are other Competency-Based Language Teaching approaches, is recommended by Council of Europe publications, such as the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2001). By merging a FL with subject matter, CLIL may consist of an ideal context for intercultural learning, since content is never culturally neutral (Sudhoff, 2010). Other researchers emphasise that, if intercultural learning is treated as an educational objective, CLIL may be a suitable methodology (Bernaus, Furlong, Kervran and Jonckheere, 2012; Breidbach, 2007; Campos, 2009; Wildhage and Otten, 2003). It is yet not clear if the CLIL methodology indeed develops individuals’ plurilingual and intercultural competence in a wider perspective, since studies have been focused on the particular combination of languages that the projects offer. Nevertheless, there are some studies that have shown the potentialities of CLIL projects as a framework for the implementation of interculturallyoriented methodological approaches, contributing to the development of students’ intercultural communicative competence (García, 2013). In an Andalusian context, another project comparing CLIL and non-CLIL primary students concluded that the pupils enrolled in CLIL projects revealed a higher intercultural competence, especially in terms of knowledge and attitudes (“existing differences are of great importance and implicative”), even though it can be improved (Antequera, 2016: 66). Despite this fact, work has still to be done, even with CLIL teachers, in order to develop their understanding of intercultural and plurilingual competence and its articulation with CLIL. Actually, as noticed by Pérez, Gómez and Serrano, “not many teachers have an idea of what IC [intercultural competence] is and how they can help students achieve it, but […] their perspective is mainly language-oriented (linguistic and communicative skills) instead of seeing this competence as a crosscurricular one” (2017: 97). On one hand, the development of learners’ necessary to master the formal language registers, among others also the language of education or schooling.

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

59

intercultural competence can be seen as an “additional demand on already busy teachers” (Koro, 2017: 58), on the other hand, teachers and learners might not be motivated to consider its acquisition as important as that of linguistic and communicative competences, if IC is not integrated in formal assessment (Aktor and Risager, 2001). Some authors (e. g., Koro, 2017 and Sudhoff, 2010) believe that the engagement of stakeholders (CLIL curriculum designers, authors of CLIL textbooks and materials, CLIL teacher trainers, and CLIL teachers and learners) is fundamental for CLIL methodology implementation to effectively promote the students’ intercultural understanding. For all these reasons, “What plurilingual and intercultural implications are encountered by participants who had more contact with English through the teaching and learning of specific subjects within one Portuguese CLIL project at lower secondary school?” is our research question. Objectives of the present work are: the understanding of the position of CLIL language teachers and CLIL students – with different levels of experience and awareness – with respect to (the project language) English and (contact with) other languages and cultures; the identification of contexts and aspects of the learner experience that might foster more plurilingual and intercultural teaching practices through English in language and project classes.

2. The empirical study 2.1 English education in the Portuguese school system Portuguese compulsory education is divided into the 1st cycle (from the 1st to the 4th grades, ages 6-9), 2nd cycle (from the 5th to the 6th grades, ages 10-11), 3rd cycle (from the 7th to the 9th grades, ages 12-14) and secondary education (from the 10th to the 12th grades, ages 15-17). As thoroughly described by Lourenço and Mourão (2017), concerning foreign language education, since 2012 English has been the only foreign language taught/learnt in the 2nd cycle, with French, German and Spanish becoming choices only in the subsequent cycle. It was in the 2015-2016 school year that English was introduced as a compulsory subject from the 3rd grade, implying changes in the curriculum and syllabus development as well as a clearer teacher education background. In the 2nd and 3rd cycles, English is provided for an average time of 90-120 minutes per week and its education might continue until the 11th grade at secondary school, regardless of the subject studied. Nowadays, students learn a second FL (French or Spanish) only from the 7th grade on.

60

Chapter Four

English is also the FL mainly selected as the Language for CLIL programmes at compulsory school levels (European Commission, 2017), which are still represented by individual examples in Portugal. The topdown Programa Escolas Bilingues em Inglês / Bilingual Schools Programme4 (organised by the Ministry of Education and the British Council in Portugal and currently involving 25 state school clusters) integrates English into the daily activities of pre-primary school levels and English with different disciplines of primary school up to the 9th grade. On a different level of CLIL provision, there are also bottom-up teacher initiatives such as the ongoing “English Plus” (EP) project at lower secondary levels (3rd cycle) of one state-run school in North Portugal that we introduce and describe in this chapter.

2.2 The “English Plus” project in the local school Its first edition was undertaken by (English and History) teachers with one class between 2010 and 2013, and monitored by researchers of the CIDTFF of the University of Aveiro, with regard to stakeholders’ perceptions (Simões, Pinho, Costa and Costa, 2013). The same English teacher who introduced and developed this educational integration with History reactivated the project in 2014-2015 as “English Plus” of Natural Sciences, involving one Science teacher, and coordinated a new collaboration with the same research centre since 2015-2016, the year of our empirical study in the school (Piacentini, Simões and Vieira, 2016, 2017, 2018). During this year, out of 20 classes in the school, two at 7th grade, two at 8th and one at 9th were involved, along with two Science and two English teachers in the EP project. EP students had, weekly: 45 minutes of History or Science with English (co-teaching: both the subject teacher and the English one were present and using English), 45 minutes of same subject held mainly in Portuguese (classes were given by the non-language teacher alone) and 45 of “project time” (PT: English on socio-cultural subject-related topics with the English teacher); 90 + 45 minutes of classes of English as a FL (with the same language teacher, following the standard curriculum). Project students were usually “engaged” in extra-curricular activities, as observed during the empirical study and revealed by teacher and student interviews: school trips to other countries or to educational organizations, as well as their organization (involving also parents); cinema sessions (with movies 4

For further information see www.dge.mec.pt/programa-escolas-bilinguesbilingual-schools-programme.

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

61

in English related to History or Science topics) and theatre performances (creative History or Science using English); activities with LALE university laboratory5; “open day”, etc. According to the Content topic, subject teachers could choose suitable units to teach by means of English, rather than covering the whole curriculum. Teachers involved in this project had co-planning (subject and language teachers working together on EP and PT implementation and material construction/revision) available once per week in their timetables; if that was not possible, extra email exchange and short meetings among colleagues occurred, as observed several times. No financial reward was provided to EP teachers.

2.3 Case study and participants There is no objective social reality that we can capture as educational researchers, since we construct reality according to our personal experience and considering multiple perspectives of participants involved (Lodico, Spaulding and Voegtle, 2006), therefore we align with the interpretive paradigm. Within our doctoral research, in 2015-2016 we designed a descriptive-explanatory case study with an ethnographic approach (White, Drew and Hay, 2009), in response to the researcher’s need for familiarization with the school and project context. Hence, an extensive observation was performed, and teachers and students, associated with the (History or Science) EP project at different times and levels, were “embedded” as subunits of analysis of a single case (Yin, 1994). In this specific work we focus on the voices of the two project English teachers (Eng-old and Eng-new) and former and current EP students. The English teacher of former and current students (Eng-old) had played a pivotal role in the programme evolution, also “tutoring” (through PT classes) another English colleague (Eng-new) who had her own EP class in 2016-2017. Eleven high school students, who had had EP-History in 2010-2013, were the former students; 96 lower secondary graders attending EP-Science in the same year of our study (2015-2016) were the current students.

5 Laboratório Aberto para a Aprendizagem de Línguas Estrangeira – Open Laboratory for the Learning of FL , https://www.ua.pt/cidtff/lale/.

62

Chapter Four

Talks with Eng-old allowed for the selection of the 11 ex-EP students with the following characteristics: attending high school (12th grade) in fields roughly proportional to those chosen by all 25 students from the 20102013 EP class; being heterogeneous in terms of performance at the previous (lower secondary) school. Our sample of former students is, thus, composed of 6 students from Science (sSci-1, sSci-2, sSci-3, sSci-6, sSci7 and sSci-11), 4 from Economics (sEcn-4, sEcn-5, sEcn-8 and sEcn-9), and one from Humanities (sHum-10). Regarding the current EP students, teachers suggested the exclusion of the 9th grade group because it was not regularly provided with the EP project. As for the 7th and 8th graders, they were in their first and second year of attendance, respectively, of EP at the time of our study.

2.4 Data collection and analysis6 Throughout the PhD empirical study, we collected data through a diversity of techniques: teacher and former student interview; current student questionnaire; “at-different-degree” participant observation of classroom practices (roughly 1/w, during 5 months), lesson planning and other contexts (non-formal chats, phone calls, etc.); collection of school and teacher documents. Recalling that our research question is “What plurilingual and intercultural implications are encountered by participants who had more contact with English through the teaching and learning of specific subjects within one Portuguese CLIL project at lower secondary school?”, in this chapter the main corpus of analysis is (selected questions from) the current student questionnaire as well as the former student and teacher interviews. The information from the teacher source is complemented with data resulting from secondary methods (in this case, observation). Questions asked to participants and their responses, within the discussion of results, are typed in italic and have been translated from Portuguese by the researcher. Personal information is kept confidential. Because of the large number of current students, we designed a semistructured questionnaire guide. It was validated, independently, by two experts (from both Language and Science education research fields), piloted on one 7th grade class (involved in a similar project to EP in the 6

Complete data of the whole study are in the process of being analysed and will be presented in future works; some of the partial results are already published in referenced works.

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

63

same school district), checked by teachers and administered through a Google Drive form to 7th graders (44 responses) and 8th graders (52 responses) at the end of the first term. We developed, in Portuguese, 21 questions (11 close-ended and 10 open-ended) aimed at understanding the students’: school profile; language repertoire; experience with “Science + English” out of school; relationship with (the learning of) English and languages as well as with Science; difficulties encountered in Science classes; suggestions for Science and English teachers to improve the learning; opinion about the project, its advantages and obstacles. We performed descriptive statistical analysis through the SPSS 21 software on the closed-ended answers; categories were formed inductively through Atlas.ti 6 from the open-ended answers and resultant coding was analysed within an already existing construct (see 3.2 below). For the purpose of this work, answers on the student’s language repertoire and her/his relationship with languages and English will be presented. Taking into account the maturity and small number of former students, a semi-structured interview guide was constructed, together with their 7th, 8th and 9th grade English teacher (Eng-old), in order to understand: the learner’s opinion about the project; difficulties encountered and overcome as well as suggestions for current EP students; subject benefitting from this educational combination; differences between co-teaching and singleteaching; situations in which the use of English could have facilitated the learning process compared to Portuguese; possible benefits for the study of Science at high school; learning of English and desire to know other languages and cultures. This last field was selected as an interesting aspect for the present discussion. With the interviewees’ oral consent, we interviewed and audio-recorded students at the end of the 2015-2016 school year, at school during gaps they had from lessons, using their mother tongue (Portuguese) so that they felt comfortable in understanding questions and expressing themselves. Qualitative content analysis procedures were performed on transcribed interviews. EP teachers were interviewed, in a meeting room at school before the start of the 2015-2016 year, with a process similar to the student interview in terms of: use of their mother tongue during the interview, audio-recording, transcription and analysis. We developed one semi-structured guide for the Science teachers (Sci-old and Sci-new) and one for the English ones (Engold and Eng-new), both guides converging in: their teacher education and work as a teacher; position about Science teacher being also a Language

64

Chapter Four

teacher7; strategies and resources used in classroom practices and sociocultural implications of their subjects; relationship between Science and English at school; questions connected with their knowledge/experience with the CLIL or CLIL-type approach. Due to the nature of this chapter and to the relevance of data, only the English teachers’ answers about the role of English in plurilingualism will be presented and discussed. In the three cases of content analysis of open-ended and interview answers, coding was examined by experts in related fields.

3. Discussion of results 3.1 Contact with languages in everyday life (current students) From the analysis of current students’ language repertoire (question: language(s) you have contact with out of school; semi-closed answer: languages selected from and added to a list, within a diversity of contexts), English is the language they mostly have contact with. Its presence in different contexts of learners’ life is unquestioned (Figure 1). Actually, on average students mention English in 5-6 contexts out of 8. Only a few students have access to (English and French) language schools. Many of the other contexts are also referred to as factors of the importance of language learning or as aspects they like about English (as described in section 3.2): possibility of communication (both at home and travelling, with strangers but also among people close to students), access to information (concerning products or in magazines, etc.), entertainment (music, TV, computer, etc.). French and Spanish are other languages significantly represented. Besides being the second foreign language learnt at school, French is the native language of many countries where Portuguese people tend to emigrate (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, etc.), a fact implying a contact with this language through travelling and (visiting) relatives. Students also report television and cinema as well as music, probably as a reflection of the interest shown in Portugal for the French culture. Spanish is spoken in the neighbour country, where travelling is relatively easy for Portuguese people, and it is the language of much contemporary “catchy” pop music.

7

The original statement is “Science teachers are (among other things) Language teachers” from the introduction to Language and Literacy in Science Education by Wellington and Osborne (2001).

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

65

Figure 1: languages contacted by students in contexts of their lives; absolute frequency values.

Other languages, such as Italian, are mentioned in only a few contexts, as a language encountered in trips, music and some products. German and Chinese show a similar sporadic presence, which differs from ex-EP students who have learned some German for a school trip or chose to

66

Chapter Four

study Chinese at school. It is worth saying that most of the times, when students had to add a language not found in the list provided to them for each context, they put Japanese (in music but also in television, computer and with known people). Portuguese is, obviously, heavily present in all contexts, but it is not included in the graph for a more convenient visualization. In spite of the strong presence of English in the student’s everyday life, other languages are also contemplated, including their own, and some contexts appear to be more “plurilingual” than others: on average, almost 3 languages are identified in music and television, followed by travelling occasions, multimedia use and printed material. We consider that this finding should be taken into account in teaching practices aimed at a “meaningful and plurilingual” English learning, in which the English language may support and reinforce the contact with other languages and cultures (Melo-Pfeifer, 2014; Smokotin, Alekseyenko and Petrova, 2014), as clarified in section 3.3 by the voices of students with a longer and deeper experience with the “English Plus” (EP) project. 3.2 Relationship with English and other languages (current students) Students’ answers to both questions (learning foreign languages is important because … and what I like most about English is …) were split in sub-answers to code and identify every possible aspect connected with “Importance of foreign language (FL) learning” and “Positive aspects of knowing English (EN)”, in the learners’ opinion (Tab. 1). The total does not equal, thus, 96 (44 7th graders + 52 8th graders); also, some answers were excluded for being unclear or idiosyncratic. Inductively coded answers are organised through the dimensions of Gardner’s construct of motivation to second/foreign language learning [(A) and (B)], revisited by Dörnyei (1998). Answers to the second question tend to present reasons for appreciating English, which can also be interpreted within dimensions of motivation constructs (cf. Dörnyei, 1998). The noticeable eloquence in answers to the first question (greater number of sub-answers, and of words, not shown here) may be explained by the importance of learning languages possibly making students reflect through a wider perspective than when thinking of specific aspects they like about English.

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools? DIMENSIONS x (A) cultural /affective

x x x x

(B) instrumental /pragmatic

x x x x x

(C) selfconceptrelated

Importance of FL learning for travelling, also abroad (24) to have contact with people (19) for one’s broader learning (16) for entertainment (3) for people who emigrate (22) to get a job (12) for one’s future (11) for use at work (8) for everyday use (8) to study, also abroad (7)

NO EVIDENCE

67

tot FL

Positive aspects of knowing EN

tot EN

62

x entertainment (41) x the language itself (22) x contact with people (18)

81

68

x its everyday use (7)

7

0

x easier communication (11)

11

130

99

Table 1: coding of answers to two questions (see text); numbers in brackets are occurrences of students’ quotes; tot FL is the total number of answers about importance of FL learning and tot EN of answers about positive aspects of knowing EN. When asked about the importance of learning foreign languages, the integrative (A) and instrumental (B) dimensions of answers, are equally covered. The second one is mainly linked to the professional sphere; the idea of emigration and going abroad for getting a job is a phenomenon very frequent in the Portuguese population, and many students have relatives abroad, as stated above. By the way, as defended by Gardner and MacIntyre (1993), motivation is dynamic and is an interplay between the usefulness of foreign languages for professional achievements, for example in cases of emigration, and the desire for understanding and integration with another community, for example where emigrants end up living. The integrative (cultural/affective) dimension of the importance of languages is constituted, among these students, by communication with people from other countries or cultures, foreigners, etc. (Otherness, of

68

Chapter Four

which students are aware), at home in Portugal but also while travelling or going abroad, possible through language learning. This last is assumed to have also an intrinsic value and to contribute to personal development (for our greater knowledge or education, to open ourselves to other learning possibilities, etc.). Since students were asked to tell what they like about English, their answers coded as “entertainment” (to listen to music, to watch television, to read books, to play videogames, etc.) should be associated with the first dimension, even though some responses report the pragmatic value of English for accessing the lyrics and message of a (favourite) song or watching (and appreciating) a movie without always resorting to using subtitles, which accompany Portuguese people’s entire lives. Learners appreciate English also because it enables them to communicate with and get to know foreigners as well as to communicate in a different way with known people. This feature has to do with students attending the EP project and being members of a group where they might speak and enjoy speaking English, also outside project classes. This integrative dimension is highly represented also through an affective side for the language itself, because they like a diversity of aspects about English (sound, lexicon, etc.), they like to speak English and to have it at school. Therefore, when students relate aspects they appreciate about knowing English, the integrative dimension becomes very significant mainly through a (cultural) interest towards movies and music, but also for English itself and possibilities of contact with people. However, another component emerges here, (C), since students add the idea of satisfaction from the ease of English (the way [English speakers] simplify how things are said), to master and be able to speak it (to be able to speak a foreign language with a certain ease), which contributes to their self-concept. Assuming a mechanism similar to the one expressed by older learners below, this first contact with English, reinforced by participation in the “English Plus” project, could increase self-confidence in the process of learning other languages – Pavón Vázquez and Ellison summarised this as “social benefits” (2013) – and might represent a fruitful environment for plurilingual and intercultural teaching practices. Students’ awareness of their linguistic and communicative repertoires, along with affective dimension of languages within plurilingual competence (Andrade et al., 1993; Mons, Simões and Andrade, 2018), seems to be present in results emerging from current students, described here and in section 3.1.

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

69

3.3 English as a “bridge” to other languages and cultures (former students) The questions Would you like to or do you know other languages? Which ones? and Do you think that English (the fact of learning/using this language within the project) awoke your curiosity about studying/learning other languages and cultures? How? were asked to these high school students, who participated in the 2010-2013 EP project. Significant examples of coded answers to the second question are shown in Tab. 2 and commented in the text. English and contact with other cultures and languages

English and personal development

No influence on this contact sSci-2a: I think that when we learn a language it is this language this culture that we are learning about [in our case, English] it could awake the desire to but it’s not directly related in my opinion […] people working in different fields […] more in the past always spoke 7 languages, nowadays just English but I would like to be able to speak 7 Acquaintance with other cultures sSci-3a: to help anyone from a different place from a different culture in the street […] communication in English is always easier than in Portuguese also because many people don’t speak Portuguese sEcn-5a: my cousins are from France […] I speak English with them […] when they come to Portugal […] they try to speak French [to me] but also I don’t know much sSci-6a: it’s an important tool because English […] is the universal language and enables us to communicate with other people who do not speak our language […]. We went to Austria […]. We didn’t speak [any] German

First positive experience sSci-2b: learning a language and mastering it gives us the idea we can learn more and that actually […] we are able sEcn-4: starting with English [...] encouraged me to learn other languages because at the end difficulties always bring some benefits sEcn-5c: I thought [...] it was not possible to speak a language other than Portuguese which is our language [but] with English I started [...] to realise that it is possible and it’s not that difficult Broadening of knowledge sSci-3b: it makes us want […] to know more and we feel at ease with other cultures […] the more we know the better […] and it is enriching sSci-7: [English] was totally different from Portuguese [...] it always awakes that curiosity to understand if other languages [and cultures] are also that different [...] and to learn more about these languages sEcn-9: the Project […] awoke my interest in coming to know […] to learn other languages because at the end it’s always different from ours [...] We learnt other things that here

70

Chapter Four

sHum-10a: I’d like to visit India but […] if they spoke only Hindi I would not understand anything. But [the fact that] they speak English arouses more curiosity to know the country Learning of other languages sHum-10b: I have an interest in these ethnic languages, in Africa for instance there are many and I would like to learn even just one, [English with languages] helps a lot because it has a certain connection sSci-6b: [English through the project] gave me access to new stuff [...] facilitating the acquisition of information sSci-1: when I go to university I will take an extra German course and if it was not thanks to English maybe I would never take it […] in terms of job […] it’s important we don’t focus just on English but on other languages in general sEcn-5b: in the 7th, 8th and 9th grades we had French but I didn’t really like [...] it [now, after the project] I would like to learn for example Mandarin because I know it’s a language [...] in the economic field [...] very important in the future

we don’t learn and the project [...] helped us to broaden our horizons

Table 2: main fields of coded students’ answers to one question (see text) and examples of quotes; letters after the student code are used when more than one quote from the same student is shown. The majority of students learned French as a second foreign language in lower secondary grades, and are motivated to learn or know better many other languages: European (German, Italian, etc.) and non-European ones (Mandarin, Japanese, etc.). On the other hand, some students do not consider their participation in the project as the reason for wanting to know cultures whose language is other than English. For one of them (sSci-2a in Tab. 2), the interest in other languages/cultures is not directly caused by having been exposed to English and having learned about different English variants (American, British, Australian), instead, it seems to have been caused by their desire and determination (in this case, to

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

71

personally aim at learning 7 languages). Similarly, two other students do not acknowledge the English language as a “bridge” to other cultures, since the EP project allowed for a contact mainly with England and United States. Nevertheless, for more than half of the former students the exposure to English through the project has certainly fostered their curiosity for other cultures and provided actual means to communicate with people whose mother tongue is not Portuguese. In speaking English as a common language, EP learners state that they are able to: interact with and help people (sSci-3a, Tab. 2); communicate with relatives who live abroad (sEcn-5a, Tab. 2); travel, get closer to people, explore and understand the country (sSci-6a and sHum-10a). Despite a certain degree of practicality, some of the examples aligned with the integrative dimension in the previous section are expanded here with interesting details, which clarify the role of English for intercultural opportunities (Jenkins, 2015). Furthermore, the following contributions might “dissolve” the cautious opinion of one language teacher in section 3.4 as to whether English promotes plurilingualism or not, as also questioned by Crystal (2003). For other students, the acquaintance with English helped the development of skills and methods to learn other languages such as French and can facilitate the learning of Korean, online resources being also available in English, or of African ethnic languages, to which English is connected in some way (sHum-10b in Tab. 2). Being able to speak English also gives access to broader information, in sSci-6b’s opinion. Moreover, English is referred to as making students aware of the importance of learning other languages, also for the professional sphere (sSci-1 or sEcn-5b, Tab. 2). Curiously, compared to younger students, only two of these learners relate the possibilities for entertainment, such as listening to music or watching videos, offered by knowing English, likely because they were engaged in other contexts such as trips abroad, extra study, etc. Different mechanisms experienced through English learning contribute to the student’s personal development, and to the self-concept related dimension. On the one hand, self-confidence in the capability for FL learning has grown from the first positive contact with English, as made explicit by sSci-2b, sEcn-4b and sEcn-5c (see Tab. 2). On the other hand, as expressed in the metaphor “languages are like cherries”8, knowing one 8 The analogy was readapted from the Portuguese saying “as palavras são como as cerejas … atrás de uma vêm outras” by Sílvia Melo-Pfeiffer (November 2015)

72

Chapter Four

language and participating in the project enhances the interest for other languages and broaden one’s knowledge and horizons, according to the words of sSci-3b, sSci-7 and sEcn-9 (Tab. 2). In summary, as grasped in the current students’ perspectives in section 3.2, the voices of former students reaffirm the instrumental nature of English and of other languages and interweave it with the cultural and affective one. They seem to perceive that English facilitates the learning and use of other languages (while travelling, at work, etc.); it allows them to become interested and acquainted with people from other cultures (not only those of the UK or US). Intercultural competence and some of its skills, hence, emerge (Ramos, 2013). The contribution of English and the EP project to “empowering” the self-concept of these students to learn other languages and in broadening their knowledge is evident, which is clearly related to the affective dimension of plurilingual competence (cf. study of Andrade et al., 1993). Within this dimension it is understood that the relationship one establishes with other languages is determined by the perception one has of those languages and of their importance in co-relation with others, namely in the construction of one’s linguistic and cultural repertoire.

3.4 English’s relationship with other languages and cultures (teachers) The question Do you think the English language can promote plurilingualism? How? provokes affirmative answers in both language teachers but with very different levels of certainty. Eng-new does not have any doubt, whereas Eng-old is more hesitant, since she recognises that English has assumed a hegemonic and dangerous role in the world. Engnew’s argument is the experience of a student of hers, who participated in the Erasmus mobility project in Poland and used English, the universal language (the same expression used above by one former student), with Erasmus students from other countries; through English, she said, they can still exchange impressions and try to learn the colleagues’ languages. In a similar way, Eng-old argues that communication when travelling abroad will necessarily start in English, but it could promote the communication in the language of the country we are visiting or of the person we are talking to.

who used it as a title for a seminar she gave during the Segundas Jornadas do LALE (https://www.ua.pt/cidtff/lale/page/20486).

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

73

In both cases, English is perceived as a “bridge language” – Crystal’s “global language” (2003) and Seidlhofer’s “lingua franca” (2005) – to approach (people speaking) other languages and, though not explicitly said, to know cultures of non-English native countries, as seen in students’ answers concerning the importance of FL (current learners) or the relationship with the English language (current and former). Mobility students together in the same foreign country somehow belong to the community of “non-inhabitants”; even before becoming “good new friends”, they enjoy sharing differences and commonalities of their cultural behaviours, food and drinks, animals’ sounds, etc., and, to do that, they speak a “neutral” language which is usually English, at least until they master the local one. English as a bridge language used in culturally diverse groups becomes not only the language of communication, but also the language of identification (Edwards, 2010; Fiedler, 2011), and “transforms a usual and stable way of communication, expression, and seeing ourselves as we are used to” (Kaire, 2017: 38). On a different level, while visiting a country where we do not know the language(s), the use of a common language such as English can support the understanding of cultural aspects of the country and people, advancing observation and immersion. From observed and spoken teaching practices – revealed by classroom activities and different moments of teachers’ interview, as well as confirmed by older students – conflating English merely with English speaking countries is very frequent and it could explain an innocent statement such as all scientists are English, by one young student who is used to hearing this language in Science documentaries or TV shows. This requires more careful teacher work on the role of the English language in Science and on non-language subjects, which can also be a context to understand the mother tongue and other foreign languages (Piacentini et al., 2016: 1990). The potential for project classes (both EP and PT ones, see section 2.2) other than English lessons to deepen these aspects is high, also in the opinion of one of the two EP Science teacher. She actually describes – in another interview – the presence of English in this CLIL-type project as an advantage for learners, since an additional language enables them to perceive Science as “universal” (we cannot exactly associate Science to one country [it is] an endeavour of humanity […] to understand the world […] by the language being present [the project] likely broadens a bit more this vision of something beyond the nation). In the experience of the “English Plus” students, English even provides a way to gain a wider

74

Chapter Four

perspective in a specific discipline (Piacentini et al., 2018). We can see this project as an opportunity for “internationalization at home”, according to Beleen and Jones’s definition: “the purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments” (2015: 69). This is valid, as these authors assert, assuming a broad concept of “culture” (integrating local cultural and international perspectives, as also suggested by that teacher) in addition to implementing the programme in English that may not, by itself, “internationalise” the curriculum. As noted by Eng-old, English, used as a common and international language, “stands out” from other languages and might threaten them (Crystal, 2003; Smokotin et al., 2014), but much relies on teacher awareness and how the English teaching is “taken on board” as a “global lingua franca” rather than “one of the foreign languages” (Smokotin et al., 2014). Language teachers should thus overcome the association of cultural aspects of English just with, for instance, the royal family (England) or Thanksgiving Day (United States); they should direct English education more to the intercultural opportunities and bridges to other languages (without excluding the learners’ mother tongue) that English can offer (Pinho and Costa, 2018), as a first contact and neutral variant. Moreover, a deeper use of plurilingual resources – e. g., music and videos, as emerged from younger students and commented above, or the “multilingual chat rooms” described by Melo-Pfeifer (2014) to fulfil the older student’s linguistic interest and desire – is advocated. These aspects are actually feasible, because we have observed EP teachers already making use of non-conventional strategies in CLIL classroom practices (hands-on, debates, song- or game-based, using online resources, etc.) that might be, indeed, the reason for a greater learner engagement in CLIL settings than in non-CLIL ones, as related by the teachers themselves. From another viewpoint, as defended by Sudhoff, CLIL learning material can offer an intercultural approach “by extracting similarities, differences and the author’s perspective” and authentic taskor project-based work typical of student-centred teaching methodologies “can provide ample opportunities for intercultural learning in CLIL contexts” (2010: 36), and “to internationalise teaching and learning” (Beleen and Jones, 2015: 64), already in compulsory instruction.

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

75

4. Conclusions According to the analysed data, the presence of English is notable in students’ lives, both at school – as the first curricular FL and within the CLIL “English Plus” project – and outside the school walls, in their daily activities or trips and encounters. Even so, some misconceptions and misinterpretations regarding the nature or the use of English and about the world of Languages and of Sciences still need to be worked on more thoroughly, through teacher planning and practices, both in CLIL and nonCLIL classes, entailing a broader (inter)cultural perspective. The idea of the English language and of its varieties appears to not be fully acknowledged, since English teaching practices tend to focus mainly in the British and American “Englishes”, as well as on the cultural aspects of the two countries related to them. This might lead to a gap in students’ knowledge of the diversity within the English language; learners actually often link it to either the United Kingdom or the United States or relate the global yet culturally empty idea of English as a lingua franca. However, students disclose the role of English as a bridge to get to know other cultures and learn other languages, because of personal experiences but also through the experience of activities and resources within the CLIL-type project. Our study reveals indeed that current students (“low CLIL-exposed”) possess a plurilingual repertoire beyond the school and some expectations of intercultural encounters and former students (“high CLIL-exposed”) express curiosity about and an actual dedication to other foreign languages and people from other countries. It is possible, then, to think that CLIL classes (material, tasks, etc.) may develop students’ plurilingual competence, namely by motivating them to contact with diverse languages and providing a wider awareness of Otherness. This is a favourable environment for assuming an intercultural approach. In this respect, it is worth recalling the setting of this CLIL-type programme: 45 minutes of Science with English, 45 of Science mainly in Portuguese and 45 of PT (English on socio-cultural subject-related topics), besides the traditional English classes. These conditions are a potential context for English to be integrated into and expanded by content topics and curricular (global and local) cultures. They also allow for Science to be perceived as also being established outside of Portugal, as highlighted by one subject teacher, and outside of England, a concept to be confronted with students. The construction with students of knowledge and understanding based on transdisciplinary, hence, intercultural principles is essential, and could enable the boundaries of Content and Language

76

Chapter Four

classes to be permeated. It is also through the programme and its strategies and encounters that students may have developed some self-confidence in English learning, in line with previous studies on social gains through CLIL. One’s stronger self-concept in English, in turn, supports the learning of other languages, which is one first key to accessing other cultures. By attempting to give an answer to our research question, therefore, one may consider that intercultural learning in a CLIL implementation is a natural connotation rather than an additional demand, provided that teachers and learners act as “architects” of a project constantly shaping this already present “raw material”. In addition, CLIL represents a “fair” opportunity for learners to have a greater exposure to English at home apart from private language schools, and compels teachers to work in a collaborative and cross-curricular way, learning through each other’s styles and subjects. Limitations of our study are connected with being at an exploratory stage, thus evidence from the participants’ voice need to be triangulated with a finer exploration of plurilingual and intercultural contexts actually present in classroom practices and learning material. Also, further research is required on how the cultures of English may be cultivated through Science and how the nature of Science may be understood through English. The role of a foreign language in the awareness of the mother tongue and one’s culture also deserves more attention. We conclude by stating that CLIL may consist of a privileged context for an intercultural approach, namely due to its student-centred, authentic and integrative nature aimed at learners’ development. Nevertheless, further endeavour is necessary, to include a wider range of diversity in CLIL provision that would allow for the promotion of plurilingual and intercultural experiences for students and the whole educational community.

Funding This work is financed by national funds through the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the PhD grant SFRH/BD/102895/ 2014.

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

77

Acknowledgement A special THANKS to my partner Gareth and to his “understanding immersion” in the world of education and its lexicon regardless of the language.

References Aktor, R. and Risager, K. (2001). Cultural understanding in Danish schools. In Byram, Nichols & Stevens (eds.). Developing intercultural competence in practice, 219–235. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Andrade, A. I., Araújo e Sá, M. H., Bartolomeu, I., Martins, F., Melo, S., Santos, L. and Simões, A. R. (2003). Análise e construção da competência plurilinue – alguns percursos didácticos [Analysis and construction of plurilingual competence – some educational paths]. In Neto et al. (orgs.). Didácticas e metodologias de educação – percursos e desafios. Actas do IV Encontro Nacional de Didácticas e Metodologias da Educação, 489–506. Évora: Universidade de Évora. Antequera, J. M. A. (2016). Assessment of the Intercultural Competence in Primary Education: A comparative view between CLIL and non-CLIL contexts. Master thesis, Universidad de Córdoba. Barbero, T. (2006). Insegnare in lingua straniera: quali sfide? Quali difficoltà? [Teaching in a foreign language: what challenges? What difficulties?]. In Coonan (ed.). CLIL: un nuovo ambiente di apprendimento. Sviluppi e riflessioni sull’uso veicolare di una lingua seconda/straniera, 105–117. Venezia: Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina. Beacco, J.-C., Byram, M., Cavalli, M., Coste, D., Cuenat, M. E., Goullier, F. and Panthier, J. (2010). Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education. Strasbourg: COE. Retrieved from http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Publications_en.asp Beleen, J. and Jones, E. (2015). Redefining Internationalization at Home. In Curaj, Matei, Pricopie, Salmi and Scott (eds.). The European Higher Education Area. Between Critical Reflections and Future Policies, 5972. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Bernaus, M., Furlong, Á., Kervran, K. and Jonckheere, S. (2012). An initiative for the inclusion of plurilingualism/culturalism in CLIL: the european project ConBaT+. TRICLIL proceedings. Better CLIL: more opportunities in primary, secondary and higher education, 158–162. Bellaterra: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Blanchard, B., Masserot, V. and Holbrook, J. (2014). The PROFILES

78

Chapter Four

Project Promoting Science Teaching in a Foreign Language. Science Education International, 25(2), 78–96. Retrieved from http://www.icaseonline.net/sei/june2014/p4.pdf Breidbach, S. (2007). Bildung, Kultur, Wissenschaft. Reflexive Didaktik für den bilingualen Sachfachunterricht. Münster: Waxmann. Byram, M. (2008). From Foreign Language Education to Education for Intercultural Citizenship. Essays and Reflections. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Campos, A. T. S. (2009). Strategies to Raise Cultural Awareness and Create Multicultural Materials and Activities in the Language Classroom. Revista de Lenguas Modernas, (11), 383–390. Retrieved from https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/rlm/article/view/9452/8902 Cenoz, J. (2015). Content-based instruction and content and language integrated learning: the same or different? Language, Culture and Curriculum, 28(1), 8–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2014.1000922 Clegg, J. (2007). Analysing the Language Demands of lessons taught in a second language. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada, 1, 113– 128. Retrieved from https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2575499 Council of Europe. (2001). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR). Strasbourg: COE. Retrieved from https://rm.coe.int/1680459f97 Coyle, D. (2005). CLIL Planning tools for Teachers. University of Nottingham: School of Education. Coyle, D. (2013). Listening to learners: An investigation into “successful learning” across CLIL contexts. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 16(3), 244–266. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2013.777384 Coyle, D., Hood, P. and Marsh, D. (2010). CLIL Content and Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crystal, D. (2003). English as a global language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2005.0220 Cummins, J. (1987). Bilingualism, language proficiency and metalinguistic development. In Homel, Palji & Aaronson (eds.). Childhood Bilingualism: Aspects of Linguistic, Cognitive and Social Development, 57–73. Hillsdale, N. J.: Erlbaum. Dallinger, S., Jonkmann, K., Hollm, J. and Fiege, C. (2016).The effect of content and language integrated learning on students’ English and history competences – Killing two birds with one stone? Learning and Instruction, 41(1), 23-31.

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

79

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2015.09.003 Dalton-Puffer, C. (2007). Discourse in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) classrooms. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.20 Dalton-Puffer, C. and Nikula, T. (2006). Pragmatics of content-based instruction: Teacher and student directives in Finnish and Austrian classrooms. Applied Linguistics, 27(2), 241–267. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/aml007 Dörnyei, Z. (1998). Motivation in second and foreign language learning. Language Teaching, 31(3), 117–135. https://doi.org/10.1017/S026144480001315X Edwards, J. (2010). Minority Languages and Group Identity. Cases and Categories. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Escobar Urmeneta, C. and Evnitskaya, N. (2014). ‘Do you know Actimel?’ The adaptive nature of dialogic teacher-led discussions in the CLIL science classroom: a case study. The Language Learning Journal, 42(2), 165–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2014.889507 European Commission. (1995). White Paper on Education and Training. Teaching and Learning. Brussels: COM. Retrieved from https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail//publication/d0a8aa7a-5311-4eee-904c-98fa541108d8/language-en European Commission. (2003). Promoting Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity: An Action Plan 2004 – 2006. Bruxelles: COM. Retrieved from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2003: 0449:FIN:EN:PDF European Commission. (2006). Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) at School in Europe. Brussels: COM. Retrieved from https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail//publication/756ebdaa-f694-44e4-8409-21eef02c9b9b European Commission. (2011). Civil Society Platform on Multilingualism. Brussels: COM. Retrieved from http://elen.ngo/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/report-civil-society_en.pdf European Commission. (2017). Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in Europe – 2017. Brussels: COM. https://doi.org/10.2797/12061 Evnitskaya, N. and Morton, T. (2011). Knowledge construction, meaningmaking and interaction in CLIL science classroom communities of practice. Language and Education, 25(2), 109–127. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2010.547199

80

Chapter Four

Fiedler, S. (2011). English as a lingua franca – a native-culture-free cose? Language of communication vs. language of identification. Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies, 5(3), 79-97. Retrieved from http://apples.jyu.fi/article_files/Fiedler_final.pdf García, M. C. M. (2013). The intercultural turn brought about by the implementation of CLIL programmes in Spanish monolingual areas: a case study of Andalusian primary and secondary schools. Language Learning Journal, 41(3), 268–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2013.836345 Gardner, R. C. and MacIntyre, P. D. (1993). A student’s contributions to second-language learning. Part II: Affective variables. Language Teaching, 26, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444800000045 Jenkins, J. (2015). Repositioning English and multilingualism in English as a Lingua Franca. Englishes in Practice, 2(3), 49–85. https://doi.org/10.1515/eip-2015-0003 Kaire, S. (2017). We are on the same boat, but still I am from another culture: the lived experiences of learning in groups. Encyclopaideia, 21(47), 29-48. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1825-8670/6946 Koller, O., Leucht, M., and Pant, H. A. (2012). Effekte bilingualen Unterrichts auf die Englisch-leitstungen in der Sekundarsufe /Effects of Bilingual Instruction on English Achievement in Lower Secondary Schools. Unterrichtswissenschaft, 40(4), 334-350. Retrieved from http://pure.ipn.uni-kiel.de/portal/en/publications/effekte-bilingualenunterrichts-auf-die-englischleistungen-in-der-sekundarstufei(285a9716-886a-4089-b3ae-a253e2d86284).html Koro, R. (2017). To what extent is a CLIL approach useful in teaching intercultural understanding in MFL? Doctoral thesis, University of Reading. Langé, G. (2002). TIECLIL Professional Development Course. Retrieved from http://www.tieclil.org/index.htm Lasagabaster, D. (2008). Foreign Language Competence in Content and Language Integrated Courses. The Open Applied Linguistics Journal, 1, 30–41. https://doi.org/10.2174/1874913500801010030 Lasagabaster, D. and Sierra, J. M. (2010). Immersion and CLIL in English: more differences than similarities. ELT Journal, 64(4), 367– 375. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccp082 Lodico, M. G., Spaulding, D. T. and Voegtle, K. H. (2006). Methods in Educational Research. From theory to practice. Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Lourenço, M. and Mourão, S. (2017). Learning English (and other languages) in Portugal. Language Issues, 28(2), 53–55. Retrieved from

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

81

www.researchgate.net/profile/Monica_Lourenco/publication/32272250 3_Learning_English_and_other_languages_in_Portugal/links/5a6b508 8458515b2d055a50f/Learning-English-and-other-languages-inPortugal.pdf Marsh, D. (2002). CLIL/EMILE - The European Dimension. Actions, Trends and Foresight Potential. Jyväskylä: Continuing Education centre. Marsh, D. (2012). Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) A Development Trajectory. Cordoba: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Córdoba. Marsh, D. and Langé, G. (eds.) (2000). Using Languages to Learn and Learning to Use Languages. Using Languages to Learn and Learning to Use Languages. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä. Marsh, D., Mehisto, P., Wolff, D. and Frigols Martín, M. J. (2011). European Framework for CLIL Teacher Education. Graz: ECML. Mehisto, P. (2012). Criteria for producing CLIL learning material. Encuentro, 21, 15–33. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED539729.pdf Melo-Pfeifer, S. (2014). Intercomprehension between Romance Languages and the role of English: a study of multilingual chat rooms. International Journal of Multilingualism, 11, 120–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2012.679276 Milton, J. and Meara, P. (1998). Are the British really bad at learning foreign languages? Language Learning Journal, 18(1), 68–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/09571739885200291 Mons, M., Simões, A. R. and Andrade, A. I. (2018). La construcción de la identidad: las historias de vida linguísticas [Identity construction: linguistic life stories]. In Helmchen and Melo-Pfeifer (orgs.). Plurilingual Literary Practices at school and in teacher education, 63-78. Berlin: Peter Lang. Pavón Vázquez, V. and Ellison, M. (2013). Examining teacher roles and competences in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Lingvarvm Arena, 4, 65–78. Retrieved from http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/12007.pdf Pérez Cañado, M. L. (2016). Are teachers ready for CLIL? Evidence from a European study. European Journal of Teacher Education, 39(2), 202–221. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2016.1138104 Pérez, E., Gómez, M. H. and Serrano, R. (2017). CLIL Teachers’ Perceptions of Intercultural Competence in Primary Education. Revista Digital de Investigación En Docencia Universitaria, 11(1), 82–99. https://doi.org/10.19083/ridu.11.497

82

Chapter Four

Piacentini, V., Simões, A. R. and Vieira, R. M. (2016). Abordagem holística no sistema educativo Português para desenvolver a(s) Literacia(s) das Ciências integradas com o Inglês / Holistic approach in the Portuguese education system to develop Literacies of Science integrated with English.. Indagatio Didactica, 8(1), 1975–1192. Retrieved from http://revistas.ua.pt/index.php/ID/article/view/3981/3663 Piacentini, V., Simões, A. R. and Vieira, R. M. (2017). The language focus of Science education integrated with English learning. Enseñanza de Las Ciencias, Extra(2017), 399–404. Retrieved from http://ddd.uab.cat/record/184622 Piacentini, V., Simões, A. R. and Vieira, R. M. (2018). What students tell teachers about practices that integrate subjects with English in a lower secondary school in Portugal. eTEALS, 9(s1), 57-76. Retrieved from https://ojs.letras.up.pt/ojs/index.php/et/article/view/6105/0 Pinho, A. S. and Costa, A. M. (2018). Educação intercultural e ensino de inglês no 3º Ciclo do Ensino Básico [Intercultural education and English teaching in the 3rd Cycle of Primary School]. In Veiga (coord.). O ensino na escola de hoje - teoria, investigação e aplicação, 383-413. Lisboa: Climepsi Editores. Ramos, N. (2013). Interculturalidade(s) e mobilidade(s) no espaço europeu: viver e comunicar entre culturas [Inculturality(ies) and mobility(ies) in the European space: living and communicating among cultures]. In Pina, Ferreira and Martins (orgs.). The overarching issues of the European space, 343-360. Porto: Editora da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto. Seidlhofer, B. (2005). English as a lingua franca. ELT Journal, 59(4), 339–341. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/cci064 Simões, R. A., Pinho, S. A., Costa, M. A. and Costa, R. A. (2013). The Project English Plus: a CLIL approach in a Portuguese school. Indagatio Didatica, 5(4), 30–51. Retrieved from http://revistas.ua.pt/index.php/ID/article/viewFile/2565/2430 Smokotin, V. M., Alekseyenko, A. S. and Petrova, G. I. (2014). The Phenomenon of Linguistic Globalization: English as the Global Lingua Franca (EGLF). Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 154, 509– 513. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.10.177 Sudhoff, J. (2010). CLIL and Intercultural Communicative Competence: Foundations and Approaches towards a Fusion. International CLIL Research Journal, 1(3), 30–37. Retrieved from http://www.icrj.eu/13/article3.html

CLIL: A Way to Develop Communicative and Intercultural Competences in Schools?

83

Ting, Y.-L. T. (2010). CLIL Appeals to How the Brain Likes Its Information: Examples From CLIL-(Neuro)Science. International CLIL Research Journal, 1(3), 3–18. Retrieved from http://www.icrj.eu/13/article1.html White, J., Drew, S. and Hay, T. (2009). Ethnography Versus Case Study. Positioning Research and Researchers. Qualitative Research Journal, 9(1), 18–27. https://doi.org/10.3316/QRJ0901018 Wildhage, M. and Otten, E. (eds.) (2003). Praxis des bilingualen Unterricht. Berlin: Cornelsen. Wolff, D. (2012). The European framework for CLIL Teacher Education. Synergies Italie, 8, 105–116. Retrieved from http://gerflint.fr/Base/Italie8/dieter_wolff.pdf Yin, R. K. (1994). Case Study Research. Designs and Methods. Thousand Oaks - London - New Delhi: SAGE Publications.

CHAPTER FIVE CORPUS-BASED TEACHING/LEARNING: FAMILIES IN THE CLASSROOM THROUGH A TRILINGUAL CORPUS OF CHILDREN’S PICTURE BOOKS1 ROSITA MAGLIE AND MARIO MARCON

“Everything we read [...] constructs us, makes us who we are, by presenting our image of ourselves as girls and women, as boys and men […] we who teach through literature, need to be sure we are opening doors to full human potential, not closing them” (Fox 1993: 84).

1. Introducing a critical framework for language and socio-cultural responsive education Classrooms – even and especially foreign-language (FL) ones – represent the privileged spaces for linguistic and cultural worlds to meet and intersect. Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic differences inevitably help students develop pluricultural competence together with plurilinguistic competence (Coste et al., 2009 [1997]). In these classrooms, becoming ‘good’ language learners is however a complex process.

1

Although this research was jointly conducted by both authors, Rosita Maglie (University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy) is responsible for sections 1, 3, 5, 6.2 and 6.3 and Mario Marcon (Académie de Besançon, ATILF UMR 7118 – CNRS/Université de Lorraine, France) for sections 2, 4, 6, 6.1 and 7. Corresponding Author: Rosita Maglie, Researcher in English Language and Translation. Department of Sciences of Education, Psychology and Communication, University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy); [email protected].

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

85

As Okazaki argues: “Researchers, who are interested in complex, sociohistorical and political aspects of language learning and teaching, suggest that an alternative approach should be the vital essence of language teaching” (2005: 175). In order to propose an alternative approach to teaching a (foreign) language, researchers should consider what a language teacher is really expected to accomplish, i.e. providing instructions as well as promoting motivation “to empower students so that they feel encouraged to achieve their goals in and outside the classroom” (Okazaki, 2005:174). However, ‘good’ language teachers can also improve students’ language proficiency through ethical and social issues such as, for instance, gender issues (Norton & Pavlenko, 2004). The alternative approach suggested thus “entails working in a ‘transdisciplinary’ way through a dialogue with other disciplines and theories which are addressing contemporary processes of social change” (Fairclough, 2005:76). As a consequence, the present study was devised to use a combination of critical approaches in dialogue with Corpus Linguistics. These are as follows: Critical Pedagogy, Critical Literacy, and Critical Linguistics. Critical Pedagogy (Freire, 1973, Giroux, 1988) was considered insofar as it aims to develop students’ self-knowledge and the social world, as well as the ways in which these are historically constructed in an inequitable context. Critical Literacy (Janks, 2000) was added because of its focus on the written text (or any representation of meaning) as a site of struggle, negotiation and change. As Van Sluys et al. clearly state for this purpose: “Linguists, anthropologists, educators and social theorists no longer believe that literacy can be defined as a concrete list of skills that people merely manipulate and use. Rather, they argue that becoming literate is about what people do with literacy (…). In other words, literacy is more than linguistic; it is political and social practice” (2006: 199). Finally, Critical Linguistics or Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 2010) was influential for its concentration upon the role of language in forming and transmitting assumptions about what the wor(l)d is and should be like, and the role of language in maintaining (or challenging) existing power relations. A critical awareness of language – as Fairclough (1992: 2-3) states – is “a prerequisite for effective democratic citizenship, and should therefore be seen as an entitlement for citizens, especially children developing towards citizenship in the educational system” because “it is mainly in discourse that consent is achieved, ideologies are transmitted, and practices, meanings, values and identities are taught and learned” (Fairclough, 2010: 531).

86

Chapter Five

The combination of critical approaches in dialogue becomes a philosophy of education which could be described as an “educational movement, guided by passion and principle, to help students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive action” (Giroux, 2010: 5). Freire (1973) tackled dominant literacy while considerably encouraging students’ critical reflection on their education and the connections between their problems and experiences as individuals and the social contexts. Going against any decontextualized literacy, Freire argued that students’ motivation was strictly dependent on the impact and correlation that literacy could establish with respect to their realities and lives. He thus provided a revolutionary literacy model grounded in problem-posing within the social dimension so that learners could become active creators of their own knowledge rather than the recipients of that of others. “Classroom realities rarely correspond to any recognizable methods,” Canagarajah (in Block & Cameron, 2002: 140) suggests, and that is why the immense complexity of the social, cultural and historical contexts can and should be used to create methods that involve both learners and teachers. In teaching FLs, both language learning and language teaching are political processes, since language is both a communicative code and a (series of) practice(s) that contribute(s) to the construction of learners’ personal and (con)textual comprehension (Norton & Toohey, 2004, Okazaki, 2005). Moreover, through a critical approach, students learn foreign languages not as a boring subject without motivation or only for good marks, but as an interesting study that is close to their own problems and that might help them to find solutions and to understand the world, since “any literacy learning worth the effort should encourage students to learn both the word and the world” (McKinney & Norton in Spolsky & Hult, 2010: 195). It is crucial for the content to be problematic and meaningful in order to raise students’ awareness of and concern with the possibility to resist or resolve it. In other words, treating social issues in classrooms in order to try and disentangle them, students become agents for/of social change and, at the same time, they learn in a non-standardized manner. Critical approaches to FL teaching/learning and their focus on power and social inequalities are perceived as appropriate for adolescents (Maglie & Marcon, 2018). However, creative teaching experiences have also been carried out with very young learners in which children proved their ability to actively criticize their social worlds (McKinney & Norton in Spolsky & Hult, 2010:197-198). Teaching/learning a language should be conceived as

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

87

embedded in a given socio-cultural context, but also as the acquisition and production of knowledge that may be felt and perceived to be of some interest to learners so that they can mentally and physically “take up moral and political projects to change […] circumstances” (Pennycook, 2010: 16.2). This empowerment for social change interests many researchers who are well aware of how important and central social issues are while designing and deploying a proficient critical language education path. “Critical pedagogy cannot be a unitary set of texts, beliefs, convictions and assumptions” (Norton & Toohey, 2004: 1), but advocates of critical pedagogies, authors as well as teachers should refer to and use critical literature “to describe local situations, problems and issues” (Norton & Toohey, 2004: 2), collaboratively trying to find a solution to reshape the surrounding wor(l)d(s).

2. Why is family representation in children’s literature significant? Children’s literature is a significant resource for transmitting a society’s culture and for language learning. More particularly, family representation in children’s books, mainly picture books, contributes to the mental categorization children build with respect to their role and that of their family members. These representations influence children’s perceptions as well as both present and future attitudes of family-appropriate models, and thus withhold visual and socio-linguistic bias. The two-parent family portrayed in children’s literature has actually undergone undeniable changes. Children may live in two-parent families, but also in singleparent families, adoptive families, foster families, divorced families, blended/stepfamilies etc. Therefore, traditional nuclear family representations quietly condition children to reinforce stereotypical family images. Ultimately, the reinforcement of a monolithic view of the family model leads children to ignore existing social relationships and issues. The relative absence of different family models represented in children’s literature, especially homoparentality, limits the chance for some children to experience the lines of a narrated story reflecting that of their own family. In other words, representing family stereotypes forbids boys and girls from broadening their family beliefs and assumptions as well as adopting more egalitarian attitudes. On the contrary, the few existing children’s books about all family constellations invite children to learn a new language through a description of their own family group, along with

88

Chapter Five

the realization and appreciation of all the ways in which their own and others’ families are special yet ordinary at the same time. Children’s books belong to a genre of discourse that is “culturally formative, and of massive importance educationally, intellectually, and socially. Perhaps more than other texts, they reflect society as it wishes to be, as it wishes to be seen, and as it unconsciously reveals itself to be” (Hunt, 1990: 2 cited in Knowles & Malmkjaer, 1996: 61). The very rare queer family-friendly children’s books available are an interesting coupling of representation and reflection of a social sample that wishes to be read and portrayed as well. Precisely gay-friendly children’s books, “like books depicting heterosexual families, simply capture everyday family life experiences involving children, pets, family outings and celebrations, and families enjoying each other’s company” (Rowell, 2007: 2). Queer children’s literature promotes the idea that families with gay parents are in many ordinary ways just like other families, thus endorsing gender equity and social justice. Their reading could favourably make a valuable difference to the language classroom since “students from same sex-families feel their families are included and other students learn about and gain respect and acceptance for other types of families” (ibid.). In so doing, teachers are called upon to develop pluricultural competence, stimulating students to think beyond the stereotypical view of the world in order to easily surpass gender barriers, free to know and identify with others. The notion of homoparentality as a discourse could encourage FL professionals to examine how sexual orientation and choice, heterosexual norms, homophobia and other gender variance meanings are reproduced in local and global educational practices or how they are challenged by antihomophobia practices at school. Since the meaning of sexual orientation and sexual variance is not shared across cultures and is not fixed, the central focus of the present work is to examine the nature of discursive practices of gender and sexuality in children’s literature across three languages in order to pick out culturally representative inequalities. It also focuses on how important it is for FL teachers to realize that the social context is relevant to learning to speak foreign language fluently and to sensitize them towards paying close attention to the ways in which language practices and performances may be homophobic. The aforementioned teaching models are only a few examples, but they are enough to understand that a teacher can use social issues in order to teach a foreign language. In other words a good teacher ought to make students aware of these social issues, and decide to teach not only the word but

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

89

more importantly the world: “action on one’s oppression comes only with naming, externalizing and reading the world, including the causes of one’s own oppression” (Norton & Toohey, 2004: 11). Interest in social issues (i.e. democracy, disability, laicity, sexuality, and different types of behavioural addiction) should be elicited in order to raise students’ awareness of the world around them in the event that social change is really necessary. Through critical practices applied to FL teaching, alternative curricular decisions are necessary to retrieve ideologies and social issues embedded in children’s books so that learners can become active actors for class discussions and language learning at the same time. If such critical practices became the everyday grounding of the lesson, children's critical skills could certainly contribute to forming conscious citizens interested in learning more about otherness. Not only would they learn the language or how to solve a real problem, but also how to get to know and socialize with others. In such a critical approach to both teaching and learning a foreign language, a trilingual (English, French and Italian) queer corpus was made up of children’s books focusing mainly on stories featuring homoparental families. To the best of our knowledge, the present study would seem to be among the very first investigations into multilingual corpus-based approaches to FL learning/teaching. Our study has an overt twofold aim: 1. to illustrate an alternative path to learning a new language and becoming acquainted with homoparentality and other family models, thus enhancing plurilingual/pluricultural competence; and 2. to promote queer issues as parts of the current educational curriculum, even in FL classroom, through the use of Corpus Linguistics (CL)2.

3. Corpus Linguistics for queer issues and queer language classrooms It was quite unexpected, however, that very little interest in queerness and homoparentality has been shown by linguists. As far as “Queer in the (foreign) language classroom” is concerned, though some have notably and pioneeringly analysed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) 2

More particularly, CL could help to provide a social solution for those children who are raised by homosexual parental figures.

90

Chapter Five

language issues (Leap, 1996; Livia & Hall, 1997; Leap & Boellstorff, 2003; Cameron & Kulick, 2006), they tend to remain “out of the classroom” with some fortunate exceptions (Norton & Pavlenko, 2004). Even in the case of queer children’s literature, Sunderland & McGlashan (2011: 142-172; 2012: 189-210) deal with a set of English children’s books promoting twodad and two-mum families, but without particular educational conclusions or applications. With regard to inquiries into LGBTQ issues, the application of CL methodology is a recent research trend. Baker (2008: 121-154; 2011: 126) has the merit of debuting corpus-assisted discourse studies on LGBTQ issues. He zoomed in on sexual orientation nominations (bisexual, gay, homosexual, lesbian etc.) in British and American corpora in order to provide quantitative evidence of heteronormative hegemonic linguistic representation, more precisely on biphobia and on the stereotyped correlation between bisexuality and male homosexuality. Bachmann (2011) has recently dealt with a corpus-assisted discourse analysis on the British Civil Partnership Bill debates at the House of Commons and the House of Lords in 2004. Starting from a list of keywords, he grouped them according to semantic fields in order to demonstrate how different ideologies can be embedded in these debates. In the end, like Baker, Bachmann came up with a heteronormative bias that has moulded the debate and the lines of argument of all parties. To our knowledge, apart from Baker and Bachmann’s corpora, no other corpora have been consulted or built for analysing how sexual orientation, gender and language may be otherwise related and adapted to FL teaching/learning issues. With reference to FL teaching and learning, the application of corpora is gradually increasing in undergraduate and graduate courses (Gavioli, 2005; O’Keeffe et al., 2007), but it still remains marginal in schools, particularly in primary school. Thompson & Sealey (2005, 2007, 2011) have already explored which corpora could be effectively used in primary schools to learn English as an L1, and how the pupils perceived it in terms of vocabulary and grammar acquisition. The researchers extrapolated a subcorpus of children’s literature from the British National Corpus that they named CLLIP – Corpus-based Learning about Language In Primary school. After linguistic and metalinguistic investigations based on British national curriculum standards, they presented paper and electronic concordances to pupils, aiming to focus attention on recurrent patterns and create specific exercises, always with the mediation of the teachers/researchers (see par. 6).

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

91

The use of Corpus Linguistics applied to the analysis of literature inside (or outside) the classrooms has corresponded to the development of corpus stylistics and its introduction in language education. Louw (2007) applied the Sinclairian corpus-based methodology (Sinclair, 1991) for examining collocations [which he calls “instrumentation for language” (2007: 104)] in literary corpora. He introduced machine-readable texts, wordlists, concordances, collocations and keyword analysis – i.e. traditional elements of Corpus Linguistics – to the field of stylistics in order to renew it from a computational perspective. A good example of corpus exploitation with reference to the relationship between the literary wor(l)d and sexuality is provided by Fitton-Hayward’s study on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (2012) where the author tries to linguistically support the homoerotic aura attributed to the novel. However, no attempts have been made with particular attention to children’s literature. As for the compilation of corpora, the English Oxford Children’s Corpus (Wild et al., 2013) is an example: an open and growing 30 million-word diachronic corpus, lemmatized and POS-tagged, composed of fiction and non-fiction text types for an audience of children. Although it is not its only aim, the corpus was compiled to create OUP’s English lexicographic children-oriented resources. Children’s literature references include Louise May Alcott’s Little Women or Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, i.e. mainstream literature. In French, children’s literature is embedded in FRANTEXT, i.e. a textual database covering French literature from the 16th to the 21st century, and originally elaborated to provide documentation and examples for the main French dictionary: le Trésor de la Langue Française. In Italian, the LIZ (Letteratura Italiana Zanichelli) literary corpus does not focus overtly on children’s literature and it is rather conceived in a diachronic perspective. At the moment, no specialized corpora of children’s literature are available for French and Italian.

4. The more families the queerer: corpus design and methodology In order to focus on children’s non-mainstream queer literature from a micro-diachronic and plurilingual/pluricultural perspective, for FL and socio-cultural teaching/learning in the classroom, we compiled a dedicated trilingual queer corpus of children’s literature. The corpus was put together to pursue thorough contrastive investigations into the linguistic features of this non-mainstream children’s literature written in English, French and Italian. Beyond these descriptive analyses, the corpus was

92

Chapter Five

designed as a resource for training prospective FL teachers on the one hand, and for raising awareness and developing young learners’ language skills in FL classrooms on the other. Last but not least, the trilingual corpus also intends to enrich the socio-cultural knowledge of prospective teachers and young learners. The term ‘queer’ should be understood in keeping with two main paradigms. Firstly, the word ‘queer’ refers to the queer theory paradigm. Though our research focus is centred here on homoparentality, our intention is to let this corpus grow and become a cross-cultural childoriented collection based on the assumption that plurality and diversity should be considered the norm. The purpose responds to what Baker pointed out: “A key goal of queer theory is to move the debate on sexuality beyond the focus of gay and lesbian identities by taking into account the ways in which all forms of desire and all social practices connected to sexuality and gender are influenced by powerful, normalising discourses which are mostly accepted as unremarkable” (2008: 216). Secondly, the word ‘queer’ could also be interpreted with reference to its etymological sense, i.e. strange, weird and unusual. To the best of our knowledge, such a corpus was not available at the beginning of the research. The corpus may be perceived as a strange, unusual and perhaps ‘useless’ corpus both by those sympathetic to it and by its detractors. The former may live in countries (e.g. Belgium and Canada) where same-sex couples are legally recognized and publicly sheltered. In this case, the ‘so what?’ impact may be related to a tolerant social environment where homosexuality and homoparentality are respected, or at least come to light in the face of evidence. The latter may support a traditional nuclear family model, even negating homosexuality and still considering it a form of deviance from hetero-normativism. In this case, a form of cultural, political and strategic ostracism is the main promoter of the presumed majority perspective rather than of the whole. With respect to linguistic design, the corpus compilation applied some well-established criteria used in Corpus Linguistics. First of all, the genre criterion, i.e. the choice of picture books, was due to the fact that they are among all the literary genres that might represent and convey same-sex family discourse. As a consequence, the audience became a pivotal criterion: all the picture books collected had to address overtly and mainly two to ten-year-old children. Since the focus of the present study was on same-sex families and all family models in general, stories about two dads or two mums raising a child were selected, as well as books that could open up to monoparental families, interracial families etc., though these

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

93

constitute a smaller sample. Finally and obviously, the language criterion: English, French and Italian. The queer-strange corpus is both parallel and comparable at the same time, since some picture books are translated from English into Italian (e.g. Richardson and Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three and its Italian translation E con Tango siamo in tre), and one picture book is intentionally bilingual, being written in French and English (Moreno Velo & Termenon’s L’amour de toutes les couleurs/The MultiColoured Love). As shown in Table 1, the corpus is rather small with around 29,000 tokens [as computed by WordSmith Tools 7 (Scott, 2016)] and a total of thirtyfive picture books. Readers may easily spot the limited contribution of the Italian subcorpus (eight books). Queer children’s literature is a niche that has to overcome some moral, editorial and commercial constraints in Italy, but also in the more liberal UK and US.3 Cross-culturally, it is evident that the total number of picture books available (written or translated) is moderate. It is important to stress that we are aware of the limitations of our corpus: it is, by today’s standards, relatively small in size. It represents only non-mainstream children’s fiction about new family structures. For all these reasons, the findings are necessarily provisional (see par. 7). However, quantitative bias cannot be an alibi for linguists (or other scholars) to disregard or under-estimate this non-mainstream literature. Subcorpora

Picture books

Tokens

English

14

11,791

French

13

13,756

Italian

8

3,335

35

28,882

Table 1. Queer corpus quantitative description.

The corpus is composed of mutually cross-checked picture-book transcriptions. The WordSmith Tools wordlists helped to retrieve odd spellings and

3

For instance, the American Library Association created the special prize Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award, to promote queer children’s literature and to protect it from censorship.

94

Chapter Five

correct the (very few) spelling mistakes. Some tags were inserted in order to recover typographical and authorial layout choices. Wordlists were also the entry point for exploring and comparing the three subcorpora filtering out all parental names and nicknames for each subcorpus (see par 6.1). On the one hand, a quantitative approach was adopted since: “frequency can be an indicator of markedness” (Baker, 2010: 125). On the other hand, by focusing on parental names, the input came from three different references (inductively at the beginning, and much more consciously during the analysis): a) Sunderland & McGlashan’s works on children’s literature in English (2011, 2012); b) Galatolo & Greco’s work, precisely their following statement concerning the identity categorization process in homoparental settings based on field observation: “le lexique de la parenté joue un rôle déterminant dans la dé¿nition et constitution des liens sociaux, avec tout ce que cela implique au niveau de la dimension morale du pouvoir et du devoir être des parents vis-à-vis des enfants” (2012 : 82); c) an in-house glossary prepared by the Italian homoparental association Famiglie Arcobaleno (see references). As Römer says, “Corpus Linguistics can make a difference for language learning and teaching” as “it has an immense potential to improve pedagogical practice” (in Aijmer, 2009: 84).4 Knowing a word in context is more than knowing its lexicographic definition, since it includes a word’s spelling, morphology, parts of speech, pronunciation, variant meanings, collocations, specific uses and register related contexts of use (Nation, 2001) but also colligations, semantic preferences and semantic prosodies (Sinclair, 1996). The use of paper copies of corpus-derived concordances, with the concordance lines edited by teachers, was thus thought to stimulate children to familiarize with corpora, especially for investigating lexico-grammatical patterns (see par. 6.3). As Johns (1991) advocates, language learners thus become language detectives of rules and tendencies of usage, starting from concrete examples based on a single word or on recurrent patterns.

4

The gradual application of corpora in classrooms and in education is evidence in literature that simple googling would prove real (e.g. Aijmer, 2009; Ghadessy et al., 2001; O’Keeffe et al., 2007; Shaw, 2011; Sinclair, 2004).

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

95

The corpus can help pupils to develop their knowledge of synonyms, i.e. help students “develop other aspects of metalinguistic awareness such as specific uses and semantic preference” (Shaw, 2011: 59-60). Knowing register differences for words and their distributional profiles indeed is a necessary step to narrow down tailored linguistic choices that would be appropriate to various communicative situations. As a consequence, the queer corpus was also exploited in this study to recognize features of vocabulary and patterns in three languages (English, French and Italian) through a social issue, i.e. homoparental family acceptance and inclusion (see par. 6.2). Moreover, using CL techniques, pupils could be guided to identify the cross-linguistic narrative strategies that the authors of the stories adopted to promote the acceptance and celebration of queerness through the different use of family members’ names in English, French and Italian (see par. 5.1 and 5.2), and that a teacher should underline for motivating language acquisition, narrative competence and gender equity.

5. These are mommies and daddies children love best: Corpus Analysis and the discussion of results Two sets of findings are presented in the following sections. The first set reports on the results of each subcorpus. The second set refers to findings related to cross-linguistic and cross-cultural patterns retrieved from the whole corpus.

5.1. The distribution and patterns of parental names Results show that the favourite choices of parental names by the authors are mainly oriented towards intimate rather than formal names: mommy or daddy, maman or papa, mamma or papà in English, French and Italian respectively. This reflects what Galatolo & Greco identify as “le trait de l’affectivité” which makes a clear distinction between père and papa, for example, in their conversational analysis. In French this may look trivial, since the specific genre of picture books is supposed to adopt a readerfriendly lexicon. However, it appears that their authors wish to portray familiar, warm settings and captivate the readers’ attention, motivation and trust, so that they can ‘feel at home’ in the classroom when s/he reads these stories with their teachers, without any social prejudice or judgment. It may be considered a deliberate strategy of the authors to empower children who grow in same-sex families to strengthen their self-confidence and psychological comfort. The intimacy strategy suggests that the authors tend to pass on the narration to the youngest characters in their stories. The

Chapter Five

96

narration mediated by the child can also be a favourable choice for increasing empathy and for developing readers’ self-identification. Finally, while the English and the French subcorpora include some parental nicknames, such as Meema or Cri-Cri, the Italian subcorpus shows that the Italian authors (and translators) prefer not to intensify the representation of intimacy in parental figures. English

French

Italian

Mama (112)

papa (83)

papà (44)

mommy (51)

maman (78)

mamma (16)

mothers (32)

papas (20)

mamme (10)

dad (30)

mamans (19)

daddy (27)

Cri-Cri (14)

mom (26)

mamou (6)

Meema (25)

mamo (5)

Marmee (22)

mère (4)

mommies (17)

daddy (2)

Ma (15)

mères (2)

father (6)

pères (1)

daddies (5) dads (5) fathers (4) mother (4) momma (3) moms (3) papa (3) Table 2. Frequency lists of parental names for each subcorpus.

The distribution of parental names in the texts of each subcorpus clearly indicated authorial strategies. English authors tended to differentiate their parental lexicon; this is particularly true where the mother figure is

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

97

concerned. However, this differentiation depends on narrative strategies, i.e. the parental name may be normalized throughout the story or selected according to the characters’ status in the stories. For instance, let us analyse mama, mommy and mommies. Mama occurs in eight texts, while mommy and its plural mommies in five texts respectively. Generally speaking, mama covers just over half the texts collected in our English subcorpus, while mommy and mommies almost a third. These names occur simultaneously in three stories: Newman’s Heather Has Two Mommies, Garden’s Molly’s Family and Gregg and Richard’s Flying Free. Concordances of mama in Molly’s Family, for example, show that mama is used by children (Molly herself and her classmates) and adults (Molly’s mother figures), though it functions differently. With a capital letter (Mama), it always collocates with a proper noun (Lu) to refer to the nonbiological mother while Mommy refers to the biological mother. (1) “When Mama Lu and I were first living together,” said Mommy, “we decided we had so much love that we wanted to share it with a baby.” “So your mommy had you,” said Mama Lu. (English subcorpus) Molly’s perception of the two maternal figures, i.e. the child perception, and their egalitarian status to her eyes are continually reinforced with the use of the capital letter both for the biological and non-biological mothers. Mommy is Molly’s proper noun for her biological mother, Mama Lu for her non-biological mother. Though physiologically differentiated, their maternal status is visually highlighted and egalitarian: they are equally important in her life. A hint for this interpretation is suggested by the concordance (2) and Mama Lu’s utterance, but also in (3) where Molly is shown speaking to her mothers. In this case, mommy is written in lowercase, still pointing to the biological status, but as an informal synonym of her biological mother. (2) “I bet there are other girls in your school who are adopted,” said Mommy. “Do they have a mommy and a mama?” asked Molly. “Some of them might, sugar,” said Mama Lu. “There are lots of different kinds of families.” (English subcorpus) (3) That night at bedtime Molly asked, “Mommy, you’re my real mommy, aren’t you?” (English subcorpus)

98

Chapter Five

The same goes for mama in lower-case (4). Molly’s classmate named Tommy is represented as consistently using mommy as a synonym of biological mother, and mama as a synonym of non-biological mother. (4) “What’s the matter here?” asked Ms Marston. “Molly says she has a mommy and a mama,” said Tommy. “But you can’t have a mommy and a mama. Can you?” (English subcorpus) Newman’s Heather Has Two Mommies tends to adopt the pattern Mama (with a capital letter) + proper noun for referring to both the maternal figures: (5) Soon the other children come, and it’s time for Mama Jane and Mama Kate to leave. They kiss Heather good-bye, and Heather cries. But only a little. (English subcorpus) No lexical or visual hints are available to separate the biological and nonbiological mothers (6). The main idea that Newman wants to convey is what the title immediately outlines: Heather has two mommies. Significantly, Heather never addresses them as Mama, but, at the end of the story, only twice as the mommies she loves the best, when showing her family picture drawn during her first day at school. In the following concordance, it is also interesting to underline the phrase just like to reinforce Heather’s perception of her two mother figures. (6) “This is the mommy I love best,” Heather says, pointing to the mommy who has big round glasses just like Mama Kate. “And this is the mommy I love the best,” Heather says, pointing to the mommy who has short red hair just like Mama Jane. (English subcorpus) Instead of this distinctive use, in her 2002 Felicia’s Favorite Story, Newman decided to consistently use the pattern Mama + proper noun and to leave apart any other names or nicknames for the mother figure. In this story, Newman does not pursue her intention of not elucidating Felicia’s mothers’ status, as she did in Heather’s story: Mama Linda and Mama Nessa are both her adoptive mothers (7). (7) “That’s right,” said Mama Linda. “Mama Nessa and I flew to Guatemala in a big silver airplane. And when we got there, a baby girl with big brown eyes and shiny black hair was waiting for us.” “And the baby girl was me!” Felicia cried. “That’s right,” said Mama Linda. (English subcorpus)

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

99

All in all, from a diachronic perspective, we can argue that the pattern Mama + proper noun is a recurrent linguistic device of which Newman takes advantage for conveying two socio-political messages: on the one hand, the right to be a couple of mothers (6) and, on the other hand, the right of female same-sex couples to adopt children (7). In the French subcorpus, maman and papa are the most common parental names (eleven out of thirteen texts, respectively). However, the unexpected low frequency of papa in Tango a deux papas... et pourquoi pas? (the French adaptation of And Tango Makes Three) was unexpected. The nicknames are sporadic authorial choices for referring to the nonbiological father, as in Douru’s Un mariage vraiment gai: (8) Cri-Cri5 (c’est comme ça que j’appelle Christophe) nous a accueillis avec un grand sourire et en me disant: «Salut ma charlotte aux fraises! » Il m’aime beaucoup Cri-Cri, comme sa fille, comme l’enfant qu’il n’a pas eu, c’est ce qu’il m’a dit un soir après m’avoir lu une histoire. (French subcorpus) or to the non-biological mother, as it happens in Chabbert & Loueslati’s La fête des deux mamans (9) and in Bertouille & Favreau’s Ulysse et Alice (10) respectively: (9) - À table ma chérie! Prunelle arrive en courant. Maman et Mamou sont assises à la table et la regardent intensément. (French subcorpus) (10) Mais en voulant aider Maman et Mamo, Alice enchaîne les gaffes. La souris fait un plongeon digne des Jeux olympiques! (French subcorpus) The Italian authors completely avoid the use of nicknames and concentrate on the same parental names: mamma and papà. There appears to be no need to stress informality and homoparentality at the nomination level.

5.2. The distribution of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural patterns of parental names Across the three subcorpora, some shared patterns can be recognized, although there are some slight differences. Firstly, we notice an overall 5

Cri-Cri is the non-biological father.

100

Chapter Five

preference for the numerals two/deux/due rather than the possessive determiners my/mes/miei-mie for the plural forms of the parental names in L1 position, thus deliberately reinforcing the ‘same-sex couples discourse’. A simple possessive determiner would have exhaustively described the relationship between the child and his/her parents: (11) Laura and Kyle live with their two moms, Joyce and Emily, and a poodle named Daisy. (English subcorpus) (12) Some families have two moms or two dads. (English subcorpus) (13) « Que se passe-t-il? » demande Madame Lucie « Théo a 2 mamans… explique Pauline, mais dans une famille y ’a un papa et une maman ». (French subcorpus) (14) Mes deux papas sont très câlins aussi, ils sont toujours à me faire des bisous ces deux-là! (French subcorpus) (15) Margherita ha due mamme: solo una l’ha portata nella pancia ma entrambe, insieme, l’hanno messa al mondo. (Italian subcorpus) (16) – Pure voi siete una famiglia? – Sì – risposero i due papà insieme ai loro piccoli. (Italian subcorpus) It is worth noting that the Italian authors never use the pattern possessive determiner + female/male parental figure on plural forms. It could be argued that the Italian authors do not dare to suggest a ‘queer/queer collocation’, but rather choose the numeral, together with pictures, to corroborate the idea that same-sex couples may be legitimate and solicitous parents. Secondly, with regard to the sex of the individual parent, however, it is more frequent to retrieve the pattern possessive determiner + male parental figure at the singular, though more common in the French subcorpus (eight texts) than in the English and Italian subcorpora (two texts respectively): (17) my daddy lives by himself in a yellow house. (English subcorpus) (18) mon papa est homosexuel. (French subcorpus) (19) Il mio papà si chiama Sebastiano. (Italian subcorpus)

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

101

Although the English subcorpus shows that the pattern possessive determiner + female parental figure is also present, it is limited to one text [my mom (seven occurrences) or my mama (one occurrence)] or two texts [my mommy (two occurrences)]. More generally, the comprehensive underrepresentation of the ‘possession of a parent’ may thus be functional to the representation and to the emergence of the same-sex couple and their egalitarian parental status. Lastly, in the English and French subcorpora, there is an overall preference – especially in the English subcorpus – for the female parental name/nickname + and + female parental nickname pattern, where the parental name or nickname may optionally be followed by a proper noun, with reference to female same-sex parents: (20) “I don’t have a daddy,” said Molly. “I have Mommy and Mama Lu and Sam.” (English subcorpus) (21) Marmee and Meema would listen in and smile. (English subcorpus) (22) Maman et Mamo ne sont pas d’accord: elles détestent les mensonges. (French subcorpus) In the French subcorpus, a similar pattern concerns male parents but only in one text: (23) Dès que Papa et Cri-Cri ont franchi le seuil du tribunal on les a bombardés de riz et tout le monde criait: « Vive les mariés! » (French subcorpus) The following pattern: (determiner +) female/male parental name + and + (determiner +) female/male parental name was retrieved in all subcorpora: (24) “In my family,” Christopher told us, “my mom and dad got divorced. My dad moved to an apartment, but we still live in our old house with Mom.” (English subcorpus) (25) Mes deux mamans s’aiment comme un papa et une maman. (French subcorpus) (26) Adesso la mamma e il papà aspettano un bambino così la nostra tribù sarà ancora più grande. (Italian subcorpus)

102

Chapter Five

The French concordance (25) clearly matches the same-sex parental couple (deux mamans) with the heterosexual parental couple (un papa et une maman) with the conjunction ‘like’ (comme), and proves once again the importance that the French authors ascribe to the use of numerals. The calque of the pattern that usually describes the traditional nuclear family model – or as we would rather call it, its paradigmatic variation – sustains the homoparental discourse in the English and French subcorpora. On the contrary, the Italian subcorpus stands apart from this pattern. In a certain sense, the authors and translators would only bet on the performative force of the numeral due (like English and French authors do) to defend the same-sex parental couple’s verbal representation.

6. Appreciating family diversity through a queer corpus: teaching activities in a primary foreign-language classroom To determine how concordance approaches can best enhance primary school pupils’ knowledge and understanding of the foreign language and of family diversity, traditional and common CL techniques were combined with several teaching techniques suggested by Shaw’s experience (2011) in order to create an easy-to-use and easy-to-replicate method which can empower prospective FL teachers with a range of classroom activities presented in the following sections.

6.1 Frequency-based classroom activities The most basic activity to perform is to create a simple frequency list for the names of family members (see Table 2). In a classroom, a FL beginner might be proud to learn family members’ names by comparing and contrasting his or her first language and foreign language. Hence, looking at the frequency of family member’s names in English, French and Italian, they will be acquainted with the actual variation of maternal names [the preference for mama (one hundred and twelve occurrences) and maman (seventy-eight occurrences) in the English and French subcorpora respectively] or the absence of instances of the more formal madre and padre in the Italian subcorpus. Frequency thus supports students’ understanding if a family member’s name has a particular frequency in the three subcorpora, but mainly which words are appropriate to use when speaking about or addressing their own or others’ family members. In addition, frequency is used to check spelling, since misspelled family

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

103

members’ names do not appear in the frequency lists. Students use the corpus to check or correct their spelling, thus avoiding language inference in foreign-language acquisition: the family members’ names, in particular, are very similar in English, French and Italian, and spelling mistakes can be very common.

6.2 Synonymy- and collocational profile-based Activities After pupils can recognise that members’ name are characterized by lexical variety, by looking at occurrences, teachers can help them see that maternal/paternal names in English, French and Italian subcorpora are not perfect synonyms. The usage in different contexts of: x mother/father vs. mommy/daddy x mere/père vs. maman/papa x padre/madre vs. mamma/papa enhances the student’s awareness of register and collocational knowledge, since it is easily understandable by looking at these words in context that the first couple of family members’ names in the three languages are more informal than the second ones, and are the children’s favourite names by which to call their parents. The attention paid to patterns, i.e. to collocational and colligational knowledge, can develop intuition on how wor(l)ds really work. In particular, by investigating the words which co-occur with maternal/paternal names, pupils can broaden their knowledge of family models, e.g. they will know that there are families with two mommies as in (27): (27) Molly says she has a mommy and a mama. (English subcorpus) or they can develop sexual awareness, e.g. they will know someone’s sexual orientation (see [18]) or they can discover other ways to be a happy family [28]): (28) dì che hai due mamme, e che insieme noi tre, siam più felici e ricche di un re! (Italian subcorpus).

6.3. Morphology-based activities A simple activity where words are divided into smaller parts helps language learners understand lexico-grammar, i.e. “the interconnected relationship

104

Chapter Five

of grammar and words” (Shaw, 2011: 23). Using the queer corpus, teachers can foster pupils’ morphological knowledge and skill breaking down the most frequent family members’ names: x dad-dy, ma-ma, mom-my in English; x pa-pa, ma-man, mè-re in French; x pa-pà, mam-ma in Italian to recognize how maternal/paternal word forms grammatically relate, in particular with regard to their singular and plural inflections. By so doing, pupils can recognize both singular nouns because they have -a, -y, -er on the endings in English, the endings -a, -an, -re in French, and the final -à, a in Italian, as well as plural nouns because they have -s, -ies, on the endings in English, the ending -s in French, and no change for papà and a final -e for mamma in Italian.

7. Conclusions The present study contributes a final yet still not definitive piece to the puzzle regarding corpora as “a repository of cultural information about a society as a whole” (Hunston, 2002: 17), promoting FL learning together with social justice and gender equity. On the one hand, non-mainstream children’s literature on homoparentality has proven helpful to foster empathy and thus to develop pluricultural competence, more precisely “a high degree of familiarity with otherness, which implies an ability […] to employ diversified strategies within partly compatible social and cultural logics” (Coste et al., 2009 [1997]: 21). On the other hand, the trilingual queer corpus and generally CL in dialogue with other disciplines and theories have unveiled the positive ‘subliminal message’ conveyed by the repetition of lexical items and their patterns of association. On this subject, English, French and Italian subcorpora show a number of differences. As for the English subcorpus, the parental lexicon offers the greatest variety of intimate names or nicknames, especially when the mother figure is described. A closer look at Newman’s picture books also underlines that a pattern, namely Mama + proper noun, may carry socio-political issues, i.e. the right of lesbian couples to motherhood and adoption. With regard to the French subcorpus, the familiar maman and papa are the most frequent authorial choices for referring to the parental figures, and the nicknaming strategy applies both to the non-biological father and mother, even though it is rather infrequent in the subcorpus. On the contrary, the Italian subcorpus disregards the use of the nicknaming strategy, and avoids facing

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

105

the biological / non-biological nature of the parental figure. Informality is only conveyed by the usual parental lexical items mamma and papà. The English and the French subcorpora tend to adopt similar choices with regard to the literary and social legitimisation of same-sex couples (female / male parental name + and/et + female / male parental name or nickname) and the belonging of a parent to a child (possessive determiner + parental figure). In other words, the English and French subcorpora overtly sustain the homoparental discourse, while the Italian subcorpus does not seem to adopt these authorial strategies. However, the lexical reiteration and patterning of family names sometimes represent one of the packages of information that trace the intervention of language in signalling cross-cultural changes in social structures and in creating a prosody of ‘goodness’ around homoparental families. The preference for the numerals two/deux/due rather than the possessive determiners my/mes/mie-miei contributes to conceiving and designing the homoparental discourse within the three languages and, as a consequence, in their respective cultures. As shown by the examples of tasks presented in the final part of the paper, wordlists and concordances that helped us retrieve and interpret the patterns in the trilingual queer corpus may be submitted to FL pupils. Such language tools may broaden their lexical competence, refine their grammatical competence, shape their sociolinguistic competence and, more generally, promote “the strategic management of imbalance” (Coste et al., 2009 [1997]: 20) that is an integral part of the development of plurilingual competence. As for any corpus-based study, the analysis of the patterns may vary according to the linguistic sample collected. New insights into the repetition of parental lexical items and, in general, on the collocational / colligational patterns and their semantic prosodies may emerge from a larger corpus. Other literary genres, such as novels, may be considered in order to grasp different patterns to convey homoparental discourses and those concerning same-sex couples, and/or to corroborate patterns that have already been analysed. With regard to the tasks, other trilingual suggestions have been designed (Maglie & Marcon, 2018) in order to enrich students’ symbolic capital of experience of otherness, most particularly their symbolic capital of experience of same-sex relationships and homoparentality. When corpus-based FL learning tasks are administered, attention should be paid to the students’ previous linguistic assessment and, more particularly, to the framework provided by the

106

Chapter Five

teacher. The teacher must play an active role during the tasks in order to unveil homoparental discourses and those of same-sex couples and to build pluricultural competence, since some students may not be aware of them or self-censor their ideas on these subjects. (Self-)Censorship thus represents a pragmatic limitation to be overcome for the implementation of the tasks. In conclusion, the present contribution and the preliminary classroombased results (ibid.) encourage us to consider the impact of nonmainstream children’s literature more conscientiously and, in general, of any aesthetic stimulus for addressing social issues in corpus-based FL learning / teaching. It shows itself to be a promising educational path to help students become actors of their own linguistic development and of social change.

References Aijmer, K. (Ed.) (2009). Corpora and Language Teaching. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. Bachmann, I. (2011). Civil partnership – ‘Gay marriage in all but name’: A corpus-driven analysis of discourses of same-sex relationships in the UK Parliament. Corpora, 6 (1), 77-105. Baker, P. (2010). Sociolinguistics and Corpus Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Baker, P. (2008). Sexed texts: Language, Gender and Sexuality. London: Equinox. Block, D. and Cameron, D. (Eds.) (2002). Globalization and Language Teaching. London: Routledge. Cameron, D. and Kulick, D. (Eds.) (2006). The Language and Sexuality Reader. London: Routledge. Canagarajah, S. (2002). Globalization, methods and practices in periphery classroom. In: Block D.; Cameron, D. (Eds.), Globalization and Language Teaching. London: Routledge, 134-150. Coste, D., Moore, D. and Zarate, G. (2009). “Plurilingual and Pluricultural Competence”. Strasbourg: Council of Europe (French version originally published in 1997). Retrieved from: . Access: February 10, 2019. Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical Discourse Analysis. The Critical Study of Language. Harlow: Longman Applied Linguistics (2nd edition). Fairclough, N. (2005). “Critical Discourse Analysis.” Marges Linguistiques, 9, 76-94.

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

107

Fairclough, N. (Ed.) (1992), Critical Language Awareness. London: Longman. Famiglie Arcobaleno (2010), Lessico. Retrieved from: . Access: February 10, 2019. Fox, M. (1993), Men who weep, boys who dance: The gender agenda between the lines in children’s literature. Language Arts, 70 (2), 84-88. FRANTEXT. Retrieved from: . Access: February 10, 2019. Freire, P. (1973), Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabu y Press. Galatolo, R. and Greco, L. (2012). L’identité dans l’interaction: pratiques de catégorisation et accountability en milieu homoparental. Langue française, 175, 75-90. Gavioli, L. (2005). Exploring Corpora for ESP Learning. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. Ghadessy, M., Henry, A. and Roseberry, R.L. (Eds.) (2001). Small corpus studies and ELT: theory and practice. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. Giroux, H.A. (2010). Lessons from Paulo Freire. Chronicle of Higher Education, 57 (9). Giroux, H.A. (1988). Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Learning. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey Publishers. Hunston, S. (2002). Corpora in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Janks, H. (2000). Domination, Access, Diversity and Design: a synthesis for critical literacy education. Educational Review, 52 (2), 175-186. Johns, T. (1991). ‘Should you be persuaded’: two samples of data-driven learning. English Language Research Journal, 4, 1-16. Knowles, M. and Malmkjaer, K. (1996). Language and Control in Children’s Literature. London: Routledge. Leap, W. L. and Boellstorff, T. (eds.) (2003). Speaking in Queer Tongues: Globalization and Gay Language. Urbana: University of Illinois. Leap, W. L. (1996). Word’s Out: Gay Men’s English. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Livia, A. and Hall, K. (Eds.) (1997). Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. LIZ – Letteratura Italiana Zanichelli. Louw, B. (2007). Literary Worlds as Collocations. In: Watson, G.; Zyngier, S. (Eds.), Literature and Stylistics for Language Learners. Theory and Practice. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 91-105.

108

Chapter Five

Maglie, R. and Marcon, M. (2018). “Migrant Students’ Attitudes to Trilingualism and Diversity.” Journal of Applied Psycholinguistics, 18 (2), 71-89. Nation, I.S.P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Norton, B. and Pavlenko, A. (Eds.) (2004). Gender and English Language Learners. Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Norton, B. and Toohey, K. (Eds.) (2004). Critical Pedagogies and Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O'Keeffe, A., McCarthy, M. and Carter, R. (2007). From Corpus to Classroom: Language Use and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Okazaki, T. (2005). Critical consciousness and critical language teaching. Second Language Studies, 23 (2), 174-202. Pennycook, A. (2010). Critical and alternative directions in applied linguistics. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 33 (2), 16.116.16. Römer, U. (2009), Corpus research and practice: What help do teachers need and what can we offer? In: Aijmer, K. (ed.), Corpora and Language Teaching. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing, 83-98. Scott, M. (2016). WordSmith Tools 7. Stroud: Lexical Analysis Software. Sealey, A. (2011). The use of corpus-based approaches in children's knowledge about language. In: Ellis, S.; McCartney, E. (Eds.). Applied Linguistics and Primary School Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 93 – 106. Sealey A. (2005. An Investigation into Corpus-Based Learning About Language in the Primary School. ESRC Full Research Report. Retrieved from: Access: February 10, 2019. Shaw, E. (2011). Teaching Vocabulary Through Data-driven Learning. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University. Retrieved from: Access: February 10, 2019. Sinclair, J. McH. (Ed.) (2004). How to use corpora in language teaching. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. Sinclair, J. McH. (1996). The search for units of meaning. Textus, IX, 75106. Sinclair, J. McH. (1991). Corpus Concordance Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Corpus-Based Teaching/Learning

109

Sunderland, J. and McGlashan, M. (2012). The linguistic, visual and multimodal representation of two-Mum and two-Dad families in children’s picture books. Language and Literature, 21 (2), 189-210. Sunderland, J. (2011). Language, Gender and Children’s Fiction. London: Continuum. Thompson, P. and Sealey, A. (2007). Through children’s eyes? Corpus evidence of the features of children’s literature. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 12 (1), 1-23. Van Sluys, K., Lewison, M. and Seely Flint, A. (2006). Researching Critical Literacy: A Critical Study of Analysis of Classroom Discourse. Journal of Literacy Research, 38, 197-233. Watson, G. and Zyngier, S. (Eds.) (2007). Literature and Stylistics for Language Learners. Theory and Practice. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan. Wild, K., Kilgarriff, A. and Tugwell, D. (2013). The Oxford Children’s Corpus: Using a Children’s Corpus in Lexicography. International Journal of Lexicography, 26 (2), 190-218.

CHAPTER SIX STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE NATASSA STYLIANOU-PANAYI

1. Introduction The current study examined seventh and tenth grade state and private school students’ motivation and attitudes towards learning English as a foreign language in Cyprus. The reasons that instigated this study were the results from previous studies which showed that achievement was influenced either by motivation (Dornyei, 1990) or by learners having positive attitudes towards the learning of English and being highly motivated at the same time (Che Mat and Yunus, 2014). This chapter will first focus on the use of English as a foreign language, then discuss the linguistic situation in Cyprus, present the taught curriculum students come across during the seventh and tenth year of their school studies and discuss what our contribution will be to the field of motivation and attitudes research. Crystal (2003) explained that, even though the English Language has spread nearly all over the world, the fact that it is considered a global language does not necessarily mean that this is for the best. He argued that changes occur in some countries in order to adjust the language according to their needs and that English, for example, spoken in Las Vegas may not be the same as what is spoken in Belize. According to Pennycook (2005, p. 81), English as a second language “is constantly replacing other languages in daily use and school curricula”. He gives as an example Ngugi’s experiences in Kenya, where his native language was humiliated, but English became “the main determinant of a child’s progress up the ladder of formal education” (Ngugi 1985, p. 115, quoted in Pennycook, 2005, p. 81).

Students’ Motivation and Attitudes towards English as a Foreign Language

111

English was also described by Cook (1988) as a Trojan horse, and along with Judd (1983), he drew attention to “the moral and political implications of English teaching around the globe in terms of the threat it poses to indigenous languages and the role it plays as a gatekeeper to better jobs in many societies” (both found in Pennycook, 2005, p. 80). What interests linguists nowadays, however, is not so much the spread of English, as this has already happened, but the way English is being taught as a second or foreign language. To learn a new language does not just mean to acquire some grammar and vocabulary but also the competence to communicate. As Broughton, Brumfit, Flavell, Hill and Pincas have said, “whether a particular methodology is strictly behaviourist or mentalist, or eclectic, items of language still need to be presented and practiced. Presentation consists of introducing each new item of language to the learners in such a way, that it can be absorbed efficiently into the corpus of language already mastered” (2003, p. 45). Since the learning of English as a foreign language mostly occurs in schools, classroom management, along with teaching strategies, also plays an important role in the learners’ outcomes. Scrivener talked about classroom management and the importance of “creating conditions in which learning can take place” (2005, p. 79). He added that grouping and seating, activities, techniques and teacher and student talk are some of the areas which should be taken into consideration in a language classroom.

1.1 The Linguistic situation in Cyprus Cypriots use Standard Greek (SG) in everyday serious discourse and writing, while they use the Cypriot dialect (CD) in everyday speech. Cypriot Greek differs from Standard Greek in the areas of phonology, morphology, lexicon and syntax. However, as Arvaniti (2019) discussed, speakers are aware of this sociolinguistic situation, that is, that some circumstances call for Cypriot and others for Standard Greek. It is also quite clear to speakers that Cypriot and SG are categorically distinct and do not form a continuum, even though features from urban Cypriot may transfer to SG and vice versa. For example, Cypriot has phonemes that do not exist in SG, such as [dz],a known and stigmatized marker of the CD. However, it never occurs in SG; even Cypriot names that have this phoneme are pronounced with the SG equivalent [ndz]. The Cypriot use of Standard Greek is significantly different from Standard Greek as used in Greece. Traditionally, for the majority of Cypriots, Standard Greek was the language learned in Greek-medium schools and spoken by Greeks

112

Chapter Six

living in Cyprus. Only students who were educated in Greece had experience of Standard Greek as spoken in Greece. Nowadays, SG is used in all magazines and newspapers, television programs and when reading and writing in schools, whereas CD is used at home, with friends and families and also during speaking activities in classrooms. Apart from SG and CD, English is also used a lot and can be found nearly everywhere. It is used in government, business, advertising and schools. Students begin to be taught English while at primary school and most of them continue up to high school. However, most of all, it is used in the lexicon of Cypriot speakers as much as their own language. For example the words “bye”, “thank you”, “please”, “sorry” and “anyway” are used a lot. Even speakers who never had the chance to learn English use some words of the language. In classrooms such as in Cyprus, where most of the learners share the same L1, there is a tendency for tasks which should be done in the L2, such as conversation activities, discussion of intensive reading and preparation for writing, to be done in the L1. Work like this is more naturally done using the L1 with others who have the same L1, and it is easier. Even though English should be the main language in the classroom, both as the language of instruction and of communication, the occasional use of the L1 may be beneficial. It should not be overused though. Using the target language as much as possible should be the main goal. The L1 could be used to introduce the major grammatical differences between the L1 and the L2 that students must be aware of and when explaining complex instructions to basic level learners. It can also be used to obtain valuable and reliable feedback from students on their doubts and suggestions about the course. The curricula taught in the gymnasium and the lyceum differ in many different aspects. The level of difficulty and the topics taught are examples that show the difference. The methodologies used, on the other hand, are defined by the principles of the “communicative approach” as well as the approach upon which the Common European Framework – CEFR- (action orientated approach – task-based approach) is built. In general, these refer to the cognitive approach, which adopts a holistic approach to learning

Students’ Motivation and Attitudes towards English as a Foreign Language

113

whereby people use all their senses to develop the language they receive from their environment.

2. The role of motivation in foreign language learning This literature review references approaches to motivation and it summarizes conclusions, variables, research instruments and participants from previous research studies on the role of motivation and attitude towards English as a second or foreign language. The subsequent sections deal with: second language learning; the meaning of motivation and its deeper analysis based on models used and suggested by various researchers; and how it influences second language learning along with the role of learners’ attitudes and anxiety. Definitions regarding attitudes and other studies are also presented in relation to motivation and the use of the questionnaire this study has used.

2.1 Approaches to second language learning in relation to motivation The way psychologists viewed the principles of learning changed significantly over the twentieth century. In the middle of the twentieth century, learning theory was dominated by the principles of behavioral psychology, which maintains that learning should be described as changes in the behavior of a learner depending on the events in their everyday environment. According to behaviorists, all learning, whether verbal or non-verbal, takes place through the same underlying process. Learners receive linguistic input from speakers in their environment and they form associations between words and objects or events. Based on Lightbown and Spada (2000), it is assumed that a person learning a second language starts off with the habits formed during the first language learning process and that these habits interfere with the ones needed for the second language. Behaviorism was often linked to Contrastive Analysis, which predicts that where there are similarities between the first language and the target language the learner will acquire target language structures with ease; where there are differences, the learner will face difficulty.

114

Chapter Six

Chomsky’s theory of language is based on the hypothesis that innate knowledge permits all children to acquire the language of their environment during a critical period in their development. According to Dörnyei (2001a), the middle of the twentieth century was characterized by conditioning theories of motivation, which were related to behaviorist psychology. Behaviorists assumed that human beings had basic psychological needs that trigger our motivation. Cognitive theories, on the other hand, were developed as psychological views of behavior. Woolfolk mentioned that “the cognitive view emphasizes intrinsic sources of motivation, such as curiosity, interest in the task for its own sake, the satisfaction of learning and a sense of accomplishment” (1987, p. 315). Based on the view of cognitive theories, people do not only respond to external events or to physical conditions but they also respond to their perceptions of these events. Dörnyei (2001a) mentioned that this view places the focus on how the individuals’ conscious attitudes, thoughts, beliefs and interpretation of events influence their behavior. Humanistic views stress intrinsic motivation just like the cognitive approaches. Humanistic psychologists such as Carl Rogers (1959) proposed that the fundamental motivation in people’s lives is the desire to achieve personal growth and to fully develop the capacities they have inherited. Dörnyei (2001a) explained that there are many different factors that can influence motivation, some of which will be further discussed.

2.2 Motivation Based on research it seems that motivation does not have a clear definition since there are different views and perspectives on what it refers to. Gardner’s definition of motivation describes it as “the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language, plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language” and the target language community (1985, p. 10). Brown stated that “motivation is commonly thought of as an inner drive, impulse, emotion, or desire that moves one to a particular action” (1994, p. 152), a view which also refers to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, a distinction that will be discussed later on. Oxford and Shearing (1994) explained that motivation is the desire to achieve a goal along with the energy towards that goal. Dörnyei (2003) explained that motivation consists of three stages: preactional, actional and post-actional: In the pre-actional stage, motivation

Students’ Motivation and Attitudes towards English as a Foreign Language

115

needs to be generated; in the actional stage, it needs to be maintained and protected; and at the post-actional stage, students evaluate the activity to which they were motivated. According to Dörnyei (2003), all three phases are associated with different motives that people will be influenced by. 2.2.1 Instrumental Vs Integrative Motivation Gardner and Lambert (1959) formulated a theory of attitudes and motivation in which they made a distinction between orientation and motivation. Orientation refers to the purpose of learning a second language, which can be integrative or instrumental. Integrative orientation refers to the reasons for second language learning that emphasize identification with an L2 community whereas instrumental orientation refers to reasons for learning a second language with no intention of integration with the L2 community. Gardner and Lambert (1959) have stated that integrative orientation seemed to be superior to instrumental orientation in second language learning. Classroom learning motivation is represented in the socio-educational model, based on Gardner (1985), and it refers to motivation in the classroom situation and how the teacher, the course content, the materials and facilities influence it. Gardner (2007) also believed that educational context and cultural context influence motivation. Gardner’s socio-educational model was first introduced in 1979 and described four variables, which are interrelated when acquiring a language. The first variable, social milieu, refers to the individual’s cultural beliefs and it plays an important role in influencing both affective and cognitive individual differences among learners. The second variable, individual differences, includes intelligence, motivation, language aptitude and situational anxiety. The third variable, learning acquisition contexts, refers to the setting where the language is being learned. The fourth variable, language learning outcomes, includes linguistic knowledge and language skills and non-linguistic skills. Gardner (1985) modified the model by introducing the concept of integrative motive within the individual differences, divided into two components: attitudes towards the learning situation and “integrativeness”. Attitudes towards the learning situation involve attitudes towards the school environment, reactions to the textbooks, and evaluation of the language teacher and the language taught. Integrativeness was seen as an

116

Chapter Six

interest in the second language group, the learner showing an openness and identification with the target language and culture. In addition, Gardner and Lambert (1972) introduced two types of motivation, instrumental and integrative. Whereas an integratively motivated learner shows interest in the culture of the target language, an instrumentally motivated learner shows more interest in the language in terms of gaining a better job or a higher salary. Gardner (1993) stated that both instrumental and integrative motivation lead to success but a lack of either leads to problems. Gardner (2007) also talked about the importance of motivation when it comes to learning a second language in the school context. Studying a second language is very different to studying other school subjects and therefore the learner will possibly have attitudes that might apply specifically to language learning or different implications and beliefs about its value. Based on this, Gardner (2007) hypothesized that the cultural context can have an effect on the individual’s ultimate success in language learning and suggested a model indicating the effects of the cultural and educational contexts on motivation in Second Language Learning. 2.2.2 Intrinsic Vs Extrinsic Motivation Based on Deci and Ryan (1995), self-determination theory is divided into two types of motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation when engaged in learning, the activity itself being enjoyable, whereas extrinsic motivation is based on rewards external to the activity itself. Deci and Ryan (1985) stated that the most beneficial tasks during classroom learning are the ones which raise intrinsic motivation, those activities in which the learners themselves want to engage. Noels (2001) explained that intrinsic motivation occurs when learners are allowed greater autonomy from teachers and referred to three categories: knowledge, pleasure of knowing; accomplishment, pleasure of accomplishment; and stimulation, pleasure sensed when doing the task. Intrinsic motivation, according to Biggs (1985), is an important part of the relation between metacognitive approaches to learning and academic success. Landline and Stewart (1998) also stated that there seems to be a positive relationship between metacognition, motivation and academic success.

Students’ Motivation and Attitudes towards English as a Foreign Language

117

2.3 Factors affecting L2 attitudes and motivation As mentioned earlier, there are many factors affecting someone’s motivation and attitude towards the learning of a second language, factors such as personality, classroom setting, learners’ preferences and beliefs. However, since the current study focuses upon and examines factors such as gender, the school type and the age, the following discussion will include only those, without questioning the importance of other factors. 2.3.1 Age differences in L2 attitudes and motivation The current study examined students of 12 and 15 years in relation to motivation and attitudes when it comes to learning English as a second language. The age factor has been a matter of discussion for many years and it can be found in many research studies as well. Reference in this study is not in relation to the Critical Period Hypothesis, but to age’s relation to motivation. When it comes to foreign or second language instruction the situation is quite different since the level of the language taught differs. In most cases, older children are able to learn and understand more quickly compared to those who began learning the target language earlier. Nikolov (1999) has shown that motivation is normally high at the beginning when learners are younger but it tends to decrease with time. Djigonovic (2012) has found that as learners grow older they tend to be less motivated. Singleton (2004) makes reference to the research conducted by Bongaerts et al. (1995) on Dutch learners who began learning English in a classroom environment after the age of twelve and were able to gain English pronunciation within the same range as native speakers. 2.3.2 Gender differences in L2 attitudes and motivation Gender seems to play an important role when it comes to motivation and its relation to Second Language Learning. According to different motivational studies (Dörnyei, Csizer & Nemeth, 2006; Mori & Gobel, 2006) females are more motivated in learning foreign languages than males. Other studies (Oxford, 1993; Young & Oxford, 1997) have also found that gender can have a significant impact on how students learn a language.

118

Chapter Six

The study by Oxford, Nyikos and Ehrman (1988) also showed that females had greater integrative motivation and more positive attitudes to Second Language Learning. Manolopoulou-Sergi’s (2001) research study showed that learners had quite positive attitudes towards English as a language but that they had unfavorable attitudes towards the English language teachers and course books at school. With respect to gender, the results showed that girls had more positive attitudes than boys. She argued that the learners in the Greek context were more extrinsically motivated, which hindered more successful language learning. Another study that showed more positive attitudes from girls is one conducted by Nicolaou (2004). He tested Gardner’s Socio-Educational model in state and private schools in Athens, and his overall findings showed that learners were primarily instrumentally motivated, although in certain cases integrative and instrumental motivations overlapped. Karakosta (2008) examined young learners’ motivation to learn English and her results showed that young learners’ main motivational tendency was intrinsic, with both boys and girls being more intrinsically motivated.

3.Methodology This section will discuss the procedure of the current study, the population and sampling as well as the instrumentation and data collection.

3.1 Participants and Sampling The participants were randomly chosen and consisted of students from the seventh and tenth grades from state and private schools. Both state and private schools were chosen in order to compare students’ answers and results. The private schools selected were also Greek so that the curriculum would not differ in any way.

3.2 Research Questions For the completion of the current study, students’ motivation and attitudes towards learning English as a foreign language were investigated. Gender and age factor were also taken into consideration in order to examine any possible increase or decrease in state or private secondary schools. In order to do so, this study answers the following research questions.

Students’ Motivation and Attitudes towards English as a Foreign Language

119

1. Are there any statistically significant differences in motivation between genders and ages? 2. Are there any statistically significant differences in attitudes between genders and ages?

3.3 Instruments The Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (Gardner, 1985) has been chosen for the completion of this study, from among others, for its validity, as it has been translated and used in many countries, including Brazil, Croatia, Poland, Japan, Romania and Spain. Firstly, there is not a fixed AMTB and the keyed items are modified depending on the research and the researcher’s needs. Gardner argued that the AMTB, apart from motivation, also assesses other individual items and that “motivational characteristics were assessed by items that reflected three common features of motivation, intensity, desire and affect” (2010, p.109). Other motivation instruments are the MOLT (Motivation Orientation of Language Teaching) which was designed by Guillauteaux and Dörnyei (2008) and the Language Learning Orientations Scale proposed by Noels, Pelletier, Clément and Vallerand (2000). The reason for choosing the AMTB for the current study rather than one of the other two is because the AMTB questionnaire has been used a lot more over the years and was considered more appropriate based on the research questions. The first part of the AMTB test provides demographic information about the participants, whereas the second part elicits Likert scale answers to48 questions based on Gardner’s design. The test itself is represented by four categories with their sub-categories presented below, each sub-category consisting of certain questions. The categories chosen for the current study are Motivation and Attitude/Motivation Index as these two focus on what the study is about; anxiety in terms of language, attitudes towards learning English, and parental encouragement. Based on the proposed theoretical model, the Interval Consistency for all scales except Parental Encouragement was .91 and .89 with a median six week test/retest reliability of .79. It was also suggested by Gardner (1985)

120

Chapter Six

that students in grades 7 to 11 should be able to complete the AMTB test in a maximum of 30 minutes. Given that the questionnaire was translated into the Greek language and then set to learners for the completion of a pilot study, the time suggested by Gardner (1985) was also tested along with any other possible changes. After the completion of the pilot study and the approval of the translation by experts, the final test was then given to participants.

3.4 Data Collection Before collecting data, permission from the Ministry of Education and Culture was first granted in order to contact state and private schools. Data were collected during school hours between February and April 2017.The research was carried out in four private schools (two gymnasiums and two lyceums) and five state ones (three lyceums and two gymnasiums). A meeting was arranged with the head teacher of each school and after showing them the questionnaire in order to confirm that the questions were all appropriate for the students’ ages, a second meeting was then arranged during certain hours so that students would be available for the completion of the questionnaire. After about a week, the questionnaires were given to students while their teacher was present too. The procedure they had to follow was clearly explained and students answered the questionnaire in twenty to thirty minutes as suggested by Gardner.

3.5 Data Analysis In order to answer the questions of the present study, firstly factor analysis was carried out in order to test whether the factors presented by Gardner (1985) result from this study’s sample as well. As soon as the factors were presented, two-way MANOVA was used to examine the effect of the independent variables (age, gender) on the dependent variables (motivation and attitude). Having the categories of the AMTB as the dependent variables and age along with gender as the independent variables, two-way MANOVA was considered the most appropriate option by which to obtain our results.

Students’ Motivation and Attitudes towards English as a Foreign Language

121

4. Results As mentioned above the current study researched whether seventh grade students and tenth grade students who attend private or state schools show signs of motivation towards English as a second language and whether their attitude towards the language changes.

4.1 Participants As mentioned earlier, students from two different types of school were used as well as two different age groups. The tables below present the information in terms of gender, school type and age. As can be seen here, the female students made up55.4% of the sample whereas male students made up44.4%, which is almost equal and appropriate for the research study. In terms of the age factor, the students used from the two different age groups were almost equal in number despite the difference in schools.

Valid

Missing Total

Frequency

Valid Percent Percent

Cumulative Percent

male

254

44.4

44.5

44.5

female

317

55.4

55.5

100.0

Total

571

99.8

100.0

99.00

1

0.2

572

100.0

Table 1: Gender statistics

Chapter Six

122

Valid

Missing

Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

7th grade

242

42.3

42.4

42.4

10th grade

329

57.5

57.6

100.0

Total

571

99.8

100.0

99.00

1

0.2

572

100.0

Total Table 2: Age statistics

4.2 Research questions analysis The analysis that follows shows the results of the quantitative research based on the students’ answers and the AMTB questionnaire. 4.2.1 The relation in motivation between gender and age The question focused on gender and age in relation to motivation. The results showed that there are statistically significant differences between age and motivation since 10th grade students had higher means in motivation F(1,473)=10.177,p