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Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Teaching Foreign Languages in Multilingual Settings
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Founding Editor: Viv Edwards, University of Reading, UK Series Editors: Phan Le Ha, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA and Joel Windle, Monash University, Australia. Two decades of research and development in language and literacy education have yielded a broad, multidisciplinary focus. Yet education systems face constant economic and technological change, with attendant issues of identity and power, community and culture. What are the implications for language education of new ‘semiotic economies’ and communications technologies? Of complex blendings of cultural and linguistic diversity in communities and institutions? Of new cultural, regional and national identities and practices? The New Perspectives on Language and Education series will feature critical and interpretive, disciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives on teaching and learning, language and literacy in new times. New proposals, particularly for edited volumes, are expected to acknowledge and include perspectives from the Global South. Contributions from scholars from the Global South will be particularly sought out and welcomed, as well as those from marginalised communities within the Global North. All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK.
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION: 100
Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Teaching Foreign Languages in Multilingual Settings Pedagogical Implications Edited by
Anna Krulatz, Georgios Neokleous and Anne Dahl MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Jackson
https://doi.org/10.21832/KRULAT6416 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Krulatz, Anna, editor. | Neokleous, Georgios, editor. | Dahl, Anne, editor. Title: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Teaching Foreign Languages in Multilingual Settings: Pedagogical Implications/Edited by Anna Krulatz, Georgios Neokleous, Anne Dahl. Description: Bristol, UK; Jackson, TN: Multilingual Matters, [2022] | Series: New Perspectives on Language and Education: 100 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This book aims to advance multilingual research in foreign language education. It contributes to a discussion of how to foster the acquisition of subsequent foreign languages by engaging learners’ existing linguistic resources in an optimal way, and how to strengthen the connection between research and foreign language teaching practice”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022003265 (print) | LCCN 2022003266 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788926416 (hardback) | ISBN 9781788926409 (paperback) | ISBN 9781788926430 (epub) | ISBN 9781788926423 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Language and languages—Study and teaching—Foreign speakers. | Multilingual education. | LCGFT: Essays. Classification: LCC P51 .T47 2022 (print) | LCC P51 (ebook) | DDC 418.0071—dc23/eng/20220316 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003265 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003266 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-641-6 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-640-9 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol, BS1 2AW, UK. USA: Ingram, Jackson, TN, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2022 Anna Krulatz, Georgios Neokleous, Anne Dahl and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Nova Techset Private Limited, Bengaluru and Chennai, India.
Contents
Figures and Tables Acknowledgements Acronyms Contributors
ix xi xiii xv
Introduction Part 1: 1
2
3
5
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Towards a Multilingual Paradigm in Foreign Language Education
Multilingual Approaches to Additional Language Teaching: Bridging Theory and Practice Anna Krulatz, Georgios Neokleous and Anne Dahl
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Mainstreaming Multilingualism in Education: An Eight-Ds Framework Nayr Ibrahim
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Enhancing Foreign Language Teachers’ Use of Multicultural Literature with an Analytical Framework for Interpreting Picturebooks about East Asian Cultures Ngoc Tai Huynh, Angela Thomas and Vinh To Part 2:
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1
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Languaging Practices in Multilingual Classrooms
The Multilingual Language Classroom: Applying Linguistically Diverse Approaches for Handling Prior Languages in Teaching English as a Third Language Tanja Angelovska ‘There Are Many Ways to Integrate Multilingualism’: All-inclusive Foreign Language Education in the Netherlands Mirjam Günther-van der Meij and Joana Duarte
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Learning English as a Foreign Language in a Bi(dia)lectal Setting Spyros Armostis and Dina Tsagari
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Constructing Translanguaging Space in EFL Classrooms in Indonesia: Opportunities and Challenges Rasman Rasman and Margana Margana
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Part 3: Teacher and Learner Perspectives 8
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Capturing Hybrid Linguistic Repertoires: Learner and In-service Teacher Attitudes towards Translanguaging in Multilingual EAL Classrooms in Cyprus Georgios Neokleous Teachers’ Attitudes towards Multilingualism in the Foreign Language Classroom: The Case of French and German in the Swedish Context Ylva Falk and Christina Lindqvist
10 Inside the L3 Classroom: Learner Reflections on University-level Foreign Language Classes for Bilinguals in the United States Will Travers 11 Teaching English as an Additional Language in German Secondary Schools: Pluralistic Approaches to Language Learning and Teaching in Action Romana Kopečková and Gregory Poarch
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12 Teaching English in Linguistically Diverse Classrooms in Norway: Teachers’ Beliefs, Practices and Needs in Multilingual Education Yeşim Sevinç, Anna Krulatz, Eivind Torgersen and MaryAnn Christison
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13 EFL Education for Social Justice: A Study of Japanese EFL Student Teachers’ Perceptions about Diversity and Minority Mieko Yamada
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Part 4: Innovative Multilingual Pedagogies in Foreign Language Classrooms 14 Adopting Pluralistic Approaches when Teaching an Additional Language Antoinette Camilleri Grima
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15 An Applied Perspective on Holistic Multilingual Approaches to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching Manon Megens and Elisabeth Allgäuer-Hackl
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16 Promoting Multilingualism through Immersion Education: A Case Study in a Thai K-12 International School MaryAnn Christison and Adrian S. Palmer
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17 Plurilingual Inputs in Task-based TEFL: A Way of Promoting Inclusion Gisela Mayr
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Contents
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18 The Use of Students’ Linguistic Resources in Teaching English as an Additional Language in Norway: A Study of Writing in Upper Secondary School Marina Prilutskaya, Rebecca Knoph and Jessica Allen Hanssen
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19 Operationalizing Multilingualism in a Foreign Language Classroom in Norway: Opportunities and Challenges Gro-Anita Myklevold
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Afterword Kristen Lindahl
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Index
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Figures and Tables
Figures
Figure 2.1 Figure 2.2 Figure 2.3 Figure 2.4 Figure 3.1 Figure 3.2 Figure 3.3 Figure 5.1 Figure 5.2 Figure 5.3 Figure 5.4 Figure 6.1
Figure 14.1 Figure 14.2 Figure 14.3 Figure 15.1 Figure 15.2
Demonolingualizing education: The Eight-Ds framework 35 Teacher educator’s and student’s linguistic repertoires and DLCs 36 Teacher and student language maps 37 The interdisciplinary nature of multilingualism 38 The framework for interpreting cultural meanings of Asian images (CMAI) 52 Findings on Vietnamese cultural aspects mapped onto other factors of ICC 59 Viewing Plum Blossoms by Moonlight 60 Revised holistic model for multilingualism in education 85 Design and timeline of the Holi-Frysk pilot project 89 Example of language family activity poster 91 Example of multilingual affi xes quiz 92 Graphic representation of the varieties observed in the classroom: L2 English as the target language, L1a CG, L1b SMG and Generic Greek (L1a/b) as the intersection between L1a and L1b 107 Worksheet filled in by one learner showing vocabulary in Maltese, English and Arabic 245 Worksheet filled out by two learners about school procedures and policies in Malta, China and Italy 246 Worksheet with a list of nouns filled out by a group of learners identifying masculine, feminine, neuter or no gender in Maltese, English, Chinese and Romanian 248 Example of a follow-up activity on ‘word order’ from the EuroComTranslat course 266 Example activity on ‘multilingual text comprehension strategies’ from the EuroComTranslat course 267 ix
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Figure 18.1 Figure 19.1 Figure 19.2 Figure 19.3 Figure 19.4
Estimated essay quality means by group and factor Responses to the question of whether the students used the four operationalizations to ease text comprehension (Item 1) Responses to the question of whether the students perceive that looking for cognates will facilitate language learning (Item 4.12) Students’ perceptions of the usefulness of the operationalization in German Students’ perceptions of the usefulness of the operationalization in English
313 326 327 328 329
Tables
Table 3.1 Table 5.1 Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 8.1 Table 9.1 Table 10.1 Table 12.1 Table 14.1 Table 14.2 Table 14.3 Table 16.1 Table 18.1 Table 18.2
Specific objectives for teaching, learning and assessment of ICC Sample of participating schools, teachers and students in the Holi-Frysk project Location, teacher’s gender, grade and student age range for the four observed classrooms Percentages of use of each of the linguistic varieties under investigation per observed function for students and teachers Teacher participant information The teachers’ responses according to the five themes Participant background information submitted via online questionnaire Teachers’ background and teaching experience The learners’ countries of origin and their claimed home languages FREPA descriptors: Knowledge, attitudes and skills FREPA objectives and learner achievements The data collection process Descriptive statistics for variables included in the MANCOVA model Factor loadings for the two-factor model
58 90 105 107 142 161 175 206 243 243 249 279 309 312
Acknowledgements
This book is an outcome of a collaboration spanning three years and geographical contexts on three continents – Asia, Europe and North America – and it grew out of our shared interest in multilingualism and language learning and teaching. As joint editors, we want to thank the contributing authors for their passion, perseverance and patience during the lengthy publication process. Their novel studies and conceptualizations contribute to bridging the existing gap between the research and practice of multilingualism in foreign language teaching contexts. We are also greatly indebted to the following peer reviewers who graciously offered their time and expertise (in alphabetical order): Larissa Aronin, Monika Bader, Ingrid Beiler, Jennifer Cabrelli, Jasone Cenoz, Elis Constantinou, Petra Daryai-Hansen, Bessie Dendrinos, Susan Lynn Erdmann, Zohreh Eslami, Marco Gargiulo, Greta Gorsuch, Durk Gorter, Barbara Hofer, Christina Hedman, Anne Holmen, Britta Hufeisen, Jonas Iversen, Jenny Jakisch, Sviatlana Karpava, Nadine Kolb, Edina Krompàk, Kjersti Faldet Listhaug, Eliane Lorenz, Ildikó Lőrincz, Koeun Park, Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer, Warren Merkel, Christine Möller-Omrani, Stephanie Moody, Ingrid Piller, Yulia Rodina, Lydia Sciriha, Irina Tiurikova, Hilde Tørnby and Johanna Watzinger-Tharp. Their insightful comments and valuable suggestions helped both us and the chapter authors to improve the quality of the volume. Finally, we want to thank the staff at Multilingual Matters for their ongoing enthusiasm and support for this project.
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Acronyms
ADHD AL ALT ANCOVA ASEAN ASTAT CA CEFR CG CLIL CLL CMAI CUP DBR DLC DMM DSCT EAL ECT EFA EFL ELL EMLL ESL EU FL FML FREPA GFL GMT H HL ICC ICC
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Additional Language Assistant Language Teacher Analysis of Covariance Association of South East Asian Nations Landesinstitut für Statistik (Regional Agency for Statistics) Contrastive Analysis Common European Framework of Reference for Languages Cypriot Greek Content and Language Integrated Learning Classroom Language Learning Cultural Meanings of Asian Images Common Underlying (Language) Proficiency Design-based Research Dominant Language Constellation Dynamic Model of Multilingualism Dynamic Systems Theory and/or Complexity Theory English as an Additional Language EuroComTranslat Exploratory Factor Analysis English as a Foreign Language English Language Learner Emergent Multilingual Learners English as a Second Language European Union Foreign Language Functional Multilingual Learning Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures German as a Foreign Language Grounded Methodology Theory High Variety Home Language Intercultural Communicative Competence (Chapter 3) Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (Chapter 18) xiii
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ISNET
International School of Northeast Thailand (a pseudonym) K-12 Kindergarten through Grade 12 L Low Variety L1 First Language L2 Second Language L3 Third Language L4 Fourth Language Ln Additional Language LEAP-Q Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire LGBT Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Ln Additional Language MAL Maltese as an Additional Language MANCOVA Multivariate Analysis of Covariance MC Multicompetence MEXT Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology MFL Maltese as a Foreign Language ML Multilingualism MLA Metalinguistic Awareness MoEC Ministry of Education and Culture MS Multilingual Seminar MT Mother Tongue NCOLCTL National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages NFMLTA National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations NL Native Language PLL Psychology of Language Learning PSS Portuguese for Spanish Speakers RFCDC Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture RQ Research Question SFL Second and Foreign Language SLA Second Language Acquisition SMG Standard Modern Greek TBLT Task-based Language Teaching TL Target Language TSL Thai as a Second Language UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization XLA Crosslinguistic Awareness YL Young Learners
Contributors
Elisabeth Allgäuer-Hackl holds a PhD in Linguistics, and is a teacher and teacher trainer and a member of the DyME research team at the University of Innsbruck. Her main research interests include multilingual/metalinguistic awareness in language learners, language management and maintenance strategies in institutional language learning, (early) multilingual development and inclusive teaching practices. Tanja Angelovska is an Associate Professor of English Linguistics and Language Teaching at the University of Salzburg, Austria. Her research areas include psycholinguistics and L2/L3 acquisition. She is an associate member of the Centre for Research and Enterprise in Language (University of Greenwich), the Language Acquisition, Multilingualism, & Cognition Laboratory (Wilfrid Laurier University), and the Brain & Cognition Lab (Texas A&M University, USA). Tanja has published in Language Awareness, International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics Review. She is a co-author of Second Language Acquisition (2016, Bloomsbury) and co-editor of L3 Syntactic Transfer (2017, John Benjamins). Spyros Armostis is a lecturer in Linguistics in the Department of English Studies at the University of Cyprus. He holds an MPhil and PhD in Linguistics (Phonetics) from the University of Cambridge and a BA in Classics from the University of Cyprus. Spyros’ research interests lie in the fields of phonetics, phonology, sociolinguistics and clinical linguistics. Focal points of his work have been the study of Cypriot Greek and Cypriot Arabic. Antoinette Camilleri Grima is Full Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of Languages and Humanities at the University of Malta. She has worked as an expert for the European Centre for Modern Language and as language administrator for the European Council. Antoinette has published widely in the areas of language pedagogy, bilingualism, learner autonomy and sociolinguistics in education.
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MaryAnn Christison holds a PhD in English/Linguistics and is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics and the Urban Institute for Teacher Education at the University of Utah. She is the author of 23 books and over 125 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in applied linguistics and second language teacher education. MaryAnn is the recipient of TESOL’s Alatis Award for distinguished service to the profession and the 50@50 Award for outstanding contributions in teaching and research. She is a past president of TESOL International and currently serves as a trustee for the International Research Foundation for English language education (TIRF). Anne Dahl is Associate Professor of English Linguistics in the Department of Language and Literature at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Her research deals with various aspects of second and third language acquisition from both theoretical and applied perspectives. Anne is particularly interested in linguistic transfer in L2 and L3 acquisition, the role of age in acquisition, the relationship between implicit and explicit learning and the role of L2 English as an international lingua franca. Joana Duarte is a Professor at the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, research group on Multilingualism and Literacy, and an Associate Professor in the Minorities & Multilingualism group at the University of Groningen. Her main research areas are in multilingual education, teachers’ professional development, equity in education, global citizenship education and didactics. Ylva Falk holds a PhD in Linguistics from Radboud University, the Netherlands. She is a Senior Lecturer in Swedish as a Second Language at Stockholm University, Sweden. Ylva’s main interest is the role of L2 syntax and lexicon in third language learning. Mirjam Günther-van der Meij is an Associate Professor at the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, research group on Multilingualism and Literacy. Her main research areas are in trilingual language acquisition, literacy development in multilingual settings, multiliteracies, and multilingual education including minority and migrant languages. Jessica Allen Hanssen is an Associate Professor of English and the Faculty Coordinator for the Bachelor of English degree at Nord University, Norway. Her primary areas of interest are American literature, especially 19th and early 20th century fiction, short-story theory, narratology, YA fiction and middle grades English education. Jessica’s education research focuses on the intersection of critical theory and middle grades English education and the early introduction of critical reading, and especially reader-response and narratology-based teaching strategies, into the
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Norwegian national curriculum. She is a member of Nord University’s Humanities, Education and Culture research group. Ngoc Tai Huynh is a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania, Australia. His dissertation explores representations of Vietnamese culture in children’s picture books. He was previously employed as a full-time lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages, Tra Vinh University, Vietnam. During his candidature at the University of Tasmania, he presented at international conferences in the field of multimodality and published papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Australian Journal of Teacher Education and Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education. Nayr Ibrahim is Associate Professor of English Subject Pedagogy at Nord University in Norway. She has participated in various EU projects on multilingualism, including reviewing the EU’s Key Competencies for Lifelong Learning (2018). Her co-authored publication, Teaching Children How to Learn (Delta Publishing), won an award at the 2016 ESU English Language Awards. Nayr is a member of the Nord Research Group for Children’s Literature in ELT (CLELT), peer reviewer for the CLELE Journal and local coordinator of the Erasmus+ project, ICEPELL. Her research interests include early language learning, bi/multilingualism, multiliteracies, language and identity, learning to learn, children’s literature and children’s rights. Rebecca Knoph is a PhD Fellow in the Department of Education at the University of Oslo, Norway. Her general research interests are second language learners and assessment. Currently, Rebecca is investigating reading comprehension and differential item functioning for diverse academic words and item types for English language learners in upper secondary education. Simultaneously, she is looking into salient features of academic words that may impact this relationship. Romana Kopečková is a Research Associate in the English Department at the University of Münster, Germany. Her research interests include multilingual speech learning, with a specific focus on young language learners in both immersion and instructed learning contexts. Anna Krulatz is a Professor of English in the Department of Teacher Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. Her research interests include multilingualism with English, pragmatic development in adult language learners, content-based instruction and language teacher education. Anna has published numerous peer-reviewed articles, teaching tips, book chapters and books, including Enacting Multilingualism: From Research to Teaching Practice in the English Classroom (2018; with Anne Dahl and Mona Flognfeldt),
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and an edited volume, Handbook of Research on Cultivating Literacy in Diverse and Multilingual Classrooms (2020; with Georgios Neokleous and Raichle Farrelly). Kristen Lindahl is Associate Professor in the Department of BiculturalBilingual Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio’s College of Education and Human Development. Beginning her career as a K-12 public school ESL teacher, she specializes in teacher education for multilingual learners in both second language and additional language contexts. Kristen’s research interests focus on the intersection of teachers’ critical language awareness, identity approaches to educators’ lives, and language ideologies in education. Christina Lindqvist is a Professor of French at Gothenburg University. Her research interests include third language learning, vocabulary learning and cross-linguistic influence. Margana Margana is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Department of English Language Education, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He holds a doctoral degree in Linguistics from Gadjah Mada University and a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from Newcastle University, Australia. Margana’s research interests include code-switching, discourse analysis, multilingualism and multilingual education. Gisela Mayr holds a PhD in TEFL from Justus Liebig University, Erlangen, Germany. She has experience as a teacher of English as a foreign language at secondary school level and is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Bolzano. Gisela’s main interests are teaching second and foreign languages, intercultural learning and mediation, and multilingualism. Manon Megens is a university lecturer, a cultural educator, a PhD candidate in applied linguistics/multilingualism and a member of the DyME research team at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Her main research and practice interests are multilingual development (acquisition/learning, attrition, maintenance), crosslinguistic interaction and multilingual awareness (meta- and crosslinguistic awareness), plurilingual teaching, and promoting cultural knowledge, creativity and intercultural understanding through cultural mediation and education. Gro-Anita Myklevold is a PhD Fellow in the Department of Languages and Literature Studies at the University of South-Eastern Norway. Her research interests include multilingualism, metacognition and metafiction. In her PhD thesis, Gro-Anita investigates operationalizations of
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multilingualism and students’, teachers’ and teacher educators’ perceptions of multilingualism. Georgios Neokleous holds a post as Associate Professor of English in the Department of Teacher Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, where he works with pre- and in-service EFL teachers and supervises at BA, MA and PhD levels. His research interests include multilingualism with English, literacy, content-based instruction and language teacher education. Adrian Palmer teaches courses on language assessment, L2 research design and language teaching methodology at the University of Utah. His most recent co-authored book on language testing (with L. Bachman), Language Assessment in Practice (Oxford University Press), received the 2012 SAGE/ILTA triennial award for the best book in the area of language testing/assessment. Adrian’s interest in language education in Thailand includes three years as a Visiting Professor and Fulbright Scholar in universities in Bangkok and Khon Kaen. He has spent the past several years developing software for both language test design and development and second language (L2) research design. Greg Poarch is an Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen. His research interests cover psycholinguistic, cognitive and social aspects of multilingualism with a focus on cross-language lexical and syntactic interaction, and the cognitive effects of multilingual language control. Marina Prilutskaya is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education and Arts at Nord University, Norway. She holds a PhD in English Teaching from Nord University. Marina’s PhD thesis investigated Norwegian upper secondary school students’ use of linguistic resources when writing in English. Marina’s research interests include bilingual/multilingual education, L2 writing instruction, translation and translanguaging. Rasman Rasman is a lecturer at the Department of English Language Education, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Indonesia. His main research interests include translanguaging, multilingual education, multilingual identity, and language-in-education policy. He has published articles in these areas in a number of international peer-reviewed journals such as Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics and Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies. He has also written some op-ed articles on the topic of multilingualism in several leading media outlets including The Jakarta Post and The Conversation. Yeşim Sevinç is an Assistant Professor of Multilingual Language Acquisition at the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication,
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University of Amsterdam. She holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Linguistics from the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan (MultiLing), University of Oslo. Her research interests are interdisciplinary with a focus on multilingualism and emotions in immigrant contexts. Her recent publications address social, psychological, pedagogical and physiological aspects of multilingualism both within and outside classroom settings. Angela Thomas is a Senior Lecturer in English Education at the University of Tasmania. Her research interests include children’s literature, social semiotics and critical literacies. Angela is the author of Youth Online, coauthor of Children’s Literature and Computer-based Teaching, and coeditor of English Teaching and New Literacies Pedagogy: Interpreting and Authoring Digital Multimedia Narratives. Vinh To is a Lecturer in English Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of Tasmania, Australia. She is also an Associate Editor of the Literacy Learning: The Middle Years journal, and the Convener of the International Systemic Functional Linguistics Interest Group. Her research interests include educational linguistics, English, literacy, TESOL, writing development and Asian literature. Vinh has published a number of journal articles and book chapters and delivered talks at national and international conferences. Her publications appear in top quartile journals such as the Australian Journal of Linguistics, International Journal of Early Years Education, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy and Linguistics and the Human Sciences. Eivind Torgersen holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Reading and is a Professor of English Language in the Department of Teacher Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. He has worked on projects on multicultural London English and language change in the south-east of England. Eivind’s main publications are on phonological change in London English and the use of spoken corpora in sociolinguistic research. His other research interests are in second language acquisition and multilingualism. Eivind is currently the principal investigator on a project on the acquisition of English in multilingual classrooms in Norway. Will Travers is a PhD candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He earned his MS in Spanish Linguistics from Georgetown in 2016, where he designed and for four semesters taught French for Spanish Speakers. Will has published in the journal Hispania and recently spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. His principal research interests center around third language learning and teaching.
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Dina Tsagari is a Professor in the Department of Primary and Secondary Teacher Education, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. She has also worked for the University of Cyprus, the Greek Open University and the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include language testing and assessment, materials design and evaluation, differentiated instruction, multilingualism, distance education and learning difficulties. Dina is the editor and author of numerous books, journal papers, book chapters and project reports. She coordinates several research groups, including CBLA SIG – EALTA and EnA OsloMet, and is involved in EU-funded and other research projects (e.g. DINGLE, ENRICH, TALE, DysTEFL, PALM, etc.). Mieko Yamada is a Professor of Sociology in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Purdue University Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. Her specializations include the sociology of education, race and ethnicity; the sociology of language; and East Asian studies with an emphasis on Japan. Her publications have appeared in national and international peer-reviewed journals in the field of language studies, language education and applied sociology. Mieko is the author of The Role of English Teaching in Modern Japan: Diversity and Multiculturalism through English Language Education in a Globalized Era (2015, Routledge).
Introduction
Teaching Foreign Languages in Multilingual Settings
For decades, language education, including foreign language (FL) education, was tainted by monolingual bias. Languages spoken by learners were strictly compartmentalized and not allowed to be mixed, as processes such as code-switching and translanguaging were taken to be a sign of low target language (TL) proficiency or even ‘confusion.’ With maximal TL exposure as the ideal, even in classrooms where teachers allowed themselves to use another language (referred to as L1, mother tongue or home language; see the next section for a discussion of terminology), such switches to a non-target language were associated with a feeling of guilt (Carless, 2008; Copland & Neokleous, 2011; Shin et al., 2020). More recently, however, we have been witnessing a paradigm shift to pedagogies informed by current research on multilingualism and multiple language acquisition, which acknowledges the benefits of multilingualism and multilingual approaches in which teachers draw on learners’ multicompetence as a valuable resource in the classroom (Conteh & Meier, 2014; Hall & Cook, 2012; Hornberger, 2005; May, 2019). The contributions in this volume present new approaches to FL instruction in multilingual settings, many of them forged in collaboration between FL teachers and researchers of multilingualism. They report fi ndings of classroom-based research, including case studies and action research on topics such as the functions and applications of translanguaging in the FL classroom, the role of learners’ own languages in teaching additional languages, linguistically and culturally inclusive FL pedagogies, and teacher and learner attitudes to multilingual teaching approaches. Teachers as Research Partners
Recent scholarship has foregrounded the catalyst role that teachers fulfi ll as agents of change, thus leading to enhanced student learning in multilingual classrooms (Bourn, 2016; Manan, 2020; Watson, 2014; Yazan & Lindahl, 2020). Through a thorough critical understanding of 1
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the scholarship in the field and creative classroom initiatives, teachers working in multilingual settings can challenge some of the current practices and policies and cater to culturally and linguistically diverse students by promoting inclusion and encouraging the use of students’ entire linguistic repertoires. This volume aims to make a further contribution to the idea of teachers as agents of change for multilingual language teaching with a selection of chapters that examine the shift towards a multilingual paradigm in FL education, chapters that illustrate languaging practices in multilingual classrooms, chapters that explore teacher and learner perspectives, and chapters that present innovative multilingual pedagogies. Some of the authors present projects in which a collaboration between school and university actors is forged in an attempt to pave the way for positive transformation. For example, the contributions by Mayr and by Kopečková and Poarch identify the challenges with which teachers in multilingual settings are faced and underline the need for a change that can be materialized by professionally aware and adequately trained teachers. Similarly, the participating teachers in Günther-van der Meij and Duarte’s project, who implemented pedagogical activities based on a holistic model, acknowledged the potential of such initiatives in complex linguistic settings and the innovations teachers can bring about in language teaching. A Note on Terminology
The study of FL acquisition in multilingual contexts is a rather recent field, and there is no uniformity in the use of the terminology that describes language learners and the different languages they use. In addition, because the contributions in this volume come from a range of geographical locations, educational contexts, and research traditions, a short note on terminology is warranted. Most importantly, as the title of this volume utilizes the term ‘foreign language,’ we admit that we use it in the conventional, traditional sense as a non-native language that is learned outside of the context where it is used (e.g. Chinese in the UK), and as opposed to ‘second language,’ which encompasses, and in some cases even exclusively denotes, a non-native language taught in the context where it is actually spoken outside of school (e.g. English in the US or South Africa) (Ortega, 2009). Although in recent years ‘additional language’ has gained more acceptance as a term that encompasses learners for whom whatever language they are learning is different from the language spoken at home (Ortega, 2009), we choose to heed the more traditional term ‘foreign language’ in the title of the volume as we focus exactly on those contexts where the language being learned is not the majority language of the community. Many of the chapters follow the traditional distinction between fi rst language (L1), second language (L2), third language (L3), and additional language (Ln). We want to acknowledge Hall and Cook’s (2012) position
Introduction 3
regarding the limitations of these terms because: (1) the respective labels L1, L2, L3, Ln suggest that multilinguals always acquire their languages consecutively; and (2) the assumption that all students share a language, referred to as their L1, is not always correct (as, for example, in European contexts where immigrant students learn the majority language and English as a foreign language at the same time). Although consecutive acquisition of L1, L2, and L3 is possible, other paths to multilingualism also exist (Cenoz, 2000). For example, L1 and L2 can be acquired in childhood, with an L3 added later in life; a person may also have more than one language that qualifies as an L1. Other multilinguals start off as monolinguals and add two or more languages in adulthood. In all these instances, numbering of the languages fails to adequately describe the process of language acquisition. In addition, more recently, a distinction has been drawn between the different terms adopted to describe the language(s) that learners already know (Hall & Cook, 2012; Shin et al., 2020). The terms L1, mother tongue (MT), native language (NL), and home language (HL) are often used interchangeably, with research cautioning that these do not accurately reflect the linguistic identity of the students. As Hall and Cook (2012) argue, in many cases the common shared language of most students in today’s classroom settings is neither their L1 nor their NL. Similarly, Hall and Cook (2012) challenge the use of the term mother tongue because of its emotive connotations. Instead, they propose the term ‘own language,’ defi ned as ‘the language which the students already know and through which (if allowed), they can approach the new language’ (Cook, 2010: xxii). Although we recognize the usefulness of this defi nition, the term has not gained much popularity in mainstream literature. Instead, the terms mother tongue and home language continue to be commonly used. In the context of the present volume, terminology is also needed to discuss different languages in the school context. Terms such as ‘language of schooling’ and ‘language of instruction’ are commonly employed to refer to the language in which administration, classroom management, and largely also instruction are conducted. This language is often identical to the majority language in the community, even if the TL is in fact a foreign language. In addition to the term majority language, referring to the language(s) routinely used in the geographical area of the school, such as Dutch in the Netherlands, the term minority language is important in the volume. Minority languages may be local or regional languages in the community, such as German or Ladin in Italy, or they may be languages of migration, such as Arabic in Greece. Finally, it is important to acknowledge that the contributors use varied terminology to defi ne speakers with complex linguistic repertoires and to describe the communication practices of multilingual learners. For example, the Council of Europe makes a distinction between the notions of
4
Perspectives on Teaching Foreign Languages in Multilingual Settings
plurilingualism, which refers to the abilities of individual speakers, and multilingualism, which is used to refer to language practices in social contexts (Council of Europe, 2018). As Piccardo et al. (2019: 25) point out, the prefi x ‘pluri’ signifies an unbalanced and changing language competence of an individual. The prefi x ‘multi,’ on the other hand, refers to a multitude of people. However, many authors, both in the present volume and in other publications, choose not to make this distinction and instead apply the term multilingualism to both individuals and societies that employ a multitude of languages. Different terms are also employed to describe the linguistic practices of multilingual individuals. The terms code-switching and code-mixing traditionally referred to alternating between two different languages at the word or sentence level (Baker & Wright, 2017). These terms have been criticized on the grounds that they originated in monolingual ideologies and continue to perpetuate the view that languages exist as separate entities in the speaker’s brain (Otheguy et al., 2015). Nevertheless, many researchers still find the terms useful. On the other hand, in recent decades, the term translanguaging has been increasingly employed to describe the complex and holistic ways in which multilinguals employ their linguistic resources to communicate. Translanguaging has been defi ned in a number of different ways, but its key characteristic is that it views the linguistic skills of multilinguals as a unitary repertoire, comprised of features drawn from different named languages, which individuals draw upon and deploy in a dynamic way to make meaning (Leung & Valdés, 2019). Other concepts and terms that attempt to move away from the monoglossic tradition in the study of language and to recognize the fluid and dynamic practices of multilinguals include codemeshing (Canagarajah, 2011), translingual practice (Canagarajah, 2013), and polylanguaging (Jørgensen, 2008). The individual chapters in this volume provide defi nitions of their selected terminology relative to the context in which their research was undertaken. Volume Overview
This book consists of 19 chapters, which are grouped thematically under four themes: Towards a multilingual paradigm in foreign language education, Languaging practices in multilingual classrooms, Teacher and learner perspectives, and Innovative multilingual pedagogies in foreign language classrooms. While it is our hope that this clustering will help readers recognize the common threads in the chapters in each section, we also understand that there is some degree of overlap between the themes. For example, teacher and learner voices are present in chapters that focus on language practices, and chapters focusing on teacher and learner perspectives may also include elements of innovative pedagogies. Below, we provide a rationale for the organization of the volume and explain how the individual chapters contribute to advancing our knowledge about
Introduction 5
theoretical and applied perspectives on FL teaching in multilingual classrooms. Part 1: Towards a Multilingual Paradigm in Foreign Language Education
This section groups chapters that lay a foundation for the volume by giving an overview of the current shift towards multilingual practices in FL learning and teaching. They discuss the paradigm change from monoto multilingual ideologies and approaches in FL learning and teaching, suggest implications for teacher education, or propose a framework for (foreign) language education in multilingual contexts. In Chapter 1, Anna Krulatz, Georgios Neokleous and Anne Dahl argue that as multilingualism is increasingly recognized as a new linguistic dispensation in societies and educational spaces around the world, and as a shift is taking place in language teaching from monolingual to multilingual approaches, it is necessary to acknowledge the important role that teachers play in this process. The authors discuss the monolingual legacy and the current multilingual turn in language education, give an overview of research that has examined teacher knowledge about multilingualism and preparedness to work in multilingual classrooms, and present a proposal for how, through promoting self-reflection in teacher education programs and engaging teachers in action research in multilingual settings, teachers can be empowered to act as agents of change. In Chapter 2, Nayr Ibrahim presents a proposal for how language education can be reconceptualized if linguistically responsive teaching and learning are applied across disciplines, language barriers and educational models. To this end, the author denounces the ideological monolingual basis of education and proposes the Eight-Ds Framework (Divulge and Disseminate, Discover and Develop, Deconstruct and De-dichotomize, Decolonize and Duplicate), which acknowledges multilingualism as the inherent characteristic of educational spaces, including FL classrooms. The chapter underlines the need for holistic approaches to language learning, teacher education, institutional policy, curriculum development, and communication with parents and the community. The Eight-Ds Framework provides a way to counter the existing monolingual bias and to place multilingualism at the center of education. In Chapter 3, Ngoc Tai Huynh, Angela Thomas and Vinh To present an analytical framework for interpreting picturebooks that teachers of multilingual learners can use to promote intercultural awareness. Their main argument is based on the premise that multicultural literature can be used to enhance learners’ intercultural knowledge. The authors illustrate how teachers’ skills in interpreting cultural meanings can be fostered using Byram’s (1997) concept of skills for interpreting and relating. Although the presented framework is designed specifically to interpret
6
Perspectives on Teaching Foreign Languages in Multilingual Settings
cultural meanings in visuals in picturebooks about Vietnamese culture, the chapter provides an excellent example of how teachers’ knowledge of culturally symbolic meanings in multilingual contexts can be enhanced and how teachers can be aided in their ability to help learners interpret texts from foreign cultures and relate them to their own cultures. Part 2: Languaging Practices in Multilingual Classrooms
The chapters in this section are devoted to research that examines the relevance of previously learned languages to subsequent language acquisition as well as the intricate ways in which both learners and teachers draw upon learners’ linguistic repertories to ‘[create] meaning and [shape] knowledge and experience through language’ (Swain, 2006: 98). The authors discuss specific examples of crosslinguistic influence, codeswitching, and translanguaging to illustrate the role of learners’ linguistic repertoires in FL learning. Chapter 4 by Tanja Angelovska places emphasis on English as a third language (L3) in adults in multilingual contexts where German is the medium of instruction. The author cautions about monolingual approaches still prevailing in teacher views and practices in multilingual classrooms, mainly because of a lack of adequate training but also due to a lack of teaching materials. The chapter also deals with negative transfer in the multilingual classroom and provides suggestions as to how to help students with typologically different language combinations to overcome it. The chapter concludes with a call for the inclusion of multilingual training within teacher education and teacher professional development programs. In Chapter 5, Mirjam Günther-van der Meij and Joana Duarte present a project for multilingual secondary education conducted in the province of Fryslân in the Netherlands. The chapter discusses multilingual activities that were developed and implemented in three schools based on a holistic model for multilingualism in education (Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2018). The fi ndings suggest that the teachers in the three schools acknowledged the potential of the implementation of the model in education as it facilitated the learning process and maximized opportunities for translanguaging. The chapter concludes with a call for a professionalization of FL classes through the introduction of multilingual approaches to enhance content and language learning. In Chapter 6, Spyros Armostis and Dina Tsagari report on an ethnographic study conducted in diglossic EFL classrooms in Cyprus, which investigated the functions that Cypriot Greek (CG), Standard Modern Greek (SMG), and English fulfi ll in this educational setting. The results suggest that the three varieties are employed to meet quite distinct classroom functions without much functional overlap. The study concluded that English and SMG were the legitimized classroom varieties used for
Introduction 7
performative functions such as task instructions and performance, while CG, the local variety, was employed in spontaneous, informal interactions. The authors argue that these distinct functions are carried over from the L1 Greek classroom where the distinction between the (sociolinguistic) high and low standard continues to dominate. Chapter 7 by Rasman Rasman and Margana Margana explores the outcomes of a teacher’s attempts to create a multilingual, translanguaging learning space in an Indonesian educational context dominated by monolingual ideologies. Employing the concept of practiced language policy (Bonacina-Pugh, 2011), this contribution demonstrates how, despite an educational environment that is favorable to translanguaging practices, learners may continue to succumb to the monolingual norm. The authors conclude that, seen from the perspective of practiced language policy, the transformative power of a translanguaging space in liberating students’ linguistic practices has limitations. They posit that variables such as the sociopolitical context, personal histories, levels of proficiency, and other individual differences need to be given thorough consideration before a multilingual approach to language education can be successfully implemented. Part 3: Teacher and Learner Perspectives
This part of the book undertakes the central theme of teachers’ and learners’ attitudes towards and beliefs about multilingual pedagogies. We see teachers’ and learners’ voices as crucial in advancing the debate about to what degree and in what ways language policies and fi ndings from research on language learning and teaching can be implemented in multilingual FL settings. The studies presented here examine various multilingual classroom environments, ranging from EFL classrooms in Japan to Portuguese classes for Spanish speakers in the US. Chapter 8, by Georgios Neokleous, examines teacher and learner attitudes towards translanguaging practices in English as an additional language (EAL) classrooms in Cyprus. The fi ndings suggest that one way to tackle the potential challenges is via optimizing instructional strategies that incorporate hybrid linguistic repertoires and assert the multilingual identities of learners. The participant teacher and learners agreed that multilingual approaches are valuable and enhance further language learning. Additionally, they concurred that the use of home languages in the classroom contributed to the feeling of equity. The chapter closes with a call for a renewed approach in teacher education that would empower teachers to implement multilingual pedagogies and for engaging teachers in hands-on research that would enable them to design multilingual pedagogies most suitable for their specific teaching contexts. In Chapter 9, Ylva Falk and Christina Lindqvist explore the attitudes of teachers of French and German in L3 classrooms in Sweden. The
8
Perspectives on Teaching Foreign Languages in Multilingual Settings
fi ndings illustrate the participants’ positive attitude towards multilingualism and the use of multiple languages. However, the participants were generally skeptical about systematically making comparisons between the languages involved in the learning process. The study also revealed some discrepancies between the two groups, with the French L3 teachers encouraging the use of English, at least for lexical comparison, and the German L3 teachers articulating a negative attitude towards the use of English. On the contrary, the German participants were more positive towards the use of Swedish as they perceived it as an asset when making lexical and syntactic comparisons. The chapter concludes with a call for more coverage of multilingual language learning approaches in FL teacher education. In Chapter 10, Will Travers presents the results of a qualitative study with Spanish-English bilinguals at a US university learning either French or Portuguese as a third language (L3). The fi ndings suggest that the university student participants perceived an instructor’s multilingual competence as an important asset in the classroom. Furthermore, they highlighted the benefits of explicit comparisons between the pivot language and the L3 while they also supported the idea of differential learning patterns. The author calls for more systematic research on the development of specialized instructional techniques, textbooks, and in-class activities that would optimize the role that the pivot language could play within the L3 classroom. In Chapter 11, Romana Kopečková and Gregory Poarch delve into the experiences of an English as an L3/Ln secondary school teacher in the first year of her professional career in Germany. The case study sheds light on the aspirations and challenges of a novice teacher who employs pluralistic approaches in her culturally and linguistically diverse L3/Ln classroom. The fi ndings suggest that the teacher did not perceive her main challenge to be the diversity of her classroom, but rather the lack of coverage of pluralistic approaches in her pre-service training along with her assessors’ limited openness to multilingual approaches. The chapter concludes with an invitation for teacher-training scholars in the field of multilingualism to follow up and reach out to culturally and linguistically diverse schools to provide continued in-service support. In Chapter 12, Yeşim Sevinç, Anna Krulatz, Eivind Torgersen and MaryAnn Christison explore five teachers’ attitudes towards multilingualism, their backgrounds, experiences, metalinguistic and cultural awareness, goals and needs in multilingual education, as well as their selfreported classroom practices in multilingual EAL classrooms at a linguistically and culturally diverse primary school in Norway. Most of the participants had a positive stance towards multilingual education, with some of them acknowledging multilingualism as an advantage only when students acquire proficiency in English. Additionally, the authors concurred that some of the challenges that teachers face in linguistically
Introduction 9
diverse settings render it difficult to turn their experiences with multilingual students into a positive process. The chapter stresses the importance of close collaboration between researchers and teacher educators in fi nding ways to cultivate teachers’ mindsets on multilingualism and to alleviate ensuing arbitrary beliefs to make a meaningful change in multilingual education. In Chapter 13, Mieko Yamada investigates how Japanese pre-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers approach their own English learning and use and how they conceive of their future English teaching within a multicultural and multilingual Japan. The fi ndings suggest that Japanese EFL classrooms should strive to acknowledge the linguistic and cultural diversity of the local community and promote intercultural understanding and communication. Yet, as the results of the survey illustrated, most of the participants felt that they knew little about Japan’s diversity and minority issues as they tended to learn more about such issues in contexts external to Japan, rather than in local contexts. These fi ndings suggest that Japanese EFL teachers need more opportunities to learn about diversity and social inequality issues within domestic/local as well as international/global situations in order to help expand their students’ intercultural communication potential. Part 4: Innovative Multilingual Pedagogies in Foreign Language Classrooms
This section consists of chapters that propose new approaches to FL education, aiming not only to promote FL acquisition, but also to strengthen learners’ competence in other languages they know. Taken together, these chapters propose a path forward in implementing new pedagogies for multilingual FL classrooms. In Chapter 14, using three examples from teaching Maltese as an additional language (AL) in a class consisting of 17 immigrant students at a state school in Malta, Antoinette Camilleri Grima illustrates how students’ plurilingual repertoires can be utilized to promote the learning of an AL. This chapter presents examples of plurilingual activities based on the Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures (FREPA), which were implemented in a Maltese as an AL class through a collaborative initiative between a school teacher and a researcher. The chapter concludes with a call for educators to favor a solid pluralistic approach suitable for plurilingual learners. In Chapter 15, Manon Megens and Elisabeth Allgäuer-Hackl present two holistic multilingual teaching approaches implemented in Austrian upper secondary school and university classrooms. The two approaches developed by the authors combine theory and practice and focus on metalinguistic and crosslinguistic awareness raising and strategies. The chapter stresses the important role of multilingually aware teachers who
10
Perspectives on Teaching Foreign Languages in Multilingual Settings
encourage students to become aware of and use their entire linguistic repertoires, their multilingual strategies, and their metalinguistic and crosslinguistic awareness and abilities to ensure successful communication. In this way, the authors maintain, students can be adequately prepared for real life in increasingly multilingual societies. In Chapter 16, MaryAnn Christison and Adrian Palmer present the fi ndings of a four-year research project in a K-12 international school in northeast Thailand. The objective of the study was to understand how immersion education can be implemented in multilingual contexts. The authors investigate whether the model of immersion education can be extended beyond the use of only two languages – a partner and a majority language – to contexts with linguistically and culturally diverse learners who may not be heritage language speakers of either of the languages of instruction. The chapter concludes with a call for educators who are responsible for the design of educational programs for multilingual learners in K-12 contexts to consider the potential of immersion education for multilingual learners. In Chapter 17, Gisela Mayr explores how a plurilingual educational setting can promote inclusion and enhance the learning process in the autonomous region of South Tyrol in Italy. Plurilingual task-based modules were integrated in curricular language classes. The languages involved were the languages of schooling as well as minority and heritage languages. The fi ndings suggest that task-based language teaching fosters inclusive learning through more cooperative forms of peer learning. The author argues that plurilingual spaces should become a common practice in all levels of formal education, with schools making use of students’ everyday multilingual experiences. In Chapter 18, Marina Prilutskaya, Rebecca Knoph and Jessica Allen Hanssen examine how the quality of essays produced using translation and translanguaging compares to those written directly in English. Fifteen English classes from two Norwegian schools were presented with the same task: to write a short fantasy narrative story. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three writing conditions: (a) the translation group was asked to write a text in Norwegian and then translate it into English; (b) the English-only group wrote their texts in English; and (c) the translanguaging group could choose to use any language they wished (or a mix of languages) to write a draft which they then used to produce a text in English. The fi ndings suggest that all three writing conditions resulted in essays that were similar in terms of grammatical and lexical accuracy, but there was an advantage for the translation group over the translanguaging group in terms of communicative ability in the texts. In Chapter 19, Gro-Anita Myklevold investigates the implementation of a multilingual lesson plan based on four operationalizations of multilingualism from the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in a class of German as a foreign language (GFL) and
Introduction 11
EFL learners in Norway. The author examines the learner and teacher attitudes towards four specific operationalizations of the multilingual construct found in the CEFR and explores how the teacher and the students perceive the usefulness and efficacy of these operationalizations. The fi ndings suggest that the learners found the operationalizations to facilitate text comprehension and metacognition but believed it to be more relevant in GFL than in EFL. The demand on the teacher’s multilingual repertoire in the classroom was identified as the main challenge. The author calls for more extensive collaborative research to maximize the multilingual and metacognitive opportunities for both teachers and students in their language teaching and learning. Conclusion
Taken as a whole, this collection provides insight into initiatives from around the world aimed at enacting the multilingual turn in FL classrooms, but also into the issues that face teachers and learners in this process. The main theme that emerges from the contributions relates to the ways in which multilingual practices are limited by the knowledge and attitudes of teachers, learners, and school administrators. The process of translating new research insights into real-life applications in the classroom requires a closing of the gap between research and practice. The present collection aims to contribute to this process through forging a dialogue between school-based and university-based actors and bridging the gap between theory and classroom practice in multilingual education. Our contributors present new approaches to FL instruction in multilingual settings where the perspectives of FL teachers are in focus, delving deeper into skills and knowledge that should be addressed in preparing teachers and providing some tentative recommendations for what to incorporate into a teacher training program in multilingual contexts. We hope that the volume will contribute to the current debate on how FL teachers can draw on learners’ existing linguistic resources to promote multilingualism and to forge a dialog and bridge the divide between university- and school-based actors. References Baker, C. and Wright, W.E. (2017) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (6th edn). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bonacina-Pugh, F. (2011) A conversation analytic approach to practiced language policies: The example of an induction classroom for newly-arrived immigrant children in France. PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh. Bourn, D. (2016) Teachers as agents of social change. International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning 7 (3), 63–77. Byram, M. (1997) Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence (1st edn). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
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Canagarajah, S. (2011) Codemeshing in academic writing: Identifying teachable strategies of translanguaging. The Modern Language Journal 95 (3), 401–417. Canagarajah, S. (2013) Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. London: Routledge. Carless, D. (2008) Student use of the mother tongue in the task-based classroom. ELT Journal 62 (4), 331–338. Cenoz, J. (2000) Research on multilingual acquisition. In J. Cenoz and U. Jessner (eds) English in Europe: The Acquisition of a Third Language (pp. 39–53). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Conteh, J. and Meier, G. (eds) (2014) The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Cook, G. (2010) Translation in Language Teaching: An Argument for Reassessment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Copland, F. and Neokleous, G. (2011) L1 to teach L2: Complexities and contradictions. ELT Journal 65 (3), 270–280. Council of Europe (2018) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Strasburg: Council of Europe. Duarte, J. and Günther-van der Meij, M.T. (2018) A holistic model for multilingualism in education. EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages 5 (2), 24–43. Hall, G. and Cook, G. (2012) Own-language use in language teaching and learning. Language Teaching 45 (3), 271–308. Hornberger, N.J. (2005) Opening and fi lling up implementational and ideological spaces in heritage language education. The Modern Language Journal 89 (4), 605–609. Jørgensen, J.N. (2008) Polylingual languaging around and among children and adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism 5 (3), 161–176. Leung, C. and Valdés, G. (2019) Translanguaging and the transdisciplinary framework for language teaching and learning in a multilingual world. The Modern Language Journal 103 (2), 348–370. Manan, S.A. (2020) Teachers as agents of transformative pedagogy: Critical reflexivity, activism and multilingual spaces through a continua of biliteracy lens. Multilingua 39 (6), 721–747. May, S. (2019) Negotiating the multilingual turn in SLA. The Modern Language Journal 103 (Suppl.), 122–129. Ortega, L. (2009) Understanding Second Language Acquisition. London: Hodder Education. Otheguy, R., García, O. and Reid, W. (2015) Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6 (3), 281–307. Piccardo, E., North, B. and Goodier, T. (2019) Broadening the scope of language education: Mediation, plurilingualism, and collaborative learning: The CEFR companion volume. Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society 15 (1), 17–36. Shin, J.Y., Dixon, L.Q. and Choi, Y. (2020) An updated review on use of L1 in foreign language classrooms. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 41 (5), 406–419. Swain, M. (2006) Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced second language proficiency. In H. Byrnes (ed.) Advanced Language Learning: The Contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky (pp. 95–108). London: Continuum. Watson, C. (2014) Eff ective professional learning communities? The possibilities for teachers as agents of change in schools. British Educational Research Journal 40 (1), 18–29. Yazan, B. and Lindahl, K. (eds) (2020) Language Teacher Identity in TESOL: Teacher Education and Practice as Identity Work. New York: Routledge.
1 Multilingual Approaches to Additional Language Teaching: Bridging Theory and Practice Anna Krulatz, Georgios Neokleous and Anne Dahl
The rise in students’ linguistic and cultural diversity has amplifi ed the voices in both research and professional circles supporting multilingual practices in additional language1 education (Wang, 2019). Multilingual learning environments create opportunities for language learners’ engagement with their existing linguistic repertoires as potential resources. This chapter outlines the multilingual turn in additional language education and, acknowledging teachers’ role in promoting multilingualism, calls for a strengthened link between research and practice. Introduction
Multilingualism has been declared a new linguistic dispensation in the globalized world (Aronin & Singleton, 2012; May, 2014; Singleton et al., 2013). While many parts of the world, for example Asia, have been characterized by multilingualism for centuries, with the increasing numbers of refugees and immigrants, Western societies are now also becoming more multilingual and diverse (May, 2014). The growing body of multilingual learners constitutes one of the current significant challenges with which education authorities are faced (King & Carson, 2016; Szubko-Sitarek, 2015). Although the exact percentage of school children whose own language2 is different from the main language of instruction varies from country to country and region to region, multilingualism has now been recognized as a norm rather than an exception (e.g. Cenoz & Gorter, 2013; Schecter & Cummins, 2003; Ziegler, 2013). While the educational frames and policies (e.g. textbooks, learning outcomes) remain relatively stable, students and teachers are constantly challenged to develop their language repertoires. Yet, the professional
15
16
Part 1: Towards a Multilingual Paradigm in Foreign Language Education
training of language teachers still tends to be offered as monolingual education in one language. Even in contexts where teachers are trained to teach two languages, teachers often continue to identify as a teacher of one language rather than two or more, and they perpetuate teaching practices that support a strict separation of languages in the classroom. Even though there has been an increase in initiatives to introduce a focus on multilingualism into language teacher education programs (e.g. the DaZ module at various universities in Germany; a Master’s degree in multilingualism and education at the University of the Basque Country; an online course on multilingualism for in-service and a Master’s course on multilingualism for pre-service English teachers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology; the addition of modules with an explicit focus on multilingualism to MA TEFL programs at institutions in the UK), language teacher training is predominantly based on the assumption that all students share at least one language, which is often considered their first language. Additionally, while learning mainstream, powerful foreign languages such as English, Spanish or German is encouraged, minority languages used by families at home have little worth and may even be banned on school premises (Busse et al., 2020). The lack of instructional strategies that include all languages spoken by students as a valuable resource and that meet the needs of multilingual students often culminates in lower levels of academic attainment (Canagarajah, 2007; García & Sylvan, 2011). Thus, despite abundant calls for a multilingual turn in language education (Conteh & Meier, 2014; May, 2014, 2019) and a recognition of plurilingualism as a goal for additional language education (Council of Europe, 2007), there remains a disconnect between theory and practice. In this chapter, we argue that for the multilingual turn to be enacted in the classroom it is important to recognize teachers as agents of change and open up for a dialog between school and university actors (cf. Günther-van der Meij & Duarte, this volume). This dialog opportunity would enable teacher and student voices to be heard and for grassroots approaches to promoting multilingualism to be developed. The need for a truly multilingual turn in language education is urgent. Extensive research and numerous publications have been devoted to multilingual practices that draw on refugee and immigrant children’s own languages to foster the development of the majority language and integration into the country of settlement (Minuz et al., 2020; Vukovic, 2019). However, these children often also learn another language (traditionally referred to as foreign language) in addition to the majority language of the school. For instance, Turkish children in Germany are expected to learn English, and Taiwanese children in the United States may be expected to develop competence in Spanish. The Council of Europe explicitly underscores that EU citizens should develop advanced proficiency in at least two new languages and stresses ‘the importance of a good command of foreign
Multilingual Approaches to Additional Language Teaching
17
languages as a key competence essential to making one’s way in the modern world and labour market’ (Council of the European Union, 2014: 1). In the US, surveys among English speakers, who have traditionally been monolingual and not susceptible to learning new languages, highlight the importance of speaking a foreign language (Berman, 2011). Similarly, in traditionally multilingual countries around the globe, foreign language competence, especially in English, is important both at an individual and a societal level. For example, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has adopted English as its sole working language, highlighting its significance in the region, while the ASEAN charter also emphasizes ‘respect for the different cultures, languages and religions of the peoples of ASEAN’ (Kirkpatrick & Liddicoat, 2017: 158). Given this, it is imperative that minority language children are given the same opportunities as majority language children to develop proficiency in an additional language or languages. Despite an increasing body of research on multilingualism and multilingual education, however, additional language national policies and classroom practices often continue to be monolingual and characterized by strict separation of languages (Cheshire, 2002). This separation is further evidenced by studies that have revealed the low value additional language instructors attribute to the students’ own languages in the learning process (Busse, 2017; Liddicoat & Curnow, 2014). As Gorter and Cenoz (2011: 444) asserted, ‘[e]ven when multilingualism is promoted, there can be an underlying monolingual view of multilingualism that focuses on only one language at a time, and in most cases, there is an implicit preference for a national language.’ Such learning environments do not enable language learners to engage with and draw on their existing linguistic repertoires as potential resources for additional language learning. Learners’ previous knowledge is essentially disregarded and bi- or multilingual identities are inhibited (Hall & Cook, 2012). While most language teachers are disinclined to adopt multilingual pedagogies, recent studies have underlined the pivotal role that students’ home languages can play in the linguistic development process (García & Li, 2014; García et al., 2017). The disconnect between research, policy and practice is concerning because classrooms constitute crucial localities of any change in education. Research highlights the value and importance of multilingualism, and calls have been made to abandon monolingual approaches to language education (Conteh & Meier, 2014; May, 2014, 2019), to draw on learners’ full linguistic repertoires as a resource for new language learning (Cenoz & Gorter, 2020), and to replace the monolingual ideal by that of a competent multilingual speaker (Franceschini, 2011; Kramsch, 2012). Importantly, teachers are the most central agents of change, and it is therefore necessary to devote more focus to their experiences, beliefs, practices, and training.
18
Part 1: Towards a Multilingual Paradigm in Foreign Language Education
Multilingualism and Language Education The monolingual legacy
Additional language education has been traditionally characterized by the monolingual principle, which encompasses a strict separation of languages and the exclusive use of the target language for instruction, and which contradicts current evidence from research on language learning and multilingualism (Cook, 2007; Cummins, 2007; Flores & Aneja, 2017; Herdina & Jessner, 2002). Driven by a belief grounded in Krashen’s Input Hypothesis that maximum exposure to the target language is a necessary condition for second language acquisition, approaches such as communicative language teaching and various forms of content-based instruction have perpetuated the exclusion of learners’ own languages from the classroom, at least in principle (Hall & Cook, 2012). Drawing on linguistic resources other than the target language has been advised against even by national curricula in certain countries that have implemented strict guidelines in favor of an all-target language classroom setting to maximize target language acquisition and avoid interference (Gao, 2012; Sampson, 2012). While maximum exposure is undoubtedly a necessary condition in language learning, exclusion of other languages known by the learners deprives them of access to an additional valuable learning resource. A closer look at the existing evidence reveals a picture of language teaching that is complicated and complex. Local practices and policies regarding the amount of students’ own language use vary depending on factors such as whether or not teachers and learners share a language, whether teachers are themselves monolinguals or multilinguals, and whether teachers and learners have similar proficiency levels in the target language, to name just a few. Busse et al. (2020: 384) argue that ignoring students’ linguistic resources in the classroom can prove ‘detrimental’ not only to learners with multilingual/multicultural backgrounds but also to their classmates who cannot turn to their advantage the linguistic resources of their peers. Although for decades teachers have been trained to create monolingual additional language classrooms, their actual practices often contradict this ideal (Macaro, 2006). For example, in some contexts where the policy mandates a monolingual approach, teachers nonetheless rely heavily on translation or code-switching, which they deem necessary practices and which may lead them to experience a sense of guilt (Copland & Neokleous, 2011; Hall & Cook, 2012). In fact, research studies have revealed that the discrepancy between the teachers’ stated behavior and actual classroom practice can be a source of the feelings of guilt, which are generated by the impossibility of complying with the monolingual approach that has been prescribed as the ideal foreign language classroom practice (Copland & Neokleous, 2011; Trent, 2013).
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With recent studies exploring the teacher and the student perspective underlining the benefits associated with the integration of the students’ home languages, current classroom practices are characterized by a quest to specify the judicious or optimal amount of students’ own language use in new language instruction. Suggestions have been made regarding different functions that learners’ own languages can fulfill to support acquisition of the new language (Butzkamm & Caldwell, 2009; Crawford, 2004; Macaro, 2006). However, as fi ndings from research are inconclusive, teachers continue to be left to their own devices when determining what amount and function of own language use should be considered ‘optimal.’ The multilingual turn in language education
Recently, the hegemony of monolingual ideals has been challenged with the realization that multilingualism is in fact the norm, whether in a traditionally acknowledged multilingual country such as Indonesia (cf. Rasman & Margana, this volume), in the case of minority languages or large dialectal variation such as in Italy (cf. Mayr, this volume), or with recent demographic changes due to migration, such as in Germany (cf. Kopečková & Poarch, this volume). As linguistic and cultural diversity in communities and classrooms around the globe is becoming increasingly acknowledged, language separation ideals have been heavily criticized and multilingualism has increasingly been recognized as the norm (Aronin & Singleton, 2012; García & Lin, 2016; Singleton et al., 2013). The multilingual perspective identifies language learners as emergent multilingual speakers who make recourse to their entire linguistic repertoires, which can play a catalyst role in the additional language learning process (Cummins, 2017). Language awareness and metalinguistic awareness are two of the advantages that have been associated with the attributes of multilingual learners (Cenoz, 2019; Haukås et al., 2018). In an attempt to close the gap between research on language learning, multilingualism, and language teaching practices, there have been numerous calls for a major paradigm shift in language education that would legitimize the use of learners’ own languages in additional language instruction. This multilingual turn (Conteh & Meier, 2014; May, 2014, 2019) is characterized by replacing the notion of an ideal, monolingual native speaker with that of a competent, multilingual user, and by softening the boundaries between languages instead of strict language separation (Blommaert, 2010; Cenoz & Gorter, 2013). Learners’ cultural and linguistic resources are legitimized as valuable bridges to new learning, and instructional practices such as translation and translanguaging are encouraged (Butzkamm & Caldwell, 2009; Cenoz & Gorter, 2020). Recent intervention studies that investigated translingual scaffolding
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strategies (e.g. Arteagoitia & Howard, 2015; Lyster et al., 2013) revealed a positive impact on the participants’ acquisition process where multilingual teaching approaches facilitated students’ development of metalinguistic awareness. Newer additional language teaching approaches promote multilingual proficiency, embrace the equality and visibility of all languages, and foster positive attitudes towards multilingualism. Importantly, there has been a strong push from research and higher education institutions to soften the boundaries between languages in schools and to instead promote pedagogies that encourage learners to draw on all linguistic resources available to them (Cenoz & Gorter, 2020; García & Lin, 2016). This paradigm shift echoes the fi ndings reported in neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics about the strong interlinkage between the languages employed by multilingual speakers (Singleton, 2003). Fostering multilingualism in foreign language classrooms
In recent years, the push for a multilingual education has seen the emergence of teaching practices that emphasize the interaction between languages and are, therefore, responsive to the needs of today’s classrooms. It has been argued that students’ own languages should no longer be excluded from the teaching process. Recent research has explored the teacher and student perspective and revealed a positive stance towards the integration of learners’ full linguistic repertoires (Cenoz & Gorter, 2015; Neokleous, 2017). For instance, translanguaging is a teaching approach that incorporates students’ entire linguistic resources and that acknowledges that languages cannot be separated as they constitute a part of a person’s fluid and dynamic repertoire (García & Kleyn, 2016). Students draw on their holistic language resources ‘from which they select features strategically to communicate effectively’ (García, 2012: 1). In a similar vein, Cenoz and Gorter’s (2011) Focus on Multilingualism perceives all languages as a whole and investigates their similarities. It establishes connections between the languages that students learn at school through the implementation of translanguaging as a pedagogy and attempts to underline the connections between them by conducting different activities to improve students’ metalinguistic awareness. Although translanguaging pedagogies are not uniformly recognized as applicable to all language learning contexts (Lyster, 2019), and although local language policies can constrain translingual practices initiated by teachers and students (cf. Rasman & Margana, this volume), the value of multilingualism and minority language maintenance and development remains a solid facet of multilingual orientation in language education. Culture also plays a pivotal role in multilingual education. Fostering a culturally inclusive learning environment prompts students to create genuine and effective relationships across differences. For instance, Culturally
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Responsive Teaching is a pedagogy that incorporates elements from the cultures (e.g. stories, food, celebrations) represented in each classroom, thus ensuring that the learning experience is relevant to all students (Gay, 2018). Along with making learning contextual, research has also concluded that Culturally Responsive Teaching can have a positive impact on achievement among minority populations (Gay, 2018). However, the spread of such teaching approaches requires that teachers are appropriately trained, prepared, and supported to implement them.
Teacher Preparedness to Work with Multilingual Learners Teacher knowledge about multilingualism
At the same time as researchers and academics have embraced the multilingual turn in language education, research has repeatedly found that teachers working in multilingual settings continue to perpetuate monolingual ideologies and do not feel sufficiently prepared to implement pedagogies that are appropriate for linguistically and culturally diverse learners (De Angelis, 2011; Faez, 2012; Flores & Aneja, 2017). De Angelis (2011) concluded that teachers in Italy, Austria and the UK have little awareness of the role of learners’ own languages in the acquisition of additional languages. In fact, many teachers in this study displayed the view that bilingualism can cause confusion and delays in development of a new language system. Faez’s (2012) study conducted with teachers of English language learners in Canada revealed that although the participating teachers displayed empathy towards their students, they did not necessarily aspire to implement inclusive pedagogies and foster multilingualism. Another study conducted in Canada found that pre-service teachers were dissatisfied with the extent to which they were prepared to work with multilingual learners of English, including insufficient training in linguistics and language acquisition, lack of knowledge of teaching strategies, and inadequate or too short practicum placements (Webster & Valeo, 2011). In a study by Krulatz and Dahl (2016), Norwegian teachers of English reported a need for additional training in areas such as basic knowledge about multilingualism and language acquisition, approaches to language teaching in multilingual contexts, and knowledge about learners’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Alisaari et al. (2019) discovered that in Finland, children’s own languages continue to be banned at some schools and teachers recommend that Finnish be used by multilingual children and their families at home. Similarly, RodríguezIzquierdo et al. (2020) found that teachers in Spain tended to display assimilationist ideologies and deficit views of multilingualism. All studies summarized here concluded with a call for changes in teacher education programs, including an expanded explicit focus on multilingualism and helping teachers ‘to critically negotiate, challenge, and deconstruct’ their
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views of multilingualism and multilingual learners (Rodríguez-Izquierdo et al., 2020: 9). To amend the gap between research and teacher training, proposals have been put forward regarding the skills and knowledge that teachers need to possess to work with multilingual learners. For instance, García and Kleyn (2016) argued that teacher education programs should provide training in language acquisition processes, multilingual approaches to education, and working with multilingual learners and their families. Siwatu (2007) claimed that teachers need to possess knowledge about linguistic and cultural diversity, while Lucas and Villegas (2011, 2013) proposed that teachers have to be prepared to scaffold learning and be familiar with multilingual learners’ linguistic backgrounds. Haukås (2016) concluded that language teachers need to be able to serve as model multilinguals, possess advanced cross-linguistic and metalinguistic awareness, and be familiar with current research on multilingualism. They should also know how to promote multilingualism in the classroom, be sensitive to students’ cognitive and affective diff erences, and be willing to collaborate with others in an eff ort to promote multilingualism. However, given the recent fi ndings from research on teacher beliefs about multilingualism and preparedness to work with linguistically diverse learners, it seems that, to date, teacher training programs have failed to address the call to better prepare teachers for the multilingual reality of their classrooms (Alisaari et al., 2019; De Angelis, 2011; Faez, 2012; Krulatz & Dahl, 2016; Otwinowska, 2014; Rodríguez-Izquierdo et al., 2020). Although some teacher training and professional development programs have boasted positive outcomes (e.g. Fischer & Lahmann, 2020; Gorter & Arocena, 2020), and although increasing numbers of teacher education programs include some coursework with a focus on multilingualism (e.g. Angelovska et al., 2020; Uro & Barrio, 2013), we are far from fulfi lling the goal to provide all teachers with ‘appropriate preparation and targeted instruction to supporting students of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds’ (Faez, 2012: 78). While from the research and theory perspective, the multilingual turn in language education is underway, from the teacher perspective, there exist factors that limit or prevent the implementation of multilingual practices in the classroom. To say that change takes time is of course a truism, so one possibility is that the outcomes of the recent improvements in teacher training are not yet visible. Yet another possibility to consider is whether the instruction on multilingualism and the role of own language in additional language learning has been delivered in a way that is conducive to teacher uptake. Perhaps we need to make a leap from the what and the how in teacher education and focus on mobilizing the resources, knowledge and beliefs teachers already possess to enable the multilingual turn. We debate this issue further in the next section.
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Teachers as agents of change
If the transition that will enable teachers to fully embrace multilingual approaches to education is to occur in language classrooms, it is essential to recognize teachers as central agents of change. Teacher actions exert influence on language practices both in and outside of school (Lasagabaster & Huguet, 2007). For example, teachers are often consulted by immigrant parents on whether they should or should not raise their children bilingually. As De Angelis (2011: 217) argues, ‘Teachers may choose to encourage or discourage the use and/or maintenance of the home language on the basis of personal beliefs, individual interests or personal experience, and the advice they offer will inevitably influence parents’ decisions.’ Inside the classroom, it is often teachers who decide to what degree they want to implement existing language policies and, as a result, their actions can either support or suppress the multilingual practices of their students (Hornberger & Cassels Johnson, 2007). All aspects of teachers’ work, including their pedagogical practices and language use and ideologies about the languages present in the classroom (Barcelos, 2003; Fitch, 2003), are shaped by teacher cognition, defi ned as ‘what teachers know, believe, and think’ (Borg, 2003: 81). Teacher cognitions are affected by a range of internal and external factors including former schooling and professional training, teaching experience and own experiences as language learners (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Borg, 2006; Lortie, 1975; Phillips & Borg, 2009). Likewise, teacher identity is characterized by complexities which may lead to ‘the tension between the kind of … [educator] they aspire to become and the kind they believe others expect them to become’ (Yazan, 2018: 145). Teacher cognition and identity are not easily altered (Parajes, 1992), but both teacher education programs and teacher professional learning have a potential to stimulate change (Cenoz & Santos, 2020; Gorter & Arocena, 2020; Peacock, 2001). For instance, participation in in-service professional development can help teachers embrace positive views of multilingualism in general and multilingual practices such as translanguaging as it may legitimize teacher actions that ‘they already practice but [are] afraid to admit to others’ (Gorter & Arocena, 2020: 9). Working with pre- and in-service teachers to help them examine and potentially alter their cognitions and identities to forge multilingual teacher ideologies is a crucial element of the multilingual turn in language education. A new, emergent sub-field of teacher education that utilizes teacher identity work and reflection to approach the development of teacher cognition is one promising development in this area (Liou, 2001; Yazan & Lindahl, 2020). Such a paradigm shift would allow teacher education to move forward, from knowledge and skills-based programs to facilitating teachers’ professional journeys through a curriculum that
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promotes self-reflection. As a result, teachers may not only become more aware of their own beliefs and the factors that shape them, but also become more receptive to innovation and willing to embrace and perpetuate change. The Way Ahead: Educational Research, Teacher Education and Professional Learning
To bridge the gap between theory and practice and pave the way for an effective implementation of the paradigm shift, the goal of educational research should not only be to examine what language teachers do and why they do it. An important objective should be to actively involve teachers as well as students in classroom research so that they are not only the objects of study but also have a say in the aspects of their practice that undergo investigation. Likewise, teacher training programs and professional learning should place more explicit emphasis on the development of teacher identity, focusing on working with multilingual learners as one of its central elements. The concept of teacher identity allows us to examine and understand ‘the complex ways in which teachers learn to be and become teachers, grow as teachers, and exercise their practices situated in sociohistorical, cultural, and political contexts’ (Yazan & Lindahl, 2020: 1). Teacher identity development is an ongoing and multifaceted process in which personal and professional factors interplay. In linguistically and culturally diverse educational contexts, it entails a negotiation of viewpoints on multilingualism (e.g. benefits versus challenges), a position on the role of learners’ own languages in additional language learning, an awareness of the current sociocultural context, and an understanding of what it means to be a teacher of multilingual learners. Identity work should be built into language teacher education programs as an integral and explicit pedagogical tool. For instance, research suggests that language teachers who identify as multilinguals are more likely to value their students’ linguistic resources than monolingual teachers (Alisaari et al., 2019). Teacher education programs could therefore take it as a point of departure to foster teachers’ self-recognition as (emergent) multilingual speakers. An overreaching goal should be to implement identity work as pedagogy in teacher education in order to help (pre- and in-service) teachers ‘critically negotiate, challenge and deconstruct’ monolingual views and approaches to language education (Rodríguez-Izquierdo et al., 2020: 9). Likewise, it is important to engage language teachers working in multilingual contexts in action research, thus empowering them to enact the multilingual turn as they ‘make instructional decisions, execute these decisions, interact with students and colleagues, and reflect on teaching practice’ (Yazan & Lindahl, 2020: 2). To date, the focus on multilingual education has largely been theoretical as the majority of research studies
Multilingual Approaches to Additional Language Teaching 25
have placed emphasis on what teachers should know and should be able to do in the diverse classroom (de Jong, 2013; Lucas & Villegas, 2013). Researchers and scholars try to familiarize teachers with pedagogies that teachers should be equipped with as these pedagogies are believed to promote language acquisition. However, some studies that address multilingual classroom practices present and discuss conceptual perceptions about language acquisition in diverse settings without considering the intrinsic link between theory and classroom practice. Studies that have ventured to materialize this link have culminated in significant changes to teaching content, syllabi and materials (Gort et al., 2011; Lucas, 2011) in an attempt to address the issues that have emerged. If effective multilingual approaches are to be implemented in the classroom, this should be the result of a collaboration between researchers and school and university partners, and both teacher and learner voices need to be heard. This mission is carried out by the remaining chapters in this edited volume. Notes (1) We choose to use the term additional language to denote all those contexts where learners who may already be fluent in other languages or dialects are learning a new language. (2) In this chapter, we use Hall and Cook’s (2012) term own language to denote what has traditionally been labeled as mother tongue/fi rst language/home language.
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Sampson, A. (2012) Learner code-switching versus English only. ELT Journal 66 (3), 293–303. Schecter, S. and Cummins, J. (2003) Multilingual Education in Practice: Using Diversity as a Resource. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Singleton, D. (2003) Perspectives on the multilingual lexicon: A critical synthesis. In J. Cenoz, U. Jessner and B. Hufeisen (eds) The Multilingual Lexicon (pp. 167–176). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Singleton, D., Fishman, J., Aronin, L. and Ó Laoire, M. (eds) (2013) Current Multilingualism: A New Linguistic Dispensation. Berlin: de Gruyter. Siwatu, K.O. (2007) Preservice teachers’ culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy and outcome expectancy beliefs. Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (7), 1086–1101. Szubko-Sitarek, W. (2015) Multilingual Lexical Recognition in the Mental Lexicon of Third Language Users. Berlin: Springer. Trent, J. (2013) Using the L1 in L2 teaching and learning: What role does teacher identity play? Asian EFL Journal 15 (3), 217–247. Uro, G. and Barrio, A. (2013) English Language Learners in America’s Great City Schools: Demographics, Achievement, and Staffing. Washington, DC: Council of Great City Schools. Vukovic, R. (2019) Valuing multilingual students’ skills. Teacher Magazine, 4 June. See https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/articles/valuing-multilingual-students-skills Wang, D. (2019) Multilingualism and Translanguaging in Chinese Language Classrooms. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Webster, N.L. and Valeo, A. (2011) Teacher preparedness for a changing demographic of language learners. TESL Canada Journal 28 (2), 105–128. Yazan, B. (2018) TESL teacher educators’ professional self-development, identity, and agency. TESL Canada Journal 35 (2), 140–155. Yazan, B. and Lindahl, K. (eds) (2020) Language Teacher Identity in TESOL: Teacher Education and Practice as Identity Work. New York: Routledge. Ziegler, G. (2013) Multilingualism and the language education landscape: Challenges for teacher training in Europe. Multilingual Education 3 (1). doi:10.1186/2191-5059-3-1
2 Mainstreaming Multilingualism in Education: An Eight-Ds Framework Nayr Ibrahim
This chapter argues for a reconceptualization of language education where linguistically responsive teaching and learning cut across disciplines, language barriers, and educational models. Societies in the 21st century have experienced an unprecedented influx of people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds as a result of globalization. In view of these developments, policymakers, educational professionals, and university researchers are obliged to re-examine the monolingual view of education and create language- and identity-safe equitable learning spaces. This chapter offers a concrete framework for demonolingualizing education in order to mainstream multilingualism in education and thus acknowledge and value learners’ multilingual voices. Introduction
At the beginning of the 21st century, while focusing on the ‘actual’ state of multilingual education and espousing the ‘imagined’ multilingual school, García et al. (2006: 4) posed the following question: ‘How do we imagine schools that would build on and support the multiplicity of languages and literacies in our globalized world, and where people can “use their native language”?’ It seems that we have made some progress in the matter as we enter the third decade of the 21st century. Accompanied by increasingly superdiverse societies (Vertovec, 2007), a better understanding of the phenomenon of multilingualism (Cenoz & Gorter, 2015), a plethora of multi- and interdisciplinary research (Martin-Jones & Martin, 2017), and supported by policy statements (Regester & Norton, 2018) and national and supranational legislation (European Commission, 2019; UNCRC, 1989), multilingual education seems to be on the rise and in demand. Despite the considerable distance covered since the question 30
Mainstreaming Multilingualism in Education 31
above was posed, the dominance of the monolingual mindset in educational settings continues to distort research fi ndings and erase multilingualism from the classroom. This chapter argues for a reconceptualization of language education where linguistically responsive teaching and learning cut across disciplines, language barriers and educational models. Linguistically responsive teaching considers children’s linguistic and cultural funds of knowledge. It supports their multilingualism and foregrounds the interconnectedness of language, culture, and identity (Lucas & Villegas, 2013). Consequently, this chapter calls for mainstreaming multilingualism in education and encourages viewing the foreign language (FL) classroom through the multilingual lens. First, I briefly discuss how the different models of language education, from multilingual to foreign language learning, have been monolingualized by a deep-rooted ideological discourse. This monolingual view shapes educational practices, prevents the construction of the multilingual self, and undermines the building of linguistically diverse and equitable learning spaces. In order for schools to reflect the inherently complex and flexible discourse practices of multilingual children, we need to demonolingualize education. Second, I propose the Eight-Ds framework as a structured approach to prompt viewing education, and associated stakeholders, through the multilingual lens. The framework consists of four couplets: Divulge and Disseminate, Discuss and Develop, Deconstruct and De-dichotomize and Decolonize and Duplicate. The Eight-Ds spotlight the need for raising awareness of, educating about and integrating multilingualism in teaching and learning. Furthermore, this framework normalizes multilingual discourse practices, establishes a dialogue between school-based and university-based actors and acknowledges the multilingual experiences of under-represented groups. Ultimately, I argue for a broader understanding of multilingual education, under the more overarching umbrella of multilingualism in education, where languages, translanguaging and plurilingual practices are an integral part of teaching and learning across the curriculum.
Literature Review Questioning the ideological monolingual basis of education
The nation-building spree of the 19th and 20th centuries created not only homogeneous politico-cultural spaces, but also languages as nouns or objects, invented in these historical processes that ‘called the languages into being’ (Makoni & Pennycook, 2007: 10). The languages became synonymous with these cultural and political constructs and demarcated the place of belonging and non-belonging. This enduring view of languages as discrete bounded systems, static or ‘separable entities’ (Edwards, 2009: 17) still shapes the monolingual bias in education today. Researchers and
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scholars of applied linguistics (Block, 2014), second language acquisition (SLA) (Ortega, 2014), multilingualism (García et al., 2017), and language education (García, 2009) have highlighted four interlacing dimensions of the monolingual mindset that still beset education: (1) monolingual discourse; (2) dichotomization of terminology; (3) native-speakerism; and (4) separate language ideology. Monolingualism engenders a discourse in society that has the power to divide, polarize, and ultimately subordinate, as we can see from the news headlines below. On the one hand, educational spaces can still be overtly negative towards children who do not speak the desired language. For instance, in officially multilingual Luxemburg, the exposé ‘Children punished for speaking Portuguese in kindergarten & “maison relais”’ (Contacto Reporter, 2014) caused a national outcry. Conversely, even when it is positively construed and reports on the successes of linguistically and culturally diverse students, the discourse takes on a monolingual hue, sometimes with subtle raciolinguistic (Rosa & Flores, 2017) undertones. Inevitably, this discourse depicts the child or situation from a deficit viewpoint. This is illustrated by two newspaper articles in the UK and the US, reporting on EAL (English as an additional language) and ELLs’ (English language learners’) performance in nationwide tests, respectively. In the British newspaper, The Telegraph (15 December 2016), the heading, ‘Children who speak English as a second language more likely to improve in primary school, figures show,’ should be hailed as a positive step forward; yet these children are labelled ‘non-native speakers’ and pitted against their ‘white […] speaking English as a fi rst language’ counterparts (Turner, 2016). Further on, the comment, ‘Some very bright children come to this country or are born to immigrants,’ assumes, rather patronizingly, that children with languages other than English are normally not bright. The newspaper headline from the US, in Spectrum News NY1 (Jørgensen, 2019), ‘Statewide English Test fi nds ELLs performed better than Native English Speakers,’ also seems to be the bearer of good news. However, the opening phrase, ‘It’s a surprising fi nding: City public school students who perform best on the statewide English test are children whose home language is not English’ begs the question: why is it still a surprising fact that children can excel at learning multiple languages? Furthermore, the binary discourse of native versus non-native is evident, and children seem to be tagged with the ELL label forever as they become ‘Ever-ELLs’ after moving to the mainstream classroom. This ubiquitous monolingual discourse is accompanied by a divisive dichotomization of terminology that perpetuates the monolingual bias: native and non-native speaker; mother tongue and ELLs or FL speakers; language interference and ‘perfect’ bilingualism; majority and minority language. The monolingual, dichotomized discourse ignores the other languages in which children display high proficiency, as they are considered
Mainstreaming Multilingualism in Education 33
inconsequential, and places children in a position of inferiority, exclusion and remediation. Furthermore, it encourages inequitable practices, for example, advertisements for teaching positions requiring native speaker teachers (Medgyes, 2018). Ortega (2011) underlines the discrepancy between this discourse and the reality of living in superdiverse societies: alternative, in-between understandings are impossible when things and phenomena must belong to either–or categories […] The explanatory value of dichotomous categories and dichotomous thinking has greatly eroded in our contemporary world. Our societies and citizens routinely face non-dichotomous, ambivalent experiences. (Ortega, 2011: 170)
The pervasiveness of the dichotomized discourse underpins the ideology of native-speakerism (Holliday, 2003). The FL classroom has been especially prone to this ideology, which ‘uses biases and stereotypes to classify people (typically language teachers) as superior or inferior based on their perceived belonging or lack of belonging to the “native speaker” group’ (Lowe & Kiczkowiak, 2016: 3). Ortega (2014) highlights a number of implicitly held beliefs that underlie the native speaker fallacy, whereby native speakers possess some kind of superior, pure linguistic competence based on the fact that they develop one language from birth. This ideology of language birthrights and ownership gives the monolingual speaker inalienable linguistic rights. It places multilingual speakers, with varying abilities in the target language, in the subordinated position of eternal imperfection, struggling for the unachievable goal of sounding like native speakers. This deficit viewpoint positions individuals in an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ struggle and creates the minoritized, subjected or non-dominant speaker with inequitable access to linguistic resources. These perspectives occasion the inevitable silencing of diverse voices and identities. These attitudes support the separate language ideology, which objectifies languages into separate entities occupying distinct spaces in the brain. To avoid exerting an undesirable cognitive load, language learning in splendid isolation, and in a chronological order, becomes the preferred approach in both bilingual and FL teaching. For example, the aim of many dual language programs continues to be the reproduction of proficient speakers of two standardized national languages, thus ignoring the reality of children’s fluid communicative processes. Ironically, if additive bi/multilingual education fails to recognize and absorb multilingual subjectivities and practices, it becomes a tool for further marginalization of language-minoritized students (Flores, 2017). On the extreme end of the language learning continuum are the disciplines of SLA and applied linguistics, and the FL classroom, where a separate language approach prevails. Despite the increased interest in and engagement with multilingualism, ‘“mainstream” applied linguistics remains to this day largely untouched, uninterested and unperturbed by such developments’ (May, 2014: 2). It may have conceded to using an
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undefined first or own language (Hall & Cook, 2012), but it continues to ignore and bar the influx of other languages into its learning spaces. Yet, these learning spaces are linguistically diverse, as children rarely leave their multilingualism outside the FL classroom door. Ultimately, fostering and maintaining multilingualism still signifies developing the ‘practices of dominant as opposed to subordinate groups, and identities are reconstructed, amalgamated, or assimilated over time and space’ (Ibrahim, 2016: 9). Demonolingualizing Education: The Eight-Ds Framework
Voices from a number of research fields are denouncing the ideology of monolingualism as the implicit norm, as individuals rarely fall neatly into reified categories. For example, García et al. (2017: 7) question the conceptualization of language users as ‘normal’ (native speakers) versus ‘abnormal’ (non-native speakers). This divide fails to capture their multiple experiences of languaging, where using languages creates meaning, forges identities and molds realities (García & Li, 2014). Cenoz (2013: 11) posits the holistic (languages as dynamic, hybrid and multidirectional communicative resources) versus the atomistic view (languages as discrete, fi xed and independent entities) of multilingualism, where ‘multilingual speakers use different languages, either in isolation or mixed, according to their communicative needs and their interlocutors.’ May (2014) calls for the multilingual turn, and Flores (2017) suggests the dynamic turn. However, before our education systems take these turns, we need to demonolingualize education and tackle the four areas of the monolingual paradigm that keep education in a straitjacket. In order to move beyond the isolationist model of instruction and deconstruct the ideologically monolingual bias, more concrete and proactive measures are required. The framework for demonolingualizing education introduced in this chapter acknowledges the inherently multilingual characteristics of educational spaces, such as the FL classroom, and builds bridges between current linguistically isolated approaches. Based on the latest research into multilingualism, it aims to peel away layers of monolingualizing historical processes and places multilingualism at the heart of education, by calling to action on four different fronts (Figure 2.1). The framework comprises eight principles starting with a ‘D’, Divulge and Disseminate, Discover and Develop, Deconstruct and De-dichotomize, Decolonize and Duplicate, grouped into four couplets. Together, as a pair, each couplet encapsulates a specific focus of the demonolingualizing process. Divulge and Disseminate multilingualism
The first component of the framework, Divulge and Disseminate, celebrates children’s languages by making them visible, by allowing them to be heard and seen, via child-centered creative and multimodal approaches.
Mainstreaming Multilingualism in Education 35
Decolonize and Duplicate
Eight Ds framework for demonoling ualizing education
Deconstruct and DeDichotomize
Figure 2.1 Demonolingualizing education: The Eight-Ds framework
These concrete outcomes can then be disseminated by publishing them on the physical or virtual walls of the school. Recently, researchers have engaged with the visual turn in multilingualism research (Kalaja & Melo-Pfeifer, 2019; Kalaja & Pitkänin-Huhta, 2018) as a means to engage with multilingual identities (Chik & MeloPfeifer, 2020; Ibrahim, 2019a). There is also a growing interest in the artefactual perspective, which includes a deliberate focus on the materialities of language. Aronin and Ó Laoire (2012: 225) described the material culture of multilingualism, where ‘a deliberate focus on the study of materialities (artefacts, objects and spaces) can contribute significantly to the investigation of multilingualism,’ while Pahl and Rowsell’s (2010) artefactual literacies allow for the creation of complex identity texts (Cummins & Early, 2011). Hence, viewing multilingualism through the visual lens gives children creative, visual, and concrete modes to make their plural and sometimes decentering multilingual identities visible. It also holds educational spaces accountable for protecting and nurturing these exposed identities. This approach can also be applied to teacher education, hence initiating the path to multilingual schools in university teacher education programs. Teachers and teacher educators are key players in this process as
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‘the construction of a methodological and conceptual foundation, with multilingualism at its center, is necessary in order to identify the field to which a language teacher will need to assimilate to as a professional’ (Ziegler, 2013: 2–3). It is therefore important that educators first embrace their own linguistic repertoires, understand the roles different language(s) play in their lives, and bring their multilingualism to the fore. Examples of Divulge and Disseminate approaches below, in Figures 2.2 and 2.3, are taken from in-service teacher education in Norway. Figure 2.2 presents preliminary data from an ongoing study of an educator’s linguistic repertoire (on the bottom right, which is mirrored by a student teacher’s language repertoire on the top left). This activity was followed by a discussion on the benefits of embracing a full linguistic repertoire (which may include languages with minimal proficiency and use) in self-identifying as multilingual. Teachers then identified their dominant language constellation (DLC), ‘a person’s most expedient languages, functioning as an entire unit and enabling an individual to meet all their needs in a multilingual environment’ (Aronin, 2019: 240). Figure 2.3 shows how language maps (Somerville & D’warte, 2014) provide a creative space to develop awareness of an individual’s biographical trajectory. In this case, the teacher discloses her language journey to her students in this format and encourages students to divulge and disseminate their own multilingual biographies.
Figure 2.2 Teacher educator’s (bottom right) and student’s (top left) linguistic repertoires and DLCs
Mainstreaming Multilingualism in Education 37
Figure 2.3 Teacher (left) and student (right) language maps
Discover and Develop the multilingual phenomenon
The next component of the framework, Discover and Develop, includes two foci: (1) recognizing and understanding multilingualism as a complex phenomenon; and (2) actively using this knowledge to integrate pluralistic approaches. Multilingualism is messy: it is a complex, dynamic, porous and multidimensional phenomenon that does not fit into the clear-cut language categories that characterized much of 20th century views on language. Multilingualism comprises a multitude of interconnected elements of a physiological, affective, cognitive, linguistic, sociolinguistic and political nature. These interrelated phenomena become salient in context-dependent communicative settings and highlight the interdisciplinary nature of the area (Figure 2.4). They depend on individuals’ dynamic language biographies and trajectories. These experiences create ‘truncated multilingualism’ (Blommaert et al., 2005: 199), describing differing competencies across closed language systems. Language choices depend not only on the level of proficiency, but on the particular language identity that individuals choose to foreground momentarily in diverse situations (Ibrahim, 2021; Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004). These complexities are poorly understood by teachers, parents, and even multilingual individuals themselves. These misunderstandings are further compounded by an apparent acceptance of multilingualism as the norm in society today, which has foregrounded the multi in multilingualism, with a focus on the quantitative, at the expense of a deeper
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Figure 2.4 The interdisciplinary nature of multilingualism
understanding of the qualitative and translingual aspects of the phenomenon (García & Li, 2014). This discrepancy between the perceived and the actual experience of multilingualism has created a false sense of multilingual well-being and glosses over the monolingual foundations of education, which result in inadequate language experiences for children in schools today. However, recent studies have indicated that teachers have positive attitudes to multilingualism in the FL classroom. For example, Portolés and Martí (2020), in Spain, quote a number of studies on teachers’ attitudes towards multilingual pedagogies, most of which yielded some positive results in changing perspectives, and Haukås (2016), in Norway, lists several studies that conclude that teacher awareness is necessary for multilingualism to be an asset, yet misconceptions about multilingualism based on monolingual ideologies persist. Understanding multilingualism as a complex and dynamic phenomenon involves actively engaging in multilingual awareness-raising activities across the curriculum, as seen in the previous section. However, we need to move beyond awareness raising to actively using the multilingual resources in the classroom for teaching and learning. Teachers’ understanding of multilingualism grows when they are trained in and use alternative plurilingual practices, such as pedagogical translanguaging, defined as ‘the intentional instructional strategies that integrate two or more languages and aim at the development of the multilingual repertoire as well as metalinguistic and language awareness’ (Cenoz & Gorter, 2020: 300). Recent publications indicate that there is a growing interest in and willingness to integrate pluralistic practices. For example, Little and Kirwan (2019) tell the story of Scoil Bhrída, a primary school in Dublin, which resisted the habitus of homogeneity within a mainstream education system as the principal welcomed all the children’s languages, as well as the official and designated foreign languages, into the school space. Duarte and Günther-van der Meij (2018) describe a four-year project, 3M (Meer
Mainstreaming Multilingualism in Education
39
kansen met Meertaligheid – More Opportunities with Multilingualism), in which a holistic model for multilingual education was implemented in a bilingual province in the north of the Netherlands, Fryslân, where national, regional, foreign and many minority languages co-exist. Deconstruct and De-dichotomize monolingual terminology
The third component of the framework, Deconstruct and De-dichotomize, encourages perspective shifting by tackling the language or terminology used to talk about the multilingual phenomenon and multilingual children. Research into multilingualism has engendered a plethora of new terms, which deconstruct the polarized discourse of monolingual ideologies: metrolingualism (Otsuji & Pennycook, 2009); fl exible multilingualism (Blackledge & Creese, 2010); heteroglossia (Bailey, 2012); polylingualism (Jørgensen, 2008); translingual practices or code meshing (Canagarajah, 2013); translanguaging and hybridity (García, 2009). These terms de-dichotomize discourse and capture the holistic nature of multilingual communication. Furthermore, they highlight the qualitative versus the quantitative aspects of multilingualism by stating that ‘not only is the phenomenon quantitatively bigger and more complex, but it is also qualitatively different and not just an aggregate’ (Hoffmann & Ytsma, 2004: 14). Li and Lin (2019) accentuate the significance of the prefi x ‘trans-’ as transformative and trans-disciplinary action in schools and society. This shift in perspective goes beyond crossing languages to refocusing education systems, reorganizing social structures and integrating practices that engage students’ multiple meaning-making systems and subjectivities. Researchers have focused on terminology that defines the learner; for example, García (2009) insisted on alternative ways of referring to ELLs as emergent bilinguals. The New York Department of Education uses the term EMLLs (Emergent Multilingual Learners) to refer to ‘preschool children before Kindergarten who are learning a language other than English and who have the opportunity to become bilingual or multilingual in school. The term is strengths-based and aims to build on the linguistic foundations of children who speak languages other than English at home’ (NYC Department of Education, 2017: 1). Kiramba (2017), too, refers to the 28 fourth graders in her study on the children’s translingual writing practices in Kenya as emergent multilinguals. These examples of deconstructing monolingual discursive habits acknowledge and reproduce the subjective, multiple, translanguaged characteristics of multilingual communication in educational spaces. Here, translanguaged is used in the same way as Flores (2017: 527) employs languaged to emphasize the active process of multilingual communicative identity and subject formation – the languaged person does not exist until it is ‘produced through discursive practices that circulate through disciplinary institutions, including schools.’
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Decolonize and Duplicate: Looking south and east
The last component of the Eight-Ds framework, Decolonize and Duplicate, focuses on equity and exhorts educators and researchers to look to traditionally highly multilingual societies for inspiration. García et al. (2017: 7) explore the potential of ‘critical poststructuralist sociolinguistics’ to give a voice to those who defend the language rights of minorities, indigenous communities and heritage language speakers – those who have resisted the colonizing attempts to monolingualize their communities. Drawing on indigenous and non-dominant perspectives in order to develop theorization of the ‘borderlands’ (Anzaldúa, 1987), we need to bring the Global South, and other under-represented regions of the world, into the conversation about decolonizing the multilingualism agenda (Phipps, 2019). Moreover, these multilingual spaces can serve as examples of multilingualism in action and be duplicated in different contexts. Canagarajah (2007: 935) argues that ‘insights from non-Western communities should inform the current efforts for alternate theory building in our field.’ Heugh (2013) exhorts the multilingual South to re-appropriate terminologies, multilingual resources, expertise, and practices, and thus denounces the view of linguistic diversity as problematic, which pervades mainstream literature emerging from Western Europe and North America. Norton and McKinney (2011) posit that language education would be greatly enriched by research conducted in postcolonial sites where multilingualism has been the norm for centuries and language acquisition processes can be quite different from immigrant language learning experiences in the north or study-abroad contexts. For example, in considering the situation in South Africa, Makalela (2018, 2019) employs the concept of ubuntu translanguaging. Ubuntu, with its basic tenet, I am because you are. You are because we are, refers to an African philosophy of ‘humanism and cultural patterns that value overlaps, continuity, and cross-overs between communities’ and ‘complex and multi-directional interdependence between people’ (Makalela, 2019: 239–240). From a linguistic perspective, Makalela (2018: 839) argues that ‘no one language is complete without the other since they are involved in infi nite relations of dependency’ and ‘languages are in a constant and simultaneous process of deforming and reforming.’ Furthermore, ubuntu translanguaging hinges on the notion of incompleteness, interdependence and simultaneity, which denotes the fact that no single entity is complete on its own. Hence, within the framework of ubuntu translanguaging, Makalela (2018: 823) contends that a ‘preferred literacy methodology for learners should be porous and value interdependence in tandem with ancient plural value systems and indigenous ways of knowing.’
Mainstreaming Multilingualism in Education 41
Discussion and Conclusion Multilingualism in education: Research perspectives and future directions
The Eight-Ds framework provides a model for countering the monolingual bias in society, starts the demonolingualizing process, and places multilingualism at the center of education, and of FL learning in particular. Demonolingualizing the curriculum begins the process of diffusing ‘the tensions and conflicts between everyday flexible multilingual practices of the individual, including teachers and pupils, and the societal-imposed policies of language-of-instruction in schools’ (Li & Lin, 2019: 209). It is reassuring to note that recent research into multilingualism and multilingual education is showing some chipping away at the monolingual monolith. Voices from the FL classroom are trying to dismantle language barriers by finding a strategic place for children’s languages in the learning of a new target language (Chalmers, 2019; Copland & Ni, 2018; Ellis & Ibrahim, 2015; Hall & Cook, 2012; Krulatz et al., 2018). Benson (2017: 100) calls for a policy of Multilingual Education for All (MEFA), with a view to integrating a multilingual curriculum model in low income contexts and thus promoting ‘the recognition, promotion and protection of non-dominant local or heritage languages in combination with the teaching of the regional and international languages.’ She bases her concept of multilingual education on an approach developed in the Spanish Basque Country, where the teaching of three or four languages is integrated across the curriculum (Benson & Elorza, 2015). Gorter et al. (2014) highlight the dynamics of combining different languages in education, including the minority, national and prestige languages in a range of settings, including the Global South. Turner (2019), through four case studies in Australia, takes a multilingualism-as-resource orientation to strengthening social cohesion where linguistic diversity and national unity are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The demonolingualizing agenda aims to expand on the abovementioned examples of inclusive learning environments that foreground identity formation and well-being and enhance respect for individual language rights. It places language education on a continuum as opposed to an either-or perspective, as it is not the prerogative of the elite versus minoritized students, linguistically diverse versus monolingual students, or an internationally mobile versus a locally static student body. On the contrary, it is everybody’s right to access multiple languages in educational settings (UNCRC, 1989: Art. 30). Furthermore, this agenda places all students on a par, as linguistic repertoires and varying language proficiencies are visible, audible and performed. It levels the playing field as it implements the various language learning strategies with both monolingual and multilingual students to support the schooling of all learners.
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However, demonolingualizing and then mainstreaming multilingualism in education implies a radical change in, and therefore a challenge for, teaching and learning. It represents a paradigm shift for disciplinary fields, institutions, educators, students, and parents alike. It also requires holistic approaches to language learning, teacher education, institutional policy, curriculum development and communication with parents and the community. The demonolingualizing Eight-Ds framework (Divulge and Disseminate, Discover and Develop, Deconstruct and De-dichotomize, Decolonize and Duplicate) offers a concrete response to the monolingual grip on education. It develops inclusive multi/plurilingual practices that are not dependent on particular models or approaches. It is also a process that requires the active participation of all stakeholders in education. For example, at school leadership level, more active management of linguistic resources with explicit language-friendly policies, which include strong relationships with the parents, creates spaces where multilingualism emerges and thrives in a sustainable manner. Teacher education programs must include sessions on understanding multilingualism, linguistic diversity and plurilingual approaches. They must train professionals who are confident in their ability to manage dynamic multilingual communication in their classrooms. Vigorously countering and consistently monitoring the belittling effects of monolingual discursive practices builds positive attitudes, mutual respect and equity. A demonolingualized learning space protects language rights and supports action and actors in the community in developing language-safe and language-enriching learning spaces. Conclusion
This chapter calls for profound changes in language education, which lie in developing a deeper understanding of the qualitative aspects of language use and learning at a sociological, methodological and educational level. In order to redress the balance between monoglossic educational practices and the reality of heterogeneous lived experiences, the interrelatedness and hybridity of everyday language and literacy practices should be made visible in educational processes and curriculum reforms. Starting with a demonolingualizing agenda, where schools actively deconstruct the mainstream monolingual discourse and decolonize education, gives children a multilingual voice and agency in how they prefer to communicate and learn. It recognizes their linguistic rights, validates their multilingual identity and enhances their multilingual well-being (Ibrahim, 2019b). Ultimately, to conceptualize from the borderlands and mainstream multilingualism in education means moving the borderlands to the center stage and addressing the current situation within a framework of dynamic and simultaneous multiplicity (Ibrahim, 2020: 27).
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References Anzaldúa, G. (1987) Borderlands/La frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books. Aronin, L. (2019) Dominant language constellation as a method of research. In E. Vetter and U. Jessner (eds) International Research on Multilingualism: Breaking with the Monolingual Perspective (pp. 13–26). Berlin: Springer. Aronin, L. and Ó Laoire, M. (2012) The material culture of multilingualism: Moving beyond the linguistic landscape. International Journal of Multilingualism 10 (3), 225−235. Bailey, B. (2012) Heteroglossia. In M. Martin-Jones, A. Blackledge and A. Creese (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism (pp. 499–507). London: Routledge. Benson, C. (2017) Multilingual education for all: Applying an integrated multilingual curriculum model to low-income contexts. In H. Coleman (ed) Multilingualisms and Development: Selected Proceedings of the 11th Language and Development Conference, New Delhi, India 2015 (pp. 101–113). London: British Council. Benson, C. and Elorza, I. (2015) Multilingual education for all: Empowering non-dominant languages and cultures through multilingual curriculum developments. In D. Wyse, L. Hayward and J. Pandya (eds) The Sage Handbook of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment (pp. 557–574). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Blackledge, A. and Creese, A. (2010) Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective. London: Continuum. Block, D. (2014) Moving beyond ‘lingualism’: Multilingual embodiment and multimodality in SLA. In S. May (ed.) The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and Bilingual Education (pp. 54–77). London: Routledge. Blommaert, J., Collins, J. and Slembrouck, S. (2005) Spaces of multilingualism. Language & Communication 25 (3), 197–216. Canagarajah, A.S. (2007) Lingua franca English, multilingual communities, and language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal 91 (1), 923–939. Canagarajah, A.S. (ed.) (2013) Literacy as Translingual Practice: Between Communities and Classrooms. Abingdon: Routledge. Cenoz, J. (2013) Defi ning multilingualism. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 33, 3–18. Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2015) Towards a wholistic approach in the study of multilingual education. In J. Cenoz and D. Gorter (eds) Multilingual Education: Between Language Learning and Translanguaging (pp. 1–15). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2020) Teaching English through pedagogical translanguaging. World Englishes 39, 300–311. Chalmers, H. (2019) The role of the fi rst language in English medium instruction. OUP ELT Position Paper. See https://elt.oup.com/feature/global/expert/emi?cc=gb&sel Language=en Chik, A. and Melo-Pfeifer, S. (2020) What does language awareness look like? Visual methodologies in language learning and teaching research (2000–2018). Language Awareness 29 (3–4), 336–352. doi:10.1080/09658416.2020.1785481 Contacto Reporter (2014) Children punished for speaking Portuguese in kindergarten & ‘maison relais’. Luxembourg Times, 4 November. See https://www.luxtimes.lu/en/lux embourg/children-punished-for-speaking-portuguese-in-kindergarten-maison-relais602d376bde135b92362b2710 Copland, F. and Ni, M. (2018) Languages in the young learner classroom. In S. Garton and F. Copland (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners (pp. 138–153). Abingdon: Routledge. Cummins, J. and Early, M. (eds) (2011) Identity Texts: The Collaborative Creation of Power in Multilingual Schools. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. Duarte, J. and Günther-van der Meij, M. (2018) A holistic model for multilingualism in education. EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages 5 (2), 24–43.
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Edwards, V. (2009) Learning to be Literate: Multilingual Perspectives. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Ellis, G. and Ibrahim, N. (2015) Teaching Children How to Learn. Peaslake: Delta. European Commission (2019) Key Competences for Lifelong Learning. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Flores, N. (2017) Bilingual education. In O. García, N. Flores and M. Spotti (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society (pp. 525–543). Oxford: Oxford University Press. García, O. (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. García, O. and Li, W. (2014) Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. García, O., Skutnabb-Kangas, T. and Torres-Guzmán, M.E. (eds) (2006) Imagining Multilingual Schools: Languages in Education and Globalisation. New Delhi: Orient Black Swan. García, O., Flores, N. and Spotti, M. (eds) (2017) The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gorter, D., Zenotz, V. and Cenoz, J. (eds) (2014) Minority Languages and Multilingual Education: Bridging the Local and the Global. Berlin: Springer. Hall, G. and Cook, G. (2012) Own-language use in language teaching and learning. Language Teaching 45 (3), 271–308. Haukås, A. (2016) Teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism and a multilingual pedagogical approach. International Journal of Multilingualism 13 (1), 1–18. Heugh, K. (2013) Multilingual education: Contexts, theories and practices. Paper presented at the 4th International Conference on Language and Education: Multilingual Education for All in Asia and the Pacific – Policies, Practices and Processes, Bangkok, 6–8 November. Hoff mann, C. and Ytsma, J. (2004) Trilingualism in Family, School and Community. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Holliday, A. (2003) Social autonomy: Addressing the dangers of culturism in TESOL. In D. Palfreyman and R.C. Smith (eds) Learner Autonomy across Cultures (pp. 110– 126). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Ibrahim, N. (2016) Developing literacy, and identity, in multiple languages. In B. Street (ed) Encyclopaedia of Language and Education, Vol. 3: Literacies and Language Education (pp. 1–14). Bern: Springer International. Ibrahim, N. (2019a) Children’s multimodal visual narratives as possible sites of identity performance. In P. Kalaja and S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds) Visualising Multilingual Lives: More than Words (pp. 33–52). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Ibrahim, N. (2019b) The right to my languages: Multilingualism in children’s English classroom. TEYLT Worldwide 1, 27–31. Ibrahim, N. (2020) The multilingual picturebook in English language teaching: Linguistic and cultural identity. Children's Literature in English Language Education 8 (2), 12–38. Ibrahim, N. (2021) Artefactual narratives of multilingual identity: Methodological and ethical considerations in researching children. In A. Pinter and K. Kuchah (eds) Ethical and Methodological Issues in Researching Young Language Learners in School Contexts (pp. 126-146). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Jørgensen, J.N. (2008) Polylingual languaging around and among children and adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism 5 (3), 161–176. Jørgensen, J. (2019) Statewide English test fi nds ELLs performed better than native English speakers. Spectrum News NY1, 19 October. See https://www.ny1.com/nyc/ all-boroughs/news/2019/10/19/ statewide-english-test-fi nds-ells-performed-better-than-native-english-speakers Kalaja, P. and Melo-Pfeifer, S. (eds) (2019) Visualising Multilingual Lives: More Than Words. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
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Kalaja, P. and Pitkänin-Huhta, A. (eds) (2018) Visual methods in applied language studies. Applied Linguistics Review 9 (2–3), 157–473. Kiramba, L.K. (2017) Translanguaging in the writing of emergent multilinguals. International Multilingual Research Journal 11 (2), 115–130. Krulatz, A., Dahl, A. and Flognfeldt, M.E. (2018) Enacting Multilingualism: From Research to Teaching Practice in the English Classroom. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. Li, W. and Lin, A.M.Y. (2019) Translanguaging classroom discourse: Pushing limits, breaking boundaries. Classroom Discourse 10 (3–4), 209–215. Little, D. and Kirwan, D. (2019) Engaging with Linguistic Diversity: A Study of Educational Inclusion in an Irish Primary School. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Lowe, R.J. and Kiczkowiak, M. (2016) Native-speakerism and the complexity of personal experience: A duoethnographic study. Cogent Education 3 (1), 1–16. Lucas, T. and Villegas, A.M. (2013) Preparing linguistically responsive teachers: Laying the foundation in preservice teacher education. Theory into Practice 52 (2), 98–109. Makalela, L. (2018) Community elders’ narrative accounts of ubuntu translanguaging: Learning and teaching in African education. International Review of Education 64 (6), 823–843. Makalela, L. (2019) Uncovering the universals of ubuntu translanguaging in classroom discourses. Classroom Discourse 10 (3–4), 237–251. Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A. (eds) (2007) Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Martin-Jones, M. and Martin, D. (2017) Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge. May, S. (ed.) (2014) The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and Bilingual Education. London: Routledge. Medgyes, P. (2018) The Non-native Teacher. Callander: Swan Communication. Norton, B. and McKinney, C. (2011) An identity approach to second language acquisition. In D. Atkinson (ed.) Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (pp. 73–94). Abingdon: Routledge. NYC Department of Education (2017) Core principles for supporting emergent multilingual learners (EMLLs). See https://research.steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/media/ users/sp4917/emll-core-principles.pdf Ortega, L. (2011) SLA after the social turn: Where cognitivism and its alternatives stand. In D. Atkinson (ed.) Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (pp. 167–180). Abingdon: Routledge. Ortega, L. (2014) Ways forward for a bi/multilingual turn in SLA. In S. May (ed.) The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and Bilingual Education (pp. 32–53). London: Routledge. Otsuji, E. and Pennycook, A. (2009) Metrolingualism: Fixity, fluidity, and language in flux. International Journal of Multilingualism 7 (3), 240–254. Pahl, K. and Rowsell, J. (2010) Artifactual Literacies: Every Object Tells a Story. New York: Teachers College Press. Pavlenko, A. and Blackledge, A. (2004) Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Phipps, A. (2019) Decolonising Multilingualism: Struggles to Decreate. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Portolés, L. and Martí, O. (2020) Teachers’ beliefs about multilingual pedagogies and the role of initial training. International Journal of Multilingualism 17 (2), 1–17. Regester, D. and Norton, M.K. (2018) The Salzburg statement for a multilingual world. European Journal of Language Policy 10 (1), 156–162. Rosa, J. and Flores, N. (2017) Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective. Language in Society 46 (5), 621–647.
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Somerville, M. and D’Warte, J. (2014) Researching children’s linguistic repertoires in globalized classrooms. Knowledge Cultures: A Multidisciplinary Journal 2 (4), 133–151. Turner, C. (2016) Children who speak English as a second language more likely to improve in primary school, figures show. The Telegraph, December. Turner, M. (2019) Multilingualism as a Resource and a Goal: Using and Learning Languages in Mainstream Schools. Bern: Palgrave Macmillan. UNCRC (1989) The Convention on the Rights of the Child. Geneva: United Nations. Vertovec, S. (2007) Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6), 1024–1054. Ziegler, G. (2013) Multilingualism and the language education landscape: Challenges for teacher training in Europe. Multilingual Education 3 (1), 1–23.
3 Enhancing Foreign Language Teachers’ Use of Multicultural Literature with an Analytical Framework for Interpreting Picturebooks about East Asian Cultures Ngoc Tai Huynh, Angela Thomas and Vinh To
In a time of globalization, foreign language teachers often work with students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Teaching intercultural awareness has gained importance in multilingual classrooms. Understanding and using multicultural resources is one of the critical factors for teaching intercultural awareness (Bullen & Lunt, 2015; Halse et al., 2013). This chapter introduces an analytical framework for interpreting the cultural meaning-making opportunities in picturebooks from one specific Asian country – Vietnam. Findings from our analysis can help foreign language teachers enhance their skills in interpreting picturebooks about Asian cultures and facilitate their teaching of intercultural awareness in multilingual classrooms. Introduction
Multilingual societies recognize and prioritize the urgent need to teach cultural awareness (Frye et al., 2010; Howrey & Whelan-Kim, 2009; Krakouer, 2015). According to Neuman (1999), in multilingual classrooms, teachers can teach intercultural awareness by drawing on students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds to make connections between their home lives and experiences and to support their literacy development.
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In language education, teaching cultural knowledge is just as important as knowledge of grammar and vocabulary (Liddicoat, 2002; cf. Yamada, this volume). Byram (1997: 22) asserted that ‘teaching for linguistic competence cannot be separated from teaching for intercultural competence.’ In addition to linguistic knowledge, this suggests that language learners should be taught about cultural aspects of the target language. There are visible and invisible aspects of culture, also referred to as the surface and beneath levels (Horie, 2014). The visible aspect can be seen through ‘architecture, dance, music, foods, clothes, literature, arts, etc.,’ while the invisible aspect is made up of ‘ways and patterns of thinking, core values and norms, assumptions, beliefs, etc.’ (Horie, 2014: 2). In a project on teaching Vietnamese to preschool children in an Australian early childhood context, it was reported that teaching visible aspects of Vietnamese culture, such as traditional Vietnamese food, national costumes and objects and popular Vietnamese children’s songs, significantly improved preschool children’s global and cultural awareness (To et al., 2020). However, To et al. (2020) noted that since the learner participants were preschoolers (aged three to five years old), only explicit cultural elements were included in their Vietnamese language program. To implement similar projects with older learners, foreign language (FL) teachers should be equipped with knowledge of both the visible and invisible cultural aspects of the target language. To date, various frameworks have been proposed by scholars in the field of intercultural education. One of the well-known models for teaching intercultural awareness in language education is Byram’s (1997) model for Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC). Also, multicultural literature has been applied as one of the mediums to enhance teachers’ and students’ cultural awareness (Balagopalan & Sreenivas, 2011; Budd, 2016; Chen & Browne, 2015; Levin, 2007). The present chapter utilizes Byram’s (1997) concept of skills for interpreting and relating to foster teachers’ skills in interpreting cultural meanings located within one particular type of literature, namely picturebooks about East Asian cultures, and to facilitate their teaching of cultural awareness. To do this, the chapter introduces an analytical framework referred to as Cultural Meanings of Asian Images (CMAI; Huynh et al., 2019) for interpreting the cultural meanings of images in picturebooks, using Vietnam as an example. By doing this, we intend to provide pre- and in-service teachers of Vietnamese language in multicultural contexts with a reference point for interpreting Vietnamese cultural aspects represented in picturebooks. This is also a good preparation for future projects in teaching Vietnamese language in Tasmania in particular (To et al., 2020) and in Western contexts more generally. In the following section, we briefly discuss Byram’s ICC model, the usefulness of multicultural literature in enhancing learners’ intercultural knowledge, and issues associated with teachers’ use of multicultural literature to teach cultural awareness.
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Literature Review
ICC is defi ned as the ‘ability to ensure a shared understanding by people of different social identities, and the ability to interact with people as complex human beings with multiple identities and their own individuality’ (Byram et al., 2002: 10). The ICC framework consists of five components: attitudes, knowledge, critical cultural awareness, skills to discover and interact, and skills to interpret and relate. The five factors are interconnected within the ICC framework. According to Byram (1997: 34), attitudes of ‘curiosity and openness, of readiness to suspend disbelief and judgement with respect to others’ meanings, beliefs and behaviors’ are some of the conditions for mutual understanding in intercultural interaction. An open and curious attitude makes it easier to develop discovery and interaction skills (Byram, 1997). Knowledge in the ICC framework refers to knowledge about social groups and their products and practices in one’s own country and other cultures. For Byram (1997), there are two types of knowledge involved in a successful intercultural interaction: knowledge about social groups and their cultures in one’s own society, and corresponding knowledge of the interlocutor’s country and knowledge of the processes of interaction at individual and national levels. The latter ‘is fundamental to successful interaction but not acquired automatically’ (Byram, 1997: 35). Political education or critical cultural awareness is the ability to evaluate products, practices and perspectives critically in one’s own culture and other cultures. The two types of skills proposed in the ICC model are the skills to discover and/or interact, and skills to interpret and relate. The former refers to the ability to acquire and use new knowledge, attitudes and skills in real intercultural communication under time constraints. The latter is defi ned as the ‘ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents or events from one’s own’ (Byram, 1997: 13). To Byram (1997: 37), possessing the skills to interpret and relate enables a person to interpret documents and events from other cultures, so that they can ‘discover the allusions and connotations present in the document’ with the support of their existing knowledge. In his work on Image – Music – Text, Roland Barthes defi ned connotation as ‘the second meaning’ which is ‘realized at the different levels of the production,’ implicit and not easily recognized (Barthes, 1977: 20). If we agree with the view that language is a form of signs, which consist of elements in addition to textual elements, such as images and sounds, then Byram’s view on lexical connotations points to the importance of teaching the implicit meanings of cultural aspects of the target language. Within the scope of this chapter, we particularly focus on one specific aspect of ICC, namely, the skills of interpreting and relating by exploring culturally related meanings of images in children’s picturebooks about Vietnamese culture.
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We have chosen to focus on this aspect of ICC based on the argument that a single cultural representation of a society may carry different layers of meanings (Hall, 2001; Horie, 2014; To et al., 2020). Moreover, although multicultural picturebooks are proven to be an effective means for teaching intercultural understanding (Budd, 2016; Chen & Browne, 2015; Mckenzie, 2014), there still exist issues pertaining to teachers’ use of multicultural literature or multicultural picturebooks. In particular, there are problems with teachers’ use of Asian literature, including text and images, when teaching intercultural understanding in Western classrooms (Bullen & Lunt, 2015; Rodriguez & Kim, 2018). In the following sections, we discuss the benefits of using multicultural literature to enhance learners’ intercultural knowledge and the issues associated with teachers’ uses of multicultural picturebooks for teaching intercultural understanding. Using multicultural literature to enhance learners’ intercultural knowledge
Multicultural literature has been reported to be a helpful tool for teaching multicultural awareness (Kim, 2013; Levin, 2007; Martens et al., 2015). Two common points mentioned by scholars working on teaching intercultural knowledge in multicultural contexts are: (1) multicultural literature can be used to facilitate children seeing reflections of themselves (books as mirrors) and knowing about representations of others (books as windows); and (2) the significance of teaching invisible aspects of cultures when teaching intercultural awareness. In recent studies on working with multicultural literature, children from diverse backgrounds were found to feel proud of their own identities, gain awareness of the complexities of various cultures and become more independent and responsible (Budd, 2016; Levin, 2007; Martens et al., 2015). Levin (2007: 1) contended that literature representing multicultural values may not only help students ‘see themselves in the literature they read,’ but also provide them with the ‘opportunity to experience textual images that foster cultural pride, familiarity, a sense of belonging, and cultural self-respect.’ This viewpoint is aligned with Bishop’s (1990) wellknown metaphor on the role of books: Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created and recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. (Bishop, 1990: ix)
The idea of a book functioning as a mirror means that books may help readers see themselves reflected in the text. The concept of books as windows means that books can also help readers see something representing others, including identities, cultures and experiences (Tschida et al.,
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2014). Tschida et al. (2014: 29) further asserted that one of the approaches for pre-service teachers to ‘see how books can act as windows and mirrors for readers is through self-analysis of the literature they have read.’ This suggests that if teachers wish to teach intercultural awareness through multicultural literature, it is necessary for them to have the skills to interpret and relate texts and images from other cultures. It is vital that teachers can understand the culturally specific meanings of images in children’s literature generally and picturebooks specifically. Researchers working on intercultural teaching also agree that abstract cultural values should be introduced in addition to teaching students the explicit aspects of cultures, such as festivals, food and costumes (Dedeoglu et al., 2012; Horie, 2014; Levin, 2007). This perspective aligns with Byram’s (1997) view on the role of teaching connotative meanings of documents from a foreign country to develop learners’ skills in interpreting these documents. The importance of teachers’ comprehension of invisible parts of culture is also identified in reports relating to teachers’ use of multicultural literature. It is reported that when using picturebooks about Asian cultures, teachers do not have sufficient focus on the differences between Western and non-Western cultures (Bullen & Lunt, 2015; Rodriguez & Kim, 2018). Additionally, studies on teachers’ responses to intercultural contents of multicultural literature found that teachers lack an understanding of abstract cultural concepts, causing them to strongly criticize the books, which may prevent them from using these books to teach intercultural understanding (Dedeoglu et al., 2012). For instance, in the context of teaching Vietnamese culture in Australia, there is an issue of cultural stereotyping in children’s picturebooks (Bullen & Lunt, 2015). Specifically, Bullen and Lunt (2015) questioned the truth of Vietnamese cultural aspects represented in a well-known Australian comic book, The Little Refugee. Holding the view that ‘autobiographical texts by authors of Asian heritage would appear to offer potential to circumvent representational inaccuracies, inauthenticity and cultural stereotypes’ (Bullen & Lunt, 2015: 151), the researchers demonstrated that in this book, Vietnam is depicted as a crazy place whereas Australia is referred to as a great country (Bullen & Lunt, 2015: 157). This entails an implication that Eastern cultures are exotic compared to Western cultures (Bullen & Lunt, 2015). Therefore, it seems that knowledge of abstract cultural beliefs is an important factor in teachers’ selection and use of teaching material. In this chapter, we aim to partially address this issue by exploring invisible aspects of visual elements represented in picturebooks about Asian cultures. The framework for interpreting cultural meaning in East Asian picturebooks
Huynh et al. (2019) developed a framework for interpreting the cultural meanings of Asian images (CMAI) in picturebooks about Vietnam based on the philosophical concepts of three influential religions in Asian
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Figure 3.1 The framework for interpreting cultural meanings of Asian images (CMAI) Source: Adapted from Huynh et al. (2019).
countries, namely, Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. The framework consists of two components: the nature–human relationship and cultural symbols (as illustrated in Figure 3.1). The CMAI framework assumes that for Vietnamese picturebooks, the setting also acts as a character, especially in double-page openings, which consist of images of landscapes (Huynh et al., 2019). According to Huynh et al. (2019), interpreting the nature–human relationship in picturebooks about Vietnamese culture offers readers more information about relationships between depicted characters and the environment of the story’s world. The notion of the nature–human relationship is highly relevant to the aesthetic practices of Taoism and Confucianism (Huynh et al., 2019, 2020). In their artistic work, Taoists often focus on the superiority of nature over humans. Similarly, Confucian artists often create a sense of respect towards nature by focusing more on natural elements than human elements in landscape paintings (Luo, 2015). Therefore, the human element is often portrayed as much more insignificant than the surrounding environment in East Asian paintings (Paetzold, 2009). This means that the harmony, in the form of a balanced relationship between humans and nature, can be achieved when nature is appreciated. The second analytical component of the CMAI framework is cultural symbols. Symbolism is a popular influential concept pervasively applied in East Asian artistic works. The application of symbolism helps East Asian artists generate a powerful network of meanings in their illustrations (Wilson, 1990). Images in East Asian artistic works often carry symbolic meanings (Anh & Lee, 2008; Palmer et al., 2012). For instance, images of fish signify good luck and good fortune (Palmer et al., 2012). The wave is often is used as a symbol of power and resilience (Huynh et al., 2020). In Vietnamese art, illustrations of Buddha statues with calm smiles in deep meditation represent peace and pure joy (Le, 2015).
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Illustrations of the dragon symbolize fortune, whereas the tiger and the lion signify protecting humans from ghosts and evil powers (Anh & Lee, 2008). Therefore, any attempt to explore cultural meanings in East Asian picturebooks must explore the images’ symbolic meanings. A more detailed discussion of Vietnamese symbolic meanings can be found in Anh and Lee (2008). In the following section, we fi rst report our fi ndings on the instantiations of the two analytical components of the CMAI framework in one picturebook about Vietnamese culture. Then, we demonstrate our interpretation of selected images based on the CMAI framework with reference to Byram’s (1997) skills to interpret and relate as stated in the ICC model. By doing this, we hope to provide pre- and in-service teachers of the Vietnamese language in Western contexts with a better understanding of the meanings of these images when using picturebooks about Vietnamese culture in multicultural classrooms.
Methodology Data source
Images from a picturebook about Vietnamese culture served as the data source. These images were selected based on their high level of content and quality and because they correspond to important stages of the story. The images were analyzed and interpreted using the CMAI framework (Huynh et al., 2019). Findings from our analysis were then referred to skills to interpret and relate as stated in the ICC model (Byram, 1997) to discuss the significance of this chapter. The primary literary source used in this chapter was a picturebook titled The Lotus Seed (Garland & Tatsuro, 1997). This book was selected because it meets three criteria. First, it is about Vietnamese culture. Second, it is illustrated by an Asian artist (Tatsuro), and there have been no previous attempts to interpret the images in this book using a framework analyzing East Asian images. Third, it contains images representing common aspects of Vietnamese culture. The Lotus Seed tells the life of a Vietnamese woman called Bà (Grandmother). Bà spent the fi rst part of her life in Vietnam before the French–Vietnamese war broke out. Then she left Vietnam and fled to another country, but Bà kept a lotus seed as a memento of her homeland. One day, one of her grandchildren stole the seed and planted it in a pool of mud. To the whole family’s surprise, the lotus blossomed beautifully when spring came. Bà explained to her grandchildren that in Vietnam, the lotus is the flower of life and hope – a symbol of their homeland. Then, Bà gave each of the children a seed to remember their origins and their grandmother. The children kept their lotus seeds in their secret places, just as their grandmother had done.
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Interpreting cultural meanings in picturebooks about Vietnam using the CMAI framework
Drawing on the CMAI framework, we analyzed selected double-page openings from The Lotus Seed to explore types of nature–human relationships and cultural symbols in this book. Nature–human relationship
The relationship between human characters and nature (as a character) can be interpreted by considering how natural elements are presented. When human and natural elements are presented in their authentic sizes, shapes and activities, a harmonious or balanced relationship between humans and nature is attained. Both humanity and nature are presented as supporting each other. By contrast, if natural or human elements are depicted in unnatural sizes, shapes, manners, or as undertaking aggressive activities, such as when humans and nature are attacking/fighting one another, an inharmonious relation between nature and humanity is revealed (Huynh et al., 2019). The relationships between nature and humans identified in our analysis of the selected book were nature in harmony with humans and nature in disharmony with humans. In illustrations conveying a disharmonious nature–human relationship, the human characters are depicted as vulnerable and inferior in comparison to natural characters. Natural characters are represented in various forms, from animals to elements, such as waves, clouds, mountains, rain and flowers. These are depicted as salient visual elements, which often attract the reader’s attention when looking at the openings. The visual elements also elicit strong feelings when the reader looks at the openings. For instance, in the second opening of The Lotus Seed, the most salient visual elements are the lotus flowers. These flowers help create a peaceful and harmonious feeling. In the second opening, both natural and human elements are presented in their realistic sizes, shapes and manners. In this opening, the human character is presented as blending in with nature. The woman is dressed in white, standing in the lotus pond. This not only makes her look like one of the lotus flowers but also suggests that she is in harmony with the story’s world. In other words, humans are living in accordance and connection with nature. By contrast, the relationship between the human and natural characters in the sixth opening is disharmonious. In this opening, humans are illustrated as weak and dominated by nature. The setting comprises harmful and dangerous elements, such as an enormous wave, a vast water area (the sea), and dark clouds. Human characters are depicted as being in danger and in a state of chaos. In comparison to the second opening, human activities in the sixth opening provide a contrast. In particular, while the woman is presented as part of the surrounding natural elements (the lotus flower) in the second opening, in the sixth
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opening, human characters are shown as weak, vulnerable, and facing the threat of losing their lives. Cultural symbols
To identify instantiations of images carrying culturally specific meanings in the selected book, we relied on four main sources, including the cultural symbols component of the CMAI framework (Huynh et al., 2019), fi ndings on classifications and symbolic meanings in Vietnamese traditional patterns (Anh & Lee, 2008), our collective historical knowledge of Vietnamese culture, and the Illustrated Dictionary of Symbols in Eastern and Western Art (Hall, 2018). As a result, we identified eight instantiations where salient images have meanings that specifically relate to Vietnamese culture. Three of these cultural symbols have been selected for detailed analysis in this chapter: the Áo Dài (illustrated in the second and fourth openings); the ancestor altar (illustrated in the third opening); and lotus flowers (illustrated in the second and 11th openings). These cultural symbols are reinterpreted in detail below. The first cultural image, presented in the second and fourth openings of The Lotus Seed, is the Áo Dài. This traditional dress is worn by Vietnamese women for daily activities, and by both men and women during special events such as wedding ceremonies (Nguyen, 2017). The Vietnamese Áo Dài comes in various colors. A white Áo Dài represents the purity of Vietnamese women (Le & Wang, 2013). On special and formal occasions, Vietnamese men wear traditional Áo Dài together with secular headgear (khăn đóng) as a symbol of modesty and consideration (Nguyen, 2017). The second cultural image found in the selected book is the Vietnamese ancestor altar (third opening), which can be found in every Vietnamese family and serves the purpose of worshipping dead ancestors and past family members (Dinh, 2014). This tradition originates from the Buddhist belief that the souls of the dead continue to exist in the invisible world and have an influence on their children’s lives (Phan, 1998). Additionally, worshipping dead ancestors is considered one way in which the Vietnamese show their respect and gratitude to their ancestors in accordance with the Confucian concept of fi lial piety (Phan, 1998). The third significant cultural image in the selected book is the illustrations of lotus flowers (second and 11th openings). In Vietnamese culture, the lotus is a simple but sacred and noble flower (Anh & Lee, 2008). It is considered the national flower of Vietnam, representing Vietnamese characteristics such as inconspicuousness, gentleness and elegance (Tran, 2019; Van, 2020). Vietnamese people often take the life of the lotus flower as a model for their noble way of living because ‘lotus begins as a little flower in the mud and muck, and then it slowly grows up towards the surface of the water and becomes beautiful’ (Anh & Lee, 2008: 37). This means that despite hardship and difficult living conditions, the Vietnamese strive to cultivate their virtue, just as lotus flowers retain their beauty and
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pure fragrance by rising from the muddy waters. This cultural meaning especially matches the content of The Lotus Seed, as the protagonist is presented as undergoing extremely difficult living conditions, namely, war and immigration to another country. The lotus flower can be understood as a representation of the main character’s personality. It is the virtue of the lotus that the main character wants to transfer to her grandchildren: ‘When the lotus blossom faded and turned into a pod, Bà (grandmother) gave each of her children a seed to remember her by …’ (verbal texts, 12th opening). Interpreting the culturally related images in The Lotus Seed has revealed deeper layers of meaning related to Vietnamese culture. Both explicit and implicit meanings of cultural symbols used in the books were also identified in our interpretation using the CMAI framework. The explicit meanings offer readers a general cultural interpretation of the images. These explicit meanings can be identified without specific knowledge of Vietnamese culture. The implicit meanings were revealed by our cultural knowledge in reference to various scholarly works on cultural symbols in Vietnamese culture (Anh & Lee, 2008; Tran, 2019; Van, 2020). Discussion
The results of our analysis are relevant to Byram’s ICC model in terms of developing teachers’ skills of interpreting and relating documents from Vietnamese culture for the following reasons. First, teachers can develop an understanding of the similarities and differences between East Asian and Western cultures with respect to nature–human relationships. In East Asian cultures, the harmony between nature and humans plays an important role (Callicott & McRae, 2014; Kim, 2013). When humans and nature are in harmony, good things happen to humanity. This means that when humans respect nature, nature reciprocates with favorable living conditions. Conversely, if humans disregard the laws of nature, they fall into difficult situations. This is a long-standing traditional concept in Eastern cultures. As found in our analysis, in situations where human characters face difficulties, images illustrate a disharmonious relationship between humans and nature and vice versa. Therefore, our fi ndings from examining the nature–human relationship in the selected picturebook illustrate the view that the relationship between humans and nature is of key significance in East Asian philosophies. In Western cultures, the relationship between humans and nature is also significant. Ecocriticism is a contemporary trend in literary criticism specifically concerned with the relationship between humanity and nature. The types of nature and human relations that can be identified in children’s literature and picturebooks about Western culture include the child as nature’s priest, which has originated from the Romantic vision, and nature as the beast for children to overcome (Mckenzie, 2014). Mckenzie (2014: 75) stated that the
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relationship between nature and humanity ‘is deeply inscribed in Western consciousness, and, as to be expected, is a central literary trope found within children’s literature from Western sources’ in which nature is perceived as a child and the human is presented as an adult. Western perceptions of the relationship between nature and humans have commonalities with, but also differences from, those found in East Asian cultures. Images from a Vietnamese picturebook analyzed here illustrate that nature is always perceived as more powerful than humans. Therefore, our fi ndings are significant in terms of enhancing teachers’ intercultural knowledge, which may help them recognize major differences between Eastern and Western perceptions of nature in picturebooks. This may strengthen teachers’ skills in interpreting texts and images relating to Vietnamese culture in accordance with one of the aspects of ICC, namely the skill to interpret and relate. Second, by exploring implicit meanings, teachers can develop their knowledge about lexical connotations in Vietnamese vocabularies. This type of knowledge is important for teachers from both Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese cultural backgrounds who wish to teach the Vietnamese language in Western contexts. When discussing teaching vocabulary in an FL classroom, along with a focus on teaching lexical connotations, Byram (1997) contended that: When learners acquire an understanding of the connotations of lexical items in the foreign language and contrast them with connotations of an apparently equivalent item in their own, they begin to gain insight into the schemata and perspectives of the foreign culture. This can and should begin at the earliest stages of language and culture learning. (Byram, 1997: 44)
Therefore, applying the CMAI framework can be helpful and relevant for teachers of the Vietnamese language to use in combination with vocabulary teaching activities in multilingual classrooms. It may be appropriate to teach only the explicit meanings of words related to cultural aspects in language classrooms where students are of a very young age, such as preschoolers (To et al., 2020). However, for older students, it is beneficial to go beyond the literal meaning of Vietnamese words that carry culturally symbolic meanings, such as hoa sen (lotus flower), Áo dài, bàn thờ ông bà (ancestor altar), con sóng (the wave), con thuyền (the boats), đàm mây (the cloud), by helping students explore the cultural connotative meanings of these words. Such an approach is especially crucial if teachers wish to assist their students to work with Vietnamese idioms, poems and folk verses in their classrooms, since these words are pervasively used in literature about Vietnamese culture. Understanding the cultural meanings of these lexical items in Vietnamese can help teachers develop intercultural awareness activities for learners from various cultural backgrounds in a multilingual classroom.
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Third, the fi ndings from this chapter also provide pre- and in-service teachers of the Vietnamese language with a helpful reference for their teaching of intercultural awareness in Western multilingual contexts. Although our chapter particularly focuses on one aspect of Byram’s model of ICC (i.e. skills to interpret and relate), the fi ndings from our analysis of the selected images may also be relevant to other specific objectives for teaching, learning and assessing ICC, as proposed by Byram (1997). Some of these objectives are illustrated in Table 3.1. As mentioned above, the five factors of Byram’s (1997) ICC model are interconnected. Therefore, when referring to other specific objectives associated with them (as illustrated in Table 3.1), we realized that our fi ndings on Vietnamese cultural aspects in the selected images are also relevant to the desired outcomes of teaching, learning and assessing ICC. For instance, with an understanding of the Vietnamese tradition of respect towards nature and the explicit and implicit meanings of common cultural symbols in Vietnam (knowledge; critical cultural awareness), teachers and learners can apply such knowledge when interpreting other multicultural texts about Vietnamese culture which contain the notion of the nature–human relationship and these cultural symbols. Then, teachers and students can compare their interpretation to their own cultures (skills to interpret and relate). By doing this, teachers and students can develop their interest in exploring familiar and unfamiliar cultural practices in other cultures (attitudes). This also enables teachers and students to develop the ability to identify significant references within and across cultures during real communication with people from the target culture (skills of discovery and interaction). Thus, the teaching of intercultural Table 3.1 Specific objectives for teaching, learning and assessment of ICC Aspects of ICC
Objectives
Attitudes
Interest in discovering other perspectives on interpretation of familiar and unfamiliar phenomena both in one’s own and in other cultures and cultural practices (Byram, 1997: 58).
Knowledge
The national memory of one’s own country and how its events are related to and seen from the perspective of other countries (Byram, 1997: 59).
Skills of interpreting and relating
Identify ethnocentric perspectives in a document or event and explain their origins (Byram, 1997: 61).
Skills of discovery and interaction
Identify significant references within and across cultures and elicit their significance and connotations (Byram, 1997: 59).
Critical cultural awareness/political education
Identify and interpret explicit or implicit values in documents and events in one’s own and other cultures (Byram, 1997: 63).
Source: Byram (1997: 58–63).
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Figure 3.2 Findings on Vietnamese cultural aspects mapped onto other factors of ICC Source: (Byram, 1997: 52–63).
awareness in multilingual classrooms is enhanced as well. The connections between the fi ndings from our analysis of the selected images and the specific objectives for ICC teaching, learning and assessing are illustrated in Figure 3.2. As can be seen from Figure 3.2, the fi ndings in this chapter may help facilitate the understanding of cultural aspects of the target language for teachers and students of Vietnamese. In multilingual classrooms, such understanding provides a mirror in which Vietnamese immigrant students can see their own culture, and a window through which non-Vietnamese students can compare and contrast Vietnamese culture with their own. The application of the CMAI framework can be extended to an exploration of cultural aspects in the paintings and images of other East Asian countries such as China, India, Japan and Korea. For instance, teachers and learners of Chinese language can rely on the CMAI framework to gain an understanding about the cultural meanings of images in Chinese culture. As an example, let us consider the painting Viewing Plum Blossoms (Figure 3.3). In terms of nature–human relationships, the natural elements in Figure 3.3 are depicted as much more significant than the human elements (the gentleman and his servant), but humans are represented as part of nature. This indicates a harmonious relationship between nature and humans. Such an interpretation is further supported by the image of the plum tree reaching upward, which symbolizes the spirit of a gentleman in
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Figure 3.3 Viewing Plum Blossoms by Moonlight Source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/44638
Chinese culture (Cao, 2017; Li, 2021; Tan & Lim, 2019). Specifically, the plum represents cleanness and integrity, which in a gentleman signifies integrity (Li, 2021). The above interpretations of Chinese cultural aspects represented in Figure 3.3 based on the CMAI framework suggest that this framework may be useful for exploring connotational meanings of cultural images in not only Vietnamese culture but also other East Asian cultures. Therefore, the CMAI framework can be applied in FL classrooms for the teaching of East Asian languages through multicultural literature. This is in accordance with Bishop’s (1990) metaphor about the role of multicultural literature and some of Byram’s (1997) specific objectives for teaching, learning and assessing ICC in FL teaching. Conclusion
Realizing the difficulties teachers face when using multicultural picturebooks for culturally responsive teaching, we developed this chapter to provide teachers of the Vietnamese language who work in multicultural classrooms with an analytical framework (the CMAI framework) to enhance their understanding of illustrations in picturebooks about Asian countries. The framework employed in this chapter is intended to support teachers when applying the ICC model (Byram, 1997) for teaching intercultural awareness.
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In our analysis of the illustrations’ cultural meanings about Vietnam, several issues emerged relating to teachers’ use of multicultural picturebooks as pointed out by scholars in the field of multicultural education. For instance, our fi ndings on nature–human relationships in the selected book revealed contrasting perceptions of this relationship in Eastern and Western cultures. Such an understanding of differences between Eastern and Western cultures through the interpretation of the nature–human relationship can enable teachers to develop their intercultural knowledge of East Asian cultures. This approach to interpreting images also aligns with Byram’s (1997) ICC model in terms of developing teachers’ and learners’ ability to interpret texts from foreign cultures and relate them to their own cultures. Additionally, our fi ndings provide teachers with pertinent insight into the meanings of various cultural symbols used in picturebooks about Vietnam. The analysis of the culturally symbolic meanings of images, such as those of the lotus flowers, ancestor altars and the Áo Dài, can develop Vietnamese language teachers’ intercultural knowledge by offering a deeper understanding of the implicit cultural meanings of these symbols, which are not easy to interpret for people from non-Asian backgrounds. This type of meaning corresponds to Byram’s notion of lexical connotations, which he considered crucial for teaching cultural awareness in a FL classroom. Furthermore, the fi ndings from our analysis may also be relevant to several specific objectives for teaching, learning and assessing ICC, as proposed by Byram (1997). This advantage of using the CMAI framework is also aligned with the suggestions of Serafi ni’s (2010) ideological approach to visual analysis. According to Serafini (2010: 97), to gain an understanding of cultural meanings in picturebooks, images should be interpreted through the consideration of ‘the socio-cultural, historical, and political contexts of the production, and dissemination of visual images and multimodal text.’ Since there has been no analytical framework for interpreting cultural meanings of illustrations in East Asian children’s picturebooks to date, the CMAI framework is particularly useful in Western contexts where teachers and students are required to develop an understanding of Asian cultures in general and Vietnamese culture specifically. Therefore, we recommend that teacher training programs in Western cultures adapt the CMAI framework for their training curricula. There is potential for future research and work using the current CMAI framework, which can add to the exemplars by using additional picturebooks about Vietnamese culture, as well as by extending the research to picturebooks about and from other Asian cultures. Further research may both validate and enrich the CMAI framework to ensure that it accounts for the widest possible range of cultural aspects of images from all Asian countries.
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References Anh, P.H.M. and Lee, Y.-S. (2008) A study on the classifications and symbolic meanings of Vietnamese traditional patterns. International Journal of Human Ecology 9 (1), 29–40. Balagopalan, S. and Sreenivas, D. (2011) Telling different tales: Possible childhoods in children’s literature. Childhood 18 (3), 316–332. Barthes, R. (1997) Image, Music, Text (S. Heath, trans). London: Fontana Press. Bishop, R.S. (1990) Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives 6 (3), ix–xi. Budd, Y. (2016) Using culturally diverse picture books in the classroom: Exploring culture, language and identity. Practically Primary 21 (2), 7–10. Bullen, E. and Lunt, T. (2015) Asia and the autobiographical picture book. In C. Halse (ed.) Asia Literate Schooling in the Asian Century (pp. 151–166). London: Routledge. Byram, M. (1997) Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence (1st edn). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Byram, M., Gribkova, B. and Starkey, H. (2002) Developing the Intercultural Dimension in Language Teaching: A Practical Introduction for Teachers. Strasbourg: Language Policy Division, Directorate of School, Out-of-School and Higher Education, Council of Europe. Callicott, J.B. and McRae, J. (2014) Environmental Philosophy in Asian Traditions of Thought. New York: SUNY Press. Cao, M. (2017) Schematizing plum blossoms: Understanding printed images in thirteenthcentury China. MA thesis, McGill University. Chen, X. and Browne, S. (2015) Pearls of meaning: Preschool children respond to multicultural picturebooks. New Waves 18 (2), 16–28. Dedeoglu, H., Ulusoy, M. and Lamme, L.L. (2012) Turkish preservice teachers’ perceptions of children’s picture books reflecting LGBT-related issues. Journal of Educational Research 105 (4), 256–263. Dinh, T.N. (2014) Culture representations in locally developed English textbooks in Vietnam. In R. Chowdhury and R. Marlina (eds) Enacting English across Borders: Critical Studies in the Asia Pacific (pp. 143–167). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. Frye, B., Button, L., Kelly, C. and Button, G. (2010) Preservice teachers’ self-perceptions and attitudes toward culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Praxis in Multicultural Education 5 (1), 6–22. Garland, S. and Tatsuro, K. (1997) The Lotus Seed. Boston, MA: Houghton Miffl in Harcourt. Hall, D.E. (2001) Literary and Cultural Theory: From Basic Principles to Advanced Applications. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Hall, J. (2018) Illustrated Dictionary of Symbols in Eastern and Western Art. New York: Routledge. Halse, C., Cloonan, A., Dyer, J., Kostogriz, A., Toe, D. and Weinmann, M. (2013) Asia Literacy and the Australian Teaching Workforce. Melbourne: Education Services Australia (SCSEEC). See http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30059952 Horie, M. (2014) The opportunities and challenges of intercultural education for Asia literacy. Ethos 22 (3), 20–39. Howrey, S.T. and Whelan-Kim, K. (2009) Building cultural responsiveness in rural, preservice teachers using a multicultural children’s literature project. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 30 (2), 123–137. Huynh, N.T., Thomas, A. and To, V.T. (2019) Interpreting cultural meanings of nonWestern images with East Asian philosophical concepts. Paper presented at ASFLA 2019, University of Sydney. Huynh, N.T., Thomas, A. and To, V.T. (2020) East-Asian philosophical concepts as analytical framework for interpreting non-Western images in children’s picturebooks. In G. Neokleous, A. Krulatz and R. Farrelly (eds) Handbook of Research on Cultivating
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Literacy in Diverse and Multilingual Classrooms (pp. 393–420). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Kim, W.C. (2013) Multicultural ecocriticism and Korean ecological literature. In S.C. Estok and W. Kim (eds) East Asian Ecocriticisms: Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment (pp. 77–90). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Krakouer, J. (2015) Literature Review Relating to the Current Context and Discourse on Indigenous Cultural Awareness in the Teaching Space: Critical Pedagogies and Improving Indigenous Learning Outcomes through Cultural Responsiveness. Camberwell: Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). Le, K.T. (2015) Tam-giao cultural expression and representations of post-war trauma in Vietnamese visual arts. (Doctoral dissertation, Curtin University, Australia). Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2192 Le, T.D. and Wang, J.P. (2013) Research on reform Vietnamese traditional clothing for high schoolgirls’ uniform. Advanced Materials Research, 821–822, 811–814. doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.821-822.811 Levin, F. (2007) Encouraging ethical respect through multicultural literature. The Reading Teacher 61 (1), 101–105. Li, X. (2021) Application of the pattern ‘Three companions of winter – pine trees, bamboo and plum’ in modern textiles. In A. Volodin, I. Roumbal and Y. Zhang (eds) Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Arts, Design and Contemporary Education (ICADCE 2021) (pp. 322–330). Amsterdam: Atlantis Press. Liddicoat, A.J. (2002) Static and dynamic views of culture and intercultural language acquisition. Babel 36 (3), 4–11. Luo, J. (2015) Chinese painting and traditional Chinese culture. International Journal for Innovation Education and Research 3 (5), 176–181. Ma, Y. (1190–1225) Viewing Plum Blossoms by Moonlight [Painting]. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. See https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/ search/44638 Martens, P., Martens, R., Doyle, M.H. et al. (2015) Building intercultural understandings through global literature. The Reading Teacher 68 (8), 609–617. Mckenzie, J. (2014) National identity and the perspective of the other: New Zealand children responding to South African picture books. Mousaion 32 (4), 93–127. Neuman, S. (1999) Creating continuity in early literacy: Linking home and school with a culturally responsive approach. In L. Gambrell, L.M. Morrow, S.B. Neuman and M. Pressley (eds) Best Practices in Literacy Instruction (pp. 258–270). New York: Guilford Press. Nguyen, D. (2017) Áo dài nam truyền thống và chuyện tìm quốc phục cho đàn ông Việt [The Traditional Áo Dài and the Story of Searching National Costume for Vietnamese Men]. See https://vov.vn/di-san/ao-dai-nam-truyen-thong-va-chuyentim-quoc-phuc-cho-dan-ong-viet-698240.vov#ref-https://www.google.com/ Paetzold, H. (2009) The origins of landscape painting: An intercultural perspective. In A. van den Braembussche, H. Kimmerle and N. Note (eds) Intercultural Aesthetics (pp. 55–67). Dordrecht: Springer. Palmer, B.C., Sun, L. and Leclere, J.T. (2012) Students learn about Chinese culture through the folktale ‘Yeh-Shen’: Emphasizing figurative language interpretation. Multicultural Education 19 (2), 49–54. Phan, N. (1998) Bẚn sắc văn hóa Việt Nam [The Cultural Aspects of Vietnam]. Ha Noi: Nxb Văn Hóa – Thông Tin. Rodriguez, N.N. and Kim, E.J. (2018) In search of mirrors: An Asian critical race theory content analysis of Asian American picturebooks from 2007 to 2017. Journal of Children’s Literature 44 (2), 17–30. Serafi ni, F. (2010) Reading multimodal texts: Perceptual, structural and ideological perspectives. Children’s Literature in Education 41 (2), 85–104. Tan, C.T. and Lim, C.K. (2019) Epilepsy care: Work, upbringing, leisure, and Chinese culture. Neurology Asia 24 (3), 197–202.
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To, V.T., Swabey, K., Bown, A. and Thai, B. (2020) Multiple perspectives on the benefits of teaching of Vietnamese to preschool children in an Australian early childhood context. International Journal of Early Years Education 1–16. See https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09669760.2020.1814220?casa_token=LaYRyZs0r2QA AAAA:ckuEUglJqxU3HBaLeTyPwzp0PgwVR8-7UJ6RmWxx5X2Vfo8XhZ3svkcis csWuM3nFmcOsfEVdiGZpQ Tran, H.T.T. (2019) An autobiographical narrative inquiry into the experiences of a Vietnamese mother: Living alongside children in transition to Canada. Education (Chula Vista) 25 (1), 3–18. Tschida, C.M., Ryan, C.L. and Ticknor, A.S. (2014) Building on windows and mirrors: Encouraging the disruption of ‘single stories’ through children’s literature. Journal of Children’s Literature 40 (1), 28–39. Van, V.H. (2020) The Buddhism cultural heritage in the cultural life of Vietnamese people. Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews 8 (3), 811–823. Wilson, J.K. (1990) Powerful form and potent symbol: The dragon in Asia. The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77 (8), 286–323.
4 The Multilingual Language Classroom: Applying Linguistically Diverse Approaches for Handling Prior Languages in Teaching English as a Third Language Tanja Angelovska
This chapter deals with the relevance of transfer for the multilingual classroom. The focus is on English as a third language (L3) learners, especially in multilingual contexts where the official language of instruction is German. It bridges the existing gap between linguistic research and language teaching. Following a brief overview of existing studies on diverse learners in the EFL classroom and the role of transfer, the focus is on the following areas: (1) today’s multilingual classrooms, their diverse learners and language practices; and (2) research-informed teaching implications for language pedagogy in multilingual classrooms based on existing relevant research findings. Introduction
Multilingualism can no longer be regarded as the exception in the globalized world. In the European Union, for instance, the objective is to foster multilingualism at the institutional, societal, educational and individual level (Angelovska & Hahn, 2016). Ever since the Barcelona European Council meeting in 2002 and upon a recommendation of the European Commission, an objective has been set out to implement the goal of mother tongue + two, stipulating that all European citizens should learn two languages in addition to their mother tongue. According to the European 67
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Union Barometer, 28% of Europeans can hold a conversation in at least two languages and 11% in at least three languages excluding their mother tongue (European Commission, 2018). This means that every third European uses more complex linguistic resources than monolinguals do and can be considered multilingual (Creese & Blackledge, 2010). This is not surprising, taking into consideration the fact that 17% learn a second language in primary school and 55% in secondary school (European Commission, 2018). There is no doubt that due to migration processes, European countries are becoming increasingly multilingual, which influences their education systems. This reality has resulted in the official document of the Council of Europe named the Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures (FREPA; Candelier et al., 2013), which emphasizes linguistic and cultural diversity more than ever before (cf. Grima, this volume). If multilingualism has become the norm, it seems that teachers should begin to embrace this reality. However, promoting a multilingual teaching approach – i.e. a pluralistic approach (Schröder-Sura, 2015) or inclusive multilingualism (Cenoz & Gorter, 2015) – understandably poses several educational challenges (Angelovska & Hahn, 2016). The promotion of the development of multiple language competencies coupled with migration processes has resulted in schools with quite heterogeneous classrooms. These are unquestionably multilingual as learners are quite likely to learn foreign languages while simultaneously acquiring the institutional language of the community (Angelovska & Schaipp, 2020). Under these circumstances, individuals with a repertoire of typologically different languages should be appropriately acknowledged. Thus, when teaching in such multilingual classrooms, teachers should carefully consider various factors, such as knowing what type of learners they are working with, what prior languages these learners bring in, what acquisitional paths they have had, and how they use their languages.
Literature Review The multilingual EFL classroom and its diverse learners
To best illustrate the diversity of a multilingual language classroom, let us consider a multilingual classroom in which English as a foreign language (EFL) is taught as a school subject in Austria. Such a classroom is composed of learners with various linguistic profi les: • •
EFL learners with German as fi rst language (L1), who are at the same time second language (L2) learners of English. Bilinguals with two L1s (e.g. Lx and German) who are learning English as a third language (L3) (whereby Lx for the Austrian context most often implies the largest minority, who speak Bosnian/Serbian/ Croatian).
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Trilinguals with three L1s (Lx and Ly – two non-German L1s with German acquired in an immersed context as the language of schooling) who are learning English as a fourth language (L4). Heritage speakers – or ‘people raised in a home where one language is spoken who subsequently switch to another dominant language’ (Polinsky & Kagan, 2007: 368), etc.
This list is a continuum, representing different learners’ profiles with numerous typologically different language combinations and learning histories, all of which differ depending on an array of factors. For example, differences may be found in: whether learners were raised bilingually from birth; whether the official language is one of those first two languages; whether they acquired their languages subsequently or simultaneously; whether they have been learning other foreign languages before/after/while learning EFL and, if yes, for how long; whether they speak a dialect/local variety besides the main language (i.e. bi-dialectal speakers), and so on (Angelovska, 2020, 2021). A careful consideration of the type of language input to which EFL learners have been exposed is needed to understand differences and/or similarities between different individual learners in order to facilitate learning and teaching in multilingual classrooms. To exemplify the importance of this diversity, let us discuss some differences between heritage speakers and L2 learners. Previous studies have shown, For example, previous studies have shown that heritage speakers seem to be at an advantage in comparison to L2 learners, as the former display morphosyntactic advantages that depend on their language experience, as well as phonological advantages that do not seem to depend on their experience (e.g. Oh et al., 2010). In addition to advantages in speech production as evidenced in existing studies (cf. Au et al., 2002; Chang et al., 2009), heritage speakers show advantages in speech perception as well (Lukyanchenko & Gor, 2011). The hidden diversity of learners and their learning paths has often been an object of misconceptions in classroom teaching, which has resulted in the status of English as a third rather than a second language remaining unnoticed for a long time. In particular, Dalton-Puffer et al. (2011) acknowledge that this problem exists in German speaking countries where researchers often assume that German is the first language and English the second language for all learners. Such cases of immersed bilingual learners speaking another language at home often remain neglected in language education. Results from a recent study in secondary schools in Finland (Illman & Pietilä, 2018) show existing problems with the lack of multilingualism-oriented educational systems, materials and teachers. The researchers found that most recently immigrated multilingual students had problems understanding Finnish words in their English textbooks. Using the majority language during classroom interactions in EFL lessons is commonplace in many European countries because curricula often recommend using it for explaining complex grammatical phenomena. However, low proficiency in the language of the educational system
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can be a burden to L3 learners who are still learning this language as L2, and who therefore do not benefit from metalinguistic explanations in this language. As a result, migrant EFL learners are not given opportunities to use the potential of their multilingualism to its fullest. Exposure to diverse multilingual linguistic input has been the subject of investigation in several studies. Fan et al. (2015) examined three groups of children and their communicative ability, in particular regarding perspective taking when interpreting a speaker’s intended meaning: (1) monolingual children; (2) children exposed to bilingual input, but not bilingual themselves; and (3) bilingual children. The results from a vocabulary test showed that proficiency in English was comparable in all three groups – thus, all children could follow the given task instructions at the onset of the experiment. Fan et al. (2015) found that the two groups with greater exposure to two languages, namely those being exposed to a second language and the bilingual children, differed significantly from the monolingual group, although the executive function scores for the monolingual children and those exposed to another language were lower than the scores of the bilingual children. Despite the lower scores of the exposure group (i.e. children exposed to bilingual input), both the exposure and the bilingual group were equally successful in the experimental tasks. The researchers concluded that ‘the vast human experience with multilingual exposure may have promoted the development of subtle and unique mental tools that facilitate communication’ (Fan et al., 2015: 7). The main educational implication springing from their results relates to the benefits of reducing miscommunication through exposing young children actively to diverse multilingual linguistic input. Similarly, Maluch and Kempert’s (2019) study investigated the effects of bilingualism on the acquisition of L3 English by minority bilingual children attending the eighth and ninth grade in Germany, including a multitude of factors in their analysis, such as the impact of manner, order of acquisition, and language use practices. Using regression analyses, they showed that bilingual children who acquired both languages during the fi rst three years of life, attended formal lessons in their minority language, and demonstrated more frequent switching practices between the two languages, outperformed the other bilingual and monolingual children. Their results highlight the importance of early exposure and frequent use in both the majority and the minority language for bilinguals aspiring to acquire a third language, in this case a foreign language. Transfer in L3
The most striking difference that distinguishes L3 learners from L2 learners is the source of linguistic transfer, that is, whether they transfer from one or two languages. Transfer is here understood as the mental representation (Angelovska & Hahn, 2017). Whereas L2 learners can only
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draw on their L1 when learning an L2, L3 learners have a further potential source for transfer and profit from previous linguistic knowledge of both an L1 and an L2 (Angelovska & Hahn, 2014). One of the major challenges in acquiring an L3/Ln (i.e. further languages) is the command of grammatical forms and structures that display differences between learners’ native language and prior non-native language/s. Consequently, the three (or more) language systems, the potential sources for transfer, their type and direction, and other transfer phenomena complicate the outcomes in L3/Ln acquisition and teaching. So far, four explanations of transfer during the initial stages of L3 acquisition exist: the L1 Factor (Hermas, 2010), maintaining that absolute transfer happens only from the L1; the L2 Status Factor (Bardel & Falk, 2012), maintaining the L2 as a source of transfer in the acquisition of L3 morphosyntax due to cognitively similar learning process in L2 and L3; the Cumulative Enhancement Model (Berkes & Flynn, 2012), maintaining that only positive transfer from either of the previously acquired language systems takes place; and the Typological Proximity Model (Rothman, 2010), maintaining that transfer from either L1 or L2 is determined by the structural proximity to the L3 (for a review, see Angelovska & Hahn, 2017; Puig-Mayenco et al., 2020). What these studies have in common is the position that acquiring an L3 is constrained by universal principles, and that the type and point at which transfer happens is determined not only by linguistic but also by cognitive factors. The predictions of these models rest on explanations of a cognitive and structural linguistic nature. They all mainly account for the mental representation of the prior languages in L3 acquisition by using comprehension or production data (either spoken or written data) with a focus on either elementary or intermediate learners. More recent models explaining transfer beyond the initial stages are the Linguistic Proximity Model (Westergaard et al., 2017), which maintains that transfer happens on a property-by-property basis, and the Scalpel Model (Slabakova, 2017). Hybrid transfer has been documented by Angelovska (2017a), who investigated whether adult L3 learners of English with different degrees of L2 German use and at different L3 proficiency levels transfer word order from the L1 and the L2. The results showed that beginner L3 learners transfer more from their L2 German (for the unique feature of verb-second) in speaking than in writing English, and that their accuracy in speaking was lower than that of intermediate learners. Likewise, beginner L3 learners with high scores in German usage (frequency) transferred more from L2 German than those with lower scores. Such negative transfer resulted in the production of grammatically unacceptable sentences, as in the following English sentence with German word order: *At that moment took he the key. Depending on the learners’ diverse multilingual backgrounds and the typological similarity between their prior languages and English, some features may cause negative transfer conflicts for some learners while they are an asset
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for others (Angelovska, 2018; Angelovska & Hahn, 2014, 2016). The question of how to link predictions of the existing transfer models in initial L3 stages to informed teaching practices in multilingual classrooms was raised by González Alonso and Rothman (2017), who used insights from formal linguistic theory to predict potential areas of difficulty for multilingual learners. Taking into consideration such cases in practice requires that teachers have solid knowledge about transfer phenomena. Besides transfer, learners with a larger repertoire of languages understandably develop (meta)linguistic awareness about all prior languages (cf. Angelovska, 2018). Pinning down the predictors for increased metalinguistic awareness can serve as a basis for guidelines for practitioners. For example, Sanz (2000) compared monolinguals (Spanish) and bilinguals (Spanish/Catalan) acquiring English and found that bilinguals’ heightened metalinguistic awareness, which was defi ned as ability to focus on form and attend to the relevant features in the input, was a result of the exposure to literacy in their two languages. Angelovska (2018) examined how L3 adult learners of English with various L1s explained their transfer phenomena concurrently and what types of cross-linguistic awareness they displayed. In this study, following Angelovska and Hahn (2014: 187), cross-linguistic awareness was defi ned as ‘a mental ability which develops through focusing attention on and reflecting upon language(s) in use and through establishing similarities and differences among the languages in one’s multilingual mind.’ Angelovska (2018) found that the emergence of cross-linguistic awareness was confounded with the development of metalinguistic knowledge about the prior languages in L3 learners who displayed different types of cross-linguistic awareness. Being aware of L3 learners’ abilities and the difficulties they face in all their existing languages can help teachers support learning in such a way that the particular needs of the diverse learners are met. Teacher preparedness to work with multilingual learners
Multilingual teaching practices that equally consider all learners’ languages differ enormously from existing monolingual practices, which follow the target-language-only principle, neglecting learners’ home languages, which are mainly used in informal contexts outside of the school context (Alisaari et al., 2019; Heyder & Schädlich, 2014; Otwinowska, 2017). For example, Schoreder-Sura (2015) reported that while teachers in their study felt positive towards applying multilingual pedagogies, they were discouraged because of a false belief that they needed to speak all languages present. This holds true even for multilingual and experienced teachers (cf. Haukås, 2016; Otwinowska, 2014). Thus, teachers should be made aware that being a multilingual speaker is not necessarily a precondition for fostering multilingualism in their classroom. One of the main principles of a multilingual pedagogy is that all languages of a multilingual
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speaker are valued as resources. Although multilingualism is the norm, the methodology of teaching third or additional languages seems to be marginalized in current EFL practices. Yet, calls have been initiated to consider EFL as a door opener for multilingual pedagogies. However, several gaps have been found with regard to teaching materials, methods, and high levels of uncertainty among teachers, as well as lack of appropriate language teacher educational training (Angelovska et al., 2020; García & Kleyn, 2019; Ziegler, 2013). In what follows, research results from studies on in-service or pre-service teachers’ preparedness to include multilingual pedagogies are reported (cf. Kopečková & Poarch, this volume). Subsequently, selected multilingual teaching options are presented. To understand the challenges associated with fostering multilingualism in the classroom, it is important to focus on teacher-related factors. Several studies have investigated teacher knowledge and preparedness to work with multilingual learners. Gilham and Fürstenau (2020) found indications of links between the existence of the different languages in the teachers’ everyday lives and their preparedness to include these in their actual teaching. However, it would be rather anecdotal to claim that only multilingual teachers are able to incorporate multilingual pedagogies. The problem rather lies in the lack of adequate training and the availability of suitable materials. For example, Angelovska et al. (2020) accessed 94 teacher trainees from three different countries and with regard to their beliefs and knowledge about multilingual learners, the acquisition of second/foreign/additional languages, and the distinct characteristics of multilingual learners. All teacher trainees were equally uncertain about how exactly to incorporate learners’ home languages in their teaching in a way that would benefit learners. The results suggested that despite generally positive attitudes towards multilingualism, monolingual approaches are still engrained in the views on language teaching and learning. In contrast to the goal of creating a linguistically heterogeneous classroom which equally considers all the learners’ languages, monolingual practices, in which students’ home languages are mainly used in informal contexts outside the lessons, are still deeply engrained in teachers’ beliefs and practices (Alisaari et al., 2019; Heyder & Schädlich, 2014; Otwinowska, 2017). In the subsequent section, implications for the multilingual classroom are introduced. The aim of the subsequent section is not to provide ready-made recipes for teachers, but to illustrate the current situation in multilingual classrooms with its gaps and challenges. Implications for the Multilingual Classroom Practices for the multilingual classroom
Undeniably, continued monolingual practices in today’s multilingual classrooms are not only due to a lack of appropriate training but also due to a lack of available teaching materials. Not long ago, Thaler (2016) raised
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serious concerns about existing EFL textbooks, which lacked a multilingual perspective, and highlighted the necessity of designing materials that foster multilingualism. Following Cummins’ (2016: 11) call for ‘promoting instruction that teaches for transfer across languages,’ several investigations of the inclusion of multilingualism in teaching were initiated. For example, Gilham and Fürstenau (2020), in their very recent qualitative investigation based on individual case studies, looked at the language practices of primary school teachers concerning the inclusion of the home languages and their actual language experience. Surprisingly, even nowadays, monolingual practices seem to prevail in the profession. Such practices ‘strengthen monolingual ideologies and tend to identify acceptable and unacceptable languages for multilingualism’ (Alisaari et al., 2019: 49). Similarly, Illman and Pietilä (2018), in their investigation of the integration of learners’ L1 when teaching EFL, identified a lack of materials as an important concern. This was evident in teachers’ responses that EFL textbooks and other learning materials do not take into account learners from diverse linguistic backgrounds. This leads to a call to provide teachers with the necessary skills for the shift to multilingualism. For instance, teachers can initiate and introduce individualized instructional interventions addressing the multitude of languages through self-designed pedagogical material. Angelovska (in press) suggests concrete pedagogical material for the multilingual classroom with sample teaching materials for grammar (e.g. visual input enhancement technique) and vocabulary (e.g. finding deceptive cognates) – both based on the learning objective that learners should broaden their knowledge of cross-linguistic similarities and differences. Second, teachers may want to consider translanguaging, understood as a ‘pedagogical strategy to acknowledge migrant languages, achieve less language separation in traditional immersion models, and to increase content understanding’ (Duarte, 2020: 1) or allowing ‘using multiple languages, often simultaneously’ (García, 2009: 8) as the norm. In a recent study that examined pedagogical translanguaging, Leonet et al. (2020) found that primary school learners with English as L3 (fluent in Basque and Spanish) obtained higher scores in a word identification task and a word-formation task, benefiting from such an intervention. The most important pedagogical implication from this very recent study is that fostering metaphonological awareness in beginning L3 learners is beneficial for the acquisition of lexis. Hence, it seems reasonable to assume that lesson planning, teaching methods, foci, knowledge, and approaches in regular foreign language classrooms need to be reinvented in such a way that the heterogeneity is effectively addressed, and the different discursive practices of heterogeneous speakers are taken into consideration (cf. Günther-van der Meij & Duarte, this volume). Despite the commonly assumed importance of heterogeneity, the handling of prior languages in multilingual pedagogies remains insufficiently explored. The next section considers how teaches can deal with negative transfer in multilingual classrooms.
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Dealing with negative transfer in the multilingual classroom
Relatively little research exists on how to deal with negative transfer from the teachers’ point of view. Moreover, it has only recently been acknowledged that it is less problematic for learners and teachers to establish links based on positive transfer between the languages than it is to overcome negative transfer phenomena (Hahn & Angelovska, 2017). Teachers are left with a lack of adequate training and knowledge of how to predict what transfer phenomena may occur and how to help learners with typologically different language combinations to overcome them. With more knowledge, when planning lessons for the multilingual classroom, teachers can work out a prediction based on the knowledge of the languages spoken in their classrooms and an assessment of the learners’ proficiency. First, teachers need to investigate the typological relatedness of the concerned language pairs or triplets. For this purpose, teachers can conduct a linguistic analysis of what is to be expected – thus, focusing not only on similarities but also on differences that could lead to errors in learners’ performance. This would require teachers to carefully consider and appreciate the depth and range of the languages already known by the learners. Such cross-linguistic sensitivity and multilingual awareness are especially important in contexts where teachers themselves are not multilingual individuals (cf. Angelovska & Schaipp, 2020). In addition, teachers can use input flooding (i.e. repetitive exposure to grammatically correct language structures) and construct purposeful activities that induce parsing failures to force grammatical restructuring. In order to choose an appropriate pedagogical approach, teachers need an understanding of the distinction between types of knowledge – conscious, controlled knowledge (i.e. learned and explicit), and intuitive, automatic knowledge (i.e. acquired and implicit) – as well as an understanding of when to foster what types of knowledge and for what purpose. Mainly, the existing pedagogical suggestions deriving from the field of instructed second language acquisition rest upon views that either support the no-interface position, the weak-interface position or the stronginterface position. In terms of the usefulness of negative evidence (i.e. explicit information), these positions hold that: (1) explicit instruction about language cannot affect linguistic competence (no-interface position); (2) both acquired and learned knowledge (although different) are inherent in L2 grammar (weak-interface position); and (3) explicit instruction about language can affect linguistic competence (strong-interface position) (Benati & Angelovska, 2016). Based on results from previous studies, Angelovska (2017b) argued for pedagogical choices deemed relevant for handling prior language knowledge within both explicit (e.g. metalinguistic knowledge, negative evidence, explicit information, etc.), and implicit grammar instruction (input enhancement). For example, learners can be engaged in metalinguistic talk whereby they are guided to reflect on the similarities and differences between their languages. If
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negative transfer is likely to be predicted, learners can be provided with negative evidence supported by a metalinguistic explanation. The less intrusive alternative is to use input enhancement techniques and guide learners’ attention to the target feature that they have not dealt with previously. In what follows, some individualized approaches, which are tailored to the learner’s individual profiles and needs, are presented. Individualized multilingual teaching
Individualized multilingual teaching can provide a feasible solution to the considerations presented above. The fi rst individualized approach entails meaningful language reflection based on contrastive analysis. Teachers can make learners aware of language problems encountered during the L3 learning process and foster grammar learning by raising language awareness. For example, Angelovska and Hahn’s (2014) study provides insights for the teaching and learning of L3 grammar. As the study suggests, multilingual teaching can entail language reflection sessions (i.e. one-to-one teacher-learner situations within an individualized learner-centered approach), where teachers individually deal with learners who have different L1s and different levels of L3 proficiency. These language reflection sessions can be implemented as a component of a flipped classroom course including home self-study, face-to-face language reflection sessions with a language teacher, face-to-face group communication sessions, and online participation on a learning platform (Angelovska & Hahn, 2014). However, handling heterogeneous multilingual classroom situations with a majority of L3 learners who do not necessarily share the same language repertoire remains a challenge. Hence, teachers need to identify concrete instances where opportunities to raise language awareness exist. Next, teachers should foster L3 learners’ abilities to reflect on grammar. Finally, teachers can help L3 learners to notice gaps in their L3 grammar through contrastive analysis and translation techniques. The second approach that teachers can follow is related to the three main processes in language acquisition: input, practice, and output. Pedagogical suggestions for how teachers should work to predict possible (negative) transfer phenomena, overcome them and raise their learners’ metalinguistic awareness were offered by Hahn and Angelovska (2017). Starting from the existing results and non-results of L3 acquisition (transfer), they developed a so-called Input–Practice–Output method within an individual, learner-centered and (teacher) awareness-based framework integrated into a flipped-classroom approach. The approach entails two phases: an offl ine phase (outside of the classroom, e.g. at home where students are provided with explanations in the form of videos), and an online phase (i.e. in the classroom) in which the focus is on interaction and discussion. Flipping the contents of the out-of-classroom and withinclassroom contexts allows for the amount of input to be increased, thereby
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increasing the time available for practice in the classroom. Hahn and Angelovska (2017) called for increasing teachers’ awareness and prompting their active role in designing materials. Beyond filling the obvious gaps with concrete propositions, which have been lacking in the field of instructed L3 acquisition for a very long time, the suggested applications of the method yield implications of a three-fold nature: for the development of teaching materials, for lesson planning and for classroom research. Hahn and Angelovska (2017) based their pedagogical suggestions on results fi nding negative transfer from L2 German into L3 English. The verb-second (V2) verb placement has been found in cases where an adverbial preceding the verb in sentence-initial position (e.g. Dann sagte John ‘hi’ – Then John said ‘hi’) is phonologically as well as orthographically and semantically similar to the L2 adverbial (Angelovska, 2017a). Hence, they stated that learners could be triggered into using V2 in English if German is their dominant language (i.e. they live and function in German speaking communities daily, be it for educational or work purposes). For this purpose, precisely these similar adverbs should be proactively used in the input phase. Therefore, responding to such cases where negative transfer is expected requires teachers to prepare and present a visual enhancement chart. This entails using various modes of input enhancement (colors, sizes, blurbs, underlining, fonts, intonation, etc.) in the design of the materials. To summarize, learners’ diverse linguistic backgrounds should be approached from a typological perspective and possibly result in designing teaching approaches for specific clusters of language triplets. In addition, teachers need to be aware of the differences between L2, L3 and Ln learners and how their language knowledge needs to be incorporated when planning and conducting foreign language lessons in multilingual classrooms (Angelovska, 2019). Conclusion
Multilingualism is a norm rather than an exception nowadays. As a result, multilingual classrooms, represented by different constellations of various types of learners with typologically different language combinations, learning histories, and profi les, have become the norm in today’s globalized world. This chapter highlighted the relevance of acknowledging learners’ existing linguistic competence in today’s language classrooms. Specifically, it focused on the role of language transfer, resulting from the interplay of the multitude of languages in one’s linguistic repertoire. By bridging the existing gap between multilingualism linguistic research and multilingual teaching pedagogy, this chapter presented existing research on the distinguishing characteristics of multilingual learners, focusing on the transfer phenomena and the benefits of exposing diverse learners to multilingual
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input. It also derived research-informed pedagogical implications for the multilingual classroom, including teacher preparedness to work with multilingual learners, and the necessity to give an equal consideration to all learners’ languages, thereby departing from existing monolingual practices. The chapter acknowledged the fact that educational challenges arise with language teaching practices that aim at fostering multilingualism. The importance of cross-linguistic sensitivity and multilingual awareness in contexts where teachers themselves are not multilingual individuals was given special consideration, and the benefits of teachers’ engagement with learners’ background languages were highlighted. In order for language teachers to meet the particular needs of the diverse learners, individualized multilingual teaching approaches based on existing research accounts were proposed. English-only policies have controlled EFL curricula and teaching practices around the world for many decades (Otwinowska, 2017). However, EFL lessons should serve as a bridge to the remaining languages available in learners’ biographies, not restricted to other foreign languages, but encompassing learners’ home languages as well. In such a way, the EFL classroom will be transformed into a multilingual platform that values all languages as essential resources and not as learning obstacles. This presupposes foreign language teachers’ awareness about multilingual pedagogy and willingness to rely upon all existing languages to support multilingualism. This goal represents a challenge (Angelovska, in press) and requires foreign language teachers to gain multilingual competencies and become acquainted with their learners’ linguistic profi les, backgrounds and language learning histories. However, not all foreign language teachers have a multilingual background. In addition, predicting learners’ transfer phenomena and understanding the reasons for choosing particular multilingual approaches presupposes teachers having obtained a solid training in multilingual language acquisition and linguistic theory. This calls for immediate inclusion of additional multilingual training within university teaching programs and as an obligatory component of teachers’ professional development (Angelovska et al., 2020). Such an endeavor to equip all teachers with multilingual teaching competencies must be undertaken jointly by all parties involved: schools, teachers, universities, researchers and policymakers. Our common goal should be to increase teachers’ awareness about the surrounding multilingual reality and support their active role in choosing the appropriate methods and materials for the multilingual classroom. References Alisaari, J., Heikkola, L.M., Commins, N. and Acquah, E.O. (2019) Monolingual ideologies confronting multilingual realities: Finnish teachers’ beliefs about linguistic diversity. Teaching and Teacher Education 80 (1), 48–58.
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Angelovska, T. (2017a) (When) do L3 English learners transfer from L2 German? Evidence from spoken and written data by L1 Russian speakers. In T. Angelovska and A. Hahn (eds) L3 Syntactic Transfer: Models, New Developments and Implications (pp. 195– 222). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Angelovska, T. (2017b) Beyond instructed L2 grammar acquisition: Theoretical insights and pedagogical considerations about the role of prior language knowledge. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching 7 (3), 397–419. Angelovska, T. (2018) Cross-linguistic awareness of adult L3 learners of English: A focus on metalinguistic reflections and proficiency. Language Awareness 27 (1–2), 135–152. Angelovska, T. (2019) Instructed L3 acquisition of English. In J.I. Liontas (ed.) The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Angelovska, T. (2020) From L3 acquisition to teaching English. In J.I. Liontas (ed.) The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Angelovska, T. (2021) ‘When a psycholinguist enters the multilingual classroom’: Bridging the gap between psycholinguistics and pronunciation teaching. In A. Kirkova-Naskova, A. Henderson and J. Fouz-González (eds) English Pronunciation Instruction: Researchbased Insights (pp. 40–59). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Angelovska, T. (in press) Overcoming teaching-related challenges in the EFL multilingual classroom. In M. Rückl and J. Kainhofer (eds) Sprache(n) in Pädagogischen Settings [Language(s) in Educational Settings). Berlin: M. De Gruyter. Angelovska, T. and Hahn, A. (2014) Raising language awareness for learning and teaching L3 grammar. In A. Benati, C. Laval and M. Arche (eds) The Grammar Dimension in Instructed Second Language Learning (pp. 185–207). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Angelovska, T. and Hahn, A. (2016) English in multilingual individuals, societies and schools. In C. Ehland, I. Mindt and M. Tönnies (eds) Proceedings Anglistentag 2015 Paderborn (pp. 245–253). Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier (WVT). Angelovska, T. and Hahn, A. (eds) (2017) L3 Syntactic Transfer: Models, New Developments and Implications. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Angelovska, T. and Schaipp, K. (2020) Heterogeneity in TEFL: A focus on teachers’ competencies for and in the multilingual classroom. In J.I. Liontas (ed.) The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Angelovska, T., Krulatz, A. and Šurkalović, D. (2020) Predicting EFL teacher candidates’ preparedness to work with multilingual learners: Snapshots from three European universities. European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL 9 (1), 183–208. Au, T.K., Knightly, L.M., Jun, S.-A. and Oh, J.S. (2002) Overhearing a language during childhood. Psychological Science 13 (3), 238–243. Bardel, C. and Falk, Y. (2012) Behind the L2 status factor: A neurolinguistic framework for L3 research. In J. Cabrelli Amaro, S. Flynn and J. Rothman (eds) Third Language Acquisition in Adulthood (pp. 61–78). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Benati, A. and Angelovska, T. (2016) Second Language Acquisition: A Theoretical Introduction to Real World Applications. London: Bloomsbury. Berkes, É. and Flynn, S. (2012) Further evidence in support of the cumulative-enhancement model: CP structure development. In J. Cabrelli Amaro, S. Flynn and J. Rothman (eds) Third Language Acquisition in Adulthood (pp. 143–164). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Candelier, M., Camilleri-Grima, A., Castellotti, V. et al. (2013) Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches of Languages and Cultures. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (eds) (2015) Multilingual Education: Between Language Learning and Translanguaging. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chang, C.B., Haynes, E.F., Yao, Y. and Rhodes, R. (2009) A tale of five fricatives: Consonantal contrast in heritage speakers of Mandarin. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 15 (1), 37–43.
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Creese, A. and Blackledge, A. (2010) Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching. The Modern Language Journal 94 (1),103–115. Cummins, J. (1976) The influence of bilingualism on cognitive growth: A synthesis of research findings and explanatory hypotheses. Working Papers on Bilingualism 9, 1–43. Cummins, J. (2016) Teaching for transfer in multilingual school contexts. In O. García, A. Lin and S. May (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Vol. 10: Bilingual and Multilingual Education (pp. 103–115). Cham: Springer. Dalton-Puffer, C., Faistauer, R. and Vetter, E. (2011) Research on language teaching and learning in Austria (2004–2009). Language Teaching 44 (2), 181–211. Duarte, J. (2020) Translanguaging in the context of mainstream multilingual education. International Journal of Multilingualism 17 (2), 232–247. European Commission, Directorate-General for Communication (2018) Standard Eurobarometer 89: Public Opinion in the European Union. First Results. See https:// ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/ResultDoc/download/Document Ky/83548 Fan, S.P., Liberman, Z., Keysar, B. and Kinzler, K.D. (2015) The exposure advantage: Early exposure to a multilingual environment promotes effective communication. Psychological Science 26 (7), 1090–1097. García, O. (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. García, O. and Kleyn, P. (2019) Teacher education for multilingual education. In C.A. Chapelle (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (pp. 5543–5548). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Gilham, P. and Fürstenau, S. (2020) The relationship between teachers’ language experience and their inclusion of pupils’ home languages in school life. Language and Education 34 (1), 36–50. Gonzáles Alonso, J. and Rothman, J. (2017) From theory to practice in multilingualism: What theoretical research implies for third language learning. In T. Angelovska and A. Hahn (eds) L3 Syntactic Transfer: Models, New Developments and Implications (pp. 277–298). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hahn, A. and Angelovska, T. (2017) Input-practice-output: A method for teaching L3 English after L2 German with a focus on syntactic transfer. In T. Angelovska and A. Hahn (eds) L3 Syntactic Transfer: Models, New Developments and Implications (pp. 299–319). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Haukås, Å. (2016) Teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism and a multilingual pedagogical approach. International Journal of Multilingualism 13 (1), 1–18. Hermas, A. (2010) Language acquisition as computational resetting: Verb movement in L3 initial state. International Journal of Multilingualism 7 (4), 343–362. Heyder, K. and Schädlich, B. (2014) Mehrsprachigkeit und Mehrkulturalität: Eine Umfrage unter Fremdsprachenlehrkräften in Niedersachsen [Multilingualism and multiculturality: Survey for foreign language teachers in lower Saxony]. Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht [Journal of Intercultural Foreign Language Teaching] 19 (1), 183–201. Illman, V. and Pietilä, P. (2018) Multilingualism as a resource in the foreign language classroom. ELT Journal 72 (3), 237–248. Leonet, O., Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2020) Developing morphological awareness across languages: Translanguaging pedagogies in third language acquisition. Language Awareness 29 (1), 41–59. Lukyanchenko, A. and Gor, K. (2011) Perceptual correlates of phonological representations in heritage speakers and L2 learners. In N. Danis, K. Mesh and H. Sung (eds) Proceedings of the 35th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 414–426). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
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Maluch, J.T. and Kempert, S. (2019) Bilingual profi les and third language learning: The effects of the manner of learning, sequence of bilingual acquisition, and language use practices. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 22 (7), 870–882. Oh, J.S., Au, T.K. and Jun, S.-A. (2010) Early childhood language memory in the speech perception of international adoptees. Journal of Child Language 37 (5), 1123–1132. Otwinowska, A. (2014) Does multilingualism influence plurilingual awareness of Polish teachers of English? International Journal of Multilingualism 11 (1), 97–119. Otwinowska, A. (2017) English teachers’ language awareness: Away with the monolingual bias? Language Awareness 26 (4), 304–324. Polinsky, M. and Kagan, O. (2007) Heritage languages: In the ‘wild’ and in the classroom. Language and Linguistics Compass 1 (5), 368–395. Puig-Mayenco, E., González Alonso, J. and Rothman, J. (2020) A systematic review of transfer studies in third language acquisition. Second Language Research 36 (1), 31–64. Rothman, J. (2010) On the typological economy of syntactic transfer: Word order and relative clause high/low attachment preference in L3 Brazilian Portuguese. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Teaching 48 (2–3), 245–273. Sanz, C. (2000) Bilingual education enhances third language acquisition: Evidence from Catalonia. Applied Psycholinguistics 21 (1), 23–44. Schröder-Sura, A. (2015) Fortbildungen zum Referenzrahmen für plurale Ansätze zu Sprachen und Kulturen (REPA) in Europa [Professional developments in regard to the Reference Framework for Plurilingual Approaches to Languages and Cultures]. Babylonia 2, 58–62. Slabakova, R. (2017) The scalpel model of third language acquisition. International Journal of Bilingualism 21 (6), 651–665. Thaler, E. (2016) Mehrsprachigkeit im Englischlehrwerk [Multilingualism in ELT textbooks]. In M. Rückl (ed.) Sprachen & Kulturen vermitteln und vernetzen [Teaching and Linking Languages and Cultures] (pp. 180–192). Münster: Waxman. Westergaard, M., Mitrofanova, N., Mykhaylyk, R. and Rodina, Y. (2017) Crosslinguistic influence in the acquisition of a third language: The linguistic proximity model. International Journal of Bilingualism 21 (6), 666–682. Ziegler, G. (2013) Multilingualism and the language education landscape: Challenges for teacher training in Europe. Multilingual Education 3 (1), 1–23.
5 ‘There Are Many Ways to Integrate Multilingualism’: All-inclusive Foreign Language Education in the Netherlands Mirjam Günther-van der Meij and Joana Duarte
With the increase of multilingual learners in European schools, foreign language teaching is facing several challenges. Schools and teachers need to update their understanding of languages but often do not know how to handle this in practice. While some research on holistic approaches for primary education has been carried out, secondary schools remain under-explored. This chapter presents a project for multilingual secondary education in the province of Fryslân in the Netherlands aimed at filling this gap. In this project, activities for multilingual teaching were developed and implemented in three schools, based on a holistic model for multilingualism in education. Introduction
Foreign language (FL) teaching is currently facing several challenges. On the one hand, this is due to the current increase of multilingual students across European schools. On the other hand, recent research insights put pressure on the language separation ideologies traditionally used in FL teaching (Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2018b). Regional minority languages, such as Frisian in the Netherlands, are increasingly coming into contact with migrant languages, as more migrants move to officially bi- or multilingual regions in Europe. Schools, already struggling to meet the standards for the national, regional and foreign languages in the curriculum, are thus faced with the need to update their take on languages. However, how to handle this variety of languages in practice is unknown to many schools and teachers (Duarte, 2017). In addition, in line with the 82
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multilingual turn in language education (Conteh & Meier, 2014), there is a recent focus on the pedagogy of multilingualism, which has shifted the attention from competences in different languages to acknowledging the actual practices of language users. Several alternative terms have been used to describe the language practices of multilinguals: code-meshing (Canagarajah, 2006), transidiomatic practices (Jaquemet, 2005), polylingualism (Jørgensen, 2008), and heteroglossia (Pavlenko, 2005). Against this backdrop, translanguaging (García, 2009), the deployment of students’ entire linguistic repertoire for communication and learning, enjoys special attention. These recent developments share an understanding that languages are not separate entities and put the focus of teaching and learning on the dynamic and hybrid aspects of language use (cf. Ibrahim, this volume). Little is known, however, about the implementation of translanguaging approaches in the context of FL secondary instruction, in particular within educational settings that also take into account migrant and regional minority languages. This chapter presents a project for multilingual secondary education in the province of Fryslân in the Netherlands that addressed this gap. The project was based on a holistic model for multilingualism education by Duarte (2017) and Duarte and Günther-van der Meij (2018a) that places pedagogical practices along a continuum, oscillating between the acknowledgement of languages and their full use in education. Activities for using multiple languages in mainstream teaching were co-developed by pre- and in-service teachers and researchers and implemented in three different types of secondary schools: a trilingual Dutch-Frisian-English school; a school with mostly Dutch speaking students; and a school with newly arrived immigrant students. In some of the activities, a translanguagingbased approach (García, 2009; García & Li, 2014) was used to achieve less separation between the languages of instruction, while in others, language awareness (Young & Hélot, 2003) activities were implemented to acknowledge and explore migrant languages in relation to the languages of schooling. At the core of the project’s methodology was a design-based approach (Cobb et al., 2003), in which tailored instructional units were developed in co-construction between pre- and in-service teachers and researchers through iterative development rounds over a longer period of time. The cyclic design-based research (DBR) (Cobb et al., 2003; McKenney & Reeves, 2013) allows pre- and in-service teachers to develop their own pedagogical experiments and first implement these in their teaching at a small scale. In order for this to succeed, teachers need to: (1) create safe spaces in which to experiment with multiple languages in the classroom; (2) operationalize the various approaches for multilingual education for their own context and particular aims; and (3) combine them in ways that allow them to tackle their concrete challenges. Activities in the project were based on the schools’ own research questions regarding multilingual education and developed bottom-up in close cooperation with language
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and non-language teachers at the participating schools, who then implemented the activities in their classes and provided necessary feedback to improve the activities. This chapter fi rst presents the holistic model for multilingual education and then provides examples of the teaching activities developed for each of the different components of the model, ranging from language comparison and awareness to content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and immersion, and taking into account a translanguaging approach. The activities were developed for regional minority and FL classes of the three types of secondary schools that participated in the project. The present chapter aims at answering the following research questions: RQ1 RQ2
How is the holistic model for multilingualism in education implemented in secondary education and what is the role of foreign languages in the model? How do pre- and in-service teachers assess the implementation of the model for multilingual education?
Theoretical Background Including multilingualism in secondary education
In recent years, there has been an increase in multilingual learners in various educational settings. Consequently, there has been a rising awareness of multilingual students’ competences and needs, leading to research on dynamic models of multilingual education (Duarte, 2019; Hobbs, 2012). In such models, all languages are acknowledged, regardless of whether they are dominant, minority, regional or foreign. To this end, several pedagogical approaches have been put forward to include multiple languages in mainstream instruction, such as language awareness, CLIL, immersion and receptive multilingualism (cf. Megens & Allgäuer-Hackl, this volume). However, many teachers are not aware of the existence of all these approaches nor of the differences between them in relation to different language learning goals. So, while several approaches are available and have produced positive academic, attitudinal and socioaffective results for all students involved, it appears that the most important challenge is not so much a lack of evidence-based strategies in highly diverse classrooms – although clearly more research is needed – but rather the availability of this knowledge and the need for a shift in attitudes of those who work with highly diverse classrooms on a daily basis, teachers, educators and policy-makers. (Herzog-Punzenberger et al., 2017: 33)
As an answer to this challenge, we have developed a holistic model for multilingualism in education in order to address the needs of schools
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Figure 5.1 Revised holistic model for multilingualism in education Source: Duarte (2017) and Duarte and Günther-van der Meij (2018a).
within the official bilingual province of Fryslân, in the north of the Netherlands (Duarte, 2017; Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2018a). The model combines the knowledge and teaching approaches that have proven effective in the education of both regional minority and migrant students into one model and can be tailored to different school types. It combines different approaches towards multilingual education by placing them along a continuum that oscillates between the acknowledgement of different languages and their full use in instruction. The model as it is shown in Figure 5.1 is a revised version of the original model from Duarte (2017) and Duarte and Günther-van der Meij (2018a). It consists of five approaches that are grouped under the perspective of functional multilingual learning (FML) (Slembrouck et al., 2018). The model treats all languages and varieties that learners bring into educational institutions ‘as didactic capital which can be invested in real-time learning processes, so as to increase children’s chances of development and education’ (Slembrouck et al., 2018: 18). Each approach is explained below. Language awareness approaches aim at raising four dimensions of the language competence of individuals to enable them to: (1) reflect upon and reveal some degree of awareness of their own dispositions and motivations regarding languages (socioaffective dimension); (2) manage their linguistic and communicative biography in new interaction situations (management of linguistic and communicative repertoires dimension); (3) manage acquisition processes (management of learning repertoires dimension); and (4) reflect upon the interactive processes that characterize language contact situations (management of interaction dimension) (Andrade et al., 2003: 489). Activities that foster language awareness (Candelier, 2010; Camilleri Grima, this volume) have the following features: (1) integrated language learning aimed at establishing associations between different languages (regional minority, immigrant, instruction
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and foreign languages); (2) intercomprehension, in particular for working with various languages within the same language family; and (3) a pedagogy for awakening to languages, implying attempts to break with the segmentation and isolation of the language teaching methods used in schools. The positive academic results achieved in teaching programs that aimed at raising language awareness are uncontested for all learners (e.g. Hélot & Young, 2006). Research has also provided strong empirical evidence for language comparison as a primary learning device that can exert a positive influence on conceptual learning in several areas (Rittle-Johnson & Star, 2011). The basic idea is that when two different units (e.g. objects, languages) are juxtaposed, intentional comparison processes promote deeper processing of their features as similarities and differences become intensely underlined. Moreover, this procedure helps learners to abstract principles that may be used to solve novel problems. However, research suggests that language learners are not usually asked to compare different languages and cultures (Tammenga-Helmantel et al., 2017). The concept of receptive multilingualism has also attracted attention in education. Receptive multilingualism refers to the ability of a speaker to understand utterances or texts in another language, even when they are not able to actively speak it. This skill, often linked to mutual intelligibility of closely related languages, can be used as a teaching method to raise receptive skills of languages (Braunmüller, 2013; ten Thije & Zeevaert, 2007). A more widely accepted method for using foreign languages in education is the CLIL approach. CLIL refers to teaching subjects such as science, history, and geography to students through a foreign language (Cenoz, 2013), focusing on both content and language. CLIL approaches are often implemented to provide instruction in the typical foreign languages, such as English, French or German, but it can also be used for the teaching of regional minority or migrant languages. Several studies have found that language performance was positively influenced using the CLIL pedagogy (Dalton-Puffer, 2008; Lasagabaster, 2008). For example, Dalton-Puffer (2008) compared and contrasted research outcomes from CLIL in different European countries, fi nding positive effects on vocabulary, morphology, fluency, receptive language skills, and speaking confidence as well as creativity and risk taking. However, fi ndings from previous studies indicated that the influence of FL learning on content study may be subject dependent and not always positive (Thompson & McKinley, 2018); a recent study of German secondary students showed that learners acquiring content in an L2 did not improve their overall English ability, only their English listening skills. Moreover, the L2 group took more time to reach a content level compared to the monolingual group (Dallinger et al., 2016). The most traditional approach to teaching English as a foreign language is immersion, which is often based on the separation of the English
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language from the other languages of instruction by using the one person, one language approach (Melo-Pfeifer, 2018). In early language learning programs across Europe (Nikolov & Mihaljeviđ Djigunoviđ, 2011), this approach has been mostly operationalized in three ways; schools engage either (1) the class teacher, (2) a (near) native speaker specialist teacher or (3) the class and specialist teachers as co-teachers (Unsworth et al., 2015). With the increase of multilingual students in European schools and new insights from research fi nding that language skills are transferable across languages, varieties and registers (Cenoz & Gorter, 2015), the exclusive use of this approach is questioned. Recent research suggests that both multilingual and monolingual students can benefit from an educational approach in which several languages are used in instruction. Conteh and Meier (2014) speak of the multilingual turn in language education, Flores and Beatens-Beardsmore (2015) describe the benefits of so-called heteroglossic approaches in which regional minority and immigrant languages and dialects are incorporated in instruction (cf. Armostis & Tsagari, this volume), while Melo-Pfeifer (2018) discusses the implications of the multilingual turn in FL education. The concept of translanguaging is integrated in each of the five approaches described above. Translanguaging is based on the view that different communication systems form a single integrated system where languages are fluid (Duarte, 2016, 2019). García and Kano refer to translanguaging in education as a process by which students and teachers engage in complex discursive practices that include ALL the language practices of ALL students in a class in order to develop new language practices and sustain old ones, communicate appropriate knowledge, and give voice to new socio-political realities by interrogating linguistic inequality. (García & Kano, 2014: 261)
Empirical research so far has focused on analyzing classroom interaction by zooming in on the ways in which translanguaging is used to construct meaning, acquire knowledge and negotiate power in diverse classrooms (cf. Rasman & Margana, this volume). An array of studies have underlined the advantages of a translanguaging pedagogy at different levels of school performance, for both migrant and regional minority languages: (1) in highlighting better lesson accomplishment (Arthur & Martin, 2006); (2) as a means of balancing the power relations among languages in the classroom (Canagarajah, 2011); (3) in protecting and promoting regional minority languages (Cenoz, 2017); (4) for raising participant confidence and motivation (Creese & Blackledge, 2010); (5) as a maximizer of learning (Hornberger & Link, 2012); (6) for empowerment and language learning (Mary & Young, 2017); and (7) for higher cognitive engagement in content-matter learning (Duarte, 2016). The above discussion shows that several approaches aimed at including multiple languages in instruction have been put forward. However, there is
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still work to be done. The biggest challenge is to help teachers become familiar with and embrace these approaches and apply them in their classrooms (Herzog-Punzenberger et al., 2017). The holistic model for multilingualism in education presented in this chapter enables teachers to constructively draw on languages that they speak themselves but also those that they do not. The aims of this chapter are: (1) to present the holistic model for multilingualism in (secondary) education in relation to foreign languages; (2) to discuss examples of multilingual activities that were developed within the research project; and (3) to provide an overview of teachers’ assessment of the implementation of the model. Methodology Context
The project reported here was conducted in the Province of Fryslân, a bilingual province with approximately 647,500 inhabitants in the north of the Netherlands, with Frisian as a regional minority language and Dutch as the majority language. A survey by the Province of Fryslân (2020) among 6500 respondents revealed that 57.3% have Frisian as their mother tongue and 46% have Dutch as their mother tongue. One out of 10 respondents indicated having both Frisian and Dutch as their mother tongue. About 15% have another language, such as a regional dialect or an immigrant language, as their mother tongue (Province of Fryslân, 2020). Since Dutch is the dominant language, native Frisian speakers are also proficient in Dutch. English is the most commonly taught foreign language; it has been a compulsory subject in primary education from 1986 onwards (Unsworth et al., 2015). In secondary education, English is mostly taught as a subject and not often used as a language of instruction, except in the Frisian trilingual schools in which Frisian and English are also used in the CLIL context to teach history or geography. The Holi-Frysk project
The Holi-Frysk project was a pilot study (2017–2018) which focused on multilingualism in mainstream secondary education from a holistic perspective (Duarte, 2017; Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2018a). It combined: (1) Different types of secondary schools by working with a trilingual school, a mainstream school and a school for newly arrived students. (2) Different multilingual teaching approaches by using principles of language awareness, language comparison, receptive multilingualism, CLIL and immersion methods. (3) Different types of languages by including national, regional minority, foreign and migrant languages.
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The project’s aims were to support teachers in developing multilingual teaching approaches and materials for different types of secondary schools and to investigate their implementation and its effects on the language attitudes of teachers and classroom interaction. To guarantee sustainability of results, a bottom-up approach was chosen for the development of the project’s pedagogical content. Recent studies have shown that the teacher is increasingly being put forward as the most important factor in the educational process, and thus as the starting point for the implementation of innovations in education (Priestley et al., 2016). All activities and materials were thus developed in co-construction with pre- and in-service teachers in DBR (Cobb et al., 2003) during three cycles of development and implementation over a period of one school year (2017–2018). Figure 5.2 presents an overview of the pilot study’s design and timeline.
Figure 5.2 Design and timeline of the Holi-Frysk pilot project
Sample
Three schools participated in the project, with a total of seven teachers and 186 students. Table 5.1 provides an overview of the schools, teachers, subjects and students. Three types of schools participated: (1) School A, a school for newly arrived students with a variety of home languages such as Arabic, Tigrinya and Chinese; (2) School B, a trilingual Frisian-DutchEnglish school; and (3) School C, a Dutch majority school. At each school, a language and a content teacher were invited to participate. The teachers were prepared for and guided in the project through school visits and workshops with the research team. In addition to the seven in-service teachers from the project schools, five pre-service teachers were included in the project to answer RQ2, as part of their training. The pre-service teachers were in their first year of teacher training and co-developed some of the activities of the project. DBR for developing educational innovations
During the fi rst half of the project, DBR (McKenney & Reeves, 2013) was used to work with pre- and in-service teachers to co-develop holistic multilingual activities, which were tailored to the needs of each individual
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Table 5.1 Sample of participating schools, teachers and students in the Holi-Frysk project Teacher (N = 7)
School (N = 3)
Age
Gender
Subject
No. of stds (N = 186)
Mother tongue
Years of experience
A1
A
50–65
Male
Mathematics
28
Dutch and Frisian