From monolingual to plurilingual language/s learning: the relationship between language, learning and literacy

Symposium on Language Policy and Social Inclusion

「語言政策及社會共融」研討會

Conference of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service

10-11 February 2017

Angela Scarino

Associate Professor in applied linguistics

Director: Research Centre for Languages and Cultures

University of South Australia

email: angela.scarino@unisa.edu.au

2 Ian Abdullah is a local, South Australian Aboriginal artist

Setting the scene for literacy: the work of Ian Abdullah

Setting the scene • challenges in language/s education • awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity in education

Understanding language learning The relationship between language, literacy and learning From a monolingual to a multilingual/plurilingual orientation to language/s learning Some examples:

Example 1: The Australian Curriculum – Languages Example 2: English language project

Implications

Outline

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Challenges in language/s education - 1

‘We are more diverse than ever before’

Globalisation has brought an unprecedented scale and speed of movement of people and ideas and marked plurilinguality/ multilinguality and pluriculturality/multiculturality

• language capabilities are increasingly important AND • language issues are more salient than ever

immense diversity of learners (profiles, migration histories, affiliation

with languages, uses of languages, desires, expectations) need diverse pathways for language/s learning

the field is experiencing a multilingual turn (May 2014) and a related

reframing of the nature of L2 acquisition/development multilinguality, multimodality and multicompetence

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• The reality of an extraordinarily diverse, multilingual world crossing linguistic, cultural and ideological borders

• Increasing recognition of the reality of multiligualism in Western societies, which had accepted the monolingualism of the nation state as the norm ‘superdiversity’ (Vertovec 2007)

• Complexity/tensions – understandings of the past are being challenged (e.g. understandings that languages were learnt separately; that processes of code-mixing/switching were to be excluded, etc.)

a focus on multilingual exchange

education to incorporate a multiplicity of languages, discourses, literacy practices and interlocutors, recognising the diversity of learners

differentiated curricula/program/learning pathways for different learner groups

Challenges in language/s education - 2

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Changes in the nature of multilingualism (in education)

Classrooms and curricula need to be able to engage and build on the diversity in semiotic modes that learners bring to the classroom… The shifting nature of learner personae and subjectivities point to the need for new understandings of the teaching/learning process… particularly its individuation to accommodate different types of learning biographies emanating from the heterogeneity of learning

(Stroud & Heugh 2011:424)

Challenges in language/s education - 3

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Differing views of the phenomenon differing responses

Whereas in some contexts there is a growing acceptance of the fluidity, plurality and hybridity of identities, in other contexts, there are efforts to preserve purity, unity and coherence of identities that are perceived to be under threat

(Tsui & Tollefson, 2007: vii)

mixed reactions: a blessing vs domination in a new form

Challenges in language/s education - 4

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The multilingual and multicultural turn:

‒ the need for more nuanced, ethnographic understandings of the complex bi/multilingual repertoires of speakers in urban environments

‒ “the ways in which people of different and mixed backgrounds use, play with and negotiate identities through language (Makoni & Pennycook 2012, 449)

Note that there has been a ‘monolingual bias’ in SLA

Awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity in education - 1

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Some manifestations:

• Code-switching in Hong Kong (Lin 2013)

• Mother tongue based multilingual education in India (Mohanty

2012)

need to understand multilingualism as it is manifested in

particular contexts

need to understand how the practices of multilingualism, e.g.

code-mixing, code-switching, translation come into play in

processes of formal learning

need to consider processes of translanguaging (Garcia & Li Wei

2014)

Awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity in education - 2

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Understanding language learning

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The multifaceted nature of language learning and teaching

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(The Douglas Fir Group, 2016)

View of learning

Acquisition of new

knowledge

Participation in use of

knowledge/knowing

how to use language

Elaborate to highlight how

learning as a process of

making sense or coming to

understand, involves

becoming aware of how

learners reciprocally interpret

knowledge to others and

themselves through their

language and culture, and its

use with others, and reflect

upon the process of learning.

Understanding language learning

(Scarino 2014, p.390)

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Language, culture and learning - 1

• Need to understand learning as interlinguistic and intercultural learning, which may be characterised as:

‒ changing understandings/creating new knowledge through dialogue,

understood as a process through which to negotiate the interpretation and construction of meaning, i.e. more than disciplinary content knowledge

‒ recognising that people (self and other) are situated in their own linguistic, cultural, historical (experiential) context – meanings and values originate in the language, culture, history to which people belong and this provides the basis for new learning need to question positions, assumptions, origins

‒ recognising the processes of learning as reciprocal

learning as self-understanding

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• Need to recognise learning as ‘peopled’ (Candlin 1999) by individuals who bring their own ‘interpretive stance’

• Learners as social-cultural beings

“A sociocultural approach (to learning) places a premium on learners’ experiences, social participation, use of mediating devices (tools and technologies) and position within various activity systems and communities of practice… it is clear that as part and parcel of our early socialisation in life we each learn ways of being in the world, of acting and interacting… students learn new academic ‘cultures’ at school… and in the case of acquiring a new culture, the acquisition of these new cultures interacts formidably with learners’ initial cultures.” (Gee 2008, 100)

• Teachers as socio-cultural beings “…in understanding something so intensely personal as teaching it is crucial

that we know about the person the teacher is (Goodson, 2008:69)

to develop an understanding of how language, culture and systems of knowledge affect the way people interpret the world and their learning in the world

Language, culture and learning -2

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The relationship between language, literacy and learning

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The relationship between language, literacy and learning - 1

“When children learn language, they are not simply engaging in one kind of learning among many: rather, they are learning the foundation of learning itself. The distinctive characteristic of human learning is that it is a process of meaning making – a semiotic process.” (Halliday, 1993)

It is through language (in the context of situation and the context of culture) that teachers and students and students and students – in their linguistic and cultural diversity – interact to exchange knowledge, perspectives, to connect ideas, explain, elaborate and make sense/ exchange meanings.

Learning is mediated through the lenses of the language and culture of one’s primary socialisation

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• Learning and using language/s involves learning the language and use of the language; learning about language; learning through language

• Applies to all areas of learning literacies (multilingual/ multimodal) across the curriculum

• Students bring their first language/s and the language of instruction; for some learners, learning is mediated through a document language but they are likely to be thinking in the language of their primary socialisation

All the languages that learners experience in their socialisation and in education form part of their distinctive linguistic and cultural repertoires

Language is a crucial resource for learning across the curriculum and an integral aspect of learners’ identity – formation

The relationship between language, literacy and learning - 2

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Students of language/s need to:

• develop sophisticated communicative repertoires, based on (a) strong participation in and (b) understanding of language use, (c) how it varies in the context of situation and the context of culture and (d) how meanings are made across different linguistic and cultural systems

• extend their conceptual learning and development (through language)

• extend their identity formation (through participation; enhancing social/cultural well being)

language learning and literacy development as interlinguistic and intercultural

The relationship between language, literacy and learning - 3

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From a monolingual to a multilingual/plurilingual orientation to language learning

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• Contemporary context of linguistic and cultural diversity requires new forms of multilingualism and multiculturalism that go beyond monolingual contexts and uses of language

• Need to develop intercultural and symbolic competence – described by Kramsch & Whiteside (2008)

Symbolic competence could (…) be defined as the ability to shape the multilingual game in which one invests – the ability to manipulate the conventional categories and societal norms of truthfulness, legitimacy, seriousness, originality and to reference human thought and action. We have seen that this kind of competence is multiply distributed and that it emerges through the interaction of multiple codes and their subjective resonances… Multilingual encounters increase the contact surfaces among symbolic systems and thus the potential for creating multiple meanings and identities (…) symbolic competence is both semiotic awareness (…) and the ability to actually manipulate and shape one’s environment on multiple scales of time and space. Symbolic competence (…) adds a qualitative metalayer to all the uses of language studied by applied linguists, one that makes language variation, choice and style central to the language learning enterprise (Kramsch & Whiteside, 2008, 667)

From a monolingual to a multilingual orientation - 1

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• Role of learners as multilingual users and not as developing native speakers

• Development of ‘multicompetence’ (Cook 2008)

• Both communication and learning can be seen as interlinguistic and intercultural processes, with users and learners moving between diverse linguistic and cultural systems

• The ‘inter’ highlights that people interpret and exchange knowledge and ideas, build relationships, and co-construct identities in and through language

(Leung & Scarino 2016)

From a monolingual to a multilingual orientation - 2

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Some examples

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Example 1: The Australian Curriculum – Languages

(K-10) - aims

In learning to use the target language, learners learn to:

• exchange meanings reciprocally through interaction with people

and/or texts

• ‘move between’ and come to understand the linguistic and

cultural systems of the language they are learning, and at the

same time referencing these to their own linguistic and cultural

systems

• develop metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness of what it

means to interpret and to act in the world, and to be interpreted

reciprocally by others

(ACARA – Shape Paper)

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Three learner groupings:

• Learners who are introduced to learning the target language at school (second language learners)

• Learners who use the target language at home (not necessarily exclusively) and have knowledge of the target language to varying degrees (home user learners)

• Learners who are first language users of the target language and have undertaken at least primary schooling in the target language (first language learners)

recognising diverse learning pathways for diverse learner groups

selected the most appropriate/dominant pathway for each specific language

three pathways developed for Chinese

The Australian Curriculum – Languages Learner pathways

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The Australian Curriculum – Languages – curriculum design

25 (Scarino and ACARA, 2014)

• Study undertaken by Kathleen Heugh, Xuan Li and Song Ying at the University of South Australia

• Linguistically diverse classes with students from China, Korea, Hong Kong and Malaysia as well as Japan, India, Sudan, Ethopia – and more

• Focused on writing development to remove the tendency to ‘copy and paste’

• Encouraged students to use whichever languages were appropriate to plan researching/interviewing/noting/planning/ drafting including words and phrases from their home language in order to keep the writing going [a forbidden practice!]

• Students used a range of translation strategies

• Invitation to reflect on their own cognitive processes in making meaning more LEARNING

Example 2: Using translanguaging and translation in an English language course with international students

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• Conducted in 2014 in a first year English language course

• Questions:

1. How do we understand student (translanguaging) processes and practices when they use their primary written language alongside English?

2. Can we find a relationship between students’ writing proficiency in English and primary language?

3. Can we find a relationship among

― proficiency in the primary language and English and also

― the kind of translanguaging practices used by students?

4. Can we find evidence to support translanguaging in the teaching of English to international students?

The study - 1

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• 4 tasks written over 10 weeks

• Diagnostic instrument to capture if and how students used translanguaging practices, including translation (both word for word translation and versioning to find suitable equivalences

• Task 1 (in their primary language) – to explain and summarise their own learning needs and objectives

Task 2 (in their primary language) – reflective writing in response to video and reading material

Task 3 (in their primary language) – to write a summary of a review of an Australian film

Task 4 – a project involving conducting an interview, taking notes, writing these up as a biography

• Students invited to use their full linguistic repertoire

• Students asked to submit all their notes, drafts, evidence of editing, etc all analysed bilingually

• Focus on Chinese students (78 assignments produced by 24 students from Chinese backgrounds) all analysed bilingually

The study - 2

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• Students used code-mixing in 20% of cases; word for word translation in 20% of cases and versioning in the majority of cases

• Students with a higher level of academic proficiency in both Chinese and English make more use of versioning; students with lower proficiency make more use of word-for-word translation

Interpreting the data

1. It is important to ensure high levels of academic proficiency in the primary language in order to support high level academic proficiency in English

2. It is important to develop academic use of both languages simultaneously

3. High level engagement with cognitively academic knowledge may be enhanced through high levels of bilingual proficiency

positive value of translation / translanguaging

Findings

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Developing English Language and Intercultural learning capabilities Case Study 1

Notes/outlines/drafts

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Implications

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* Need for a multilingual/plurilingual orientation

• Exchanging meanings reciprocally in interaction

• ‘move between’ and come to understand the linguistic and cultural systems of the language they are learning, and at the same time, referencing these to their own linguistic and cultural systems

• Develop metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness of what it means to interpret and to act in the world and to be interpreted reciprocally by others.

implications for what it is that is learnt in learning a language: an expanded range of learnings

Implications - 1

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• Need to carry the plurilingual orientation to curriculum and assessment policies and designs – maintaining and developing L1 and developing L2 and additional languages

• Need to consider diverse pathways for diverse learners

• Need to consider resources for teaching and learning – within a plurilingual orientation

• Need to consider teacher education and teacher support

• Need to consider programs to encourage and support experimentation by teachers

• Need to consider research to investigate and develop understanding of multilinguality, specifically in the Hong Kong context

Implications - 2

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Questions / comments / discussion

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Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2011). Shape of the Australian Curriculum:

Languages. Available from https://acaraweb.blob.core.windows.net/resources/Languages_-

_Shape_of_the_Australian_Curriculum_new.pdf

Candlin, C.N. (1999). Researching and teaching for a living curriculum: Australia’s critical contribution to

praxis in language teaching and learning. Paper presented at the international conference. The AMEP:

50 years of Nation Building. Melbourne.

Cook, V.J. (2008). Multi-competence: blackhole or wormhole for second language acquisition research?

In X Han (Ed) Understanding second language process. Clevedon. UK: Multilingual Matters.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1993). Towards a language-based theory of learning. Linguistics and Education. 4, 93-

116.

García, O. & Li Wei. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Basingstoke:

Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1057/9781137385765.

Goodson, I.F. (2008). Investigating the teachers' life and work. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Kramsch, C., & Whiteside, A. (2008). Language ecology in multilingual settings. Towards a theory of

symbolic competence. Applied Linguistics, 29(4), 645-671.

Leung, C. & Scarino, A. (2016). Reconceptualising the nature of goals and outcomes in languages

education. The Modern Language Journal. 100, 81-95.

Li, X, Heugh, K, O’Neill, F, Ying, S, Scarino, A, & Crichton, J 2016, Case Study One: The English

Language Project, ‘Developing English language and intercultural learning capabilities: An

investigation in the Division of EAS’, prepared for the Division of EAS.

Lin, A. (2013) Classroom code-switching. Three decades of research. Applied Linguistics Review. 4, 1,

195-218. O’Neill, F, Scarino, A, Crichton, J 2016, Case Study Two: The Intercultural Learning Project, ‘Developing English

language and intercultural learning capabilities: An investigation in the Division of EAS’, prepared for the

Division of EAS.

References

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May, S. (Ed.) (2014). The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and bilingual education. NY

and London: Routledge. Mohanty, A.K. (2012). MLE and the double divide in multilingual societies. Comparing policy and

practice in India and Ethiopia. In Skutnabb-Kangas T. & Heugh K. (Eds), 2012. Multilingual education and sustainable development work. From periphery to center. New York and London: Routledge.

Pennycook, A.D. (2012). Language and Mobility: Unexpected Places, 1, Multilingual Matters, UK. Scarino, A. (2014). Learning as reciprocal, interpretive meaning-making. A view from collaborative

research into the professional learning of teachers of languages. The Modern Language Journal (Teaching Foreign Languages in an Era of Globalization) 98(1):386–401. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2014.12068.x

Scarino, A. (2014). Situating the challenges in current languages education policy in Australia — unlearning monolingualism. International Journal of Multilingualism (Special Issue: Educational Responses to Multilingualism) 11(3):289–306. DOI:10.1080/14790718.2014.921176.

Scarino, A. & Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2014). Australian Curriculum: Languages F–10 Curriculum Design. http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum/learning-areas-subjects/languages-main

Scarino, A., Kohler, M. with Benedetti, A. (2014). Investigating pedagogies for language-and-culture learning. Project commissioned by Department for Education and Child Development.

Stroud, C. & Heugh, K. (2011). Languages in education. In Mesthrie, R. (ed). Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, pp.413-429.

The Douglas Fir Group. (2016) A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a multilingual world. The Modern Language Journal 2016; 100 (Supplement). DOI: 10.111/modl.12301-0026-7902/16/19-47.

Tsui. A. & Tollefson, J. (eds) (2007). Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts. Lawrence Erlbaum.

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References (cont.)

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