Differences between teaching in a monolingual setting and teaching in a bilingual setting

Talofa lava. 

For the last newsletter of the year I would like to take a look at some of the essential differences between teaching in a monolingual setting and teaching in a bilingual setting.

For most of us who attended the usual NZ school it would appear on the surface all that is required for a successful bilingual classroom is for a speaker of the target language to walk in and do in that language what would have been done in English. There are a number of critical differences though.

Firstly our heritage language classes are made up largely of students who are not native speakers of the language and in the first year or so have limited understanding of what is being said. The teacher in the bilingual classroom can be reasonably sure that the children’s language resources in the target language are quite small. Whereas the teacher of English in NZ can be reasonably sure that most of her students bring a rich resource of language to the classroom (barring the fairly small group of children who are native speakers of other languages).

What does this look like? Typically these students have a small vocabulary, limited to a narrow range of topics, with a limited knowledge of colloquial usage, and confused concepts about the syntax of the language (word order). None of these situations are rare in English-only classrooms, but we are talking about a matter of degree here, a vocabulary of 500-1500 in the target language compared to 2500-4000 in English. The implication of this for the bilingual teacher is that she needs teaching strategies for efficient language acquisition and a wide range of strategies for supporting children’s comprehension. In the main the teacher in a monolingual classroom assumes that students have a working knowledge of English and makes use of that knowledge. In the heritage language learning classroom the teacher has to create that level of language competence.

Being able to speak a language is no guarantee that one can teach it. Being bilingual is no guarantee that one can teach bilingually. To be a successful bilingual teacher one needs not only to know all that is required to teach in the English-only environment but also knowledge specific to second language/bilingual teaching and learning. Knowledge such as:

• the pedagogical theory behind second language bilingual learning;

• how second languages are acquired by bilinguals;

• how the brain processes new language and knowledge how the brain transfers skills and knowledge from one language to the other;

• what activities are available to accelerate these processes;

• how to encourage students to communicate in the new language in an environment dominated by English;

• how to adapt curriculum to become a vehicle for language learning as well;

• knowledge about biliteracy, not just literacy in one language; and

• how to deliver the curriculum through the language.

This last point is probably the major one. The Heritage language is not a curriculum subject. Our children are not learning the language as a subject and there is no text book for them or their teacher to follow as we would find in a secondary school or university class. The language to be learnt comes from the demands of each curriculum area and is not formally structured, it is the learning environment that is structured.

-Right from the start our children are learning and using the language as a means of communication. The curriculum is delivered in the target language, the academic skills are taught in that language, classroom social activity is ideally in that language. The students can’t escape from it at the end of the period and go to a Maths class taught in English. The teacher needs to know how to maintain the language use across all curriculum subjects and still cover the essential skills.

-Additionally this is taking place within the cultural context of the target language. In the Māori class things are done in a Māori way in line with Māori cultural beliefs and practices.

-As you can see, our teachers, teaching in the Heritage language classes need to have a special skill set, and the complexities of teaching are in excess of those for the average English speaking teacher in an English speaking classroom. When stressed it is common for bilingual teachers to yearn to return to the comparatively straightforward English-only classroom. They know how challenging being a bilingual teacher is.

Which language should be used to test/assess/counsel a bilingual child?

Kia ora tatou. 

Among the many texts on my bookshelf I have a copy of “A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism” by Colin Baker (2000). This book does very much what its title says and provides clear concise answers to the myriad of questions we teachers and parents have.

In browsing through the book I came across the question, “Which language should be used to test/assess/counsel a bilingual child? What should be the nature if such assessment?” Part of Baker’s response is about national testing systems such as our NCEA and he makes some important points about the practice of teachers and schools when assessing their students, in particular regarding the use of norm referenced tests. 

Norm referencing is the process of statistically finding an average, in other words creating what a “normal” student looks like in statistical terms.  When a student is assessed with such a tool the results show where that student stands in comparison to this statistically normal student. 

On the surface this may seem to be a reasonable process however there are some rather important fishhooks to be found. These assessment tools are often based on data gathered from native, monolingual speakers with very few bilinguals included. In Baker’s view such assessments are typically created by “White, middle class, Anglo test producers” and will include elements unfamiliar or not relevant to the bilingual. Nor do they measure the things bilinguals do need to be good at. 

Let’s try a mind experiment…Let us say, “ A normal apple is more or less ball shaped, with a core in the centre and glossy yellow-green, orange or red coloured skin. The flesh is apple flavoured and moderately crisp.”

Even though my grandfather successfully grafted a pear branch on his apple tree it is not possible to match the pears against what makes a good apple. To do so would mean saying, “This pear does not make a very good apple, it is misshapen, the wrong colour, wrong taste and too hard. The pear comes in well below the norm for apples.”

Assessments which make the assumption that a test can measure the achievement levels of bilinguals against monolingual standards effectively measure pears as if they were apples.

Baker also makes the point that assessment against monolingual norms can be disempowering to the bilingual student if it is implicit in the assessment that success is measured against monolingual standards. Inevitably bilinguals feel that their skills and knowledge are undervalued. Bilingualism is then seen as of less value, not “mainstream” and marginalised. 

Read more in: “A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism” by Colin Baker (2000) Multilingual Matters, Clevedon USA. A number of copies are held in the school library.

Noho ora mai ra, Chris

Revitalisation of languages in danger of extinction

Talofa lava.

For this week’s column I want to introduce some of the ideas of Joshua Fishman, Fishman’s interest has been in the revitalisation of languages in danger of extinction, of which I am sad to say there are many.

Early this week Maui Solomon from Ngai Tahu commented on the success of their programme in returning the Maori language to the South Island. We should remember that up until recently there were purported to be only 2 native speakers of Ngai Tahu Maori left alive and they were very old. Maui however predicted that in two generations there would once again be children in Ngai Tahu who were first language speakers of Maori.

How is this being achieved? Fishman has had considerable input into their programme with the result of priority being given to the language in the home. Fishman asserts that if the language is not transmitted intergenerationally, within the home and the community, it is forever at risk. In our context, we have parents who have elected to educate their children in schools in order for those children to gain fluency in Maori, Samoan or French. In many cases the school has become the only mechanism by which the language is being resuscitated. However if these children do not grow up to be parents speaking the language to their children, but send them to school to learn it, we will have only put off the evil moment for another generation.

While one might argue that French is not an at-risk language, within our families living in NZ it is quite likely that a French family in two generations time may be French only in name and not be speakers of the language. This has certainly been the pattern for most other immigrant groups in NZ. For Samoan a similar risk exists, and for Maori the possible disappearance of the language is a constant risk.

Our family’s language is part of our heritage and helps us define who we are and where we stand in the world. It is a treasure to be passed on by us all and not left for a school system. It is essential that we encourage our children to speak their Heritage language to our grandchildren from birth.

Ia manuia lou aso,

Challenges in teaching children a second language

Hi everybody,

This week I want to take a short exploration of the nature of language in order to give some more insight into the challenging task our children undertake in learning a second language. We often think of oral language and written language as different beasts but it is more helpful to see them as part of a continuum.

Scenario 1:

Two people are sitting at a table at home, on the table is a set of keys.

“ Hey, chuck us those please.” Says Fred, pointing to the keys.

“ What these?” says his friend Mac, holding them up.

“ Cheers!”

This interaction depended for its meaning entirely on both parties being there together in sight of each other, body language is a key element. Notice that a lot of the language is ungrammatical and colloquial, eg. chuck, us and cheers.

Scenario 2:

Mac is near the table and the Fred is trying to get into the garage outside.

“Hey chuck us the keys off the table please.”

“Hang on I’ll get them.”

“Cheers!”

Now they must be more specific about needing the keys because they can’t assume that the

other person would know what “those” are.

Scenario 3:

Mac is still at home, Fred has gone to work.

“ Hi! Did I leave my keys on the table?”

“ Hang on I’ll go and look.”

“ Cheers!”

The information is even more specific and more grammatical.

Scenario 4:

One person is at work and calling Mac’s flatmate Joe.

“Hi Joe! Can you have a look and see if I left my keys on the table in the corner of the dining room please?”

Notice that now the speaker needs to understand that Joe doesn’t know which of the many

tables in the house are being referred to because Joe wasn’t there at the time, but Fred assumes that Joe will recognise the keys. More detail and more grammatical.

Scenario 5:

No one is home when the call is made and the answer phone comes on.

“ Hi! This is Fred here. I think I left my keys on the table in the corner of the dining room, they are on a red key ring with a Honda tag. Can you call me back on 0123 4567 please?”

Now there is lots of detail so that whoever gets the message knows who is calling, where the keys

might be and what makes them different from the other keys in the house.

Scenario 6:

Fred who left his keys behind is explaining to his son what happened to his keys.

“ Look son, I left my keys on the table at a Mac’s house and they had all gone out when I phoned. I think I left them on the table in the corner of the dining room. Could you go round after school and see if they are there? They are the ones on the red key ring with the Honda tag.”

Because the son is completely unfamiliar with the whole situation Fred has to give a large

amount of detail, but select only that which is relevant to the job of getting the keys back. This has a lot of the characteristics of written language because when we write we need to make the same sort of decisions about what the audience needs to know when they are distant in time and place from the event we are writing about. Because the purpose of the language is harder to fulfill in these conditions we need to be more grammatical, and provide more detail relevant to the situation.

Being able to use one’s second language successfully and appropriately across this range of

situations requires a high degree of sophistication and control of language. Food for thought isn’t it?

Cheers, Chris

Features of second language learning

Kia ora tatou.

Some weeks ago I quoted some of Patsy Lightbown’s work, in particular her list of features of second language learning. In this list she says, “Isolated explicit error correction is usually ineffective in changing language behaviour”.

This would appear to be counter intuitive and I am sure we have all attempted to correct our children’s errors, but I am equally sure we would agree with Lightbown regarding our lack of

success.

The key phrase in her comment is ‘isolated’. To me this isolation refers to picking of some particular error for close study when it doesn’t relate to any situation which is real at that time.

For instance if the teacher/parent chooses, out of the blue, to explain “much” and “many". Without an instant need for the correct use of the words the lesson is meaningless to most children.

Further to this is where the isolation refers to the correction being completely outside of the learner’s internal set of rules, what we refer to as their schema. I need to diverge a little here. The schema is the set of understandings and experiences we bring to making meaning of a word, a chunk of language, or a situation. So if we were to consider a schema for the concept of Mountain it might look like this:

Now if we had been brought up on a Pacific atoll that would all be meaningless as the highest point of land we have ever seen is likely to be only a few metres high. Similarly for a younger student a schema for Much might look like this:

Clearly at this stage in the student’s understanding of the language Much can do all the jobs you might suggest that Many can do so why would they change? Much can be used to talk about the size of something, eg. “ I’ve got this much money, this much time, this much further to go”, so it follows for this student that this much coins, this much minutes and this much kilometres is ok.

It is only when their schema grows to include the idea that much only applies to things which can’t be counted individually but can only be measured as quantities or groups that they will understand and apply the corrections.

So what are the implications of this for us as parents and teachers? Firstly make the corrections in context about real situations, and secondly explore with the learner their wider understanding of the word or chunk so that their schema is expanded. This can be done be drawing their attention to various uses of the words you are trying to correct. For instance you might say, “How many rain is there going to be?” and then go on to discuss why many is the wrong word and why. However don’t expect instant results.

As Lightbown says in her list, “Knowing a language rule does not mean one will be able to use it in communicative interaction”. Incidentally we appear as humans to be unable to pick up completely new schema for things, we can only add and adapt the ones we have. Which is why when we learn a new language we keep on going back to what we know about our first.

Nga mihi nui.

Chris

Ways parents and teachers can hold conversations about language with children

Kia ora tatou,

Before the holidays I promised to discuss ways in which we as parents and teachers can hold conversations about language with our children. You will recall that the implications of Krashen’s monitor hypothesis were that the learner needs to be cognitively engaged in their language learning, in other words they need to be thinking about how the language works and how they go about learning it.

So how can we hold these conversations?

The sorts of things we can do are essentially discussing with our children how words work and what they mean. A conversation might go like this,

“Hey, that man just said, ‘What a dog!’ but he didn’t have a dog. What on earth did he mean? ”

“I think he meant his car because it cost a lot of money but doesn’t go very well.”

“Ok, but why does it have to be a dog, dogs aren’t useless!”

“Maybe he thought his car would be a race horse and so he was disappointed when it performed more like a dog.”

The discussion covers issues about how we use language in metaphorical ways, and critical thinking about whether that metaphor is fair inviting the learner to practice making moral judgements.

Other possibilities are discussing what happens if a word is changed:

“What would happen if we had said his car was something else? What could we say?”

“How about calling his car a bomb?”

“ Well, does it explode?”

“No but…”

And we can discuss what we do with language:

“Anyway if we had said his car is ‘da bomb’ we would mean something different wouldn’t we?”

“Yep, that would mean it’s really good.”

“How come?”

Metaphor is a good subject too. We use metaphor all the time to talk about abstract ideas. For

instance when we launch a new project we are comparing the project with a ship, and when we say, “I have to fly” we are trying to compare our speed with a bird’s.

The next step is to invite the student to think about how they might say that in their other language. The reason for this is that metaphors are not translatable word for word. In Maori a proposal is matted (put on the mat), in English it would be tabled.

Similarly in English we might say that words flow as if they were a river, in Maori they fly and so does a river a current and clouds. Finding out where words come from and how they are constructed is a very interesting area.

“What is the connection between telescope and telephone?

What other words are made with tele? What is the connection between signing ones name and the sign on the wall?”

“What happens when we turn sign into signage, or friend into friendship? How do we do that in Maori/Samoan/French? What does adding whaka do to a Maori word, or fa’a to a Samoan?”

Lots of opportunity for discussion. I’m sure that you will find plenty of others. I forgot to say, there aren’t right answers. It’s the thinking that counts, that is what helps develop the learner’s internal set of rules about language.

Happy chatting.

Noho ora mai na,

Chris