Today, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva introduced the Supporting Young Language Learners’ Access to Bilingual Education (SYLLABLE) Act in the House of Representatives. The bill helps establish high-quality dual-language immersion programs in communities with high numbers of low-income families and supports those programs from pre-K to 5th grade.
“Today, bilingualism is an asset in our multicultural society and provides our students with more job opportunities in the economy of the future,” said Rep. Grijalva. “The SYLLABLE Act recognizes that importance, supports dual language programs in low-income communities, and ensures that every child has access to new educational opportunities that prepare them for a successful future.”
Studies show both native English speakers and English Learners in dual-language immersion programs benefit from bilingual education and experience substantial gains in language, literacy, and math. While these programs remain in high-demand across the country, they tend to cluster in affluent communities that provide limited access to low-income students.
“The SYLLABLE Act opens the doors of opportunity to the students who benefit from dual-language learning immersion programs the most,” continued Rep. Grijalva. “Investments in creative programs like these are a significant step forward toward closing the achievement gap and helping our students reach their full potential.”
The SYLLABLE Act
was previously introduced as the PRIDE
Actin earlier sessions of Congress.
A brand-new, locally produced version of Sesame Street or Ahlan Simsim (“Welcome Sesame” in Arabic) premieres this month on regional children’s TV station MBC3, as well as on YouTube and local broadcast channels across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region.
The new show is part of a groundbreaking humanitarian program between Sesame Workshop and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) that aims to address the devastating impacts of crisis and displacement on children across Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon.
Specially designed for children ages 3–8, Ahlan Simsim features familiar characters Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Grover, as well as two new characters named Basma and Jad. Basma, an almost-six-year-old purple Muppet, welcomes her yellow-furred friend Jad with open arms when he moves to her neighborhood.
Each episode follows Basma and Jad as they explore their world with the help of trusted adults, animated characters, and friends like a lovable and mischievous baby goat named Ma’zooza who eats everything in sight. The broader humanitarian program, also called Ahlan Simsim, combines the new show and in-person direct services featuring storybooks, educational materials, and caregiver-facing programming across Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria and will bring playful early learning opportunities to millions of children and caregivers wherever they receive them—from classrooms and health clinics to TV and mobile devices. The program received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s first-ever 100&Change $100 million award, with additional support provided by the LEGO Foundation.
The Ahlan Simsim program is poised to become the largest early childhood development intervention in the history of humanitarian response. ”Ahlan Simsim’s premiere season will help millions of children across the region learn how to identify and manage big feelings— skills that form a crucial developmental foundation for young children, especially those who have experienced the trauma of war and displacement,” said Sherrie Westin, president of social impact and philanthropy, Sesame Workshop. ”By harnessing the proven power of the Sesame Muppets, culturally relevant storylines, and learning through play, Ahlan Simsim will teach children the emotional ABCs they need to overcome challenges and thrive.”
Designed in close collaboration with local producers, creatives, and early childhood development experts, the first half of each Ahlan Simsim episode is a comedic story segment, during which Basma and Jad experience emotions in situations relatable to young children, like fear of the dark or frustration when friends don’t play by the rules of a game.
Each time, Basma and Jad learn to manage their feelings by practicing concrete strategies such as counting to five, belly breathing, and expression through art. The fun continues in the second half of each episode during a variety show segment, when real kids and celebrity guests join the characters to play games and sing songs that reinforce the episode’s educational content. “The needs of young children are so often invisible in humanitarian settings. Currently, less than 3% of all humanitarian aid supports education, and only a small fraction of that supports early education,” said Dr. Sarah Smith, senior director of education at the IRC.
“Our direct services across the Syrian response region, which integrate the new Ahlan Simsim show and accompanying educational materials, provide playful early learning opportunities that can put millions of refugee children—and their new neighbors in host communities—on the path to brighter futures.”
Nothing draws more heated arguments in the field of language instruction than methods. Between trademarks and remarks, there has been much divisive debate on which method is the right or the best method for teaching second language. This emphasis on the “right” method places unhealthy attention on the instructor and is the antithesis of where the focus should be—on the learner and on what learners need to develop communicative competence.
In spite of these heated battles, momentum is building to move away from restrictive methods altogether. This shift is supported by second-language acquisition (SLA) experts like Dr. Bill VanPatten, professor of Spanish and second language studies at Michigan State University and host of the “wildly popular” live talk show centered on language acquisition Tea with BVP (TeawithBVP.com). VanPatten has some strong opinions about outdated notions of methods, so much so that he entitled a recent Tea with BVP episode “There Is No Such Thing Anymore as Methods.” During that episode (Episode 14—http://mixlr.com/teawithbvp/), BVP frankly shared his views on methods: “I want to usher in a ban on the word methods or methodology on all courses related to language teaching.” His argument is based on the premise that teachers (of language and methods) should be focused on how the principles of contemporary SLA inform (or should inform) classroom practices.
The problem is that most language teachers and even some methods instructors are not familiar with contemporary findings on SLA. Teacher prep programs tend to focus on methods, assessment, and classroom management, but very few actually provide a sound foundation in the principles of SLA and how they should inform practice. This explains why in the U.S. there are millions of former language students roaming the streets saying things like “I studied [insert any language] for three, four, and five years, but I can’t speak it”—as if actually speaking the language would be an absurd expectation.
If you polled a thousand language teachers, most would agree that the primary objective of any language class is to help students develop fluency, the ability to communicate comfortably and confidently in the target language. Most would also claim that in their own classes, communication is of utmost importance, but if you asked each one to define communication, it is highly likely that each would have a different definition. Sandra J. Savignon, professor emerita of French and English as an international language, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and professor emerita of applied linguistics, Penn State University, provides a concise working definition of communication [later enhanced by BVP]: “The expression, interpretation, and [sometimes] negotiation of meaning [in a given social setting or context].”
Having a clear understanding of communication is fundamental to language instruction, as is being familiar with the current findings of second-language acquisition. The most universally accepted principle of SLA is the need for comprehensible input (CI) and the confirmation that without CI, acquisition is not possible.
The role of CI in SLA was developed in the 1980s by Dr. Stephen Krashen, emeritus of education at the University of Southern California, author of hundreds of books and papers on SLA research, and developer of five core hypotheses that have provided the foundation for contemporary views on SLA. In his comprehension (formerly input) hypothesis, Krashen defined CI as follows: “when we understand what we hear and what we read.”
The most common forms of input in the classroom are listening and reading. Teachers make input comprehensible by refining it, speaking slowly, and using a great deal of visual support. Input is controlled by the provider (teacher), but only the learner can control how that input is processed internally, subject of course to numerous internal and external factors (i.e., physical state, emotional state, developmental readiness, linguistic data that is or is not already present, etc.).
In 1967, Stephen Pit Corder made the following distinction between input and intake, the portion of input or linguistic data that is actually processed and used for meaning: “The simple fact of presenting a certain linguistic form to a learner in the classroom does not necessarily qualify it for the status of input, for the reason that input is ‘what goes in’ not what is available for going in, and we may reasonably suppose that it is the learner who controls this input, or more properly his intake” (p. 165).
Regardless of how comprehensible a message may be (or how comprehensible a teacher thinks it is), only a portion of input is generally converted to intake during the early stages of language acquisition. Intake is the portion of the input from which the learner is able to derive meaning, and at best, that may be a vague or ambiguous representation of what was actually communicated. The concept may sound complicated, but the implication is simple: just because a learner hears or sees language doesn’t mean he has (accurately) derived any meaning from it. And even if a learner does derive meaning from a message, it does not mean that the input was sufficient for acquisition to occur.
The first stage of intake is simply deriving meaning from the message. That is particularly daunting for beginning language learners, since they tend to process content words first, often filtering out function/less significant words. With that in mind, what part of the following sentences would an English language learner (ELL) likely convert from input to intake? “He voted for Donald Trump.” “He voted against Donald Trump.” In spite of the big difference in meaning, a beginning language learner would likely process (convert to intake) only the content words (vote Donald Trump) and subsequently derive the same meaning from each.
Given enough exposure to the word vote, the learner will begin to more readily convert more of the input (other words in the sentence) to intake. Thus far, the intake has strictly been focused on deriving meaning, progressing from vague representation to robust and more complete understanding. Comprehension is where language acquisition begins, but what happens after comprehension is achieved is so complex that there is not a scientist on the planet who can figure out exactly what happens during the process.
Research has revealed that learners have the same built-in mechanisms for acquiring language and that language generally develops in predictable stages. These stages, although predictable, are not neat and tidy, and they sometimes resemble a commute from the suburbs to downtown.
Upon beginning the commute, there are few obstacles that impede progress, and advancement seems to be unidirectional and relatively smooth. But as the commute continues, the traffic gets thicker, and it seems to be more difficult to continue progressing at the same rate. Sometimes the commute involves a tangled freeway exchange, with lane closures, metered on-ramps, and closed off-ramps, which require a detour or a U-turn back through previously navigated terrain. Although numerous travelers start the journey from the same place and at the same time, each arrives at her destination at a different time, due to the variables that affected her travel.
Just like the complications that affect a morning commute, there are internal and external factors that influence the relative rate of acquisition and ultimate success in achieving communicative competence. A few of the more obvious ones include the learner’s current physical and emotional state, neurological and emotional responses to stimuli, unique cerebral responses to various media, the distinctive intricacies of processing semantic information, diverse abilities to filter “noise” without becoming stressed or distracted, continuous restructuring of the brain as it processes and stores new linguistic data, and the interchange of semantic data between L1 and L2. There are many more factors that affect how learners acquire language, and science has yet to discover still more of them.
What makes analyzing language acquisition even more challenging is the evidence that suggests that the process is completely unconscious. Krashen, along with other SLA pioneers, is credited with the development of the learning–acquisition distinction. According to Krashen, acquisition is the product of a subconscious process very similar to the process children undergo when they acquire their first language. Contrast that with learning, which is the product of formal instruction and comprises a conscious process that results in conscious knowledge about the language.
“Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language—natural communication—in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding” (Krashen).
Like the respiratory system, the linguistic system is implicit. We do not think about breathing, we just breathe. When we have a typical conversation, we do not think about communicating, we just communicate. We listen, process, and respond without even thinking about it. We may, at times, choose our words carefully, but there is no conscious thought that says, “I am going to engage my linguistic system to speak now.” When we have an everyday typical conversation, we do not give the process of communicating or our words any conscious attention.
Compare the innate desire and the implicit ability to communicate with the learned ability to regurgitate historical facts, describe a scientific process, list the bones in a human hand, or describe liver function. All of this learned information is consciously accessed but unconsciously communicated. What happens when a person cannot recall a fact? He stops communicating facts and often unconsciously shifts to communicating questions, excuses, emotions, or verbal cues.
Students who learn language the same way they do other subjects can often recite colors, a list of school supplies, a memorized phrase or two, and verb endings, but they rarely can actually communicate using that linguistic data. Why? Because the linguistic system is unconscious, and memorized pieces of language are not stored within the linguistic system. To quote BVP, “What’s on page 32 of your textbook is not necessarily what’s in your head.”
The implication is that we cannot teach language in the same way as other subjects. In fact, we cannot teach language at all; we can only facilitate language acquisition by providing learners with continuous access to CI—whether aural or written. CI must be interesting enough to sustain attention, accessed through multiple contexts to provide repeated exposure, and regardless of the mode of communication—interpretive, interpersonal, or presentational—feel natural and pleasant, not forced or contrived.
There is no getting around the fact that learners need a great deal of exposure to CI to develop proficiency. Communicative interaction with CI must be sustained for as long as a learner requires, and each learner is unique. No two people achieve communicative competence at the same rate or in exactly the same way. The reality is SLA is a long and multifaceted process, and there are no shortcuts and no methods that can bypass or trump the process. “Acquisition cannot be overcome by instruction” (BVP). Ultimately, acquisition can only be facilitated by providing CI and optimized by keeping learners pleasantly in flow through meaningful, interesting, level- and age-appropriate, comprehensible input.
References Chaudron, C. (1985). “Intake: On methods and models for discovering learners’ processing of input.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 7, 1–14. Corder, S. P. (1967). “The Significance of Learners’ Errors.” IRAL 5, 161–170. Lee, J. F., and VanPatten, B. (2003). Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen. 2nd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. Krashen, S. D. (1985). The Input Hypothesis. New York: Longman. Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford, UK: Pergamon. Savignon, S. (1998). Communicative Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice. New York: McGraw-Hill. Yayun, A. S. (2008). “Input Processing in Second Language Acquisition: A discussion of four input processing models.” Teachers College, Columbia University, Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics 8, no. 1.
This article originally appeared in Language Magazine in February, 2017. Founder of Fluency Matters and organizer of the iFLT conference, Carol Gaab has been providing training in CI-based strategies since 1996. She was a presenter for the Bureau of Education and Research for nine years and a Spanish/ESL teacher for 25 years, most notably 20 years teaching/directing the San Francisco Giant’s U.S. and Dominican language programs. Carol also writes/publishes SLA-friendly resources for novice to advanced levels.
PEN America released an open letter signed by nearly 1,000 writers, linguists, translators, and language rights advocates calling for the immediate release of Tashi Wangchuk. Four years ago today, on January 27, 2016, Chinese officials secretly detained Wangchuk for his activism on Tibetan language rights. In 2018, after a one-day trial, he was sentenced to five years in prison on false charges of “inciting separatism.” PEN America has long led a global campaign for Wangchuk’s release.
“We are deeply concerned that Tashi’s arrest and trial have been marked by a lack of due process, including the fact that Tashi was reportedly tortured prior to his trial,” the letter reads. “We believe that the right of everyone to learn, teach and develop their native language must be protected. As such, we call upon the government of the People’s Republic of China to release Tashi Wangchuk, and to honor its own domestic and international obligations to uphold ethnic minorities’ rights to learn and develop their own spoken and written languages.”
“The freedom to write is meaningless without the freedom to speak one’s own language, and PEN America vehemently supports linguistic and cultural rights,” said author Jennifer Egan, PEN America’s president. “Tashi has been unjustly arrested and detained for advocating on behalf of Tibetan speakers throughout China who wish to communicate freely and understand each other. We demand his immediate release, and we demand that his calls for linguistic freedom be satisfied.”
Chinese officials used Wangchuk’s participation in a New York Timesdocumentary and article to charge him with “inciting separatism” in 2016. Wangchuk, who has denied ever calling for separatism, has long been a peaceful advocate for Tibetan language rights, and has advocated for the use of the Tibetan language in both government offices and in education. Chinese officials have severely curtailed the ability of schools and public institutions to teach the Tibetan language and have instituted harsh assimilation tactics that infringe on Tibetans’ linguistic rights.
“Tashi’s continued imprisonment and harsh treatment at the hands of Chinese authorities is a stain on China’s government and its unfulfilled promises of securing the linguistic rights of minority groups,” said James Tager, deputy director of free expression research and policy at PEN America, which organized the open letter. “Tashi’s peaceful advocacy for the Tibetan language is, at its core, advocacy for a universal human impulse: the right to use and celebrate one’s mother tongue. For that, he has been treated like a criminal. Tashi has never had a fair trial, and every day he is imprisoned is a day he is unjustly deprived of due process and his freedom.”
Prior to his arrest, Tashi had attempted to sue the Chinese government to restore the use of the Tibetan language in Yushu prefecture, a predominantly Tibetan populated area outside the official Tibetan Autonomous Region. While that earned him an international reputation, it led to reprisals from the Chinese government, including his eventual imprisonment. Tashi was held for months without his family being notified, and his right to access a lawyer reportedly remains severely curtailed.
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Michel Anne-Frederic DeGraff, Linguistics Society of America: “The Chinese government’s effort to label Tashi’s linguistic advocacy as ‘separatism’ is something that strikes at the heart of linguistic study. Simply put, advocacy for one’s native language is no crime. On the contrary, it’s a basic human right. As linguists, we also know that teaching children in their native language is fundamentally a matter of educational best practice, as it provides them with the best tools for effective literacy and for quality education in all subject matters. The LSA is proud to have signed the petition for Tashi’s release, not only because of the moral urgency of calling for his release, but because we recognize the clear benefits of the sort of native-language education that Tashi was advocating. We do hope that Tashi will be freed and that he will be able to continue helping his community.”
Paula M. Krebs, Modern Language Association: “As members of the MLA community, we understand that preserving a language is vital to preserving a culture. And we recognize that freedom of expression is fundamental to the pursuit of education and equality for all people. The continued imprisonment of Tashi Wangchuk has broad implications for the increasing suppression of these basic rights in China and for free expression worldwide. To put it simply: linguistic rights are human rights.”
Catrina Wessels, PEN Afrikaans: “PEN Afrikaans unreservedly joins the call for Tashi Wangchuk’s release. We believe strongly that linguistic diversity should be preserved and that peaceful language advocacy, conducted entirely within the parameters of local and international laws, should be celebrated, not punished.”
Study shows Americans are the nationality most concerned about perceptions of their accent and that accents are associated with traits from professionalism to passion!
The popular language-learning app Babbel commissioned Ipsos MORI to conduct the largest global study to date into perceptions of accents and “accent anxiety.”
The
research, which was undertaken throughout November and December 2019, in collaboration
with Dr Alex Baratta, lecturer in Language, Linguistics & Communications at
the University of Manchester, UK, consisted of interviews with 7,500
respondents in the the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, and
Canada (both English- and French-speaking).
Key findings include:
Americans are the most worried of any nation
about the perception of their accent abroad, with 54% stating they feel anxious
about their accent when speaking in a foreign language.
34% of Americans express a desire to shed
their accent when speaking a foreign language.
38% of respondents globally state that they
have felt anxious about their accent when speaking a foreign language.
Conversely, Germans (23%) and French (24%) are the least anxious about their
accent when speaking a foreign language.
When rated by other countries, American
accents are most likely to be described as “friendly” (34%), “straight-forward”
(27%) and “assertive” (20%). Canadians are most likely to find the American
accent “assertive” (23%) and “straight-forward” (36%), while Italians are the
most likely to find an American accent “funny” (25%).
In turn, Americans rate French accents as the
“sexiest” (40%), although they feel that an Italian accent is the most
“passionate” (40%). A Caribbean accent is regarded as the most “friendly” (37%)
by Americans, and British accents are ranked as the most “sophisticated” (44%).
Female respondents (42%) and younger
respondents (47%) are more likely to have experienced accent anxiety than the
global average (38%). Men (34%) and older people (31%) still feel anxious, but
to a lesser extent.
Americans and Britons are more likely than any
other nationality to overcome anxiety about speaking in foreign languages by
learning common phrases by heart.
British is the most likeable accent globally,
with 45% of respondents stating they enjoy hearing their native language spoken
with a British accent. By comparison, an American accent was liked by 34% of
respondents.
Poland is the only country where a British
accent isn’t the most popular accent – in Poland, the American accent is most
popular.
Poles are most likely to feel that they hold
back from speaking due to perceived negativity connected to their accent (73%
of Polish people state that their accent holds them back from speaking).
This is compared with 69% of people globally.
According to the 7,500 people polled across
eight different countries, the following attributes are most commonly
associated with certain accents:
Most friendly – Spanish (39%)
Most unfriendly – Russian (18%)
Most straight-forward – German (29%)
Most assertive – German (33%)
Most uneducated – American (16%)
Most funny – American (14%)
Most professional – German (26%)
Most harsh – German and Russian (38%)
Most stylish – French and Italian (30%)
Most intelligent – Swedish (24%)
Most trustworthy – Swedish (15%)
Most passionate – Italian (42%)
Most intriguing – French (19%)
Most sexy – French (37%)
Most sophisticated – French (30%)
Baratta, an expert on linguistic prejudice and linguistic
rights who hails from Los Angeles, commented:
“Accents pertain to the use of specific sounds employed in specific contexts.
That’s it from a purely linguistic perspective. From a sociolinguistic
perspective, however, we go beyond a mere descriptive account of sounds and
discuss, for example, attitudes to accents. It is here that accent prejudice
and preference comes into play, involving snap judgements made in terms of ‘his
accent sounds sexy’, ‘she sounds common’, ‘they sound working-class’ and so on
and so on. From a purely linguistic point of view, no accent is inherently one
thing or another – neither good, nor bad. In terms of societal attitudes,
however, such judgements, and stereotyping, persist. It’s important to remember
though that accent is a proxy for larger categories, such as race and class,
and so to ascribe judgement to one’s accent can mean ascribing judgement to
race. The results of Babbel’s study suggest that individuals, keen to fit in
and/or avoid negative judgement from others, modify their accents to versions
which might be seen as less ‘broad’, for example, and with this, reflective of
potentially less negativity from the listener. This is nothing new perhaps and
we could argue that we modify our accent as we modify our clothing – in order
to fit a given context and this is simply an objective response. However,
accent is more personal than clothing, as well as comparatively more fixed, and
so an attack on our accent is an attack on more than just sounds.”
January 24 is the International Day of Education and this year, the theme is “Learning for people, planet, prosperity, and peace.” In an open letter, the Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay said, “Because, now more than ever, we need to mobilize. UNESCO, on the occasion of the International Day of Education, is issuing a call for action – action for education. High-level political authorities and citizens, States and associations, teachers and parents of students: everyone, in their own way, has a role to play in making the right to education a reality for all. It is our responsibility to future generations.”
The following are facts and figures from the United Nations:
Enrollment in primary education in developing countries has reached 91% but 57 million primary age children remain out of school
More than half of children who have not enrolled in school live in sub-Saharan Africa
An estimated 50% of out-of-school children of primary school age live in conflict-affected areas
617 million youth worldwide lack basic mathematics and literacy skills
According to the United Nations, lack of quality education is due to “lack of adequately trained teachers, poor conditions of schools and equity issues related to opportunities provided to rural children.” In an effort to address these problems, the United Nations has laid out 10 “targets.” The hope is that, through the implementation of these targets, the United Nations and its partners will be able to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by the year 2030. These targets include:
ensuring that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant learning outcomes
ensuring that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education
ensuring that all women and men have equal access to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university
eliminating gender disparities in education and ensuring equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations
The United Nations has planned multiple events for the International Day of Education. One event, hosted in partnership with the Centre for Research and Interdisciplinarity, will take place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France and will feature speakers from around the world including H.E. Ibrahima Guimba-Saïdou, Minister and Special Advisor to the President of Niger, Flavio Bassi, Vice-President of Ashoka Latin America, Chandrika Bahadur, President of Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and Elyas Felfoul, Director for Policy Development and Partnerships at WISE. It will also feature the launch of the UNESCO Education Progress Tool and Learning Planet, an on- and off-line learning community with its own digital platform. The event will be livestreamed, beginning at 2:00 p.m. Paris time at http://webcast.unesco.org/live/room-04/en.
Another event, entitled, “Aligning Inclusive Quality Education Policies with Sustainable Development Goals,” will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York and will feature two interactive panels comprised of high level officials from member states, various agencies and organizations, teachers’ unions, youth, and representatives of the private sector. It will also feature the launch of the Beyond the Basics Global Network on Inclusive Quality Education and Lifelong Learning (BTB). According to the United Nations, BTB is an initiative that will “connect stakeholders including educators, experts in education, philanthropists, policy makers, students and youth” for the purpose of exchanging best practices and creating dialogue around the issue of education. To learn about events in other cities, or to get ideas for your own event, visit http://uil.unesco.org/lifelong-learning/learning-cities/unesco-learning-cities-around-world-celebrate-international-day.
On January 1, 2020, the western format of given name followed by family name will officially change in Japan. On governmental documents and websites Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will become known as ABE Shinzo—capitalization of the family name is also recommended—and other public figures will be expected to do the same. There is no obligation on ordinary citizens to follow suit, but the advantages of standardization suggest that over time the new format is likely to become the norm.
From the early years of the Meiji period, in the 1870s, Japanese people have identified themselves to foreigners in the common western style of given name followed by family name. In native Japanese, however, the order is always family name followed by given name.
The move may seem minor, but it is highly symbolic to many Japanese people to whom it represents a move away from catering to Westerners, as Asia rises in geopolitical and cultural power.
Several years ago, Japan’s Cultural Affairs Agency (CAA) issued an advisory notice on the use of the native name order in English contexts, but it was ignored. Now, the move has public support—a recent opinion poll showed 60% in favor of the change.
The justification, as set out on the CAA’s website, is that Japan is aligning itself with other East Asian nations like China, Vietnam, and South Korea, all of which put the family name first.
This is part two of our series Breaking Down the Wall. View Part 1 here.
Dan Alpert: Debbie and Diane, tell us more about the urgency for using an assets-based versus a deficits-based approach when working with our English learners (ELs).
Think about how many of us focus our attention on ELs by poring over data about their progress learning English, comparing their performance on standardized tests and rates of graduation with non-EL peers, and lamenting what we perceive as THE problem: that our ELs are not learning English fast enough. And how many of us then find ourselves responding to what we believe students don’t possess (English) as opposed to what they do or have developed as a result of being reared in a language and culture other than U.S. English?
While this type of data collection and analysis is helpful, it hasn’t resulted in closing the opportunity gaps between ELs and their English-fluent peers. Research in psychology and education demonstrates that focusing on people’s strengths—that is, what they already possess inherently or have learned and experienced—can lead to far greater academic and social-emotional success than does focusing on what we perceive as their weaknesses. It requires that we identify ELs’ and their families’ invaluable personal, cultural, social, and life experiences and draw from these understandings to create programming that is meaningful and purposeful for our students.
An example is a chemistry teacher whose students are studying thermal reaction. He finds ways to connect the curriculum with his students’ experiences. He engages them in exploring common products that are created using this process. As a model, he shows how a metal table is made. He tasks small groups to explore additional products made from the thermal process. One group excitedly discusses how jewelry is created—another, how it is used to repair their families’ cars. He invites the father of an EL to his class to demonstrate the process he uses as a plumber to weld pipes together. Enacting such practices supports our using an assets-based approach.
“Research in psychology and education demonstrates that focusing on people’s strengths—that is, what they already possess inherently or have learned and experienced—can lead to far greater academic and social-emotional success than does focusing on what we perceive as their weaknesses.”
Dan Alpert: Aside from the obvious asset of multilingualism, what are examples of some common assets that our multilingual students (and their families) hold?
When we look at students’ assets, we should begin by expanding our view beyond what we are required to do according to federal regulations to see more than the language a child uses to communicate, the level of English proficiency, and performance on state-approved assessments.
Broadening our perspectives and a deeper understanding of our students can greatly help us to build more successful programming. To do this, it’s critical to learn as much as we can about students’ and families’ personal, social, cultural, and life experiences and partner with them on behalf of their children’s academic and social-emotional development. This information is invaluable for building programming that capitalizes on students’ and families’ strengths and assets and welcoming and valuing their participation. Whether we do this in a school registration office, in a welcome center, while families are taking a tour of the school, or in a classroom or home visit, it’s critical to demonstrate a genuine interest in partnering with families and honoring, valuing, and acknowledging the many strengths that they share with us.
The following suggested questions are intended to bolster our efforts from the start:
What makes [name of child] special?
What particular talents and skills would you like me to know about [name of child]?
What subjects does [name of child] enjoy learning at home and in school?
What are things you enjoy doing as a family?
In what ways were you involved in [name of child’s] prior school or would like to be involved here?
What special talents or interests would you consider sharing with students in [name of child’s] class (e.g., work interest and hobbies)?
Questions such as these also convey that, as caring educators, we believe in the importance of getting to know students and their families, and that we are comfortable with and embrace family involvement.
Dan Alpert: What are some ways that classroom teachers can learn about the assets of multilingual learners?
One way classroom teachers can build bridges and help foster connections with multilingual learners is to have them share their very own stories. Teachers of younger students can first model the task of students drawing a personal narrative storyboard or series of images, then have students write a response to the sentence prompt: “What I wish my teacher knew about me.”
Teachers can ask older newcomer students to write personal narratives. Both groups of students could use technology to support their writing. We suggest that teachers have models of student work from students at different levels of English proficiency as well as from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds to share. To begin this project, teachers can interview students and ask them to talk or write about themselves in their home languages, offering appropriate scaffolding for these tasks.
Each of these activities supports the process of learning more about students’ lives and experiences so that educators develop a better understanding of the linguistic and cultural assets that students bring to their classrooms. We offer one piece of advice, which is to be sure to give multilingual learners the choice to tell as much of their stories as they feel comfortable with or to have the option to not share them at all, as students may have experienced traumatic events that they wish not to share.
Students and their families who are open to the idea could also publish their stories in school newspapers to reach a wider audience. We also suggest inviting parents and family members into the classroom and having a celebration to showcase students’ stories.
Dan Alpert: What are some strategies for challenging deficit thinking that may pervade the culture of a school?
To disrupt deficit thinking, we encourage teachers and administrators to share news of multilingual learners’ successes—both great and small—within the school and the district. Many examples exist of ways to showcase multilingual students’ growth academically as well as personally. For instance, we often see newspaper articles published each spring about current or former English learners who have become high school valedictorians. These success stories provide one concrete vehicle for those who may operate from a deficit perspective to take note of one way in which a multilingual learner contributes positively to school culture.
Another way to challenge deficit thinking at the school level is to invite successful multilingual learners, including those in college, receiving technical training, or in careers, back to your school in person or by video to highlight their success and also share what helped them achieve. If you hold such an event, be sure to invite the whole school to see the assets that these students bring and be sure to ask students about the role their home languages and cultures played in their success.
On an individual level, teachers may notice when others make deficit-based statements about multilingual learners. These often-uncomfortable interactions actually provide an opportunity to support a colleague’s shift from a deficit- to an assets-based disposition.
We encourage teachers to be thoughtful about challenging others’ thinking in order to do so without permanently disrupting crucial relationships with colleagues. All educators—no matter what their title or how many years of experience they have—are positioned to serve as agents of change when it comes to a colleague gradually shifting to an assets-based view of multilingual learners and their families. If you encounter a colleague making deficit-based statements, we suggest first listening to understand the reason for your colleague’s deficit perspective. Acknowledge where the deficit or frustration might come from, offer some concrete help to that colleague to better support their multilingual learners, and follow through on your offer.
Debbie Zacarian, EdD, is known for her expertise in strengths-based leadership, instruction, and family partnership practices with diverse student and family populations. She provides professional development, strategic planning, and policy work with school districts and state agencies and organizations.
Diane Staehr Fenner, PhD, is the president of SupportEd, a woman-owned small business based in the Washington, DC, region that provides EL professional development and technical assistance to schools, districts, states, and the U.S. Department of Education.
Debbie and Diane are coauthors of Breaking Down the Wall: Essential Shifts for English Learners’ Success (Corwin, 2019).
Dan Alpert is publisher and program director for equity and professional learning at Corwin.
Margo Gottlieb offers a look at the other side of language education
We approach 2020 with hindsight, insight, and foresight: hindsight in realizing the pervasive inequities that have dominated the education of multilingual learners, insight into recognizing substantive changes that are inevitable if we are to co-exist as an educational community, and foresight in envisioning a promising future for our students in which social justice prevails. With a commitment to protecting the language status of multilingualism and the benefits it yields, educators are beginning to take it upon themselves to break down the metaphorical wall that has existed in K–12 education—one built from unfortunate misperceptions and misunderstandings that have come to define the field of language education.
This barrier has been slowly erected from decades of neglect of multilingual learners—all students who identify themselves with multiple languages and cultures—and negativism toward language-support programs. For years, deficit or subtractive instructional models have been the norm, English learners have been isolated from their peers, and the curriculum has been weak and poorly aligned to mainstream education. Amid the crumbling bricks, however, a new vision is emerging in which educators, policy makers, and communities are becoming empowered to take action. As a result, we are beginning to witness glimmers of hope, with more opportunities for our students to contribute to their own learning and thrive in linguistically and culturally relevant classrooms.
This article describes efforts to enhance education opportunities for a subset of multilingual learners—that is, students in elementary and secondary schools who have been named English learners or English language learners with or without disabilities, students with interrupted formal education, and long-term English learners, who despite being categorized and labeled, at times in a pejorative way, are overcoming obstacles to succeed academically, often in more than one language. It presents a series of shifts that are occurring at the classroom, district, and state levels that taken together are creating a synergy that is making a difference for today’s and future generations of multilingual learners.
The Urgency to Take Action
How do you change the mindset of a nation whose strength has been built on the multilingual resources of its immigrants yet, rather than leveraging the assets of its most precious resource, the children, has systematically relegated multilingual learners to second-class status? In school, these students have often been treated as if they are a problem in need of repair (Escamilla, 2016) rather than being seen from a more positive, strength-based stance where language is regarded as a human right (Ruíz, 1988). In other words, monolingual ideologies where English is the lingua franca and monolingual competence is the benchmark of further language development have tended to dominate the educational arena (Ortega, 2013).
What can we do as educators dedicated to the value of educational equity to enable students to pursue educational goals based on their individual merits? How can we ensure fair treatment of our multilingual learners and their families? How can we leverage multiple languages and cultures from the vantage point of our students and their potential contributions to our society? How can we capitalize on the “funds of knowledge” of families and communities (González, Moll, and Amanti, 2013) while we help shape each student’s unique “funds of identity” (Esteban-Guitart, 2016)?
With the unprecedented rise in numbers of multilingual learners in U.S. schools along with the equally impressive increase in dual-language programs that have also come to embrace proficient English speakers, we are at a critical juncture in our educational history. For although bilingual education was essentially eradicated with the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, state propositions, and legislative acts, multilingual education has slowly been regaining acceptance and notoriety. For example, today Proposition 58, which favors instruction in multiple languages, replaces Proposition 227, which demolished bilingual education in California. Likewise, in Massachusetts, the 2016 Language Opportunity for Our Kids (LOOK) bill actually looks favorably on the building of multiple languages. Time has come to take advantage of this current momentum and take action.
Shifts in Educational Policy and Practice: A Peek into the Other Side of the Wall
As we revisit our past policies and practices in regard to multilingual education, little by little the wall of shame is being demolished and we are beginning to see a clearer vision of the future. There are certain deep-rooted beliefs that some may cling on to that simply are outdated, inappropriate, and ineffective, if not outright harmful. However, with a substantive and growing body of research that is supported by theory and educator will, together we can make a difference in the world of multilingual education.
When envisioning the future, there seems to be a glimmer of hope for members of the multilingual community. We have identified some critical shifts that are occurring throughout the educational landscape for all teachers of multilingual learners, whether school leaders, coaches, content specialists, classroom teachers, or language specialists, to act on as agents of change. With each shift presented below, there is a seed of an idea for how we can collectively impact and transform ideologies and practices. These shifts represent anchors on a continuum from where we have been to where we are going:
From a deficit mindset to an assets-oriented way of thinking and doing—let’s always be mindful of what our multilingual learners can do
From compliance with federal, state, district, and school policies related to multilingual learners to excellence across all levels—let’s ensure that educational practice extends beyond regulations and basic competencies for our students
From watering down the curriculum and expectations for multilingual learners to challenging methodologies and practices—let’s inspire and motivate multilingual learners to reach their true potential
From isolation of multilingual learners and their support services to collaboration among students, teachers, and school leaders—let’s promote co-planning, co-teaching, and co-assessing within a learning network
From silence in classrooms with multilingual learners to conversation among peers in one or multiple languages—let’s encourage interaction of English learners with others of their partner language and with proficient English speakers to probe and discuss authentic real-life issues of importance to their worlds
From language for language’s sake to language, literacy, and content that is presented as an integrated whole—let’s eliminate acontextual language learning and replace it with meaningful integration of language and content
From assessment of learning with emphasis on summative scores to classroom assessment for and as learning—let’s move away from reliance on high-stakes measures to accentuate the active role of multilingual learners and their teachers in advancing teaching and learning
From monolingualism as a narrow and limiting worldview to multilingualism as a recognized and valued way of being—let’s enrich the lives of all our students by embracing and growing multiple languages and cultures as part of their identities and schooling
From “nobody cares” to “everyone and every community cares” and participates in the education of its multilingual learners—let’s make schools and communities a welcomed haven for multilingual learners and their families
A Unified Educational Community
What can we do as an inclusive group of educators and advocates—from students to teachers, coaches, school leaders, district administrators, teacher educators, and community leaders—to counter the ill effects of having multilingual learners being walled off from educational advancement? We must realize that collectively we can make a difference for English learners (as named in federal legislation) and their families by leveraging their great expanse of linguistic, cultural, and experiential resources and weaving them into the fabric of schooling.
Let’s think about and capitalize on the varied scientific, historical, and literary perspectives that multilingual learners bring. Let’s envision how these students’ lived experiences have affected their ways of thinking and how we might highlight and share them with others. Let’s create classroom and school-wide language policies that treasure multiple languages and cultures, rely on English learners as language experts and mentors, and respectively incorporate language and culture into the soul of our educational system.
Fall traditionally brings renewal of another school year. Let’s insist on high, yet realistic, expectations for every multilingual learner and negotiate reasonable student-centered goals for learning. Likewise, let’s not lose that enthusiasm for teaching and instill a love for learning in our multilingual learners by making their languages and cultures integral to every classroom and inclusive of school life. As educators, we must seize upon this urgency for change and begin to dismantle the disparaging wall of inequity and injustice.
As a side note, would you like additional information on these nine shifts and their application to various educational settings? Well, you are in luck. Over this academic year, be on the lookout for how you might work with a colleague, department, or team of educators to collaborate in probing more deeply into the shifts as we answer common yet challenging questions that arise across classrooms, schools, and districts.
References
Escamilla, K. (2016). “Empirical Applications of Ruíz’s Language Orientations: From theory to practice.” Bilingual Review, La Revista Bilingüe 33(3), 140–153. Esteban-Guitart, M. (2016). Funds of Identity: Connecting Meaningful Learning Experiences in and out of School. New York: Cambridge University Press. González, N., Moll, L., and Amanti, C. (2013). Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms. London, UK: Routledge. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107–110, § 115, Stat. 1425–2094 (2002). Ortega, L. (2013). Understanding Second Language Acquisition. New York: Routledge. Ruíz, R. (1988). “Orientations in Language Planning.” In McKay, S., and Wong, S. (eds.), Language and Diversity: Problem or Resource? Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle.
Margo Gottlieb, WIDA co-founder and lead developer, is a member of Corwin’s EL Collective who, along with her colleagues, has contributed to Breaking Down the Wall: Essential Shifts for English Learners’ Success (2020), now available.
View From Watering Down to Challenging: Breaking Down the Wall, One Essential Shift at a Time here
View From Monolingualism to Multilingualism: Breaking Down the Wall One Essential Shift at a Time here
View From Deficit-Based to Assets-Based: Breaking Down the Wall One Essential Shift at a Time here
View Breaking Down the Wall: The Other Side of Language Education here
The Education Commission of
the States (ECS), an interstate compact on U.S. education policy, has
released a new analysis of how states allocate funding for English Learners (ELs).
Based on the analysis, 48 states and the District of Columbia
provide funding specifically for ELs.
Although allocation formulas are different in each state,
the report shows that there are three popular funding models:
Formula Funded: Funding for ELs is included in the state’s primary funding formula.
Categorical Funding: States allocate funding through separate mechanisms outside of the primary funding formula.
Reimbursement: Districts submit expenditures to the state, and the state reimburses districts for all or a portion of their spending once costs are accrued.
According to the analysis, most states fund English language
learners through the state funding formula or a categorical program. About half
of states provide a flat weight — either an additional percentage or flat dollar
amount—for each identified student, regardless of their level of language
proficiency or the types of services offered. The second most common approach
is a multiple weight system, which allocates funding based on the amount of
time that students have been classified as English language learners, based on
proficiency levels or based on the concentration of English language learners
in a district.
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