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Students at the Center


All educators are teachers of language—and engaging students in thinking about language, themselves, and society is an invaluable methodology that can confront dominant linguistic norms, center student identity, develop high-level cognitive tools, and reshape power in the classroom.

Our young people lead complex lives, and they inhabit rich linguistic landscapes. They must navigate everyday language shifts in a variety of contexts, including home environments, the workplace, peer social settings, and the classroom. And they possess multifaceted and dynamic “languaging” skills, flexibly moving across codes, dialects, and digital and social literacies and drawing on these intercultural 21st-century modalities for different purposes. But for educators to harness translingual literacy practices in a culturally sustaining pedagogy, classroom environments cannot only depend on well-chosen texts, scaffolds, or instructional methodologies. We must study, alongside students, the ways that power flows through language, our society, and our schools. Students, in all their multiplicity and abundance, need to be at the core of any critical language pedagogy. Language contains the keys to literacy, socioeconomic mobility, cultural empowerment, and equity—and unlocking the intricacies of such a foundational layer of students’ lived experiences can be a powerful tool and entry point.

We Are All Teachers of Language
I didn’t pay that much attention and I wasn’t interested that much. Llegó un punto que no iba a mis clases porque no veía proceso in mis estudios. I didn’t know great Spanish and I didn’t know great English, so it was frustrating. It gets to a point where it gets embarrassing, you know?

Mia is a senior at a large high school in California, and like many students, she has faced highs and lows of attendance and engagement throughout her school career. She has grown up in both Mexico and the US, often crossing the border on the weekends.

She sees the arc of her educational experiences as largely a result of her linguistic identity, academic self-worth, and sense of competence in relation to her social networks and the school system.

People develop their literacies in a variety of contexts, and regardless of content, we all rely on language as a medium of learning. All students are language learners, and all teachers are language teachers. Because learning requires language, language and literacies should be at the core of all educational practices, centered across subjects and disciplines.

When we fail to systematically and cohesively teach with an eye to language, we fail all of our students, not just our multilingual students. Applying strategies and perspectives gleaned from translanguaging and other language education research can increase content proficiency across grade level and discipline while also developing multifaceted linguistic repertoires. But aside from the common sense of encouraging students to learn using all of their language assets, these frameworks are a window into the hard work of unpacking and counteracting some of the harmful systems and ideologies that seek to undermine and limit our young people from developing their full potentials.

How do we understand the reasons a high school student like Mia, an emerging bilingual, felt so inadequate about her language abilities that she stopped attending school? Why are national graduation rates of multilingual learners, categorized as English learners (ELs), consistently 15–20% lower than the national average? What are the impacts of decades of policy and data around the deficits of students labeled as ELs—and how can we understand the root causes of these issues?

Assumptions about Students and Language
I didn’t learn English till I was in third, fourth grade. And later, I still didn’t know it like that. Thank God I’m not a no sabo, but I get really nervous and then my accent comes out and I just start overthinking.

Education systems—standardized achievement tests, reclassification processes, and language ideologies—can create not just an overarching landscape of deficit thinking but a series of active, immediate obstacles that blare a repeated message of correctness, standardization, and monolingualism. Language, in society and in schools, functions as proxy for race, social class, geography, and a myriad of other social markers (Flores and Rosa, 2015). Language has deep historical legacies that tie directly to migration, colonization, genocide, and slavery—and dominant views on the correctness of language are largely the result of “othering” ideologies.

Acceptance into social networks, including familial ones, is often linked to linguistic proficiencies—hence Mia’s fear of being labeled a no sabo (a term for a Latinx person who lacks full fluency in Spanish and is viewed as not only linguistically but culturally deficient). These ideologies run deep in the fabric of our society: through family and social networks; media, language, and migration policies; and of course our school systems.

Embedded in these ideologies of strict borders between languages are raciolinguistic ideologies that demand a hierarchy of language, dialect, and code and are inextricably linked to the hierarchical boundaries of race. Our language-minoritized students are racialized and categorized in relation to an imagined White, middle-class, monolingual ideal in ongoing and systematic ways (Flores and Rosa, 2015). For instance, students whose families report that they speak any language other than English are labeled as ELs and must prove that they have overcome assumed deficits in English, while the rest of their linguistic assets are not documented or validated and their counterparts labeled English only (EO) are never subjected to the same assessments.

Culturally sustaining pedagogies reject the framing of students as failing and instead look at the ways that the system is failing our students (Paris and Alim, 2017). A critical examination of linguistic and cultural hierarchies must happen with our students at the center: as they study the relationship between power and language, young people develop their analytical and linguistic skills and their overall cognition in empowering, sustaining ways. This analysis should look relationally inward and outward, studying the self and at the same time the overarching linguistic hierarchies in our society—and often in our classrooms—and where these hierarchies come from.

Assuming that the goal of multilingual students is to become more like monolingual students is an aspiration to a fictitious ideal. Linguistic development is not linear and does not result in monolingualism, nor do we serve our language-minoritized students by positioning them as outsiders to a worldview that, regardless of their actions, marginalizes them. As students navigate linguistic landscapes, they are often adept not only at code meshing (skillfully incorporating dialects and languages into academic spaces, and thus interrogating the notion of what is “correct” or “appropriate”) and translanguaging (drawing on different linguistic resources to make meaning and make sense); they are also adept at brokering contradictions and fissures that occur across borders. Often metaphorical and literal borders are sites of unstable and unequal power relations, and our students need the skills to navigate these borders in ways that protect themselves, their communities, and their loved ones (García-Sánchez, 2018). Our school systems and classrooms must take seriously the development of linguistic repertoires that equip our students to navigate these everyday challenges.

Often, educators and systems look at translanguaging as a scaffold: that is, they understand it only as temporarily using the students’ home languages and dialects to better acquire dominant English. Instead, the education we provide students must leverage their existing repertoire and encourage the appropriation of new linguistic features (Selzer and García, 2020).

A simple additive, “all cultural linguistic practices are equally valuable” approach in our classrooms and schools is unfortunately insufficient, because it does not critique or seek to understand the systems that label such large swaths of our students as inferior. A vision of culture, ethnicity, and language as fixed contributes to the oversimplification of cultural practices (i.e., cultural days centering on ethnic foods rather than people, histories, or cultural dynamism) and limits our ability to develop students’ skills. We cannot assume fixed relationships between language, ethnicity, culture, and class, as they vary depending on context; these relationships are continually shifting, and young people are continually adapting.

If we see culture as static, it can be easy to justify an instructional emphasis on dominant English as an explicit teaching of the culture of power (and thus the language of power) (Delpit, 1988). Instead, our schools can better position students to understand power and its relationship to language.

If we cultivate rigorous environments that interrogate power and linguistic hierarchies, students will deepen their navigational and analytical abilities and improve their languaging skills. By encouraging the appropriation of new features into young peoples’ repertoires, we can help them move across linguistic and cultural borders more fluidly, adeptly, and skillfully (Seltzer and García, 2020). Students like Mia need support and validation to stay the course, rigor and engagement to develop as independent language learners, and aligned schools to strengthen their critical thinking and cognition as they continue to stretch and grow across shifting linguistic borders.

By the time many language-minoritized students make it to high school, their linguistic experiences have already created deep wounds and entrenched beliefs of competence and incompetence, adequacy and inadequacy, success and failure. Broadening our view and keeping students at the center of countering these harms is a Herculean lift, one that requires effort, delicacy, collaboration, and time.

Centering Students in Critical Language and Translingual Literacies: There Is Time
I felt more confident and I started paying attention in class and it became more interesting. It’s not just about language, but it’s about how to express [myself] and ways to use it. Language and dialect are used to discriminate against people. But language can also be tied in with education, and education can escalate your status in society… So now I feel like I’m at a level where I’m actually proud of what I be writing, and I feel like now, I’m confident enough to say that I’m ready for the next steps. I’m ready to take more classes. I’m ready to do more challenging stuff in school.

Creating an ecology for flexible language use is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Students have unique linguistic repertoires, so bringing their languages and identities into the classroom as objects worthy of study is not just culturally sustaining but also positions schools to directly serve students and their futures. The urgent task of school systems is to support the evolving and shifting linguistic practices and needs of young people, and this demands a vertical and horizontal alignment in language and literacy practices. The work of rethinking language in schools must be prioritized, and because teaching language is central to the mission of all educators, we must develop a critical, sustaining language vision together. Our globalized world demands so much of our young people: diverse and fluid intercultural communication skills, precision and wisdom in brokering systems, and adaptability to face and alter their lived realities. Teacher education and professional development must provide all teachers with opportunities to strengthen student-centered and content-integrated language instruction, but educators also need ongoing spaces to analyze the current measures of linguistic proficiency and seek to understand their students’ continually evolving linguistic and cultural practices. Policymakers and districts should understand that strong, effective literacy development for all students goes hand in hand with critical and sustaining language education. We must invest in building a bold and dynamic shared vision.

Let us approach our school systems from the position that there is time enough for the things that matter and for the world that our students are already living in. By 2025, one out of four students in US classrooms will be an EL student (National Education Association, 2020), and experts estimate that at least half of the global population is multilingual. We want our students to be shapers of the world, not only to pass through gates of power by demonstrating proficiency in narrow terms.

The goal of a critical language practice is not for our emerging bilinguals to aspire to a monolingual ideal, but rather to help all students dismantle the fiction of the ideal in the first place and build a much sturdier tool kit with which to move through the world. Our young people have incredibly diverse skillsets which they already use to navigate borders, challenges, and possibilities in an increasingly multilingual world— the question is whether our education system’s policies, districts, administrators, and teachers will rise to the challenge of supporting and sustaining them.

References
Delpit, L. (1988). “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children.” Harvard Educational Review, 58(3), 280–298.

Flores, N., and Rosa, J. (2015). “Undoing Appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education.” Harvard Educational Review, 85(2), 149– 171.

García-Sánchez, I. M. (2018). “Children as Interactional Brokers of Care.” Annual Review of Anthropology, 47, 167–184. National Education Association (2020).

“English Language Learners.” www.nea.org/resource-library/english-language-learners

Paris, D., and Alim, H. S. (2017). Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World. Teacher’s College Press.

Seltzer, K., and García, O. (2020). “Broadening the View: Taking up a translanguaging pedagogy with all language-minoritized students.” Educational Linguistics, 45, 23–42.

Marika Iyer is an educator and lecturer based in Oakland, California, who thinks and writes about language, literacy, culture, and schools. With over a decade of experience working in urban education with multilingual and language-minoritized learners, she seeks to put sociolinguistic research into the hands of today’s teachers.

Educating Students about the Lived Experience in Canada

Schools across Canada have recognized National Day of Truth and Reconciliation for two years to incorporate the legacy of residential schools into the classroom. Now, education leaders are actively ensuring that educators continue to integrate these lessons into all levels and aspects of teaching and learning, year round.

Notably, we are seeing an increase in Indigenous curriculum-aligned content being implemented in schools in various provinces. In fact, many classrooms in Vancouver are planning to implement required Indigenous-focused coursework in the upcoming school year for students, especially those pursuing a British Columbia (BC) Certificate of Graduation.1 This mandate is the first of many steps educators are taking to provide
advancements in Indigenous education in Canada. Teachers will be educating students
about the lived Indigenous experience in Canada; the question is, how can they be
sure they are facilitating accurate and truthful conversations in the classroom and turning
these conversations into action?

Keeping Curriculum-Aligned Content Authentic
When it comes to Indigenous history, there is a responsibility to certify that every aspect of history is acknowledged, and that includes ensuring curriculum-aligned resources and tools being used in classrooms must be current, relevant, and accurate. BC, particularly Vancouver’s education system, will set an example for other provinces and territories as they introduce mandatory curriculum changes aimed at promoting truth and reconciliation as a nation.

To ensure not only BC classrooms but all classrooms across the country deliver curriculum-aligned and culturally relevant Indigenous teachings, it is important to engage and consult with Indigenous peoples. Learning about firsthand perspectives, cultures, traditions, ceremonies, and contemporary life is imperative to deliver authentic experiences and teachings to learners across the country. As the national director of education for reconciliation, equity, and inclusion at Nelson, Canada’s only heritage education content provider, I find our Indigenous Advisory Circles are among the most rewarding aspects of my role. As part of the circles, to ensure Indigenous lived experiences and history are authentically reflected in Nelson’s trusted resources, I collaborate with Indigenous knowledge keepers, elders, community leaders, and educators from across Canada.

The goal of the circles is to ensure that students will have an in-depth understanding of Indigenous peoples—both past and present. For educators, our mission is to make sure that they are equipped with accurate and current information to confidently teach about First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples.

The Promising Future of Edtech
Over the next few years, the demand for education technology (edtech) will continue to grow significantly. Despite technology being in the education sector for years, many subjects related to Indigenous education are only available in print and can take years to make it into classrooms. We live in a transformative and evolving world. Whether new discoveries are made across the globe or new curriculum updates are made in Canada, technology is imperative to get historically accurate information to students and teachers in a timely manner, or as developments are happening. Edtech has uniquely bridged this gap of timely access to Indigenous knowledge, teachings, and understandings.

Getting a Head Start on Indigenous Education
Here are four ways in which teachers can prepare to bring Indigenous education to students throughout the year:

1. Collaborate with other educators, colleagues, and consultants teaching Indigenous education to learn more about their effective strategies. Sharing knowledge is not merely helpful but imperative, as it will reveal new ideas or areas of content that can be incorporated into lesson plans. By learning from peers, teachers can develop solid practices for turning conversations into action.

2. Read articles and books written by Indigenous authors to learn about First Nations, Métis, and Inuit history, contemporary lifestyles, and issues. To teach about Indigenous peoples, teachers must educate themselves and conduct research before bringing it into the classroom.

3. Explore professional learning opportunities throughout the school year such as webinars, podcasts, conferences, and workshops. Educators must be equipped to teach Indigenous content in the classroom, and professional development can help strengthen their confidence in this important subject.

4. Engage with local Indigenous communities in the school district to build trusting reciprocal relationships. Connecting with these communities can help teachers learn about First Nations, Métis, and Inuit culture, traditions, perspectives, and lived experiences in their regions.

Meaningful Opportunities Ahead
The growth of technology and the demand for customizable educational solutions have created an ever-growing need for schools to develop curriculum-aligned content that can better educate Canadians about the Indigenous lived experience.

Over the next few years, there will be a continued emphasis on providing historically accurate and authentic experiences for students and their learning about Indigenous peoples. It is integral that Indigenous history and the significant contributions of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people have a place in the classroom.

Links
1. www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/support/indigenous-focused-graduation-requirements
2. https://cfjctoday.com/2023/05/08/first-annual-indigenous-student-leadership-summit-to-be-held-in-kamloops

Linda Isaac is a member of Alderville First Nation and is the national director of education for reconciliation, equity, and inclusion at Nelson (www.nelson.com).

What is Orania?

Orania is a White Dutch–only enclave and an “independent” country inside South Africa. Inside Orania, English and the majority of African languages are banned—sort of. Here are the bizarre facts about this unusual arrangement in post-colonial South Africa.

Orania, translated as “Sunrise” in Dutch, is the name of a rapidly growing “country” inside South Africa. To be more precise, its 3,000-strong population makes it a town. Situated in the Northern Cape, an arid western province in South Africa, Orania is 680 km from Pretoria, the capital of modern-day South Africa.

Though occupied from the 1700s by White Dutch colonists, Orania as an all-White enclave was formally created in 1991, a time when a ferocious uprising against White colonialism got intense in South Africa. Oranians are White Afrikaans settlers.

Afrikaans refers to a Dutch dialect that grew up in South Africa when White immigrants from the Netherlands began to arrive there in the 1500s.

Afrikaans governed South Africa for 100 years until 1994 and exacted a brutal, segregationist form of anti-Black government called apartheid. The UN has designated apartheid as a crime against humanity.

Why Was Orania Created?
When the famous freedom fighter Nelson Mandela was released from jail in the early 1990s and it became clear Black-majority rule was on the cusp, some racist Afrikaans colonizers in South Africa feared democracy would threaten their land holdings and continued use of Afrikaans as a language in South Africa. Hence they pooled resources to create Orania to guard themselves against an imaginary “genocide against White South Africans.”

What Are the Rules of Orania?
No one can live in Orania unless they apply first. The requirements are one has to be White Afrikaans, be a Calvinist Christian, have a clean criminal record, and speak Afrikaans only inside the enclave. Afrikaans is the only language tolerated inside Orania, yet almost 90% of South Africa’s business and social life goes by English and the majority African languages.

Orania’s population has grown fast in recent years, and the town’s mayor is planning for 10,000 households.

Oranians are mainly farmers, and the “country” seeks self–sufficiency: building its sewers, roads, council offices, and hospitals separated from South Africa’s national budget. The employment of Black laborers is not allowed. Orania has its own currency used to trade inside its borders, and in recent years it has tried to bypass the rand, South Africa’s currency, by using cryptocurrencies.

What Do South Africans Think of Orania?
“It’s terrible shame that we have Orania, considering the trauma of apartheid colonialism that South Africa shouldered since 1949,” Dali Mpofu, a leftist lawmaker in South Africa, argues. “This racist enclave is a rejection of reconciliation.”

Steve Fanmeyer, a White Afrikaans councilor in Orania, rejects the accusations that Orania is a stain on South Africa’s democracy. “We Afrikaans are an endangered species in South Africa, and our Dutch-derived language is endangered too. Orania is necessary to guard our heritage,” he told Language Magazine. The Black South African government has generally tolerated Orania since 1994, seeing the town as more of a “nuisance” than a threat to the country’s foundations, adds Mpofu.
Ray Mwareya

Promoting News Literacy


Last month’s fifth annual National News Literacy Week highlighted the importance of news literacy and local news in a healthy democracy, just as millions of Americans prepare to vote in local, state, and federal elections this year.

The initiative was co-presented by the News Literacy Project (https://newslit.org), a nonpartisan nonprofit that teaches people how to tell fact from fiction in the news and information they consume, and the E. W. Scripps Company, a diversified media company and one of the nation’s largest local TV broadcasters. Online and in-person events provided educators and students with easy-to-adopt tools and tips for navigating our information landscape.

“Two things are necessary for a healthy democracy: a more news-literate public and a vibrant local press,” said Charles Salter, president and CEO of the News Literacy Project. “National News Literacy Week is one way that we are leading a movement for news literacy across the country, ensuring that everyone has the skills they need to be informed participants in our civic life.”

“Scripps’ longtime motto is ‘give light and the people will find their own way,’” said Adam Symson, Scripps president and chief executive officer. “Across our local and national newsrooms, this translates to a responsibility to help news consumers sift through all the information that is now available at their fingertips. This year’s National News Literacy Week spotlights this important function of the free press and empowers the public with tools to recognize credible information.”

The News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit, is building a national movement to advance the practice of news literacy throughout American society, creating better informed, more engaged and more empowered individuals—and ultimately a stronger democracy.

Google and RAE Join Forces to Improve Spanish Searches and Keyboard

Last month, Google announced a series of new features that will optimize the use of Spanish across their applications. In conjunction with the LEIA project by the Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Español/RAE), Google will integrate the Academy’s dictionary into Gboard and as well as the main Google search engine.

Edgar Camelo, Google’s Strategic Partner Development Manager, confirmed that the company is continuing to improve the keyboard’s language functionality. He  announced the two core updates with aims to  improve the use of Spanish in both Search and Gboard, with efforts to facilitate the use of Spanish across all technological environments. 

Thanks to this collaboration, users will be able to experience the fastest corrections within Gboard typing, in addition to hundreds of words in the most up-to-date version of the Royal Spanish Academy dictionary, such as “cryptocurrencies” and “Ibuprofen.” The RAE dictionary will also be responsible for official definitions of Spanish words, searched for on the Google search engine tool. 

Given the broad global diaspora of Spanish speakers, variations and dialects, Google promises to ensure that each Spanish vernacular is covered in its update, with contributions to the Search dictionary from 23 distinct Spanish language academies around the world. 

Google has additionally attested that the new dictionary entries on Gboard will ensure standardized predictive features, allowing articulate sentences to be typed Spanish with minimal hassle for users.

Through the use of Gboard’s AI language models, users can expect faster autocorrect on native Spanish names such as García, Rodríguez, and Coruña, as well as words with specific accents such as música.

Prior to this update, these words were susceptible to being incorrectly flagged for spelling mistakes or prone to unnecessary autocorrections. Additionally, Google announced that hundreds of thousands of new words are being brought directly into the keyboard app, making the Spanish language on Gboard more complete than ever. 

The recent news follows Google’s commitment in recent years, to expand its reach to the Spanish-speaking community by ensuring increased presence of the Spanish language in its tools.

Is the English Rhotic ‘r’ Disappearing?

The strong ‘r’ sound found in British accent variations of the English language may be in danger of disappearing, a study has found. 

Researchers at Lancaster University (LU) suggested that ‘Rhotic’ speakers who pronounce a strong ‘r’ sound in words like car, her, and bird, were mostly “becoming a thing of the past” – with just one exception.

Subsequent to the LU study, Dr Danielle Turton explained that the region of east Lancashire – a county in the north of England, had remained an “island of rhoticity”. However, overall – the research lead said that even in east Lancashire, the “strong r” was in gradual decline among young speakers.

Linguistically, Rhoticity is the term for speaking in an accent where an r is pronounced before a vowel, but also before a consonant or at the end of a word. The Rhotic ‘r’ remains in American English, but is less likely in Australian and British English.

According to the BBC, an LU representative said that in centuries past, the pronunciation of “strong ‘r’s”was common in England, but that has declined as the language evolved. It has been most commonly documented in Cornwall and the West Country (west of England).

They added “most sociolinguistic studies of rhoticity” focused on the South West and “relatively little” was known about it in the North.

“The study is timely because Northern rhoticity is predicted to disappear in the next few generations, a process which is now complete in many areas of the South West,”.

Dr Turton expressed that the study: An acoustic analysis of rhoticity in Lancashire, England“, found that speakers from Blackburn (East Lancs) and the surrounding area “usually differentiate between pairs of words, such as ‘stellar’ and ‘stella’, whereas most of England would consider them to be the same”.

“However, for the youngest speakers in Blackburn, these ‘r’s are very weak, which raises the question of whether future generations will even hear these weak ‘r’s at all, and whether this distinction will eventually fade away,” she said.

Adding “However, for the youngest speakers in Blackburn, these ‘r’s are very weak, which raises the question of whether future generations will even hear these weak ‘r’s at all, and whether this distinction will eventually fade away,”.

“Accent change is often like a puddle: it dries up in most places and leaves remnants around the edges, hence why Cornwall and East Lancs behave similarly here today.”

The study showed the strongest ‘r’s’ are spoken by older men, and were more prominent during formal speaking. This finding raised “interesting questions about social prestige and clearness of speech”.

Researchers from LU emphasized that while rhotic Blackburn and East Lancashire speakers may be in the minority in England, they were “in the majority across the English-speaking world”. North American, Scottish and Irish speakers also use Rhotic pronunciation, “as do many second language learners of English”.

According to Dr Turton, the East Lancashire ‘r’ was weaker than its non-English counterparts, “possibly as a result of it undergoing change towards the England standard” and has the potential to eventually disappear.

“In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about the disappearance of traditional dialects and the linguistic homogenisation of regions in England,” Dr Turton said.

“Unfortunately, it seems that this is the case for the East Lancashire ‘island of rhoticity’ – “In the next few generations, this traditional feature may be lost.”

World Readiness for a World in Conflict

Not long ago, my husband and I were in our kitchen discussing the news of escalating conflict in Gaza when he asked an unexpectedly complicated question: “What happens to language learning when there is a war?” He teaches cybersecurity for a program that caters to veterans, so he frequently contemplates the impact of geopolitical tension on his field. I train world language teachers, though, and in our field the impact is harder to predict and more varied. Our most prevalent standards for language learning guide us to focus on “world readiness” (www.actfl.org/educator-resources), but I find that language educators are less likely to be immediately concerned about the effects of world conflict on their everyday lessons and are often wary of triggering conflict in their classrooms.

For some languages and learners, the role of global politics is impossible to ignore. I wrote my dissertation on investment in young learners of Arabic at a time when Arabic enrollments were growing faster than those for any other language. In the year that I spent conducting observations, interviews, and surveys to understand their language programs and learning processes, I met a young boy from an Arabic-speaking family who had been accused of carrying a bomb in his backpack. Another boy, from a family with no cultural connection to the Arab world, said his parents had told him not to put any effort into his language classes. Other parents had aspirations that went far beyond language learning, including a mother who envisioned her son as “an ambassador of goodwill and bridge building and peace making” (Lanier Temples, 2013). In other words, she wanted him to grow up to reduce conflict in the world.

These days, the focus of my work and research is teacher development and collaboration in language programs. In response to my husband’s question, I said that global conflict would cause demand for multilingual skills to go up, leading to more funding for language programs and opportunities for language learners, but that some language programs would benefit while others might be jeopardized. World readiness in language learning for a world in conflict will involve increasing capacity, which will mean expanding language programs and also stabilizing programs as they face these pressures.

I propose that it will also mean delivering language instruction that is effective, interdisciplinary, inclusive, and intentional about creating a foundation for lifelong learning. For learners from all linguistic and cultural backgrounds, in all contexts of learning, I believe that we need to reconsider the concept of world readiness and prepare learners for the global challenges that will impact their individual realities, while also aspiring to develop individuals who can reduce the conflicts in our world.

Increasing Capacity in World Languages

Unlike in the vast majority of other countries around the world, multilingualism is definitely not the typical outcome of secondary or postsecondary education in the US. That is a problem for reasons that we do not yet fathom. Leon Panetta, speaking from his experience as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has stated that multilingual capacity in the US falls far short of demand: “In times of great national security challenges, such as those we face today, as well as in times of great opportunity, such as the opening of new international markets, we find ourselves scrambling for people who can speak, write, and think in languages other than English” (Panetta, 2018).

The languages that receive greater national investment in times of conflict are those designated as “critical” languages. This designation implies that the language is important for reasons of diplomacy, national security, and competitiveness in international trade and that the number of proficient speakers is too low to meet that demand. That said, right now the number of proficient speakers of ANY world language is too low to meet demand. Only 20% of K–12 students in the US are currently studying an additional language.

Fortunately, at least 90% of public and private school systems do offer that opportunity, most frequently in Spanish, French, American Sign Language, and German. By definition, critical languages are less commonly taught languages (LCTLs), though many of them are taught across the US, at all levels of instruction. Increasing the multilingual capacity of the US requires investing in LCTLs, but a truly world-ready approach to language education will include all world languages.

Investment in Heritage Learners of Critical Languages

Like many LCTLs with relatively large numbers of learners in the US, Arabic is both a prominent heritage language and designated as a critical language. As a critical language, Arabic is considered desirable for geopolitical reasons, so that speakers can contribute to US diplomacy, security, and trade. As a heritage language, Arabic is the means for learners to communicate with their immediate or extended family members, a lynchpin for constructing and maintaining cultural identity, and, for some parents, viewed as a sacred obligation. Those two views of the value of language learning are not entirely incompatible, but they do imply very different goals for language learning.

Armed conflicts among nations, as well as other sources of emergency and conflict like environmental disasters, can lead us to focus on fear and scarcity. Our initial, basic human response to that fear leads us to conserve our resources so that we can deal with threats and to prioritize protecting groups that we consider to be our own people. Learning an additional language, on the other hand, inherently asks us to grapple with the perspectives and practices of people who are not part of our own cultural groups.

We can try to justify investment in language learning through fear, by claiming that language skills will be able to stave off the threats of conflict and disaster. For better or worse, that argument underlies the funding for language learning provided by the Department of Defense and the Department of State and the determination of which languages will be categorized as critical.

However, I have never met a successful learner or teacher of a world language who said that avoiding threats played a part in their decision to invest their own limited resources in language learning. Emphasizing threat and scarcity in our efforts to motivate investment in multilingualism will only weaken our case in the long run. Moreover, when our student population includes both heritage language learners and nonheritage learners, as mine did when I was taking university courses in Arabic, it can have the further negative effect of creating divisions in our classrooms. How can we cultivate a classroom environment that is inclusive and conducive to learning if any part of our pedagogy contributes to a sense of “us” and “them” in regard to speakers of the target language? Heritage learners, by definition, associate the target language with their cultural identity and family relationships. How can we motivate heritage learners by emphasizing conflict with the communities that they view as an important part of their own identities?

A successful heritage learner’s ability to walk in multiple cultural and linguistic worlds with confidence and competence is precisely the skill set that the concept of world readiness holds up as an aspiration for all learners of additional languages.

Effectiveness in World-Ready Language Education

Our vision of world readiness for a world in conflict cannot be realized unless our language programs are also effective in moving learners toward proficiency. Most states in the US have adopted standards for world language learning that are based on the World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages (National Standards Collaborative Board, 2015). The concept of world readiness was added in 2015:

“Learners who add another language and culture to their preparation are not only college- and career-ready, but are also ‘world-ready’—that is, prepared to add the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions to their résumés for entering postsecondary study or a career.”1 Most readers will be familiar with the themes or goal areas of these standards as “the five Cs”: communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities.

The benefits of language learning do include enhancing college applications and job prospects. However, the benefits should also begin immediately, and they should involve an adaptable set of skills that can transfer from context to context and extend beyond the context of work into other aspects of life. Consequently, we need to apply the concept of world readiness in a way that is both expansive enough to address the current world challenges and specific enough that it is actionable. To that end, there are objectives that show how the five Cs can be developed in light of this more robust view of world readiness, which will be illustrated with specific classroom activities.

Communication

All learners will develop learning strategies and confidence in their ability to learn languages.

Learners who persist will develop sufficient communicative competence to use their target language in professional and interpersonal contexts.

Communities

Learners will be able to engage with local and global communities that speak and value their target language.

Teachers will be able to cultivate a supportive network among stakeholders in the “ecosystem” of the program and support learner engagement in relevant communities.

Cultures

Learners will develop not only cultural knowledge but also intercultural competence as a flexible skill set that can be transferred to other languages and contexts.

Connections

Learners will be able to apply their knowledge and skills from other disciplines in their language learning and draw upon their language learning in other contexts.

Comparisons

Learners will be able to bring their own cultural identities into the learning process and develop their ability to understand and relate to other cultural perspectives.

Implementation of the World-Readiness Themes

As you may be thinking, we want to be able to incorporate these goals and strategies into our pedagogy without derailing the existing curriculum and classroom practices. These recommendations do not require an extensive overhaul of your existing syllabus, lesson plans, and materials, though it will be easier to integrate these activities and practices if you are already teaching for proficiency, you are familiar with task-based and content-based instruction, and you know how to cultivate intercultural competence (Liddicoat and Scarino, 2013). One important step is a strategy from culturally responsive teaching: work with your class to come up with a statement of class norms for participation and showing respect to each other. The following activities can all be adapted to use various communicative modes at various proficiency levels.

Connections and Communication in the News

Initially, even in a more traditional language course, you might add a recurring practice of discussing current events to your weekly routines. You can simply open up a website that offers news stories in the target language on your computer, display it on your screen, and help your students to identify some of the topics that they see in the headlines and excerpts. Then, you can explore various activities that encourage your learners to transition from interpretive reading to other communicative modes as they compare what they have found and report back to you.

You can give intermediate learners a list of authentic headlines in English and ask them to work in pairs to find news stories on your chosen websites that deal with those topics. Along the way, the learners will be able to develop a sense of what issues are considered newsworthy and how these issues are presented in the media of different countries. They can begin to develop the digital literacy skill of thinking critically about the source of their content and the author’s point of view. Meanwhile, you do not need to express any political viewpoints at all.

However, you can model ways of responding to others’ viewpoints with curiosity rather than judgment or disdain: “I see. Tell me more about why you see it that way.” Give them a “tool kit” of useful phrases for expressing surprise and disagreeing politely in the target language.

Culture and Comparisons in Ambiguous Images

Another way to stimulate interaction and reflection without requiring a high level of proficiency involves using images. You can provide learners with an image from the news that can be interpreted in different ways. My Serbian teacher in Belgrade did this with an image of a very thin Bosnian man standing in front of a crowd on the other side of a barbed-wire fence that appeared on the cover of TIME magazine. Ask learners to simply describe the picture, using language that is appropriate for their level. Let them read a related news story you provide or search for stories that relate to the image.

In my graduate course on teaching intercultural competence, I show two contrasting pictures of the Iranian judge, activist, and author Shirin Ebadi, one in which she is in hijab (her hair is covered with a headscarf), and then one in a business suit with her head uncovered and a United Nations symbol behind her. You could put students in pairs; give them two pictures representing the same person, place, or situation; and ask them to trade descriptions in speaking or writing, without looking at each other’s images. Clearly the discussion of a controversial image could become far more complex than your learners can handle in the target language, but you can manage this by controlling the tasks. In this case, you would want learners to use their intercultural skills by asking appropriate questions, seeking more input to help them interpret what they see, and thinking critically about the context and meaning of the image. It is entirely appropriate to ask them to reflect on this activity in English, but we are still aiming for 90% target language use in the classroom, so I would assign this for homework.

Communities and Connections in an Interview Project

Interviews can be a valuable opportunity for discovering the experiences and perspectives of others. They can be conducted with an invited guest in your classroom, via Zoom, or outside class with members of your students’ families or communities. They can report back in the target language even if the interview is conducted in English. Keep in mind that authentic communication can be taking place not only during the interview itself but also when the students are preparing their questions, with you or in small groups; when they report back to you and each other on the interview, in speaking and/or writing; and when they compare what they found with other students’ interviews.

Your guidance and feedback in regard to politeness, appropriate questions, and interpreting the answers can help them to adapt their behavior and shift their perspectives. Even if you are training soldiers, like our alumna who teaches Korean at the Defense Language Institute, they will need to negotiate expectations with a host mother in Seoul long before they need interrogation techniques. The topics do not have to be controversial; the point is not to find or foment conflict but to communicate openly and successfully, without conflict, and then to think critically about what they have learned.

Notice that these activities allow the learners to engage with individuals and authentic material from the target culture in their own classroom and local community. Even images can serve as cross-cultural stimuli that help learners to develop communicative and intercultural competence.

We need to resist the usual tendency to think of the opportunities to use language and intercultural skills as far away or far in the future. The learners can and should be honing their ability to relate to people with different cultural values and beliefs now, with their teachers and classmates. In other words, we can begin preparing learners to reduce conflict in the world by modeling and cultivating cross-cultural understanding and respect in our own classroom communities.

Conclusion

World readiness is not a threshold to be reached and left behind. We cannot predict the exact circumstances in which learners will need and want to use the competence that they develop through language learning or the level of proficiency that will be required. We can, however, anticipate that they will need to continue learning and adapting over time in order to cope with rapid change and promote peace in the future: “As with other important disciplines, the study of languages is a long game. We are preparing for new linguistic technologies, emergent languages and uses of language, international alliances to come, unpredictable migrations, and global conflicts and collaborations that have not yet arrived” (Walkowitz, 2023).

You have an opportunity every day to prepare your learners to face global challenges. The particular steps you take in order to do that will vary depending on you, your learners, and your context. We cannot fully prepare learners for every crisis. Nevertheless, expanding our view of world readiness in language learning may indeed help us to prepare the bridge builders and peace makers who will reduce and resolve conflict in our world.

References

American Councils for International Education (2017). The National K–12 Foreign Language Enrollment Survey Report. www.americancouncils.org/language-research-fle-state-language-us

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (2012). ACTFL Performance Descriptors for Language Learning. www.actfl.org/educator-resources/actfl-performance-descriptors

Commission on Language Learning (2017). America’s Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. www.amacad.org/publication/americas-languages

Lanier Temples, A. (2013). “Constructing Arabic as Heritage: Investment in language, literacy, and identity among young US learners.” Doctoral dissertation, Georgia State University. www.proquest.com/llbadocview/1520313933/813E9D2E4A7A4878PQ/3

Liddicoat, A. J., and Scarino, A. (2013). Intercultural Language Teaching and Learning. Wiley-Blackwell. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/lib/michstate-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1124313

Modern Language Association (2022). “Snapshot: Language Study in Fall 2020.” MLA Newsletter, 54,3. www.mla.org/content/download/191129/file/Fall-2022-NL-snapshot.pdf

National Standards Collaborative Board (2015). World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages (4th ed.). www.actfl.org/educator-resources/world-readiness-standards-for-learning-languages

National Council of State Supervisors for Foreign Languages and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (2017). “NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements.” www.actfl.org/educator-resources/ncssfl-actfl-can-do-statements

Walkowitz, R. L. (2023). “Gutting Language Departments Would Be a Disaster [Opinion].” Chronicle of Higher Education. www.chronicle.com/article/gutting-language-departments-would-be-a-disaster

Link
1. www.actfl.org/educator-resources/world-readiness-standards-for-learning-languages

Dr. Amanda Lanier is an applied linguist and teacher educator at Michigan State University, where she directs the online graduate programs in Foreign Language Teaching (https://maflt.cal.msu.edu). She studies the intersections of language, culture, and technology, particularly in regard to critical and heritage languages. Find her at: https://lanierlingvista.org

Contact Amanda if you would like to learn more about courses to improve pedagogical methods, assessment, technology, or ICC; discuss strategic planning for your program; and/or connect with other teachers who are similarly interested in effective, intercultural, interdisciplinary teaching and advocating for better working conditions.

British Sign Language Goes Mainstream 

British Sign Language (BSL) will be taught as a GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) in England from September 2025, according to the UK  government. The qualification will be open to all pupils, who will learn approximately 1,000 signs. It is described as an important life skill and an advancement for inclusivity. 

A GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Typically students study for and take GCSEs between the ages of 14-16. 

UK Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said the introduction of BSL as a  subject will “open so many doors for young people.”

The curriculum has already been finalized after a 12-week public consultation, which included consultations with and input from parents, teachers, and organizations from deaf and hearing communities.

BSL was officially recognized as a language in the UK last year, after the British Sign Language Act was passed.

Chief Executive of the National Deaf Children’s Society – Susan Daniels, said she was “delighted” the course content had finally been published, after a decade of campaigning. She added that the GCSE will celebrate “the rich culture and history of British Sign Language.”

As with spoken languages, sign languages have different variations. American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) use different signs, although some words and phrases present similarly. One of the main differences between these two sign languages is that BSL uses two hands, while ASL only uses one.

In the UK, the government considered introducing a GCSE in BSL after a long and steady campaign by 17-year-old Daniel Jillings, who is profoundly deaf and was born without a cochlea, meaning he is not able to use hearing aids or cochlear implants, and does not use speech.

He began campaigning for the GCSE when he was 12 years old. “This is a significant moment in the history of the British deaf community, as it is a powerful step to equality,” he said.

Educators are now debating the best way to deliver this course to students. Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the union “fully supported” the new GCSE, but foresees some practical and logistical blocks. 

“There are likely to be practical constraints because schools are under tremendous pressure in terms of staffing, finances and time.”

Sue Denny, president of the British Association of Teachers of the Deaf, said she would be keen to see training become available to deaf and hearing people who are fluent in BSL to teach the subject for GCSE.

She added there will also be a need to have sustainable succession planning to recruit and retain suitable qualified BSL teachers.

Better Bulgarian Required for Citizenship

The Bulgarian Council of Ministers has approved a bill to amend the Bulgarian Citizenship Act to add mandatory language proficiency conditions in Bulgarian for individuals of Bulgarian descent or those with a parent possessing citizenship. 

Under the proposed legislation, proficiency in Bulgarian becomes an essential criteria for acquiring citizenship. Other changes to citizenship regulations in the same bill include: the prevention of renouncing Bulgarian citizenship for individuals facing criminal proceedings, and the start of  provisions to revoke naturalization (for citizens who have become Bulgarian) in cases of systemic, or individual actions that discredit Bulgaria—including instances of racism and hate speech. 

The proposed regulations come amidst a turbulent time for Bulgarian politics, including five general elections in just two years. 

Linguistic proficiency rules have existed for those seeking Bulgarian citizenship as investors in the country, for some years. 

The Bulgarian Language proficiency exams are administered by the Center for Evaluation in Pre-School and School Education. The exam consists of a 20 question test, conducted within a one hour time frame. To pass, the candidate must correctly answer at least 12 of the questions, which mainly focus on Bulgarian history, culture, and geography. 

Miami English Recognized as Dialect

A new dialect has been found to be emerging in Miami—the distinct vernacular is a heavily Spanish-influenced dialect of American English influenced by decades of integration of Spanish speakers. 

Miami is proudly one of the most cosmopolitan and bilingual cities in the U.S., with a majority Hispanic population and an estimated population that’s just 25% Native English speaking.

Linguists at Florida International University in Miami have been monitoring the linguistic shift, and have decided that this particular linguistic development is an example of how a dominant language can evolve through the adoption of characteristics of a less established language.

Professor Phillip M. Carter, director of the Center for Humanities in an Urban Environment at the Florida International University said “All words, dialects, and languages have a history. In Miami, there are many ways of speaking English. The variety we have been studying for the past 10 years or so is the main language variety of people born in South Florida in Latinx-majority communities. The variety is characterized by some unique but ultimately minor pronunciations, some minor grammatical differences, and word differences, which are influenced by the longstanding presence of Spanish in South Florida.”

The new dialect borrows aspects of Spanish and directly translates them into English, while retaining the existing Spanish phrase structure. Linguistically, this is known as calque. 

An example of this is: bajar del carro in Spanish, becomes “get down from the car” in English – rather than a standardized translation, “get out of the car”, which would be expected in most American-British English dialects.

It has been observed that this new dialect is not limited to bilingual speakers and linguists have pinpointed certain phrases in use by native English speakers.

“These are examples of literal lexical calques – direct translations. What is remarkable about them is that we found they were not only used in the speech of immigrants – folks who are leaning on their first language Spanish as they navigate the acquisition of English – but also among their children, who learned English as their co-first language,” Carter said.

In 2022, Carter and linguist Kristen D’Allessandro Merii carried out a study to document Spanish-origin calques within English spoken in South Florida. A national group from outside South Florida were also asked to participate in a similar task.

In the study, 33 people in Miami were asked what they thought of over 50 sentences in the new dialect. The largely diverse group included: first-generation Cuban Americans, second-generation Cuban Americans, and non-Cuban Hispanic people. In response, the sentences were then rated on whether they sounded “perfect,” “okay,” “awkward,” or “horrible.”

Linguistic findings showed that the dialect typically sounded “natural” to participants in Miami, but atypical to people living outside the region. The findings emphasized key structures in the formation of dialects – whereby subtle grammatical differences add up over time, until people who don’t speak the dialect find it ungrammatical.

Carter stressed that it was important for Miami English – and any dialects which emerge from marginalized communities – to lose its stigma.

“I want Miami English to lose its stigma because Miami English is someone’s home language variety. It’s the language that person learned from their parents, that they used in school, that they hear in their community. It’s the language variety they developed their identity in, developed their friendships in, found love in. Why should that be stigmatized?” Carter said.

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