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From Advocate to Activist: One Teacher’s Journey


Classroom teacher: “That kid from Africa. He’s suspended again. He is always bothering everyone at lunch in the cafeteria.”

TESOL teacher: “What country is he from?”

Classroom teacher: “I don’t know? Africa. He is just defiant and disrespectful.”

TESOL teacher: “What language does he speak?”

Classroom teacher: “I don’t know. Congolonian?”

TESOL teacher: “Ummmmm. That’s not a language. The student is from Sierra Leone. He speaks Yoruba as his first language and is nearly proficient in English. It can be considered disrespectful to look you directly in the eyes as an elder. Also, his school experience did not include gathering in a cafeteria for meals. Being in a large room, waiting in line for a meal, and then sitting with peers to socialize is a new cultural construct for him. How can we help him to do this?”

Me—I am that TESOL teacher. This conversation—one of many conversations I have as a teacher of middle school multilingual learners and new arrivals that without fail raise my hackles and force me to choose my response on the fly, to know without wavering who I am and what I believe. Right from wrong. Do I uphold the bias with my silence, or do I find my voice to ameliorate the constructs of nescience that serve as barriers to every student with Black skin that enters my classroom?

The prickly hackles, seemingly always on end, are a response to covert racism (Coates, 2012), “nice” racism (Coates, 2012), linguicism, colorism… the -isms of other, different, unfamiliar, implicit hate, bias, ignorance, tilted systems. An alphabet soup of ugly -isms. We swam in them day after day. Until one day, over lunch, as my colleague and I lamented on the daily complaints we receive about the multilingual students and new arrivals, we recognized the pattern.

Our students from Haiti, Sierra Leone, Congo, Ghana, the West Indies, Jamaica— our Black students—they are the ones persistently on the lower end of the grading scale. They are reported to us by other teachers as the students who “just won’t do anything in class,” “just don’t get it,” and perpetually have a pile of work to catch up on. “Ms. B, here is the list of assignments so-and-so needs to finish from [insert content area].”

What do you do when, day after day, the racial, linguistic, cultural, and social obstacles are piled up against students by the very educators whose job it is to break down the barriers and lift all students to achieve? How do a White girl from Upstate New York and a Haitian immigrant nontenured instructor speak out about the blatant if covert racism that serves as an invisible mesh in our collaborative praxis? Without agency (and with unreliable tenure), we were just two teachers with a hunch.

While our students seemingly continued to take up residence on the daily discipline and suspension rosters, we saw what we needed. The data. Regardless of anecdotal hunches, assumptions, and lunchtime conversations, we needed numbers. But what data—and how to get it?

When I entered the state data hub, I could see Hispanic students’ and White students’ language scores. I could not see Black multilingual learner students’ data. Perhaps the ɳ was under a set number and there were not enough students in single locations to be counted? We thought this could not be the case because in our district, we had enough Haitian Creole newcomer students to initiate a federally mandated bilingual center. And, beyond our small state, a recent infographic from OELA told us that in cities such as St. Cloud, Minnesota, more than 50% of English learners identify as Black. And in Lewiston, Maine, 72% of the English learner roster is students of African descent.

We called the State Department of Education’s Performance Office to request achievement data for students who identify as both Black and English learner. This intersection is not part of the current algorithm my state uses for monitoring students. In our quest, my superintendent received a phone call from the head of the performance division to ask why I was looking for this data, as it had not ever been requested before.

The obstacles faced in obtaining performance data for Black English learners, although varied and detailed, simply told us that no one is counting this subgroup of students. They have not been seen. We know there is a way to count our Black English learners, and now there is a standing request to do so. There is now an expectation that we count and monitor the achievement of our Black English learners. Perhaps this is the first positive outcome of the hunch we had.

Unquestionably, Black students who are multilingual learners need to be seen, included, and supported. Just ask Lourdjinia Louis1 or Sekuye Bolende2 or Arden Amber Desormeau.3 A good read about the importance of this is Awad El Karim M. Ibrahim’s ethnographic study “Becoming Black: Rap and Hip-Hop, Race, Gender, Identity, and the Politics of ESL Learning.”4

Ibrahim digs into how being Black affects English learning, especially for refugee African youths in a Canadian high school. These students, seen as Black by society, end up identifying with Black America, picking up Black stylized English from hip-hop and rap. His study emphasizes that language learning isn’t straightforward—it’s loaded with the politics of race, social acceptance, and linguicism.

Cooper and Ibrahim also published a collection of essays, Black Immigrants in the United States: Essays on the Politics of Race, Language, and Voice (2020), in an effort to bring more attention to the Black student experience.

In education, we speak of equity, inclusion, and diversity for all. When large-scale data is collected on all students, but we cannot see some students, is that equity? I think not. Last year, I had the opportunity to see civil rights icon Kimberlé Crenshaw speak at the Courageous Conversation summit in Washington, DC.5 In her work, intersectionality acknowledges that people’s lives are shaped by a complex interplay of factors such as race, gender, class, sexuality, and more. In the role of TESOL teacher, that “more” includes language.

Race, language, and culture create a unique experience for new arrivals of African descent especially. A New America blog post by Leslie Villegas and Efren Velazco in April 2021 discusses this significance, stating that “many students who belong to the EL group experience issues of racism, discrimination, and xenophobia in the education system, including Latinx and Asian students.

For Black ELs, however, issues of language, culture, and race can be harder to separate which means we cannot equitably meet their needs without addressing anti-Blackness that reverberates through our education system.”6

Educators’ roles are critical in whether barriers are built or removed for Black immigrant students who are multilingual English learners. We can create a collaborative partnership for the achievement of our students or a praxis mired with deficit thinking and bias, both implicit and explicit. Regardless, Black students who are multilingual learners need to be seen.

What can a teacher do? As Dr. Ayanna Cooper once said to me, and I have taken liberty to paraphrase, “Say it. Say the words. Racial diversity. Anti-Blackness. It is important to say the words, or diversity forgets racial diversity and racism forgets our Black English learners.”

Put on a lens for anti-Blackness and organize your questions into three categories:

• Policy—How is data collected? Who is counted? What languaging is used in policy? Who is prioritized?

• Profession—Are Black ELT professionals at the table? Who is represented by organizations such as CEA, NTL, and TESOL? Whom are TESOL MA programs marketed to?

• Practice and programming—How does anti-Blackness show up in the systems and structures of programming and in your organization? Do Black ELs see themselves in curriculum materials and in instructional practices?

“We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.” –Bayard Rustin, American civil rights activist

I am okay with making trouble if it means all of our students have what they need to bypass and break through the limiting -isms that stand in the way of achievement and success. And I believe that all teachers who see any -ism can have the agency to create systemic change. Just say the words and ask the questions.

Links
1. www.boston.com/news/the-boston-globe/2023/07/17/madison-park-valedictorian-lourdjinia-louis
2. www.greencardvoices.org/speakers/sekuye-bolende
3. www.instagram.com/reel/CsWAZT1q-a4/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
4. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2307/3587669
5. https://courageousconversation.com
6. www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/looking-beyond-the-typical-english-learner-the-intersectionality-of-black-english-learners-in-us-public-schools

References
Coates, R. D., and Morrison, J. (2011). Covert Racism: Theories, Institutions, and Experiences. Studies in Critical Social Sciences, vol. 32. Brill.
Comrie, J. W., Landor, A. M., Riley, K. T., and Williamson, J. D. (2016). “Anti-Blackness/Colorism.” Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. www.bu.edu/antiracism-center/files/2022/06/Anti-Black.pdf
DiAngelo, R. (2022). Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm. Penguin Books.
Larcarte, V. (2022). “Black Immigrants in the United States Face Hurdles, but Outcomes Vary by City.” Migration Policy Institute. www.migrationpolicy.org/article/black-immigrants-united-states-hurdles-outcomes-top-cities
Singleton, G. E. (2022). Courageous Conversations about Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools and Beyond. Corwin.

Jill Bessette is a multilingual learner education specialist at LEARN in Connecticut. She is a veteran educator of 25 years and is completing her doctorate in TESOL at Anaheim University. Jill is an adjutant instructor at the University of St. Joseph in Hartford, Connecticut.

Saqarik

Juan does a double take when I mention Joyabaj. “¿De veras?” he asks. We’d been chatting about my recent trip to Guatemala as he finished up his shift at work. He wondered if I’d gone to the hot spots—Panajachel (Sí, muy hermoso) and Antigua (Esta vez no, pero sí lo conozco). This trip wasn’t really a vacation, I explain, but a chance to visit schools, meet with teachers, and study K’iche. Embarrassingly, I add on Saqarik! Utz wach lal? Maltyox. (“Good morning! How are you? Thank you!”) Non sequiturs, sure, but they are the only K’iche phrases I can call to mind in the moment.

Juan humors me with a hearty laugh. He is bilingual in K’iche and Spanish and is quickly improving in English. (I never fail to be humbled by this multilingualism in Rhode Island that is so prevalent yet so undervalued.) Juan tells me that he has lots of family here who are from Joyabaj. I’m not surprised—many local students come from this small, mountainous pueblo. It was one of the reasons our group of educators had spent July in Guatemala: we wanted to better understand the push/pull factors leading to the persistent migration of young people to the US and to our schools in Providence.

I’m exhausted all over again as I review our 29-day itinerary. Beyond Joyabaj, we spent time in villages throughout Quiche and Quetzaltenango. We explored Mayan ruins in Tak’alik Ab’aj and Q’uma’rkaj; we learned about nahuales and cosmovisión. We attended workshops with ministers of education and with panels of student leaders from their gobiernos escolares. We traveled by pickup to the Colomba market with local mamás, who would buy arroz y frijoles and güisquil y huevos and head back to their village with impossibly heavy baskets balanced atop their heads. We were welcomed into school after school by inspiring students, who would sing and dance in traditional Mayan clothing, and then get right to work in their classrooms. One compañera, Anne, reflected that we were living in the space between saber y conocer, working to deeply know this amazing country, its troubled history, its rich tapestry of culture and languages.

I pause as I look back over the charlas listed throughout our agenda. Loosely translated as “chats,” these were opportunities for us to hear directly from a variety of leaders, to bear witness to stories of individual trials and mad acts of resistance. Charlas were, for me, where the magic happened. There were informal charlas where Doña Josefina told me, over our meal of tortillas y frijoles, how she can’t afford the fees for her oldest daughter to continue school, and where Doña Dolores described how she handles the blaring music from the pop-up Evangelical church next door. Rocael’s group charla introduced us to the surprising surge of the Semilla Party in Guatemala’s deep-rooted political corruption.* Chris’s powerful charla heightened our understanding of the realities surrounding decades of illegal international adoptions from Guatemala. Eduardo, our masterful K’iche teacher, opened our eyes to the painful generational loss of Indigenous languages. Abelino, one of the founders of La Escuela de las Montañas where we were staying, humbly described his work organizing Indigenous farmworkers and establishing this community with houses, electricity, and essential drainage systems. In a crazy coincidence, my sister Jenny had met Abelino when she came to Guatemala in the late 1990s. It’s a small world after all.

Each charla raised new questions for me about borders, about resiliency, about what global citizenship might be. But it was the charla with Don Pedro that broke my heart wide open. Unassuming and soft-spoken, Don Pedro joined us on the front porch of La Escuela one Wednesday afternoon. We had been told that he would share his experiences of being captured and tortured during the civil war, so we were (in theory) prepared to hear difficult details. There is no way to prepare to hear the ways in which a person’s humanity can be stripped from them over and over again. Don Pedro spoke quietly of unimaginable atrocities, from an unprovoked capture in his village to weeks of brutal physical and mental torture. His voice broke when he shared the names of those who were tortured with him and the name of a soldier who was involved in his capture. Lo conocí de mi pueblo. Pedro explained that he knew that the teen from his town had been forced to join the army. He did not blame him; he considered him a victim, too.

The soldiers in charge were convinced that Pedro was involved with the guerilla insurgence. He was not. On what would be his last day of captivity, Pedro sat across from the soldier jefe, who asked him again for the name of his guerilla leader. Pedro, who no longer feared death, looked him in the eye and told him he would rather die with a clear mind than condemn an innocent person. “No conozco a nadie,” he continued. “¿Qué harías si estuvieras en mi lugar? ¿Dime, qué harías tú?” My heart broke again as I listened to Roberto’s tearful translation: “I don’t know anyone. Let me ask you: What would you do if you were me? Tell me, what would you do?” For reasons Pedro could not say, the soldier set him free.

Long after Don Pedro walked away, his question lingered on the porch. It buzzed in with the hummingbird as I lay in the hammock. ¿Y qué harías tú? It pounded with the rains on the metal roof. Tell me, what would you do? I jotted it in the margins of my journal as I reread the others’ stories. What would I do if there were no money for my daughters to go to school? What would I do if they came for my son, if they took away our language? What would I do if money for the pickup and the market just ran out? ¿Dime, qué harías tú? I got together with a few folks from the trip recently, and we were discussing how “re-entry” was going. One friend shared the challenge she was having in conversations, both in trying to express what she had learned and in feeling like the listener was able to understand. I get it. I’m much older and have had some practice at trying to reconcile my re-entry to the US after time in other countries, but this one still feels hard. How do we really honor stories that have been shared with us? How do we convey conflicted feelings of privilege and responsibility as US citizens in an unbalanced world? 

As my school-year schedule ramps up, I know the voices from the charlas will begin to fade away. I know that each of us from the trip will strive to integrate what we learned into our work and our daily lives. I am thinking about how I can share some stories with the preservice teachers with whom I work. I am thinking about ways that a charla philosophy can drive our work with local students and families. I am thinking about the magical part of teaching that comes in sitting for a while, in being prepared (in theory) for your heart to be broken wide open.

Saqarik, one of the K’iche words I tested out with Juan, can be translated as buenos días, “good morning.” But I remember how Eduardo had us mesmerized as he explained the deeper meanings, the ways it connects to Mayan beliefs that each day is a clearing, a surprising gift, a new dawn to be cherished. It seems a beautiful way to enter the school year. Let’s clear out the space, make room for our stories, and work together to see how they translate into what’s next. Saqarik, everyone. Saqarik.

*Indigenous communities in Guatemala continue to lead protests calling for the results of the election of anti-corruption president-elect Bernardo Arévalo to be honored and enforced (www.pbs.org/newshour/show/guatemalan-president-elect-arevalo-discusses-effort-to-keep-him-from-taking-office).

Tricia Kelly, EdD, is an educator with over 25 years of experience working in language education, including elementary bilingual teaching, middle school Spanish teaching, and curriculum design and coaching for high school English language development. She is currently a faculty member in the Education Department at Brown University, where she supports preservice teachers in differentiating content for multilingual learners.

New America and SEAL to Co-host Webinar about Science of Reading and ELs

Concerns have been raised that methodologies based on the Science of Reading may negatively impact English Learners (ELs).

On February 8, New America and SEAL will co-host a webinar that will unpack the relationship between the Science of Reading and ELs, including the misconceptions about this much debated topic, best practices for EL-identified students, and implications for dual language programs. The first panel of experts will discuss the policy implications of the Science of Reading for ELs, and the second panel will feature state, district and instructional leaders at the forefront of Science of Reading implementation.

Panel 1: Research and Advocacy Considerations of Science of Reading Policies on ELs

Moderator
Martha Martinez, Director of Research and Evaluation, SEAL 

Panelists
Ester De Jong, Professor, Culturally & Linguistically Diverse Education, University of Colorado-Denver, and Co-Editor, Bilingual Research Journal

Martha Hernandez, Executive Director, Californians Together 

Kari Kurto, National Science of Reading Project Director, The Reading League

Susan Neuman, Professor, Childhood Education and Literacy Development, New York University

Panel 2: Translating Science of Reading Policies into Practice for ELs

Moderator
Anya Hurwitz, Executive Director, SEAL 

Panelists
Nicole Knight, Executive Director, English Language Learner and Multilingual Achievement, Oakland Unified School District, CA 

Hope Langston, Director of Instructional Services, Northfield Public Schools, MN

Maria Rodriguez, Multilingual Learner Education Associate, Delaware Department of Education 

Gladys Yacely Aponte, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, The Children’s Equity Project, Arizona State University

For more information and to register for this event, click here.

META to Host Conference for Teachers of Emergent Multilingual Learners

On Saturday, March 2, META (Multilingual Educators Transforming Achievement) is inviting educators in the Central Valley of California to join them for a day of “learning, collaborating, networking, and celebrating” as they “explore the critical importance of identity development and investment in ensuring success for Emergent Multilingual Learners”.

The keynote speaker is Jim Cummins and presenters include Rosa Molina, Ana DeGenna, and Aracely Fox.

The event will also honor Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, a Finnish linguist and educator who coined the term “linguicism”, which refers to “ideologies and structures which are used to legitimate, effectuate, and reproduce unequal division of power and resources (both material and non-material) between groups which are defined on the basis of language”.

META is the Stanislaus County chapter of the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE).

About CABE
The California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) is a non-profit organization incorporated in 1976 to promote bilingual education and quality educational experiences for all students in California. CABE has chapters, members and affiliates, along with partnerships with other state and national advocacy organizations working to promote equity and student achievement for students with diverse cultural, racial, and linguistic backgrounds. CABE recognizes and honors the fact that we live in a rich multicultural, global society and that respect for diversity makes us a stronger state and nation.

For further information and to register for this event, visit https://sites.google.com/view/meta-cabe/home.

The Mexican American

Originally published in June 2007, Language Magazine is republishing this article in memoriam of the activist, artist, and author, Herman Sillas.

I had gone through school from the first grade through law school speaking English, learning at an early age that Spanish was not to be used in school. Then, as I started my law practice, my first clients were Spanish speaking. I had to try and relearn the language we had spoken at home when I was an infant. Soon, young Chicano teachers and students challenged the Los Angeles District’s racist tactics of stripping children of their heritage, language, and culture. The accusation and the public debate that followed caused many of us to ask “What am I?”

I painted this painting with that in mind. I attempted to show the cultural conflict swirling within me at that time. We are an emotional people and this is shown by the warm colors and swirling movement of the brush on the left side of the painting. The male’s role as the dominant figure in the Mexican culture conflicted with the growing women’s liberation movement that was taking place during the 1960s in the U.S. This difference of emphasis is represented by the two half faces in the center of the painting, one a male, the other female.

In contrast, the Mexican woman is depicted as a Madonna while the Anglo female is nude (tassel excepted) exemplifying her new freedom and disregard for past societal restrictions. The large cross on the Mexican exemplifies the importance of church rituals in the lives of Mexicans, such as Baptisms, First Holy Communions, Confirmations, and Matrimony. My view at the time was that American churches had less impact on the Anglo social life. The small gold cross on the
American side and floating dollar bill reflect my thought then that Americans viewed money in the same context as God.

The Mexican Revolution (1914) is much closer in time than the American Revolution (1776). Mexican politicians still referred to the “revolution” in their appeal to voters. In the southwest U.S., 1776 is a long time ago and the colonial soldiers are depicted as ghost-like skeletons
in the painting.

The concept of time is not that significant in the Mexican culture when compared to the U.S. Thus, the huge clock on the American side of the painting dominates the American man whose reaching hand is attempting to regain his position in front of the woman. The Aztec pyramid and the bullfighter represent the Indian and Spanish cultures that blended to create the Mestizo and ultimately the Mexican. Note that the colors from the severed head of the Aztec blends into the Mexican man and woman. Whereas, the severed head of the American Native and African are left to float isolated apart from the main stream in American life. The Liberty Bell represents the concept of individual rights which is not a concept fully understood by Mexicans.

In the Mexican culture respect for authority is given a high priority. These were my thoughts in the 1960s at the time I painted the “Mexican American.” The painting was featured on the front page of El Macriado, a Chicano newspaper during the Chicano movement in those days. Even today when exhibited, this work draws much attention and comments since many can still identify with the cultural conflicts.

After painting this picture, my identity crisis ended. I understood and recognized that success required me to be myself – a personality that was composed of the two cultures. I was the new American-a blend of two cultures. I also learned that I loved my Mexican roots. I had subconsciously painted that side of the painting first. The Anglo side I found more difficult to paint.

Make Hay before the Sun Sets

The sun is shining on language education in the US, and 2024 could turn out to be a pivotal year for the creation of a multilingual education system—as long as we make the most of this unprecedented opportunity to reinforce our educational infrastructure by recruiting and training the next generation of motivated, diverse educators and building environments capable of adapting to developments in educational technology. With elections this year, we can’t be sure what’s in store come 2025, so now is the time to sow.

For the first time, we have a secretary of education who is not only bilingual and an English learner himself but is also committed to building a multilingual country. These are his actual words (Feb. 28, 2023): “Let’s build a new era of multilingualism in America—an era where our young people can lead thriving lives and careers with their knowledge of languages from Mandarin to French, Spanish to Japanese. And let’s foster a new multilingual generation of Americans—strengthened in their identities, supported in their education, prepared to lead in our country and around the world. To all of our students in America: ¡Ya es tiempo de aprender otro idioma!”

This may be Cardona’s last year in office, so he needs our help to achieve this goal!
By the end of last September, states and school districts reported that they had spent $122 billion—64.3% of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds—so that leaves school districts with about $67.6 billion to obligate before the September 2024 deadline for allocating the entire $189 billion allotted in three rounds of congressional appropriations.
Spending levels between states have been uneven, with 18 states having spent less than three-fifths of their allocations and three states still remaining below 50% as of October 2023. States have until January 2025 to liquidate their funds, and those with approved extensions have until March 2026.

Last month, the US Department of Education finally returned control of Title III spending ($890 million for FY2023) to the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA; see p. 9), which, under the direction of Montserrat Garibay and her deputy, Beatriz Ceja-Williams, is well placed to understand that the recruitment and retention of gifted, motivated, and committed teachers must be the cornerstone on which to establish an educational system in which multilingualism is rewarded and celebrated.

The funding is there to make to make teaching the proud experience it deserves to be, to reward linguistic diversity, and to recognize its benefits. Now, we have to make sure that it is invested wisely in teachers, their salaries and conditions, their recruitment and professional development, and the modernization of their tools and methodologies so that our public education system becomes an object of pride for all political parties, all policymakers, and even all presidents.

Daniel Ward
Editor

Tone More Important than Phonetics for Babies’ Language Development 


A new study by the University of Cambridge, has found that sing-song speech is vital in helping babies to learn a language and that babies do not begin to process phonetic information (the smallest sound units of speech) until they are around 7 months old.

The study concluded that the rise and fall of tone—as in a nursery rhyme—is crucial to an infant’s processing of information and language.

The new findings, published in Nature Communications journal, directly challenge the view that phonetic information is the most critical part of infant language learning. Phonetic information is typically represented by alphabetic sounds.

When processing their findings in relation to levels of development, the team explained that the results suggest dyslexia and developmental language disorder may be associated with rhythm perception, as opposed to difficulties with processing phonetic information.

Professor Usha Goswami, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge and author of the study, explained “Our research shows that the individual sounds of speech are not processed reliably until around seven months, even though most infants can recognize familiar words like ‘bottle’ by this point.”

“From then individual speech sounds are still added in very slowly—too slowly to form the basis of language. We believe that speech rhythm information is the hidden glue underpinning the development of a well-functioning language system.” 

“Parents should talk and sing to their babies as much as possible or use infant-directed speech like nursery rhymes because it will make a difference to language outcome.”

Previous studies have led linguists to believe that infants pick up small sound elements first, and then add them together to make words.

To put this theory to the test once again, the Cambridge researchers recorded the brain activity of 50 infants at ages: four, seven, and 11 months old,  as they watched a video of an elementary school teacher singing 18 nursery rhymes.

The team then used tailored algorithms to distinguish how the infants were encoding and processing this information in the brain.

Subsequently, the collected data showed that phonetic encoding in babies emerged gradually over the first year of life, beginning with dental sounds (produced by the upper front teeth)—such as “d” for “daddy” and “t” for “teddy”; —and nasal sounds (produced when airflow is directed through the nose) —such as “m” for “mommy”.

Professor Goswami added : “Infants can use rhythmic information like a scaffold or skeleton to add phonetic information on to. “For example, they might learn that the rhythm pattern of English words is typically strong-weak, as in ‘daddy’ or ‘mommy’, with the stress on the first syllable.”

“They can use this rhythm pattern to guess where one word ends and another begins when listening to natural speech.” 

She expressed that rhythm is a universal aspect of every language, whereby all babies “are exposed to… a strong beat structure with a strong syllable twice a second” and concluded, “We’re biologically programmed to emphasize this when speaking to babies.”

Push for Guernesiais to be Taught in UK Channel Islands Schools

On the island of Guernsey in the English Channel, the language commission chair has announced that the native language of the island should be taught in schools. 

Sir Richard Collas, chair of the Guernsey Language Commission said Guernesiais (also known as ​​Dgèrnésiais or Guernsey French)  is “an integral part of our history and culture.” 

A form of Norman French, the language was commonly used by islanders from the Norman conquest, right up until its decline in the 1800s. 

Sir Richard said “One can’t understand so much of our past without understanding our Norman origins and so it is something that I think should be an essential part of the school curriculum along with other local subjects.”

In 2020, a grant of £300,000 ($400,000) was agreed for the purpose of revitalizing Guernesiais. At that time, the language had an estimated number of native speakers between 50 and 200, down from more than 1,800 in the April 2001 census. 

The campaigning committee, the Committee for Education, Sport, and Culture (ESC) argued that the language was in such severe decline that it would “cease to be spoken in a few years.”

Sir Richard said it was also “important” to get up-to-date information on the number of Guernesiais speakers.

“Otherwise we don’t know whether the steps that we’re taking to revitalise it have been successful or not,” he said.

“Many, many Guernsey people can say a few words or speak it occasionally, and I think it’s very good that we revitalize it and encourage more to do so.”

Guernesiais –  like many indigenous and minority languages that are primarily spoken, has no standardized written form or spelling frameworks. It has roots in Latin and strong influences of Old Norse and Middle English from different periods in history. 

Chinese Government Pledges Support for Promotion of Mandarin Worldwide

In Beijing, a senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official has pledged support for ongoing efforts to maintain Chinese language education internationally, and to provide additional support to promote Chinese language learning worldwide.

Ding Xuexiang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and vice premier of the State Council, expressed the commitments in a keynote speech at the 2023 World Chinese Language Conference, last month. 

Acknowledging that language is an avenue to promote cultural exchanges and dialogue among diverse civilizations, Ding explained that China will continue to promote high quality language teaching. He added that the country will continue to open up its education sector, and encourage language studies and international exchanges for students of all ages, particularly young people. 

While addressing his audience, he also called for a more comprehensive and inclusive framework for international Chinese language education—emphasizing efforts to work with all relevant parties to ensure the efficient operation and management of Confucius Institutes and other Chinese language curricula. Despite the closure of nearly all such centers in the US, there remain over 500 institutes worldwide.

Ding stated that China supports and continues to encourage international organizations to include Chinese among their official languages, and welcomes the use of Chinese language on the world stage.

The three-day conference, at which Ding spoke, had as its theme “Chinese for the World, Openness into the Future.” Approximately 2,000 guests from China and overseas attended, including government officials and experts on Chinese language education.

In addition to speeches and seminars, numerous panels and forums discussed and debated issues such as the development of Confucius Institutes and academic systems for international Chinese language education.

Bilingualism May Improve Attention Control


According to a study recently published in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, people who speak two languages may be better at shifting their attention from one thing to another, compared to monolingual speakers.

Examining the differences between bilingual and monolingual individuals, the study focused on attentional control and processed information, according to its authors Grace deMeurisse, a University of Florida (UF) Ph.D. candidate studying linguistics, and Edith Kaan, a UF professor within the department of linguistics.

“Our results showed that bilinguals seem to be more efficient at ignoring information that’s irrelevant, rather than suppressing—or inhibiting information,” deMeurisse said. “One explanation for this is that bilinguals are constantly switching between two languages and need to shift their attention away from the language not in use.”

An example of this could be an English- and Spanish-speaking person having a conversation in Spanish—both languages are active yet English is cognitively put on hold but ready to be deployed as needed.

DeMeurisse expressed that several previous studies have examined the distinctions between bilingual and monolingual groups in broad cognitive mechanisms. These are the mental processes that our brains use such as memory, attention, problem-solving, and decision-making. 

“The effect of speaking two languages on a person’s cognitive control is often debated,” she said. “Some of the literature says these differences aren’t so pronounced, but that could be because of the tasks linguists use to research differences between bilinguals and monolinguals.”

The researchers worked to see if differences between the two groups would surface based on their hypotheses, additionally using an entirely new task to Applied Psycholinguistics practices. The process, called a ‘Partial Repetition Cost task’ measures the participants’ abilities to deal with incoming information while controlling their attention.

“We found that bilinguals seem to be better at ignoring information that’s irrelevant,” Kaan said.

The two groups of participants included ‘functional monolinguals’ and bilinguals. Functional monolinguals were categorized as those who had two years or less of a foreign language experience in a classroom and use only the first language they learned in childhood.

Bilinguals were defined as those who had learned both their first and second languages before adolescence and were still using both languages.

Kaan explained that an individual’s cognitive traits continuously adapt to external and environmental  factors, with very few traits that remain throughout our whole lifetimes. 

“Our cognition is continuously adapting to the situation, so in this case it’s adapting to being bilingual,” she said. “It doesn’t mean it won’t change, so if you stop using the second language, your cognition may change as well.”

The study demonstrates an overall need to build consistency among the types of experiment used to understand differences between bilingual and monolingual people. 

“In the study of bilingualism and cognition, we are redefining the way we talk about differences between bilinguals and monolinguals and searching for more factors to consider and more methods to conduct that research,” deMeurisse said.

The team also stressed that their study was not intended to suggest that bilingual people have an advantage over monolingual people. 

“We are not looking for advantages or disadvantages,” deMeurisse said. “However, regardless of cognitive differences, learning a second language is always going to be something that can benefit you, whether those benefits are cognitive, social, or environmental. It will never be a negative to be exposed to a second language.”

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