Multilingual Classroom Ecologies: Inter-relationship, Interactions and Ideologies (Bilingual Education & Bilingualism) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1853596957 ISBN 13: 9781853596957

Publisher: Multilingual Matters, 2003

Synopsis

The theme of this book is the multilingual classroom and the interrelationships, interactions and ideologies that apply in such classrooms. Drawing on studies from different multilingual communities in different parts of the world, the volume demonstrates the complex nature of the multilingual classroom, and in so doing provides a number of interdisciplinary perspectives for an international audience. The contributions to the volume are located within an ecological framework, one that emphasises the inter-relationships between languages and their speakers in multilingual and multi-cultural classrooms, the dynamics of multilingual classroom interaction, and the positionings of classroom languages and their speakers in dominant educational discourses. There are three main themes interweaved throughout the book: Inter-relationships • Relationships between languages and their speakers in multilingual/multicultural classrooms. • The impact of educationally dominant languages on the ecologies of other languages. Interactions • The dynamics of multilingual classroom interaction for learning and teaching bilingually. • The discursive meetings and mergings of socially situated participants within multilingual classrooms. Ideology • The positionings of classroom languages and their speakers in dominant educational discourses/conversations. • The positionings of pedagogies, knowledge and participants in multilingual classrooms.

About this title

About the Authors

Angela Creese is Professor of Linguistic Ethnography at the University of Stirling, UK. She has published widely on multilingualism and ethnographic methods.

Peter Martin is Senior Lecturer and Director of the Centre for English Language Teacher Education and Applied Linguistics in the School of Education at the University of Leicester. His research interests include bilingualism, bilingual education, language education, classroom discourse and language shift.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Multilingual Classroom Ecologies

Inter-relationships, Interactions and Ideologies

By Angela Creese, Peter Martin

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2003 Angela Creese, Peter Martin and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-85359-695-7

Contents

Angela Creese and Peter Martin: Multilingual Classroom Ecologies: Inter-relationships, Interactions and Ideologies, 1, 
Ellen Skilton-Sylvester: Legal Discourse and Decisions, Teacher Policymaking and the Multilingual Classroom: Constraining and Supporting Khmer/English Biliteracy in the United States, 8, 
Peter W. Martin: Interactions and Inter-relationships Around Text: Practices and Positionings in a Multilingual Classroom in Brunei, 25, 
Alexandra Jaffe: Talk Around Text: Literacy Practices, Cultural Identity and Authority in a Corsican Bilingual Classroom, 42, 
Angela Creese: Language, Ethnicity and the Mediation of Allegations of Racism: Negotiating Diversity and Sameness in Multilingual School Discourses, 61, 
Deirdre Martin: Constructing Discursive Practices in School and Community: Bilingualism, Gender and Power, 77, 
Jo Arthur: 'Baro Afkaaga Hooyo!' A Case Study of Somali Literacy Teaching in Liverpool, 93, 
Marilyn Martin-Jones and Mukul Saxena: Bilingual Resources and 'Funds of Knowledge' for Teaching and Learning in Multi-ethnic Classrooms in Britain, 107, 
Sally Boyd: Foreign-born Teachers in the Multilingual Classroom in Sweden: The Role of Attitudes to Foreign Accent, 123, 
Nancy H. Hornberger: Afterword: Ecology and Ideology in Multilingual Classrooms, 136, 

CHAPTER 1

Multilingual Classroom Ecologies: Inter-relationships, Interactions and Ideologies

Angela Creese School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK

Peter Martin School of Education, University of Leicester, UK

Introduction

The papers appearing in this volume are, with one exception, those presented in a colloquium at the Third International Symposium on Bilingualism at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK, in April 2001. The theme of the colloquium was the multilingual classroom and specifically the complex inter-relationships, interactions and ideologies within such classrooms. The idea for the colloquium was to bring together researchers whose experiences of multilingual classrooms in a range of different sites varied but nevertheless shared clear commonalities. What all studies share is an exploration of the inter-relationships between an individual and her/his languages, and across individuals and their languages. These inter-relationships are negotiated through different types of interactions, underpinned by situated and ideological, cultural and political histories.

The key issues of inter-relationships, interactions and ideologies are explored within an ecological perspective that takes into account the importance of the environment and the linguistic diversity which exists within that environment. We first briefly consider how language ecology has been explored in the literature and, with reference to this literature, provide the framework for this volume.

Linguistic Ecology

The key concept behind the term 'language ecology', defined by Haugen (1972: 325) as 'the study of interactions between any given language and its environment', is that a given language does not exist as a separate entity in the environment. In Haugen's terms, 'environment' refers to the 'society that uses [a language] as one of its codes' (1972: 325). An ecological approach to language in society, then, requires an exploration of the relationship of languages to each other and to the society in which these languages exist. This includes the geographical, socio-economic and cultural conditions in which the speakers of a given language exist, as well as the wider linguistic environment. In Haugen's original study it was suggested that, for a particular situation, several ecological questions need to be addressed. Haugen's questions provided a useful framework for a study of language ecology, although others have noted that Haugen's approach needs to be more comprehensive and more systematically exploited. Edwards (1992), for example, has extended the questions posed by Haugen into a checklist of 33 questions, using three basic categories of variables: speaker, language and setting.

The language ecology metaphor has been used in different ways in the literature. This literature on language ecology includes discussion related to cognitive development and human interaction, the maintenance and survival of languages, the promotion of linguistic diversity, and language policy and planning. Although much of the earlier literature focused on two-dimensional inter-relationships between languages and their communities, more recent work has acknowledged an 'infinite world of possibilities' for language ecology (Barron et al., 2002: 10). In a recent volume, The Ecolinguistics Reader, Fill and Mühlhäusler (2001: 3) suggest that the ecological metaphor illuminates a range of subject matter, including (1) the diversity of inhabitants of an ecology; (2) the factors that sustain diversity; (3) the housekeeping that is needed; and (4) the functional inter-relationships between the inhabitants of an ecology.

One line of discussion has been the work of Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1993) on the ecology of cognitive development. He has explored and developed the theme of the ecology of human interaction. Bronfenbrenner's ecological model consists of a number of what he calls 'systems' which describe 'the nested networks of interactions that create an individual's ecology' (Renn, 1999: 6). Applying this ecology model, Renn investigated bi- or multiracial college students' development of multiracial identity in the USA and found the model useful for 'understanding the influence of multiple person–environment interactions'. Renn (1999: 4), citing Tierney (1993: 63), notes that individuals are 'constantly redescribed by institutional and ideological mechanisms of power'.

Mühlhäusler (1996) has developed the idea of language ecology in his discussion of the maintenance and survival of languages with specific reference to the small Australian and Pacific languages. He refers to the 'large-scale destruction of linguistic ecologies' and suggests there is a need to identify the 'prerequisites for maintaining, preserving or restoring languages' (Mühlhäusler, 1992: 165–66).

The theme of language ecology also appears in the language policy and planning literature. Kaplan and Baldauf (1997: 310) have noted that efforts to plan language 'without an awareness of the eco-system in which one is intervening can be dangerous to the health of the community'. In a later work, they refer to 'the ripple effects of doing anything to any language or set of languages' within a particular context (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1998: 361). Another source which looks at an ecological approach to language planning is the volume by Liddicoat and Bryant (2000). Within this volume, a focus paper by Mühlhäusler (2000) argues for the need to take into account the inter-relationships between language and the wider cultural and political environment.

Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas (1996), in a discussion of language policy options worldwide emerging from their work on language rights, have contrasted what they refer to as an 'ecology-of-language paradigm', which promotes multilingualism and linguistic diversity, with the 'diffusion of English paradigm' which promotes a monolingual viewpoint. With reference to the work of Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas, Ricento (2000: 208) has highlighted a key question which needs to be addressed: 'Why do individuals opt to use (or cease to use) particular languages and varieties for specified functions in different domains, and how do these choices influence – and how are they influenced by – institutional language policy decision-making (local to national to supranational)?'. In attempting to answer this question Ricento points to the importance of linking together the patterns of language use in particular contexts with the 'effects of macro-sociopolitical forces on the status and use of languages at the societal level' (Ricento, 2000: 209). This present volume focuses on one context, the classroom, and attempts to provide such a link to the wider socio-political environment.

In an ecological approach to a discussion of 'multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy', Hornberger (2002: 35) states that the language ecology metaphor 'captures a set of ideological underpinnings for a multilingual language policy'. In particular, she points to how languages exist and evolve in an eco-system along with other languages, and how they [their speakers] 'interact with their socio-political, economic, and cultural environments'. The continua of biliteracy is an ecological model in the sense that it shows how both the nested and intersecting nature of a whole raft of language and literacy features can be implemented by educators. The model therefore provides teachers and researchers with the tools to consider how one change along one point of one continuum will cause potential changes along other continua and how this reconfigures the whole educational picture and the opportunities for participation and success in schools. Such a model is therefore dynamic and fluid, and allows educators to keep in mind a range of complex inter-relating issues around the promotion of multilingualism within educational settings. The model also has the capacity to make connections between the educators' local and wider contexts, and the interaction between these different level discourses. In investigating multilingual classrooms through this model, one can see the ways in which power is negotiated through language by individuals and institutions, and how some languages come to be endorsed more than others.

Despite the increasing amount of literature on the ecology of language, and the link with language policy and planning, there are few studies which focus on the inter-relationships between languages and their speakers in the educational context, specifically, the multilingual classroom. Mühlhäusler (1996), with particular reference to the Pacific region, has argued for a radical rethinking of language education within an ecological framework. One issue he raises is how education programmes can fit into existing linguistic ecologies. He does not, however, focus on issues inside the classroom apart from raising a number of questions about the ecological factors that promote the use and learning of languages in the classroom, and on the factors required for languages used in education to thrive outside the classroom.

It is our opinion that a fuller discussion of the language ecology of multilingual classroom environments is required. We feel it is important to explore the ecological minutiae of interactional practices within such environments, along the lines, for example, of Kulick's (1992) study of language shift and cultural reproduction in a Papua New Guinean village, and Errington's (1998) study of interaction and identity in Javanese Indonesia, a study which considers the changing interactional practices in relation to questions of ethnicity, nationalism and political culture.

Alongside a discussion of the interactions between speakers and their languages and the inter-relationships between these speakers and their environments, a central focus of this volume is the inclusion of ideology as a concern of language ecology. In attempting to link classroom environments with the wider socio-political environment it is essential to take into account the ideologies that pervade language choice and language policy (see, for example, Luke et al., 1990; Tollefson, 1991, 1995). It does this in an attempt to make transparent the 'naturalization' of social differences which are bound up in language use (Heller & Martin-Jones, 2001). An ecological approach does more than describe the relationships between situated speakers of different languages, and is proactive in pulling apart perceived natural language orders: that is, where a particular language and its structure and use becomes so naturalised that it is no longer seen as construing a particular ideological line. An ecological approach attempts to make this transparent. 'Unnaturalising' these discourses becomes necessary to make clear 'what kinds of language practices are valued and considered good, normal, appropriate, or correct' in particular classrooms and schools, and who are likely to be the winners and losers in the ideological orientations (Heller & Martin-Jones, 2001: 2). To take this one step further, Hornberger (2002: 30) argues that 'multilingual language policies are essentially about opening up ideological and implementational space in the environment for as many languages as possible'.

Structure of the Collection

The papers in this collection all explore some aspect of the interactions and inter-relationships between teachers and learners, the underlying ideologies within the classroom or school contexts, and how discourses within and between micro and macro levels of education are institutionally and societally re(produced).

Ellen Skilton-Sylvester's paper focuses on Khmer/English biliteracy in multilingual classrooms in the United States. She considers the legal and official language policies in relation to minority groups and links these to the implicit policies and ideologies which exist outside the official discourse. The main thrust of the paper is the interplay between policy making, the ideologies which support these policies, and the micro-level practices in schools and classrooms. What emerges from this study is the way different teachers create different classroom policies of their own, depending on their underlying ideologies. The study provides telling accounts, using interview vignettes, of how teachers support and contest ideologies about the education of linguistically diverse students. The classroom ecologies in her study are thus influenced and shaped not only by the law but the teachers' own classroom policies with regard to language and culture.

Peter Martin provides an account of the interactions and inter-relationships around text in one multilingual classroom in the sultanate of Brunei on the northern coast of Borneo. The study is located in a small rural school in Brunei which serves a minority community. The specific focus of the study is the way the text, the teacher and pupils, and the languages used to talk around the text are positioned during the accomplishment of the lesson. The paper relates the participants' multilingual literacy practices to the wider linguistic ecology of the environment, both the local environment and the nation, and attempts to look at the inter-relationships and interactions in the classroom, building a picture of the classroom ecology, and how this classroom ecology is influenced by the wider linguistic ecology.

The major focus of Alexandra Jaffe's paper is also on talk around text. The study focuses particularly on literacy practices in a Corsican bilingual classroom and the way that pedagogical practices attribute authentic and powerful identities to both the minority language and to learners. Jaffe provides accounts of Corsican literacy instruction and explores how, on the one hand, such instruction helps to foster an intimate and authentic sense of cultural ownership of the Corsican language among children who are French-dominant. On the other hand, it helps to create symbolic and functional parity between Corsican and French within the broader context of the Corsican language revitalisation scheme.

The paper by Angela Creese focuses on the construction of two bilingual English as an additional language (EAL) teachers' positionings during a two-day student staged protest against a perceived racist incident in a London secondary school. It examines how these bilingual teachers' ethnicity and language resources in Turkish and English are employed by the school to (re)produce a discourse of diversity that attempts to level out difference. It looks at how the bilingual EAL teachers manage their multiple roles within this institutional discourse through the foregrounding and backgrounding of ethnicity, language, knowledge production, and 'self' in several school contexts through the two-day event and beyond. The data for the analysis come from two student-produced texts. Analysis is extended beyond the texts to look at the interactions which happen around them within the school community. Through an ethnography of communication, the paper shows how the bilingual teachers mediate, negotiate and action identification positionings towards and away from the dominant discourse of institutional sameness. It finds that the bilingual teachers both collude with and challenge this discourse.

Deirdre Martin's paper provides an account of how young Panjabi Sikh students construct languages in schools. The focus of the paper is on how young bilingual students are positioned, and how they position themselves and others through the discursive strategies across structures of languages, gender and schooling. Drawing on a theoretical framework of Bourdieu, and Martin-Jones and Heller, she attempts to explore the nature of language and power relations for this group of students. She uses group interviews in order to offer a glimpse of the students' understanding of how their languages are legitimised in different power relations across peers, gender and teachers.

The paper by Jo Arthur focuses on a group of young people attending after-school lessons in Somali in Liverpool. The data for this paper include samples of each participant's written Somali, audio- and video-recordings of classroom interaction, and diaries in which the learners recorded their personal experience of the lessons and of the roles of Somali literacy practices in their daily lives. Arthur discusses insights gained from the data into the shaping of participants' bilingual language practices by the different values associated with languages in their repertoire, and by the social and linguistic experience which they bring to the classroom.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1853596957
• ISBN 13: 9781853596957
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 152
• Editor: Creese Angela, Martin Peter