Language Awareness in Multilingual Classrooms in Europe: From Theory to Practice 9781501501326, 9781501510434

Table of contents :
Foreword
Contents
Introduction: Towards Critical Multilingual Language Awareness for 21st century schools
The effects of raising language awareness in mainstream and language classrooms: A literature review (1995–2013)
Serving policy or people? Towards an evidence-based, coherent concept of language awareness for all learners
A critical approach to language awareness in France: Learning to live with Babel
Language awareness amongst “new speakers” in a multilingual classroom
From plurilingual repertoires to language awareness: Developing primary pupils’ proficiency in the language of schooling
Building students’ language awareness and literacy engagement through the creation of collaborative multilingual identity texts 2.0
Language awareness in action: Primary school students’ language practices while performing a multilingual task
Black-blanc-beur: Challenges and opportunities for developing language awareness in teacher education in France
Index

Citation preview

Christine Hélot, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Sven Sierens (Eds.) Language Awareness in Multilingual Classrooms in Europe

Contributions to the Sociology of Language

Edited by Ofelia García Francis M. Hult Founding editor Joshua A. Fishman

Volume 109

Language Awareness in Multilingual Classrooms in Europe From Theory to Practice Edited by Christine Hélot, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Sven Sierens

ISBN 978-1-5015-1043-4 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-5015-0132-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0134-0 ISSN 1861-0676 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018934547 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter Inc., Boston/Berlin Cover image: sculpies/shutterstock Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Jim Cummins

Foreword This wonderful book resonated with me on multiple levels. On a personal level, the complex intersections of theory, research, policy and classroom practice so lucidly discussed by the authors of the various chapters in this volume transported me back to my own school experiences in the 1950s and 1960s in Dublin, Ireland. I attended a school for 12 years that prided itself on its commitment to “the classics”. I learned Latin over a period of six years and classical Greek for four years. They were my strongest subjects in the national Leaving Certificate examination at the end of secondary school. In addition to English as the medium of instruction, we also learned Irish throughout our schooling (from age 4) and French for six years in secondary school. At various stages of secondary school, several of us questioned our teachers about why we were spending so much time learning “dead” languages – Latin and classical Greek – with Irish not quite alive but not quite dead. The answer was always a variant of “Without knowing Latin, you cannot truly know English”. Obviously, as I later came to realize, there is more than a grain of truth in this observation in light of the Latin (and Greek) origins of the varieties of English we use in formal and academic situations. However, I can recall no instance from my schooling when teachers explicitly drew our attention to the connections between Latin and English or between any of the five languages that occupied so much instructional time.1 The implicit assumption was that cross-lingual transfer and enrichment would occur spontaneously without any explicit instructional intervention. Probably this was the case to some extent but I am confident that the effects would have been much more profound and lasting had teachers pursued the goal of deepening our knowledge and appreciation of English in a systematic and sustained way across all of our languages. The languages of my childhood languished in solitary confinement. In this respect, the instructional assumptions underlying language teaching in many countries today have not changed much from what I experienced in my

1 Obviously, if a major goal of teaching Latin was to deepen our knowledge of English, this could have been achieved much more readily by teaching living languages such as Italian or Spanish (essentially contemporary dialects of Latin) in a way that highlighted cognate and morphological connections across languages. The greater availability of aural and written input in these languages in comparison to Latin would undoubtedly have generated more motivation on the part of students. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501501326-201

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school years. As several of the authors in this book point out, what Ingrid Gogolin (1994) called the “monolingual habitus” continues to dominate all aspects of language education. For example, the increasing linguistic diversity in classrooms around the world as a result of population mobility is typically viewed as a problem to be resolved through monolingual instruction in the major school language rather than as a potential resource that can enrich learning and expand the identities of all students. The home languages of immigrant-background students are still being scapegoated in many countries as a cause of underachievement (e.g. Esser 2006) despite extensive contrary evidence (e.g. Agirdag and Vanlaar 2016). Using the construct of language awareness as an entry point, the authors of the various chapters in this volume document clearly the limitations of current ideological assumptions underlying conventional approaches to language pedagogy. The most obvious limitation is that in many contexts these approaches have been minimally successful in actually teaching language and literacy skills, in either first or second languages (L1/L2). Hélot (Chapter 3), for example, points to the disappointing outcomes of English teaching in France. In Canada, the teaching of French as a second language appears equally ineffective (see Cummins 2014, for a review). Similarly, the underachievement of first- and second-generation immigrant-background students in many European countries has been documented repeatedly (e.g., Stanat and Christensen 2006). These students predominantly experience monolingual instruction in the major societal language, with minimal, if any, attention paid to promotion of their home languages. Even within Canadian French (L2) immersion programmes where French is used as a significant medium of instruction throughout elementary and secondary schooling, student outcomes in French productive language skills (speaking and writing) are typically far from native-speaker levels. This pattern of findings can be attributed, at least in part, to the monolingual instructional principles underlying L2 teaching in both conventional teaching of L2 as a subject and in many bilingual and L2 immersion programmes. Wallace Lambert (1984), one of the pioneers of research into Canadian French immersion programmes, clearly expressed how this monolingual habitus is infused into immersion programme pedagogy: “No bilingual skills are required of the teacher, who plays the role of a monolingual in the target language […] and who never switches languages, reviews materials in the other language, or otherwise uses the child’s native language in teacher-pupil interactions” (13). Obviously, this “two solitudes” pedagogical assumption (Cummins 2007) significantly constrains the possibilities of teaching for transfer across languages. Translation from one language to another is anathema within this approach and instructional implications of emerging constructs like “translanguaging” are similarly rejected.

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The “two solitudes” assumption represents the antithesis of the pedagogical approaches vividly described in this book. The authors share a belief in the pedagogical benefits of bringing students’ languages into productive contact within multilingual classrooms. As they document in reviewing the relevant research and describing innovative and inspirational classroom practice, this productive contact stimulates students to become aware of similarities and differences between languages and to reflect critically on how language is used to attain a variety of social goals within our societies. When students are enabled to showcase their linguistic talents by writing and “publishing” dual or multiple language books or projects, their identities are affirmed in powerful ways that fuel further literacy engagement. The chapters by Prasad (Chapter 6) and by Little and Kirwan (Chapter 5), in particular, document how the creation of what I have called “identity texts” by immigrant-background students constructs a counter-narrative that challenges the frequent devaluation of these students’ linguistic, cultural, and cognitive capital in schools. Let me dwell for a moment on Little and Kirwan’s chapter to illustrate what students are missing out on when school policy and pedagogical practice focus only on transmission of isolated language skills and structures. A major reason why the instructional focus on language awareness and validating students’ home languages appears to have been so successful in Scoil Bhríde is that this pedagogical strategy forms part of a coherent school policy that is reinforced and built on throughout the primary school grades. As described by the authors, by the time students come to Third and Fourth Class, they have become very familiar with the practice of spontaneously translating words, phrases and longer texts, both oral and written, from one language to another. They have also experienced, often with the help of their parents, several years of writing dual language texts, which at this point become more elaborate. By Fifth and Sixth Class, discussion and analysis of language is infused in all facets of students’ learning and they spontaneously compare their languages (English, Irish, French, and a multitude of home languages) in subject areas across the curriculum. In contrast to many schools across Europe and elsewhere, students’ multilingualism is positioned as a resource for learning and harnessed to enhance the educational experience of all students. To what extent does this approach to language and literacy development yield benefits on conventional measures of academic attainment? Despite the fact that Scoil Bhríde serves a low-income largely immigrant-background population, students typically perform above the national average on the standardized tests in English and maths that are administered each year. Additionally, the English language and literacy performance of immigrant-background students is indistinguishable from that of their native speaker peers. This pattern of immigrant

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student academic performance contrasts markedly with typical outcomes in most European countries. Collectively, the research analyses, theoretical clarifications, and instructional initiatives discussed in this volume make a compelling case for rethinking approaches to language education in culturally and linguistically diverse schools and classrooms. Monolingual instructional assumptions lack both empirical support and theoretical coherence regardless of whether they are implemented with the goal of promoting bilingualism (e.g. L2 immersion programmes) or suppressing bilingualism (e.g. monolingual programmes for immigrant and minority group students). These approaches reject some of the most potent instructional tools available in multilingual classrooms to promote language awareness  – teaching for cross-lingual transfer, legitimization of translation across languages as a means of enabling students to showcase their emerging multilingual repertoires, and encouraging students to explore translanguaging spaces that they create collectively with their plurilingual peers. A final point is that this book represents not just a progression from theory to practice, but equally significant, a progression from practice to theory. Theory and practice are in constant dialogue with each other throughout the book. The instructional innovations described by Van Gorp and Verheyen (Chapter 7), Prasad (Chapter 6), and Little and Kirwan (Chapter 5), together with projects such as the Didenheim project (Hélot, Chapter 3) have created phenomena that must be integrated coherently into theoretical models and are capable of refuting theoretical propositions. For example, the exuberant infusion of students’ home languages into all aspects of instruction in Scoil Bhríde (Little and Kirwan), with its evident affirmation of student identities and expansion of language awareness, directly challenges German sociologist Hartmut Esser’s claim (2006: 34) that retention of the home language by immigrant children will reduce both motivation and success in learning the host country language. By the same token, the credibility of the Dutch-only policies implemented in many Flemish schools, as described by Van Gorp and Verheyen (Chapter 7), is also called into question by the multilingual instructional strategies successfully employed in Scoil Bhríde. These Dutch-only instructional strategies are based on the proposition/belief that maximum exposure to the target language will result in better outcomes in that language. Scientific rigour requires that advocates of this proposition explain how a multilingual instructional approach that appears to dilute students’ exposure to the major school language results in far superior academic performance than is typical for immigrant-background students in Flemish schools (Stanat and Christensen 2006). Clearly there are multiple challenges in scaling up the instructional innovations documented in this volume beyond individual classrooms and schools.

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As Mary and Young (Chapter 8) point out in reflecting on their attempts to incorporate multilingual perspectives into teacher education programmes in France over the course of a decade, a sustained focus on these issues over several semesters is required to enable prospective educators to transition from a monolingual, monocultural vision of education to an awareness and appreciation of both the challenges and instructional affordances of multiple forms of diversity in our schools. In the last sentence of their chapter (and the book), they highlight the fact that we are talking not just about educational effectiveness or language awareness in a narrow sense. The research, theory, and instructional innovations described in these pages speak more fundamentally to the ethics of schooling and our individual and collective identities as educators.

References Agirdag, Orhan & Gudrun Vanlaar. 2016. Does more exposure to the language of instruction lead to higher academic achievement? A cross-national examination. International Journal of Bilingualism. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1177/1367006916658711 Cummins, Jim. 2007. Rethinking monolingual instructional strategies in multilingual classrooms. The Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics 10(2). 221–240. Cummins, Jim 2014. To what extent are Canadian second language policies evidence-based? Reflections on the intersections of research and policy. Frontiers in Psychology 5. 1–10. Article 358. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00358 Esser, Hartmut. 2006. Migration, language and integration (AKI Research Review 4). Berlin: Programme on Intercultural Conflicts and Societal Integration (AKI), Social Science Research Center. http://www.wzb.eu/zkd/aki/files/aki_research_review_4 Gogolin, Ingrid. 1994. Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Münster & New York: Waxmann. Lambert, Wallace E. 1984. An overview of issues in immersion education. In California State Department of Education (ed.), Studies on immersion education: A collection for United States educators, 8–30. Sacramento, CA: California State Department of Education. Stanat, Petra & Gayle Christensen (eds.). 2006. Where immigrant students succeed: A comparative review of performance and engagement in PISA 2003. Paris: OECD.

Contents Jim Cummins Foreword   V Christine Hélot, Koen Van Gorp, Carolien Frijns and Sven Sierens Introduction: Towards Critical Multilingual Language Awareness for 21st century schools   1 Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet The effects of raising language awareness in mainstream and language classrooms: A literature review (1995–2013)   21 Carolien Frijns, Sven Sierens, Piet Van Avermaet, Lies Sercu and Koen Van Gorp Serving policy or people? Towards an evidence-based, coherent concept of language awareness for all learners   87 Christine Hélot A critical approach to language awareness in France: Learning to live with Babel  117 Nicola Bermingham and Bernadette O’Rourke Language awareness amongst “new speakers” in a multilingual classroom   143 David Little and Déirdre Kirwan From plurilingual repertoires to language awareness: Developing primary pupils’ proficiency in the language of schooling   169 Gail Prasad Building students’ language awareness and literacy engagement through the creation of collaborative multilingual identity texts 2.0   207 Koen Van Gorp and Steven Verheyen Language awareness in action: Primary school students’ language practices while performing a multilingual task   235

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Latisha Mary and Andrea S. Young Black-blanc-beur: Challenges and opportunities for developing language awareness in teacher education in France   275 Index 

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Introduction: Towards Critical Multilingual Language Awareness for 21st century schools This book is about an approach to language education known as language awareness (LA). The term LA was first used by Bolitho and Tomlinson (1980) and became more widely known with the publication in 1984 of a volume by Eric Hawkins entitled Awareness of language. For the past 30 years, LA has been implemented in many different contexts worldwide to recognize the linguistic diversity of students in multilingual classrooms, to develop a more integrated and ecological approach to language education, and to question normalized assumptions about language and languages (Blommaert 2010). As a field of research, LA has seen the creation of an international association called ALA1 in 1992, which organizes conferences every two years and publishes a quarterly peer reviewed journal entitled Language Awareness.2 The focus of this volume is on multilingual classrooms in Europe and how recent research on LA addresses the challenge of a more socially just approach to language education (Birr Moj 2007) for all learners, for marginalized students who speak minoritized languages alongside mainstream students who need to understand the growing linguistic and cultural diversity of our globalized societies. Following on a 2016 article by Svalberg concluding that LA needs to be redefined as content and asking what kind of LA would benefit society as a whole, this volume aims to take up these issues by addressing four main questions: 1. What is LA? 2. Why is it important to do LA? 3. How does one implement LA in the classroom? 4. What are the effects on learners and teachers of using LA approaches?

1 http://www.languageawareness.org 2 www.tandfonline.com/RMLA, published by Taylor and Francis. Dr. Christine Hélot, Professeure émérite, Université de Strasbourg, LILPA EA 1339, France, e-mail: [email protected] Dr. Koen Van Gorp, Center for Language Teaching Advancement, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA, e-mail: [email protected] Dr. Carolien Frijns, Artevelde University College Ghent & Centre for Language and Education, KU Leuven, Belgium, e-mail: [email protected] Sven Sierens, Centre for Diversity and Learning, Linguistics Department, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, e-mail: [email protected] https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501501326-001

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We have chosen to limit ourselves to several European contexts (Flanders in Belgium, France, Ireland, and Galicia in Northern Spain) where we believe researchers have advanced the field of LA both at the theoretical and empirical levels.3 The book is structured in two parts, the first part (Chapters 1–3) reports on recent research trying to answer the first two questions, the what and why of LA; and the second part (Chapters 4–8) takes the reader to various schools or classrooms in Europe where LA projects have been implemented and analyzed in relation to different theoretical frameworks.

1 What is LA? How has LA been defined? As mentioned by Svalberg (2016: 14) Hawkins’ (1984) vision was “of a more literate, more multilingual and more tolerant and inclusive society”. He envisaged LA as a bridging subject in the curriculum, which would address three major problems in the UK education system: the teaching of literacy in English, the teaching of foreign languages and the growing prejudices towards immigrant languages. These three dimensions are present in most conceptualizations of LA by researchers working in different contexts, however with different emphasis. In Britain, as explained by Hudson (2007), it was the “grammarless” approach to teaching English and foreign languages that gave way to a shift of emphasis on knowledge about language (KAL) or knowledge of language structures and functions in mother tongue and foreign language teaching. In European countries where there is a long tradition of FLT and grammar oriented teaching, the term language awareness (and its various translations) is preferred.4 It has generally been interpreted as an interdisciplinary approach to improve language education in schools specifically in view of the growing diversity of languages spoken by students, and the exclusion of most minoritized languages from curricula. Researchers in this book all consider Hawkins as “the father” of LA (James 2005: 80) and refer to his pioneering work as well as to the work of other British researchers such as Donmall (1985), James and Garrett (1992), and Fairclough (1992), as a starting point. Indeed the most often quoted definition of LA is Donmall’s (1985: 7): “LA is a person’s sensitivity to and conscious awareness of the 3 For a review of research on LA in Britain, see Svalberg 2016..tandfonline.com/RMLA, published by Taylor and Francis. 4 For further understanding of the difference between KAL and LA see Cots (2008) who sees two strands in KAL, a psycholinguistic one and an educational one, the latter adopting a larger view of what knowledge about language is than the former centred around the appropriation of a formal linguistic system.

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nature of language and its role in human life”. Today, the wide spectrum of fields of research related to LA has made a clear definition of the concept more difficult to formulate. Van Lier offers a critical perspective on LA which includes the issue of power differentiation between languages and their speakers as well as the complex relationship between language and culture: Language is as important to human beings as water is to fish. Yet, it often seems that we go through life as unaware of language as we suppose the average fish is of the water it swims in. […] Language awareness can be defined as an understanding of the human faculty of language and its role in thinking, learning and social life. It includes awareness of power and control through language, and the intricate relationships between language and culture. (Van Lier 1995: iv)

In a state of the art article on LA by Svalberg in 2007, she argued that the concept of LA was fragmented, that it lacked theoretical coherence because of the vastness of the field, because of its multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary nature, and because of the socio-political concerns in education today. This is one of the reasons why researchers in Flanders decided to carry out a systematic review of research on LA (see Chapter 1) and in the process had to choose a definition of LA (see Chapter 2) that could cover the projects under review. James and Garrett’s (1992) framework of five domains delimiting the various strands of LA was considered the most appropriate. The five domains are the following: the performance, cognitive, affective, social and power domains. James and Garrett’s model (1992) had opened up the field of research, which had also seen in 1990 the publication of Fairclough on critical language awareness (CLA). Fairclough argued that CLA activities should lead to the empowerment and emancipation of language users, in other words he insisted on the power domain and in this sense interpreted LA as a “critical” domain of research and practice. Following Fairclough, in a review of LA research published in the Encyclopedia of language and education, Hélot (2008: 378) also focused on the power dimension of LA in the following terms: “LA is clearly not about acquiring knowledge that will give more power to those who already have it, it is about transforming the knowledge of those who have no power into a resource”. One of the most interesting conclusions of the systematic review presented in Chapter 1 is that very few of the research projects reviewed had included the power dimension in their investigation of the effects of LA on learners. What could the reasons for this be? Was the power dimension part of the conceptualization of the LA approach, in other words, was the critical dimension LA can assume when implemented to address issues of inequality and social justice at the heart of the projects or not? It is clear for sociolinguists that linguistic diversity is never neutral but linked to linguistic stratification and subordination. To translate such analyses into LA activities, however, is complex, particularly with young learners (even if we know that young learners experience linguistic discrimination from

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a very young age, see Thomauske 2013). Bermingham and O’ Rourke’s chapter (Chapter 4) provides an example of such activities carried out with youth of 16 to 18. We will come back to the issue of power further on. Because LA has been implemented in different sociolinguistic contexts in various countries, Frijns et al. (in Chapter 2) review the various terms used in different languages (French, German, Dutch among others) in order to provide a more evidence-based definition. They started from the Flemish controversy about the term talensensibilisering [‘awareness of languages’]. This is one example among the various translations of the term LA into other languages that illustrates the different interpretations of the concept. While Frijns et al. translate sensibilisering by ‘awareness’, they also refer to ‘sensitization’ (or raising awareness) or a first introduction to languages (in the plural) as distinct from learning a foreign language (therefore in the singular). The term “awareness”, at least as it has been defined by the British researchers mentioned above, expresses more agency on the part of the learner than sensitization or indeed than the term used by French and Swiss researchers éveil au langage ... éveil aux langues (Candelier 2003; Perregaux 1998), éveil meaning ‘awakening’, thus conveying again a different meaning. Moreover, the term “language” in English refers to both singular and plural forms whereas in French a distinction is made between langue and langage. Clearly, Hawkins’ (1984) and later researchers’ conceptualization of LA is not synonymous with developing sensitivity to language or languages in the plural, it encompasses more ambitious objectives such as challenging linguistic prejudice, questioning language and its role in society, and developing linguistic understandings. So where does LA stand amid other models of language education? From the start, LA was meant to offer an alternative model of language education that would not be synonymous with imparting knowledge on language(s) in a topdown fashion but rather that would engage students in a process of reflective enquiry on their own language practices in and out of school. With the increase of multilingual students in classrooms this means that the full linguistic repertoires of students become the subject of study and the medium through which knowledge is shared. Thus, one of the main characteristics of LA is that it welcomes in classroom practices the use of languages that have traditionally been excluded from school, such as minoritized languages for example, and in the process gives a voice to minoritized language speakers. This is a crucial point: LA focuses on speakers rather than on the languages themselves, on exploring with them their own language practices or languaging (Swain 2006) as authentic linguistic materials to understand that language is socially constructed, that language conventions and practices are invested with power relations and ideological processes which students are unaware of (Faiclough 1990).

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Most researchers in the field of LA believe that this dimension of LA is beneficial not only for minority language speakers, but for all learners. They argue that LA fills a gap in language education that the traditional methodology of L1 or L2 teaching has not addressed before because it is prescriptive rather than descriptive and reflective, and it is based on a structural conceptualization of language (Jaspaert 2015). This point confronts both researchers and practitioners with a challenge: as explained by Frijns et al. in Chapter 2, if we wish LA to transform language education in multilingual classrooms, we should elaborate a coherent concept of LA based on a post-structuralist view of language or languaging which insists languages belong to speakers and not to the nation state (García 2017).

2 Moving towards a clearer conceptualization of LA Since the seminal work of researchers in Britain mentioned above (Hawkins 1984; Donmall 1985; James and Garret 1992; Fairclough 1992) LA has been developed to raise consciousness of the social features of language and to stimulate engagement with language(s) in multilingual classrooms. Multilingual classrooms can be defined as classrooms where children are speakers of a multiplicity of languages other than the language(s) of instruction. Multilingual classrooms have become the norm all over the world because of the increasing movements of population across the globe. As more and more languages come into contact through their speakers, the occurrence of multilingualism is continually increasing in our societies and therefore in our schools. A good example of multilingualism in contemporary European classrooms is given in Chapter 5 by Little and Kirwan, whose school under study counts over 300 students of whom 80% speak 49 languages other than English. Similarly, the schools where Van Gorp and Verheyen (Chapter 7) implemented their first LA project counted over 70% of multilingual children. What happens to the speakers of all these languages in the educational sphere? Do they witness their languages being taught, or are they ignored, forbidden, rendered invisible? Are their languages envisaged as a learning resource or a barrier to the acquisition of the national language? Are they recognized as bilinguals or as second language learners with insufficient knowledge of the language of instruction? Or are they seen as “new speakers” (see this notion in Bermingham and O’Rourke, Chapter 4) who adapt to their new linguistic space and reconfigure their linguistic repertoires? How do minority language speakers experience the differential values assigned to languages? How is linguistic diversity understood by teachers who are under the pressure of ever more national and international

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evaluations, and last but not least, how can teachers work with languages they do not know (as illustrated in Prasad’s and Mary and Young’s chapters)? The field of research on LA is indeed concerned with all these questions. Thus, LA is about linguistic diversity in education, about the way societal multilingualism has transformed our schools, and about the relationship between language(s) and issues of social justice. All the chapters in this book are concerned with multilingualism and whether it is valued or not in our education systems, why it should be valued and how. The challenge is the same in every context: how do we rethink language education in schools that have functioned for over a century on the principle of linguistic homogeneity? Researchers in the field of LA are mainly sociolinguists or applied sociolinguists working in education, for whom monolingual assumptions about language must be questioned and language education reconceptualized with values in mind such as equity, inclusion, and linguistic freedom. In other words, they are engaged in research looking at ways to redress educational inequalities linked to language, language use, and language in education policies. This is the reason why LA projects, as described in this book, are based on a different conceptualization of language from traditional FLT, where language is seen mainly as an objective system of rules to be learnt without experiencing and/or questioning them. They are informed by a socio-cultural understanding of language use, which means that the learners’ experiences with multiple languages (or varieties of languages) in their everyday life, and with the language(s) of instruction at school, are the basis of their language education. In other words learners should no longer be alienated from their own means of expression and made to feel linguistically insecure. As expressed by Hudson (2007: 228, quoted in Svalberg 2016) students should “learn about language rather than change their language”. Indeed for Hawkins, a key element of LA was that learners (1984: 4–5) “discover language for themselves”, that they were challenged “to ask questions about language”, encouraged “to gather data from the world outside schools”, and learned “to develop a growing insight into the way language works to convey meaning”. Thus, LA is conceptualized as a way to question language(s) at both the individual and societal levels, and as an approach that supports the students’ linguistic capital and questions the way their repertoires becomes reconfigured at school, either through continuing policies of assimilation or through a more inclusive approach that welcomes linguistic diversity. The objectives of LA are therefore to prepare students cognitively, socially and critically for life as openminded, empowered future multilingual citizens in a very diverse world. The various chapters in this book describe LA projects in Flanders, Galicia, France and Ireland, and they all take as a starting point the learners’ linguistic repertoires and integrate them in pedagogical activities that can encompass

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various school subjects. Furthermore, as stated above, the languages in focus can be any language: the language of instruction, a second or foreign language, as well as any language or language varieties the children are in contact with outside of school. The chapters also illustrate how LA activities run across a continuum from activities meant to reflect upon language diversity (as in Galicia, see Chapter 4), to using the different languages present in learners’ repertoires to transform a monolingual curriculum into a multilingual one where learning through diverse languages becomes the norm at school (as in Ireland, see Chapter 5). It is clear also that the different sociolinguistic and educational contexts described in this volume give rise either to constraints or affordances for the implementation of LA activities. Language in education policies are far more constraining in France and Flanders than in Ireland. The analysis of the Galician context in Chapter 4 by Bermingham and O’ Rourke provides a fine understanding of their role in promoting certain languages at the expense of others, and in feeding deficiency discourses towards minoritized language speakers. LA in this chapter is not analyzed in terms of a set of pedagogical activities proposed to students but as the reflective path adolescent learners and their teachers took to uncover the different power status of the languages present in their educational context. Therefore, LA is understood as the ability of plurilingual students to deconstruct their representations and ideologies of language and multilingualism in their own bilingual polity, Galicia in this case, and to make their own choices of language(s) for their life.

3 The conceptualization of LA within the field of multilingual education: From LA to multilingual LA All the chapters in this volume are informed by research on the multilingual turn in sociolinguistic studies and in education (Blommaert 2010; May 2014; Conteh and Meier 2014). Since the visionary work of Hawkins, sociolinguists have advanced the field of language studies, proposing new conceptualizations of language and language education. First, they insisted on the fact that languages do not exist without their speakers and that a language is tied to an individual’s lived existence; then, more recently, they have questioned the concept of a named national language (Makoni and Pennycook 2007; Otheguy, García, and Reid 2015) advancing the view that language belongs to the speaker rather than to the nation state and that “static conceptions of language keep power in the hands of the few” (Flores

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 Christine Hélot, Koen Van Gorp, Carolien Frijns and Sven Sierens

2013, quoted by García 2017: 13). Critical perspectives on the ontology of language (Jaspaert 2015) and on bilingual and multilingual language practices have given way to notions such as plurilingual repertoires (Grommes and Hu 2014) allowing for the description of complex language resources including not only standardized languages but language varieties and registers and most importantly acknowledging their fluid borders. Bilingual and multilingual speakers’ practices have been described as heteroglossic (Busch 2014) and phenomena such as language crossing (Rampton 2014), polylanguaging (Jørgensen 2010), multilanguaging or translanguaging (García 2009) have been recognized as the various ways in which speakers “language” and express their identity through such practices. In short, all these researchers are challenging the monolingual, essentialist ideology of national, standard languages, and through the development of new theories on the ontological nature of language they are rethinking language in education policies (Jaspaert 2015) as well as bi-multilingual models of education, specifically with a view to include minoritized language speakers (García 2017). In this book, every context described refers to schools or classrooms, where a multiplicity of languages is being used to carry out pedagogical activities or to reflect upon multiple language use and linguistically hybrid practices. For this reason, it would be more appropriate to think in terms of multilingual language awareness (MLA) rather than just LA. Because, as described in the chapters in part 2, the students’ plurilingual repertoires are the starting point of LA activities, and they can be used together without fixed constraints, the monolingual norm of traditional classrooms gives way to a learning environment where interactions between teachers and learners are multilingual and translanguaging becomes a pedagogical resource (Blackledge and Creese 2014; García 2009; García and Kleyn 2016). This poses the question of the relationship between the field of LA and the field of multilingual education and whether the advances in the latter can help to a better conceptualization of LA or indeed multilingual LA. An answer can be found in volume 6 of the latest edition of the Encyclopedia of Language and Education (Cenoz, Gorter, and May 2017) entitled Multilingualism and Language Awareness. The 29 chapters cover a wide range of theoretical approaches from different fields such as linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, second language education, bilingual education, etc. They all focus on multilingualism and how it relates to LA in very diverse domains going from early childhood bilingualism to the work place, to teacher education, to the linguistic landscape, and to immigrant communities; they refer to different notions such as emotion, cognition, inductive versus deductive learning, hybridity, translanguaging, the impact of new technologies, the role of English as a lingua franca, the socio-cultural dimension of classroom discourse, etc. The volume clearly illustrates the multidisciplinary nature of the field of knowledge related to LA as well

Introduction 

 9

as the resulting complexities and controversies pertaining to its conceptualization in relation to multilingual education. The same issue is discussed in Hélot’s chapter (Chapter 3) who argues for a reconceptualization of LA in France within the field of bi- multilingual education, because LA approaches, while being different from bilingual education models, support the bilingualism of emergent bilinguals in schools or help newcomers to experience the learning of the language of instruction as an additive and dynamic process rather than a subtractive one that leads to assimilation. The theoretical underpinning for such a conceptualization of LA is that the use of the learners’ L1s is a prerequisite for a more efficient approach to the acquisition of the language of instruction (Cummins 2000), and for identity investment in learning in general. While this point has been empirically and theoretically convincingly shown to make a difference in bilingual programmes, it is obvious that LA does not give the same affordances to bilingual learners because the amount of support in the second language is not the same. Bilingual pedagogy is focused on two languages of instruction taught by teachers who speak these languages. In multilingual classrooms, bilingual pedagogy cannot be implemented because of the multiplicity of languages involved, therefore LA pedagogy meets this challenge by giving students the right to use their multiple linguistic resources to learn, even when teachers do not know these languages. In this sense, it is opening new paths for multilingual pedagogy, because it gives learning affordances to multilingual students that were not envisaged before. Even if LA activities have been shown consistently to have an impact on attitudes and motivation to learn the language of instruction and other languages, rather than a direct effect on competence in these languages, the recent flurry of research on translanguaging (García 2009, Blackledge and Creese 2014, García and Kleyn 2016) is opening new pedagogical possibilities for the use of minoritized languages in multilingual classrooms and therefore also concerns LA approaches. Indeed Cummins (2012: 41) argues that LA approaches do make a difference for minority language speakers: LA “represents a powerful instructional strategy for all students but for immigrant and marginalized group students it can mean the difference between academic success and failure”. Two points need to be made here. The first one concerns Cummins’s focus on the different “instructional strategy” that is implemented through LA activities. Adopting the principles of LA approaches creates a major pedagogical shift for teachers and learners: learners need no longer feel insecure linguistically or submersed in a language they are in the process of acquiring, and teachers need to relent on an assimilationist ideology of language pedagogy. Thus, before any issue of competence, what is at stake in multilingual classrooms where LA activities are implemented with minoritized language speakers is the issue of power: a process of empowerment

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 Christine Hélot, Koen Van Gorp, Carolien Frijns and Sven Sierens

happens when students see their languages becoming legitimate at school, when they are free to use them to acquire school knowledge and when they can showcase their plurilingual competence as in Prasad’s chapter (Chapter 6) for example. Again, as explained by Cummins (2001), allowing students to use their multiple languages challenges coercive relations of power or the exercise of power by a dominant group to the detriment of a subordinated group. Furthermore, because LA activities conceptualized in this way soften the borders between languages, power is distributed differently and no longer rests in the hands of those who speak the dominant national language. A process of empowerment is reported by Hélot in Chapter 3, by Prasad in Chapter 6 and by Van Gorp and Verheyen in Chapter 7 who analyse how learners involved in the production of a multilingual radio broadcast became experts in their own language and could showcase their competence as bi- or plurilingual learners. In other words, the strong points of LA pedagogy are that it challenges discourses of deficiency regarding minoritized language speakers, it clearly supports learners to value their bi- multilingualism both in their home and in school contexts (Hélot 2007) and it helps them to see their plural linguistic practices as legitimate at school. Likewise in her chapter in the second edition of the Encylopedia of Language and Education, García (2008: 387) prefers the term “multilingual language awareness” (MLA) to LA and she argues that what teachers need today is “multilingual” LA, in order to understand: “language practices that often differ significantly from the ways in which the standard variety of the nation state is used in schools. Additionally, these different language practices are often manifestations of social, political and economic struggles”. She then explains that MLA must include a critical dimension, which is important for all teachers but crucial for teachers working in multilingual schools. Her subsequent chapter in the third edition (2017) of the same Encyclopedia is entitled Critical Multilingual Language Awareness (CMLA). She argues that CMLA for teachers should not only include an understanding of the complex language issues in the twenty-first century but that teachers should enact these understandings in their teaching and in their students’ learning. Little and Kirwan’s chapter (Chapter 5) is an example of such enactment, the aim of their project being that multilingual children achieve as well as monolingual ones in standardized tests. While they were helped by a national language education policy that encourages schools to embrace multilingualism seriously and not just as a token value, it was not sufficient to reach their goals. The teachers in Scoil Bhríde worked to devise six clearly defined principles of language policy and pedagogy that made a difference, that led to “the hearing and using of several languages in the classroom” (Chapter 5: 179) becoming the norm. In other words, the agency and engagement of practitioners at the grass root level were instrumental in the transformation of the school as a multilingual learning space.

Introduction 

 11

In Chapter 2, Frijns et al. also argue for a bottom-up agency approach to LA for ethnic minority students in Flanders. Using Jaspaert’s (2015) distinction between a structure concept and an agency concept of language, they explain how the latter stresses that language is the product of human intersubjectivity, rather than a codified system to be learnt by an individual. Consequently, the conceptualization of language has a direct impact on language pedagogy. LA activities should ideally give agency to learners and be conceived as a bottom-up approach where learners are engaged in their own modes of languaging; as opposed to a top-down approach where fixed normative knowledge about language is transferred, and where minority speakers are disempowered because their linguistic capital is devalued. Frijns et al. then expand on the agency concept of language to explain that learning environments must be emotionally safe for ethnic minority children. Using Deklerck’s (2009) prevention pyramid they explain how different kinds of preventive measures to address conflicts have positive or negative effects on pupils’ learning and well-being. The authors draw on this model to analyze different implementations of LA and their potentially positive or negative impact on the perception of ethnic minority languages. Thus, they argue, LA activities on their own or LA materials proposed to teachers are not enough to make ethnic minority students feel engaged and motivated to learn. The whole school culture must be transformed into a safe space for these learners who need to feel that their languages have as much legitimacy as the dominant school language. Like in Little and Kirwan’s chapter, or Prasad’s, or Van Gorp and Verheyen’s, it implies a conceptualization of LA based on an agency concept of language and as expressed by Le Nevez (2008) a pedagogy where children whose languages and cultures represent diversity and difference are no longer disempowered at school. According to García (2017: 10) CMLA can not only generate a new order of discourse, but create “a new praxis capable of changing the social order of what it means to language at school”. Without this critical dimension and this form of engagement there is a danger that LA could have contradictory effects, as for example when its conceptualization is limited to activities celebrating linguistic and cultural diversity rather than understanding the effects of embracing learners’ plurilingual repertoires as pedagogical practice. Already in 1997, Van Essen pointed to the danger of LA becoming a slogan in language education because some of its proponents claimed that it could improve social harmony between different groups in society. Even if Hawkins (1984: 4) did envisage LA activities as “the best weapon against prejudice”, it is clear from the various analyses proposed by the researchers in this book that schools remain sites of contention. Therefore, if we wish to serve better the learning needs of multilingual learners, critical and bottom-up agency LA projects need to be based on an understanding

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 Christine Hélot, Koen Van Gorp, Carolien Frijns and Sven Sierens

of the histories of oppression that have affected our multilingual societies and on an acknowledgement of the power relationships at play in the different linguistic ecologies.

4 The power dimension of LA/MLA James and Garrett (1992) saw the power dimension of LA in giving all children a language education that would make them aware of language ideologies and how they play out in favour of dominant languages at the expense of minority ones, in favour of a standard variety at the expense of more local language practices. While this conceptualization of LA is central to all the authors in this book, its implementation in pedagogical and methodological terms is rather complex specifically with young learners at primary level. This is probably one of the reasons why Sierens et al. (Chapter 1) found so few projects that had evaluated the power dimension in their systematic survey, which covered only primary schools. Another reason might be that most LA projects have remained experimental, sometimes run outside of the school curriculum and rather short-term. Furthermore, the issue of how to measure the effects of LA activities that include a critical reflection on power relationships or changes in critical thinking is not an easy task whether the research adopts a quantitative or qualitative approach. The power dimension in LA is related to issues of language policy. If LA is not part of the regular curriculum (as a cross curricular approach for example) or part of an education policy valuing multilingualism, its implementation will depend on the engagement of teachers (or parents) finding their own spaces to propose such activities (see Mary and Young, Chapter 8), in other words working against the curriculum, or struggling to find the spaces for LA. With such institutional constraints in mind, teachers will find it more difficult to design LA activities that include all the dimensions proposed by James and Garrett (1992). Recently, two countries have made significant changes in their national language policy regarding the issue of multilingualism. In Finland, the latest 2016 curriculum (FNBE 2016) includes MLA across all the school subjects making it one of the first countries in the world to address multilingualism head on in the educational sphere and insisting that all teachers should acknowledge the importance of adopting a multilingual pedagogy. In Luxembourg, the 2016 educational law for early childhood education includes a programme of ‘plurilingual education’ for all children aged 1 to 4 (MENEJ 2017). It means that all ECEC structures must include the children’s family languages on top of two other languages (French and Luxembourgish) in their everyday running. To meet this objective, LA is the approach recommended

Introduction 

 13

to include the use of family languages in everyday activities, as well as parents’ participation. The policy does not give strict instructions on how the languages must be used or distributed so further research will need to be carried out to investigate if LA activities have led to the crossing of language borders or not. It does not seem advisable, however, to approach family languages from a formal and institutional perspective prescribing the standard norm that might differ from the language variety used by families and thus depersonalize what these languages mean for their daily lives. Accepting these languages (and their speakers) unconditionally in an emotionally safe learning environment is likely to be a more promising pathway to successful language education for all (see Chapter 2). In France, as explained by Hélot in Chapter 3, language education policy remains focused on a structure concept of language for all language education, foreign language learning (FLL) and French as the language of instruction. LA is mentioned very briefly in the pre-school curriculum but disappears at the primary level where FLL becomes a priority. Consequently, it challenges the sustainability of LA projects tried out in some schools as described by Prasad in Chapter 6 or implemented in teacher education as explained by Mary and Young in Chapter 8. Such projects are always dependent on the engagement of the head of a school, a teacher or a researcher and despite the evidence they show of improved motivation, metalinguistic awareness, social relationships and in some cases improved competence, they are always at risk of being discontinued. This said, Frijns et al. (Chapter 2) are right to insist that the most effective LA projects are bottom-up projects. Policy makers in Finland and Luxembourg are well aware of the research on top-down language in education policy and its limited impact on teachers, and in both cases are investing a lot of money in teacher education. In Luxembourg for example, every ECEC structure is being asked to develop its own language plan (MENEJ 2017). It means that professionals must get together and discuss their own choices of languages and language use in consultation with parents. In other words, while it is a top-down policy, it does not impose that LA should be implemented in the same way in every ECEC structure and it is leaving it up to educators to devise their own bottom-up policy, including as mentioned above, the management of the use of the different languages. The objective is that ECEC professionals acknowledge all the languages of the children in their structure and develop their own LA pedagogical activities so that multilingual children will experience a continuous language development rather than a process of assimilation from the earliest age. In this case, LA is being conceptualized as an alternative model to mother tongue education (which has been shown in some cases to depersonalize family languages) and as a way to offer a multilingual learning environment to all children in a multilingual society that does not stigmatize the language development of young children from the start of schooling.

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 Christine Hélot, Koen Van Gorp, Carolien Frijns and Sven Sierens

5 A systematic review of LA projects The first two chapters of Part 1 of this volume start with analyses of the first systematic review of LA interventions in educational contexts and on their effects on learners, teachers and parents. Commissioned by the Flemish Education Council, researchers from the KU Leuven/University of Leuven and Ghent University investigated 40 publications spanning from 1995 to 2013 and their conclusions are important: studies adhering to strict scientific criteria remain rare, and few of them have been empirically examined in terms of effects. Using James and Garrett’s (1992) five domains of LA approaches, Sierens et al. (Chapter 1) found evidence for impact on only three of the five dimensions in the publications they reviewed: the affective dimension in the improved attitudes towards linguistic diversity by both learners and teachers, the cognitive dimension because learners gained increased knowledge about language, languages and language varieties, the social dimension because LA activities had an influence on better relationships between immigrant parents and schools. However, two important dimensions of the James and Garrett’s (1992) framework are missing: the LA projects reviewed did not seem have an impact on the power, nor on the performance dimensions of language education. The analysis of the various LA projects presented in this book sheds some light on the reasons for the results of the systematic study. The example of the school in Dublin analysed by Little and Kirwan in Chapter 5 shows clearly that it takes a concerted and reflected transformation of the school’s ethos and language policy to bring all multilingual students to perform at a high level in standardized tests in English. But it also takes a clear conceptualization of LA as both knowledge about language and innate capacity for acquiring and processing language. It is because both dimensions of LA were included in the implementation of the LA activities, i.e., the experiential knowledge of language(s) and the conscious procedural knowledge needed to acquire language, that in this case, the performance domain was affected positively. The different conceptualizations of LA in the various projects that were part of the systematic study are examined in Chapter 2. Frijns et al. argue that the various claims made about the positive effects of LA are not all based on empirical data and too often the results of beliefs or expectations. This is because, as also explained by Svalberg (2007), the concept of LA is rather fragmented and an evidence-based definition was lacking until the evidence-based definition of LA as presented in Chapter 2. This is a central issue that runs through all the chapters in this volume: the present state of research on LA demands on the one hand, a more scientific approach to what LA is, what it does, how, and the reasons for choosing this model of education and, on the other hand, it demands further theoretical concepts from various disciplines such as sociology, education, sociolinguistics, linguistics, etc., to be investigated in an interdisciplinary way. This is clearly

Introduction 

 15

illustrated in all the chapters in the book. For example in Chapter 2, the concept of the prevention pyramid helps to understand the need for LA activities to be implemented in an emotionally safe learning environment specifically for ethnic minority students. In other chapters, the notions called upon refer to “new speakers” (Chapter 4), language policy (Chapter 5), identity texts and literacy education (Chapter 6), multilingual pedagogy (Chapter 7), and decentring (Chapter 8). All these notions should help to improve the coherence of future research on LA. Similar questioning regarding the conceptualization of LA in France is discussed in Chapter 3. Hélot argues that LA is a different model of language education from bilingual models but that its conceptualization would gain some scientific solidity if it were envisaged within the theoretical framework of bi-multilingual education. She explains that LA can be conceptualized as an approach that supports bilingualism and specifically the bilingualism of minority speakers whose language competence is so often silenced, marginalized or a source of discrimination. As mentioned above in reference to Cummins (2001), LA can give rise to radically different instructional strategies, and the pedagogical shift from monolingual instruction to multilingual instruction provides new affordances for multilingual students who can language using their full linguistic repertoires. Consequently, LA conceptualized in this way can lead to the transformation of monolingual classes into multilingual spaces where learners see themselves as experts, and their own languages legitimized. And because teachers do not necessarily know all the languages spoken by their students, they have to develop different relationships with their learners and move from what Cummins (2000) calls coercive relationships to collaborative ones. It is within such a shift that processes of empowerment can be witnessed for minoritized language speakers. As mentioned above, the systematic review of Sierens et al. in Chapter 1 showed that the power dimension did not come up in the research they examined. Clearly this relates to the way LA was conceptualized in the various projects: for example, were the LA approaches devised to include a truly critical dimension? Fairclough’s publication on critical LA dates from 1992 and states clearly the aims of LA in terms of social change. Bolitho et al. (2003: 252) answering ten questions about LA, define critical LA as an approach with “a focus on the relationship between language and social context, an awareness of the ways in which language represents, reflects and constructs power relations in the world”. Implementing such objectives in LA activities implies, as described in Mary and Young’s chapter (Chapter 8), taking teachers on a long journey to challenge not only their representations of language(s) but also their approach to teaching language(s). In other words, getting teachers to understand that LA approaches are not about giving explicit knowledge about language(s) but consist in engaging themselves and their learners in a process of critical enquiry about language is a real challenge in contexts like France or Flanders where a very normative view of

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 Christine Hélot, Koen Van Gorp, Carolien Frijns and Sven Sierens

language pedagogy prevails. For primary teachers whose language education is still based on a structure concept of language it is not easy to embrace a totally different view of language use at school. For example, understanding what Bolitho and Tomlinson (1995: iv) mean when they write “the only views of language that matter are the ones that teachers and learners have built up in their heads”, implies an epistemological break from traditional first or second language didactics which view knowledge about language(s) as a set list of forms and functions to be learnt without any reference to the way most of us language in our everyday life.

6 LA in the multilingual classroom: From conceptualization to implementation The five chapters in the second part of this book propose analyses of the implementation of LA projects in multilingual classrooms in Galicia, Ireland, France and Flanders. Different actors are concerned, from migrant youths to mainstream multilingual students and teachers in primary and secondary schools. In each chapter, the implementation of LA is analysed with reference to the sociolinguistic context, and the degree to which education policies are open to multilingualism or not. Each chapter illustrates how LA has been conceptualized to answer the needs of multilingual learners in specific contexts where different interpretations and therefore implementations of LA were carried out. For example, Birmingham and O’ Rourke (Chapter 4), analyze the discourses of young Cape Verdean migrants who are new speakers of Galician and Spanish in this context. LA is understood as both explicit knowledge about languages, about linguistic proximity as for example between Portuguese and Galician, and as reflexion on issues of power and ideology as expressed in the language hierarchies of the Galician language in education policy. Thus, it is the awareness of both issues that led some teachers to contest the regional and state policies. In the case of the students, it is their experience as new speakers that gave them some LA knowledge they could invest in their learning of Galician. However, they were not exempt from the influence of language ideologies and understood quickly the dominance of Spanish over Galician. Little and Kirwan (Chapter 5) explain that LA is more than just explicit knowledge about language and language use in society. They make a very useful distinction between LA as a goal or explicit knowledge learners should have about language(s) and “our innate capacity for acquiring and processing language” (page 171). Their chapter analyzes the relationship between LA and language proficiency in a multilingual primary school in Ireland and shows how both dimensions of LA are always in focus, i.e., teachers encourage the children to draw on their experience of

Introduction 

 17

learning English, Irish, and their home languages and through the writing of parallel texts in these languages they build on and develop the LA knowledge that need to be explicitly taught to improve proficiency in the school languages. Prasad’s and Van Gorp and Verheyen’s chapters (Chapters 6 and 7) both focus on linguistic expansive pedagogies that actively draw on the diverse language ecologies of the classrooms in which they experimented a collaborative enquiry into students’ and teachers’ plurilingual competence. Prasad conceptualized the multilingual LA activities within Cummins and Early’s (2011) framework of identity texts and literacy engagement. Implemented in two different classrooms in southern France, the plurilingual enquiry approach involved reflexive drawings, language portraits and writing multilingual books. The key word in this chapter is the notion of engagement and how LA activities can engage both teachers and their students in rethinking their relationships to language, multilingualism and language learning. Van Gorp and Verheyen’s chapter (Chapter 7) offers yet another take on LA through a group task specifically designed to produce spontaneous LA “moments” in Flemish primary classrooms where students have to discuss their various languages, their form and function and their relationships to their home languages. They conceive of LA as an empowering approach for minority language speakers and a bottom-up approach to contest the monolingual curriculum of Flemish schools. Like the other authors in this book, they show that LA activities are not based on a random choice of languages that do not relate to the learners’ experiences but on their own linguistic repertoires. The conceptualization of LA in this case includes both proficiency in the language the students choose for the task and a dialogic enquiry as to which language to use for the task and why. As we see multilingualism in action in the analyses of the classrooms’ discourses, LA takes on a psychological dimension when the students become aware of the relationship between language and identity and how central it is to them, even though the task in some cases revealed their limited proficiency of the academic register in their home languages. The last chapter (Chapter 8) deals with the LA of teachers and how to educate teachers to question monolingual assumptions of language, and to envisage the pedagogical possibilities of integrating students’ plurilingual repertoires in dayto-day classroom activities. Set in France, the research looks at 10 years of implementation of LA modules specifically designed to prepare teachers to meet the needs of multilingual students. Mary and Young’s analysis of the impact of the modules on pre-service teachers in several schools of education brings us back to the difficulty, in contexts like France or Flanders, to implement sustainable LA projects in political contexts which are adverse to accepting the transformed linguistic ecologies of contemporary societies. This said, the three chapters on France, the two on Flanders and the one on Galicia show clearly that even in centralized education systems imposing

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 Christine Hélot, Koen Van Gorp, Carolien Frijns and Sven Sierens

top-down policies with little space for innovation, the agency of teachers to meet the needs of their multilingual students cannot be stifled. Because once teachers are aware of what is at stake in multilingual education, once they have understood that their students’ plurilingual repertoires is didactic capital, that silencing emergent bilinguals or new speakers is synonymous with social exclusion and discrimination, once they have probed into the role of language ideologies in feeding deficiency discourses and negative attitudes towards minoritized languages and their speakers, they are critically equipped to challenge the top-down transmission approach to language knowledge and the normative vision of language education which contrast so sharply with our everyday communicative needs. With this book, we hope to show that it is only within such a critical approach that LA can meet the objectives it sets out to reach, i.e., social change or, as expressed by García (2017: 12), “changing the sociolinguistic order and the ways in which language have been constructed and hierarchized” in educational contexts and in society. Three concluding remarks spring to mind if research and practice of critical multilingual awareness (CMLA) are to be taken further: 1) the implementation of such activities needs to be based on a clearly articulated agency conceptualization of language before they can be evaluated coherently; 2) the successful implementation of CMLA activities demands a critical pedagogy of difference, a strong school ethos of inclusiveness and clear bottom-up language policies; 3) and last but not least, the implementation of CMLA activities involves a process of change in teachers who need to question their representations of language, multilingualism and language pedagogy before they can engage with their students in an understanding of the socio-political factors that shape the role of language(s) in the reproduction of inequality and discrimination.

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practice and pedagogy (Educational Linguistics 20), 21–40. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, New York & London: Springer. Candelier, Michel. 2003. L’éveil aux langues à l’école primaire. EVLANG: Bilan d’une innovation. Brussels: De Boeck. Cenoz, Jasone, Durk Gorter & Stephen May (eds.). 2017. Encyclopedia of language and education, 3rd edn., vol. 6: Multilingualism and language awareness. New York: Springer. Conteh, Jean & Gabriela Meier (eds.). 2014. The multilingual turn in languages education: Opportunities and challenges. Toronto: Multilingual Matters. Cots, Josep M. 2008. Knowledge about language in the mother tongue and foreign language curricula. In Jasone Cenoz & Nancy Hornberger (eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education, 2nd. edn., vol. 6: Knowledge about language, 15–30. New York: Springer. Cummins, Jim. 2000. Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, Jim. 2001. Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society. Los Angeles, CA: Californian Association for Bilingual Education. Cummins, Jim. 2012. Language awareness and academic achievement among migrant students. In Claudine Balsiger, Dominique Bétrix Köhler, Jean-François de Pietro & Christiane Perregaux (eds.), Éveil aux langues et approches plurielles: De la formation des enseignants aux pratiques de classe, 41–54. Paris: Éditions l’Harmattan. Cummins, Jim & Margaret Early. 2011. Identity texts: The collaborative creation of power in multilingual schools. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. Deklerck, Johan. 2009. Problem behavior and prevention: The actual situation in Flanders. International Journal of Violence and School 10. 30–34. Donmall, B. Gillian. 1985. Language awareness. London: Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research. Fairclough, Norman (ed.). 1992. Critical language awareness. London: Longman. FNBE [Finnish National Board of Education]. 2016. National Core Curriculum for Basic Education 2014. Helsinki: Finnish National Agency for Education. García, Ofelia. 2008. Multilingual language awareness and teacher education. In Jasone Cenoz & Nancy Hornberger (eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education, 2nd. edn., vol. 6: Knowledge about language, 385–400. New York: Springer. García, Ofelia. 2009. Bilingual education in the 21st century. A global perspective. Malden, MA: Basil Blackwell. García, Ofelia. 2017. Critical multilingual language awareness and teacher education. In Jasone Cenoz, Durk Gorter & Stephen May (eds), Encyclopedia of language and education, 3rd edn., vol. 6: Multilingualism and language awareness, 1–15. New York: Springer International Publishing. García, Ofelia. 2017. Problematizing linguistic integration of migrants: The role of translanguaging and language teacher. In Jean-Claude Beacco, Hans-Jürgen Krumm, David Little & Philia Thalgott (eds.), The linguistic integration of adult migrants / L’intégration linguistique des migrants adultes: Some lessons from research / Les enseignements de la recherche, 11–26. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. García, Ofelia & Tatiana Kleyn (eds.). 2016. Translanguaging with multilingual students. New York & London: Routledge. Grommes, Patrick & Adelheid Hu (eds.). 2014. Plurilingual education: Policies–practices– language development (Hamburg Studies on Linguistic Diversity 3). Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

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Hawkins, Eric. 1984. Awareness of language: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hélot, Christine. 2007. Du bilinguisme en famille au plurilinguisme à l’école. Paris: L’Harmattan. Hélot, Christine. 2008. Language awareness raising and multilingualism in primary education. In Jasone Cenoz & Nancy Hornberger (eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education, 2nd. edn., vol. 6: Knowledge about language, 371–384. New York: Springer. Hudson, Richard. 2007. How linguistics has influenced schools in England. Language and Linguistic Compass 1(4). 227–242. James, Carl. 1999. Language awareness: Implications for the language curriculum. Language, Culture and Curriculum 12(1). 94–115. James, Carl & Peter Garrett (eds.). 1992. Language awareness in the classroom. London: Longman. Jaspaert, Koen. 2015. Creating quarter for doing things with language. European Journal of Applied Linguistics 3(1). 21–45. Jørgensen, Jens Normann. 2010. Languaging: Nine years of poly-lingual development of young Turkish-Danish grade school students, vol. I–II (Copenhagen Studies in Bilingualism, the Køge Series K15–K16.). Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen. Le Nevez, Adam. 2008. Rethinking diversity and difference in French language practices. Language Policy 7(4). 309–322. Lier, Leo van. 1994. Language awareness, contingency and interaction. AILA Review 14. 69–82. May, Stephen. 2014. The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and bilingual education. New York: Routledge. MENEJ [Ministère de l’éducation nationale, de l’enfance et de la jeunesse]. 2017. L’éducation plurilingue dans les crèches: Faire entendre aux enfants les langues qu’ils parleront demain. Luxembourg. http://www.men.public.lu/catalogue-publications/themestransversaux/dossiers-presse/2016-2017/170320-plurilingue-petite-enfance.pdf Otheguy, Ricardo, García Ofelia & Wallis Reid. 2015. Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6(3). 281–307. Perregaux, Christiane. 1998. Avec les approaches d’éveil aux langues, l’interculturel est au centre de l’apprentissage scolaire. Bulletin suisse de linguistique appliquée 67. 101–110. Rampton, Ben. 2014. Dissecting heteroglossia: Interaction ritual or performance in crossing and stylisation? In Adrian Blackledge & Angela Creese (eds.), Heteroglossia as practice and pedagogy (Educational Linguistics 20), 275–300. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, New York & London: Springer. Svalberg, Agneta M.-L. 2007. Language awareness and language learning. Language Teaching 40(4). 287–308. Svalberg, Agneta M.-L. 2016. Language awareness research: Where we are now. Language Awareness 25(1–2). 1–4. Swain, Merril. 2006. Languaging, agency and collaboration in second language teaching. In Heidy Byrnes (ed.), Advanced language learning: The contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky, 95–108. London: Continuum. Thomauske, Nathalie. 2013. Le débat sur les pratiques langagières dans l’éducation de la petite enfance: L’exemple de Berlin. In Christine Hélot & Marie-Nicole Rubio (eds.), Développement du langage et plurilinguisme chez le jeune enfant, 69–98. Toulouse: érès. Van Essen, Arthur J. 1997. Language awareness and knowledge about language: An overview. In Leo van Lier & David Corson (eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education, vol. 6: Knowledge about language, 1–9. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet

The effects of raising language awareness in mainstream and language classrooms: A literature review (1995–2013) 1 Introduction As outlined in the introduction of this book, language awareness (LA) is a cross-curricular, holistic and inclusive approach to language education that has its roots in a movement that took shape in the UK in the 1970s, building on the seminal work of Hawkins (1984), amongst others. Since LA remains a sometimes confusing concept having multiple goals and foci, it relates nowadays to an abundance of competing terms and definitions (Jessner 2008; Komorowska 2014; see also Introduction and Chapter 2 in this volume). On the basis of an exploration of the conceptual literature the authors have drawn up a definition of language awareness (LA), which acts as a guiding concept for this review: [Educators claim that language awareness makes] students sensitive to and aware about the existence of a multiplicity of languages, and the underlying cultures and frames of reference, in our world, and, closer, in the environment of the school. By bringing students into contact with linguistic diversity through discovery learning, they develop a framework in which a positive understanding of diversity is central. Through language awareness students develop an attitude of openness and sensitivity to linguistic diversity. Furthermore,

Acknowledgements: This chapter is to a large extent based on a literature study (Frijns et al. 2011) supported by the Flemish Education Council. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this chapter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Flemish Education Council. Also, we would like to thank Christine Hélot for her feedback. Sven Sierens, Centre for Diversity and Learning, Linguistics Department, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, e-mail: [email protected] Carolien Frijns, Artevelde University College Ghent & Centre for Language and Education, KU Leuven, Belgium, e-mail: [email protected] Koen Van Gorp, Center for Language Teaching Advancement, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA, e-mail: [email protected] Lies Sercu, Research group ‘Language and Education’, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, e-mail: [email protected] Piet Van Avermaet, Centre for Diversity and Learning, Linguistics Department, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, e-mail: [email protected] https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501501326-002

22 

 Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet

they acquire knowledge and perceptions about language and languages, and gradually develop metalinguistic skills that can help them further develop the learning of both foreign languages and the mother tongue (a national language, a dialect, a regional language, or a foreign language). Thus, language awareness offers students a unique preparation to a globalized, multilingual and multicultural society in which people respect one another’s language and culture. (Frijns et al. 2011: 132, translated and adapted from Dutch)

Imperative to the introduction of LA goals into the school curriculum is the assumption that the school and the teachers can really contribute to LA. However, the question remains whether this assumption is supported by empirical evidence. Are there any effects of LA interventions in educational contexts on the development of pupils’ attitudes, knowledge and skills? Do LA interventions also bring about changes in teachers’ attitudes, cognitions and behaviour? Can school-based LA activities have benefits for the parents in terms of perceptions and participation in school life? Despite the increasing number of studies on LA, a systematic review of the literature about its impact has yet to be published. In her state-of-the-art review of LA in primary education, Hélot (2008) argues that “[o]ne of the main difficulties regarding innovative approaches like LA lies in the area of evaluation: what do the children learn and how does one evaluate it?” (379). In a similar vein, Svalberg (2007) notes that the effect of particular awareness-raising techniques on language acquisition is still open to investigation and that more longitudinal research is needed on possible language learning effects of LA. Andrews (2008: 295) states that there is little or no empirical evidence for the assumption that learners are likely to benefit from being taught by a “language-aware teacher”. The principal research question of the current review study is: what are the effects of LA interventions on students, teachers and parents?1 Our study complements earlier reviews such as the ones presented by Alim (2005), Andrews (2008), Candelier (2008), Cots (2008), Godley et al. (2006), Hélot (2008), Siegel (1999, 2006, 2007), Svalberg (2007), and Van Essen (2008). These state-of-the-art studies review LA as a field of research and practice, asking what it is, how it has been collectively constructed, what the theoretical underpinnings might be, and what it means in practical, methodological terms in the classroom and for society (see e.g. Svalberg 2007). However, although these reviews certainly mention and discuss evaluation research reporting on learning effects of LA programmes, activities and techniques, none of them have reviewed possible learning effects

1 This is one of the research questions that we addressed in a practice-oriented literature review commissioned by the Flemish Education Council in 2011 (see Frijns et al. 2011 and Chapter 2 in this volume). The study presented in this chapter includes an updated review of the literature from September 2011 through 2013.

The effects of raising language awareness 

 23

on students on the basis of a systematic literature study. In addition, the question whether LA interventions have contributed to the development of LA of teachers and parents has not been systematically addressed by the above review studies. An alleged lack of empirical studies examining this question is the  –  plausible – explanation usually put forward by the reviewers (e.g. Andrews 2008). Our review study is different from the previous review studies in two ways. First, it addresses the issue of the effects of LA interventions in educational contexts. Second, it relies on a systematic search of the research literature addressing this particular issue, including publications in other languages than English.

2 Method 2.1 Databases, sources and search terms The studies in this review cover the period of 1995–2013. The year 1995 was chosen in advance as a cut-off point. A systematic literature review was undertaken, including a stepwise search for relevant sources. The first step concerned the search of six commonly used scientific literature databases. If necessary, the search was restricted to the first 100 hits. The following databases were examined: – ERIC – LibHub – Web of Science – Modern Language Association (MLA) – Dissertation Abstracts – Inventarisatie van het Wetenschappelijk en Technisch Onderzoek in Vlaanderen (IWETO; Inventarization of the Scientific and Technical Research in Flanders). These databases were seen as complementary: the first three cover the international peer-reviewed literature; the MLA database was chosen for its access to linguistic research; and through the selection of the latter two sources we also wanted to include original PhD research as well as Flemish research. The second step concerned the identification of studies in additional information channels: – Google Scholar, – Existing reviews and state-of-the-art articles (Alim 2005; Andrews 2008; Candelier 2008; Cots 2008; Godley et al. 2006; Hélot 2008; Siegel 1999, 2006, 2007; Simard and Wong 2004; Svalberg 2007; Van Essen 2008), – Back issues of the specialized journals Language Awareness and Language Teaching,

24  – –

 Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet

Two documentation centres (Centre for Language and Education, KU Leuven; Centre for Diversity & Learning, Ghent University), Enquiries among international and national experts.2

With respect to the scientific literature databases (step 1) and Google Scholar (steps 2 and 3) we opted to use the English search terms language awareness and critical language awareness. Specific searches were also performed by combining language awareness with review, synthesis, meta-analysis and evaluation as secondary search terms. In the third step, we employed the snowball method by inspecting the references lists of collected sources for other relevant studies. In addition, searches were carried out in Google Scholar using terms commonly used in three other languages than English and more or less equivalent to language awareness (French: éveil aux langues, éveil au langage, ouverture aux langues; German: Begegnung mit Sprachen; Dutch: talensensibilisering, interculturele taalbeschouwing). Furthermore, specific search terms relating to projects that are well known for their pioneering role in the practical development of LA were used in search of additional documents. These include: Evlang (éveil aux langues à l’école primaire), Ja–Ling (Janua Linguarum), Élodil (éveil au langage et ouverture à la diversité linguistique) and EOLE (Éducation et ouverture aux langues à l’école).

2.2 Selection procedure, criteria and outcomes The stepwise search produced a preliminary body of studies. The search undertaken in the third step also resulted in the identification of websites (e.g. www. ecml.at; www.edilic.org) where links are available to online publications. These include evaluation reports, conference presentations, or working papers offering results which have not been reported in the mainstream scientific literature. We evaluated the literature search results using the following selection criteria. The study had: – to be published – or at least reported in some form – between 1995 and 2013, – to focus on LA activities in education (exclusive of higher education), – to be based on empirical research, – to describe effects of LA activities in line with the aforementioned definition. The abstracts of the gathered publications were screened with regard to the above criteria. This screening produced a total of 59 research studies to fit all the

2 A listing of consulted experts is provided in Frijns et al. (2011).

The effects of raising language awareness 

 25

criteria. A research study is defined as a coherent set of primary research activities on the basis of a previously determined purpose, set of research questions, methodology and data collection period. Therefore, a study may result in several publications (see e.g. the longitudinal study about the Didenheim school project); or one publication may report the outcomes of separate studies (see Armand, Sirois, and Ababou 2008, reporting on two studies).3 Descriptive characteristics of the studies were coded using the following features: type of literature, research design, project/case, research period, geographical area, education level, age range of the participating students, type and number of participants, and classroom setting (see Table 1.1 below). In order to examine the quality of the research methods reported in the studies, we categorized the research designs as quantitative with control/comparison group, quantitative without control/comparison group, cross-sectional, or qualitative exploratory. The type of literature was coded as well, which is also an assertion of quality (i.e. articles published in a peer-reviewed journal were preferred). The codes used are: article in a peer-review journal, non-peer-reviewed article, book or edited volume, chapter in edited volume, doctoral dissertation, conference paper/presentation and unpublished report. The present review study uses a narrative approach. Given the present state of research findings, a quantitative meta-analysis of LA interventions was not feasible. However, we opted for a selective approach in that we restricted the summary of the research findings to 40 studies among the 59 initially selected. These were sorted out for their methodological quality or originality. As regards the pupil effects, we narrowed the selection from 54 to 34 studies. We retained peer-reviewed articles, and added survey studies and controlled studies published in the non-peer-reviewed literature. Adding the latter category was a strategy to capture more studies showing methodological rigour, as is reflected in the use of adequate samples, pre-test/post-test design, control/comparison groups, clear descriptions of intervention and method, direct effect measurement, and exact figures in reporting quantitative data. Regarding teacher effects we adopted a less exclusive method because the body of literature appeared to be quite limited. Nonetheless, only 12 of the originally selected 18 studies were retained (6 studies were discarded for further analysis because, on closer examination, they provide only very summary, anecdotal or incomplete descriptions of the data, or are limited to one single teacher). Finally, we found 2 studies reporting effects on parents (see below).

3 We decided to categorize the quantitative and qualitative parts of the large-scale Evlang study (8, 9) as two separate studies since they are extensive and use different approaches and samples.

Study

Ai 2002

Armand and Dagenais 2005; Dagenais et al. 2007, 2008

Armand et al. 2008 Study 1

Armand et al. 2008 Study 2

Balsiger et al. 2010

Blake and Cutler 2003

Blondin and Mattar 2004

Candelier 2003; de Pietro and Macaire 2003; Genelot 2001

Candelier 2003; Tupin 2001

Candelier 2004 incl. various chapters

Corcoll 2013

Dagenais et al. 2009

Edwards et al. 2000

Fogel and Ehri 2000

No.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

A

A

Qnc

EQ

EQ A

Qnc EQ

A

C

Qnc EQ

EQ

Qc Qnc

Qnc

CSS

Qc

BC

BCR

BCR

R

A

P

EQc

Qc

A

A

EQ A

Qc

Research design2

AA

R

Type of literature1

Dialect transformation

Fabula project

Élodil 3 (follow-up)

Code-switching

Ja-Ling

Evlang Qualitative

Evlang Quantitative

Éveil aux langues

Teachers’ attitudes

Approches pluriling.

Élodil 2

Élodil 2

Élodil 1

AEMP 2

Project/Case

Missing

1998–2000

2005–2008

2008

2000–2003

1997–2001

1997–2001

2003–2004

1997

2006–2010

2005

2005

2003–2004

2000–2001

Period

New York state, US

South Wales, UK

Quebec, Br. Columbia

Barcelona, Spain

11 European countries

See: 10

France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland

French Belgium

New York, US

French Switzerland

Quebec, Canada

Quebec, Canada

Quebec, British Columbia, Canada

Los Angeles, US

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

8–10

6–10

10–11

7–8

3–14

7–12

7–12

5–12

7–10

5

5

10–12

7–8

Geographical area Education level3 Age range PP P S

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

S

x

x

x

x

x

T

P

Participants4

Table 1.1: Descriptive overview of studies reporting effects of language awareness interventions on students, teachers and parents

R

R

RI

SFL

R

R

R

R

R

R

W

RW

RIW

R

Setting5

26   Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet

Ramaut et al 2013.

28

A

A

R

A

Simões and Araúja e Sá A 2012

Ó Laoire 2007

27

A

31

Mallinson et al. 2011

26

R

Rousseau et al. 2012

Maddahian and Sandamela 2000

25

D

Serrano 2011

Lourenço 2013

24

DP

A

29

Lörincz 2006, 2009

A

A

AC

C

A

A

A

Type of literature1

30

Laufer and Girsai 2008

23

Hélot and Young; Young and Hélot

19

22

Harris-Wright 1999

18

Higgins et al. 2012

Godley and Minnici 2008

17

Kupferberg and Olshtain 1996

Ginsberg et al. 2011

16

20

Ghabanchi and Vosooghi 2006

15

21

Study

No.

Qnc

Qc

Qc EQ

Qc EQc

EQ A

EQ

Qc

Qc EQ

Qc

Qc

Qc

EQ

EQ A

Qc

EQ

EQ

Qc

Research design2

2000–2003

Missing

Missing

2008–2009

2000–2004

1995–1997

Missing

Missing

Missing

Period

2009–2010

2008–2012

Missing

2008–2010

1998–1999

Language workshops

2006–2010

Metalinguistic instruct. Missing

Drama and LA

Home Language Educ.

LA Irish language

Language Variation…

AEMP 1

Journey world language 2008–2009

Ja-Ling Hungary

Form-focused instruct.

Contrastive instruction

Pidgin film project

Didenheim project

DeKalb Program

Critical Lang. Pedag.

Malden High School

Contrastive instruction

Project/Case

x

Portugal

Catalonia, Spain

Quebec, Canada x

Flanders, Belgium x

Ireland

Maryland/Virginia, x US

Los Angeles, US

Portugal

Hungary

Israel

Israel

Hawai’i, US

Alsace, France

Georgia, US

Midwest, US

Massachusetts, US

Sabzevar, Iran

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

3–18

10–12

12–18

4–9

13

9–10

3–6

10–11

15–16

16

12–18

6–10

10–12

15–16

15–18

14–15

Geographical area Education level3 Age range PP P S

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

S

x

x

x

x

T

x

x

P

Participants4

(continued)

Ws

CLIL

W

R

R

Ws

R

Ws

R

SFL

SFL

R

R

BD

R

R

SFL

Setting5

The effects of raising language awareness   27

Spada et al. 2005

Sweetland 2006

Wheeler 2006, 2008

White and Horst 2012

White and Ranta 2002

White et al. 2007

Yiakoumetti et al. 2005; A Yiakoumetti 2006

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

Qnc

Qc

Qc

A

Qnc EQ A

Qc EQc

A

English as L2

Form-focused instruct.

LA survey

Project/Case

Bidialectal education

Contrastive analysis

Metalinguistic task

Cognate awareness

Code-switching

Qc Qnc EQ Teaching writing…

Qc

Qnc

A

AA

D

C

A

CSS

Research design2

2000–2001

Missing

Missing

2009–2010?

2001–2006

2004–2005

Missing

Missing

1998

Period

Cyprus (Greek)

Quebec, Catalonia

Quebec, Canada

Quebec, Canada

Virginia, US

Ohio, US

Quebec, Canada

Quebec, Canada

US

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

11

13–14

11–12

10–12

7–8

9–11

11–12

11–12

Geographical area Education level3 Age range PP P S

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

S

x

x

x

T

P

Participants4

BD

SFL

SFL

SFL

R

R

SFL

SFL

R

Setting5

A = article (underlined = article in peer-reviewed journal); B = book (edited volume); C = chapter in edited volume; D = PhD (abstract); P = conference paper/presentation; R = report 2 Qc = quantitative with control group; Qnc = quantitative without control group; EQ = exploratory qualitative; EQc exploratory qualitative with control group; A = action research; CSS = cross-sectional survey 3 PP = preprimary; P = primary; S = secondary 4 S = students; T = teachers; P = parents 5 R = regular class; W = welcoming class; I = immersion class; SFL = second/foreign language education class; BD = bidialectal education class; CLIL = Content and Language Integrated Learning class; Ws = workshop (outside school)

1

Spada and Lightbown 1999

33

R

Smitherman and Villanueva 2000

32

Type of literature1

Study

No.

Table 1.1: (continued)

28   Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet

The effects of raising language awareness 

 29

2.3 Analyses 2.3.1 Effects on students On the basis of James and Garrett’s (1992) conceptual scheme we labelled the 34 studies reporting (expected) pupil effects of LA interventions on any of the five possible indicators of effect: affective, social, power, cognitive or performance (see Table 1.2). The performance domain includes the use of metalinguistic strategies, in particular contrastive analysis (CA) (the explicit comparison of the patterns of various dialects/languages)4 to improve the learning of the school or second language (L2) in speakers of a non-standard variety or a minority language, or in learners of a second/foreign language.5 The primary research findings of the selected studies are summarized in Table 1.3. This includes data on the following features: study, approach/purpose, exposure to the intervention, study design, data collection methods, number of participants, major findings, and comments (including methodological strengths and weaknesses).

4 The precise relationship between LA and CA is subject to debate. First of all, the current psycholinguistic CA approach should not be confused with the contrastive analysis of the 1950s and 1960s, which was used as a technique to predict and correct the kinds of errors L2 learners would make on the basis of the linguistic differences between the languages but which did not prove to be adequate (see Siegel 2010; Simard and Wong 2004). CA and code-switching are currently seen in language education as special metalinguistic strategies to help students learn a L2 or a standard variety (for a criticism of this approach see Higgins et al. 2012). CA is a type of metalinguistic reflection in which students actively examine the rule-governed phonological, morpho-syntactic and pragmatic characteristics of their own languages/language varieties compared to those of other students’ languages/language varieties and to the standard language (Siegel 2006). Its main purpose is improving language performance and not LA. As such, narrower strategies, like CA and code-switching, stand on their own without necessarily being linked to LA (see Wheeler 2006). On the other hand, CA is often regarded as a component of LA programmes (Siegel 2006). Since CA and code-switching contribute to raising metalinguistic and metacognitive awareness, the link with LA is surely evident. 5 Research on so-called input enhancement (or consciousness-raising) techniques used in L2 education, including textual enhancement, input flooding, processing instruction, guided reflection, corrective feedback and the garden-path technique (cf. Simard and Wong 2004), was excluded from this review. Sharwood Smith (as cited in Svalberg 2007) uses the term input enhancement for ways in which teachers or materials make particular language features salient in order to promote noticing. However, metalinguistic reflection elicited by input enhancement techniques usually involves only raising awareness about features of the target language (L2) and, hence, lacks a cross-lingual, multilingual focus through drawing on the learner’s L1 (see Ellis 2012).

Armand and Dagenais 2005; Dagenais et al. 2007, 2008

Armand et al. 2008 Study 1

Armand et al. 2008 Study 2

Balsiger et al. 2010

Blake and Cutler 2003

Blondin and Mattar 2004

Candelier 2003; de Pietro and Macaire 2003; Genelot 2001

Candelier 2003; Tupin 2001

Candelier 2004 incl. various chapters

Corcoll 2013

Dagenais et al. 2009

Edwards et al. 2000

Fogel and Ehri 2000

Ghabanchi and Vosooghi 2006

Ginsberg et al. 2011

Godley and Minnici 2008

Harris-Wright 1999

Hélot and Young; Young and Hélot x

Higgins et al. 2012

Kupferberg and Olshtain 1996

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

x

x

–

–

x

–

–

x

Ai 2002

1

x

x

–

–

–

x

x

x

x

x

–

–

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

–

–

x

–

–

x

x

x

C

x

x

x

x

–

–

x

–

–

x

x

Pf

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

x

x

–

–

–

–

x

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

x

–

x

–

–

–

–

1S

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1P

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1C

1A

P

A

S

LA domain impacted teachers2

Study

No.

LA domain impacted students1

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1Pf

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

x

x

–

x

–

–

–

–

x

2TP

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

3TC

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

A

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

S

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

P

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

C

LA domain impacted parents1

Table 1.2: Labelling of studies reporting effects of language awareness on students, teachers and parents according to impacted LA domains

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

Pf

30   Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet

Laufer and Girsai 2008

Lörincz 2006, 2009

Lourenço 2013

Maddahian and Sandamela 2000

Mallinson et al. 2011

Ó Laoire 2007

Ramaut et al. 2013

Rousseau et al. 2012

Serrano 2011

Simões and Araúja e Sá 2012

Smitherman and Villanueva 2000

Spada and Lightbown 1999

Spada et al. 2005

Sweetland 2006

Wheeler 2006, 2008

White and Horst 2012

White and Ranta 2002

White et al. 2007

Yiakoumetti et al. 2005; Yiakoumetti 2006

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

x

–

x

–

–

x

x

–

x

–

–

x

x

x

x

–

x

x

x

–

x

x

C

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

–

x

x

–

x

x

Pf

–

–

–

x

–

x

–

–

x

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

1S

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1P

–

–

–

–

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1C

1A

P

A

S

LA domain impacted teachers2

LA domain impacted students1

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1Pf

–

–

–

x

–

–

–

x

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

2TP

–

–

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

3TC

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

A

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

x

–

–

–

–

–

–

S

2

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

P

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

C

LA domain impacted parents1

A = affective; S = social; P = power; C = cognitive; Pf = performance 1A = affective; 1S = social; 1P = power; 1C = cognitive; 1Pf = performance; 2TP = teacher’s practice; 3CL = teacher’s conception of language-in-education

1

Study

No.

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

Pf

The effects of raising language awareness   31

32 

 Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet

Table 1.3: Summary of research findings from 34 studies reporting learning effects of language awareness interventions on students No. Study

Approach/ Exposure to Purpose1 Intervention

Design2

Data Collection Methods

Number of Participants3

1

Ai 2002

STL DA CA

Not indicated

Qc PrT/PoT

Tests: Writing (LAM) Reading attitude (recreational, academic) Achievement (language, reading, math) (SAT/9)

N = 1023 Nc = m

2

Armand SFL and LA Dagenais W 2005 Dagenais et al. 2007, 2008

17 lessons (Montreal) / 22 lessons (Vancouver) (weekly)

EQ PrT/PoT (interviews)

Part. observation Video recording Semi-structured interviews (individual + focus groups) Document analysis

N=9 (Montreal) N=m (Vancouver)

3

Armand et al. 2008 Study 1

SFL LA

6 activities

Qc PrT/PoT

Tests: Metaphonological (6 tasks) Pre-reading (5 tasks) Receptive vocabulary (Po-T only)

N = 107 (7 classes) Nc = m (3 classes)

4

Armand et al. 2008 Study 2

SFL LA

6 activities

EQc PoT only

Semi-structured interviews (individual)

N = 18 Nc =6

The effects of raising language awareness 

 33

Major Findings

Comments

Performance Positive effect on math gain favouring AEMP-students. No effect on other measures. Positive relation between writing test score and teacher attitudes towards African American English (AAE). The programme was not effective in improving student achievement. Findings of first evaluation study (no. 28) were not replicated.

Lack of effect was due to low programme implementation. Strengths Large sample. Random selection from 29 schools with similar demographic characteristics. Comp. group. Link with teacher characteristics. Weaknesses No indication of duration of intervention. Data reporting lacks details.

Social Newcomers or students of diverse origins, often marginalized because of their limited L2 proficiency, gained recognition as knowledgeable peers. They repositioned themselves from the periphery to the centre of learning activity. Power Minority students had developed a more critical stance on the relative status of languages, on the power issues at play in language contact. Cognitive Pupils in classroom discussions and small group work created communities of practice in which they drew on their collective language repertoire to approach languages unknown by the majority and to co-construct a representation of these languages.

Strengths In-depth case study. Mixed design: various data collection methods. Weakness Small sample size.

Cognitive No difference in metaphonological capacities between exp. and comp. group. Performance No difference in development of pre-reading abilities between exp. and comp. group.

Strengths Comp. group. Comparison of 2 settings: regular vs. welcoming classes. Link with qualitative study (see 4). Weakness Short duration of intervention; lack of effect was possibly due to this.

Affective More positive ideas of diversity of languages. Positive image of L2 French as language of communication; More harmonious conception of language learning. Social Newly arrived immigrant pupils in the welcoming classes perceived that their home languages were better welcomed at school. They also felt that their linguistic repertoire was seen by the teachers as a legitimate resource for learning.

Strengths Comp. group. Link with quantitative study (see 3). Weakness Pre-intervention interviews were not conducted.

(continued)

34 

 Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet

Table 1.3: (continued) No. Study

Approach/ Exposure to Purpose1 Intervention

Design2

Data Collection Methods

Number of Participants3

5

Balsiger et al. 2010

SFL LA

9 units

Qc PrT/PoT

Categorization of text genres (tri des textes)

10 classes c = 5 classes

8

Candelier 2003 de Pietro and Macaire 2003 Genelot 2001

LA

7–95 hours

Qc PrT/PoT

Tests: N = 1892 Language Attitudes (3 Nc = 951 dimensions) Metalinguistic Aptitudes (3 dimensions) School Language (grammar, vocabulary, spelling) Questionnaire

SFL LA TR CS

3 months

Qc PrT/PoT EQ

Activity survey Recorded group interview (small groups) 3 language tests (short text comprehension, vocabulary recognition & matching, vocabulary recognition & production) Motivation survey Teacher’s diary Class observation Video recording Revision of children’s tasks

N = 100 Nc = 75 (3 groups)

2–4 activities (?)

EQ

Photographs Part. observation Video recording

N=m (Montreal) N=m (Vancouver)

11 Corcoll 2013

12 Dagenais et BE al. 2009 LA LL

The effects of raising language awareness 

 35

Major Findings

Comments

Cognitive Higher score gains on metatextual skill for students in exp. group compared to peers in comp. group.

Strength Comp. group. Weaknesses Detailed data on metatextual skills are not reported. No observation of teacher practice in comp. classes was conducted.

Affective Positive effect on attitudes towards linguistic and cultural diversity. More receptiveness to unfamiliar languages and cultures (Metropolitan France, Switzerland). Weak positive effect on motivation to learn more languages. No effect on the choice of languages students wanted to learn. Increased desire to learn minority/immigrant languages was observed only in Spain and France. Cognitive Improved memorization of non-familiar languages. Improved auditory discrimination. Progression in the written domain (deconstructionreconstruction) in 3 of the 8 samples. Performance No effect on development of the school language, except for, partly, Metropolitan France.

Pupils in Metr. France and Switzerland were part of the long programme (40 hours), which may explain the effects in the affective domain. Cognitive effects were only attained when students were part of longer programmes (30–40 hours). Absent effects of performance might be explained by the fact that the experiment was conducted at the end of primary school, when school language competences were already well developed.

Cognitive The activities which included L1 and pedagogically based CS promoted thinking and talking about languages (Catalan, Spanish, English) and their characteristics (metalinguistic skills).

Strengths External evaluation. Large sample. Comp. group. Long intervention period. The study did not assess the effect of LA activities a such. Yet the activities incorporating translation and CS had a positive effect on the children’s LA. Weaknesses Short treatment period (details lack on the exact duration of the treatment). No external evaluation: teacher acted as researcher.

Power Critical awareness of language power issues was raised but only when teachers explicitly focused children’s attention on symbolic meanings in the LLs.

Strength Building on a prior case study (see 2). Weaknesses The study was in its initial stages. Short intervention. Data describing pupil effects lack detail.

(continued)

36 

 Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet

Table 1.3: (continued) No. Study

Approach/ Exposure to Purpose1 Intervention

Design2

Data Collection Methods

Number of Participants3

13 Edwards et al. 2000

SFL LA CR CA

1 activity (?)

EQ

Part. observation Interviews

N = 20

14 Fogel and Ehri 2000

STL DT CA

1 training session

Qnc (3 exp. conditions) PrT/PoT PoT only

Tests: Translation Self-efficacy Comprehension questions (Po-T only) Story writing (Po-T only)

N = 89 (12 classes)

15 Ghabanchi and Vosooghi 2006

SFL LA CA CR

1 session (?)

Qc PrT/PoT

Controlled tests: N = 305 Recognition (20 items) Nc = m Production (written English) (grades 9–10; all female students)

16 Ginsberg et SFL al. 2011 LI LA

10 lessons EQ (50 min.) across the year 4 topics covered in the collaborative, cross-linguistic analysis of the students’ languages (noun phrase, pluralization, writing systems, and translation)

Part. observation Students’ oral and written work

N = 10

17 Godley and STL Minnici CLA 2008 DA CA

5-day unit (stand-alone)

Audio/video recording Part. observation Students’ written reflections Interviews (post only) Questionnaire (pre/post)

N = 31 (3 classes)

EQ Qnc PrT/PoT

The effects of raising language awareness 

 37

Major Findings

Comments

Cognitive Activities and discussions following bilingual interactive software led to improved levels of metalinguistic awareness.

Weakness Details lack in reporting on data collection.

Performance The third treatment group (CA) showed a larger improvement in Standard English performance than the 2 other treatment groups who had received more traditional instruction (57% vs. 7% and minus 9%).

Strength Use of 3 treatment groups. Comp. group is lacking but comparison of the 3 treatment groups enabled some control.

Performance The gain scores of the exp. groups on recognition and production tasks were significantly higher than those of the control groups (p < .05). So L1 Persian speakers of L2 English benefited from explicit exposure to contrastive linguistic input (CLI) and CR concerning difficult English L2 grammatical forms. Higher-grade students benefited more than lower-grade students on recognition tasks (not on production). Thus, age (maturation) was a subsidiary facilitating factor in learning grammatical forms through the use of CLI.

Strengths Experimental approach thanks to random selection. Large sample size. Pre-study was used to identify the areas of difficulty in grammar knowledge. Weaknesses Description of treatment and procedure lacks details. Lack of descriptive statistics. Review of empirical studies is limited.

Social Minority students in the ESL class felt their L1s validated, seen as a resource rather than a hindrance in education. Students were put in the role of expert, showed less shyness about discussing academic contents in L2. Cognitive Examining the structures of the spoken and written languages represented in the classroom captured students’ interest and engaged them in critical inquiry about the nature of linguistic knowledge and their beliefs about language.

Affective Students had more positive understandings of own dialect use and linguistic repertoire. Power Heightened students’ awareness of plurality and grammaticality of dialects. More critical perception of dominant language ideologies about dialects and ‘proper’ English.

Strengths Detailed description of activities and students’ responses and observations. Various data collection sources. Weaknesses No external evaluation: teacher acted as researcher. Details lacking in reporting on data collection.

Strengths Mixed design: various data collection methods. Longitudinal data (end-of-year questionnaires and interviews). Detailed description of activities and students’ responses.

(continued)

38 

 Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet

Table 1.3: (continued) No. Study

Approach/ Exposure to Purpose1 Intervention

Design2

Data Collection Methods

Number of Participants3

18 HarrisWright 1999 (Rickford 2001, 2002)

STL BD CA

Qc Prt/PoT

Test: Reading comprehension (Iowa Test of Basic Skills)

N=m

Not indicated

19 Hélot and LA Young 2002, 2005, 2006 Young and Hélot 2003, 2007

18 3-hourly EQ sessions over 3 years

Part. observation Video recording Interviews Evaluation activities (art work, classroom debates etc.)

N = ±50

20 Higgins et al. 2012

Film production EQ over ±6 months

Interviews (3 times: before, during and after the film) Part. observation (field notes) during class visits and 2 public screenings of the film Documentary

N = ±20

CLA DA

The effects of raising language awareness 

Major Findings

 39

Comments

Cognitive Weaknesses Higher awareness of students’ own code-switching. Short-time intervention. More detailed and reflective understandings of own dialect use Lack of comp. group. and linguistic repertoire. Raised awareness of different grammatical patterns of AAE and academic written English. Performance Exp. group showed greater gains in reading than the comp. group.

Strength Longitudinal (1995–1997). Weakness Incomplete method and data reporting in used sources.

Affective Raising of the children’s cross-cultural awareness, incl. ‘decentring’. Greater curiosity and willingness concerning unfamiliar languages and cultures. Larger awareness of a wider range of languages than those traditionally taught at school. A marked increase in motivation to learn German as FL. Social Higher participation and inclusion of minority pupils in learning activities. Legitimization of minority languages and their speakers in classroom. Better school climate (e.g. less racist incidents). Cognitive Positive effect on metalinguistic awareness (e.g. learning to differentiate sounds, looking at different scripts, drawing parallels between languages). Children manifested themselves as “budding linguists”.

Strengths Longitudinal (2000–2004). In-depth case study. Mixed design: various data collection methods. Weakness It was not possible to say whether the positive effect on the motivation to learn German would prevail in the long term.

Affective The interviews revealed a relatively positive change in student perspectives towards Pidgin. The students who produced the documentary film increasingly talked about Pidgin as a language which they considered valid in a wide number of contexts, incl. education. The students developed much greater appreciation of the range of languages in their own communities and the range of varieties that are subsumed under the term Pidgin in Hawai‘i. Power The students learned a great deal of CLA. They became much more openly critical of linguicist attitudes towards Pidgin and Pidgin speakers. The interviews showed remarkably positive defences of the legitimacy of the Pidgin language.

Pidgin in Hawai’i is devalued in educational contexts. It is mistakenly considered to be an inferior version of English and is often blamed for interfering with the process of acquiring Standard English. Strengths In-depth case study. 3 different interview periods. Research team took a hands-off approach preferring to guide the students only minimally.

(continued)

40 

 Sven Sierens, Carolien Frijns, Koen Van Gorp, Lies Sercu and Piet Van Avermaet

Table 1.3: (continued) No. Study

Approach/ Exposure to Purpose1 Intervention

Design2

Data Collection Methods

Number of Participants3

21 Kupferberg CA and Olshtain 2006

Not indicated

Qc PrT/PoT

Tests: Grammaticality judgement Recognition Production

N = 137 Nc = 70

22 Laufer and Girsai 2008

1 intro activity (40 min.) + 1 double lesson (90 min.)

Qc PrT/PoT DPoT

Test Vocabulary translation: 4 tests (single words/ collocations, both passive and active recall)

N = 75

23 Lörincs LA 2006, 2009 MA

12–14 hours

Qc PoT only

Tests: N = 325 Metaphonological: Phonetic Nc = 152 discrimination Auditory discrimination Grammatical: Morphological coding/ decoding Morpho-syntactic analysis

24 Lourenço 2013

7 lessons (90 min. each)

Qc EQ PrT/PoT

Phonological test battery: Syllabic and phonemic classification/ suppression/ segmentation Audio/Video recording: content analysis of transcriptions Written work Interviews

SFL FFI CA TR

LA PA

N = 42 Nc = 21

The effects of raising language awareness 

Major Findings

 41

Comments

Awareness of linguicist attitudes towards other marginalized home and community languages occasionally emerged in the process. Cognitive A significant shift was that the students increasingly talked about Pidgin as a language, rather than a ‘broken’ version of English. Performance Hebrew L1-speaking students in exp. group, which received explicit contrastive metalinguistic input facilitating noticing of difficult grammatical structures in English L2, outperformed students in comp. group on all 3 tasks (grammaticality judgement, recognition, production).

Strengths Large sample. Comp. group. Weakness The use of highly controlled measurement tasks, which were decontextualized and unnatural.

Performance The CA + Translation group outperformed the other 2 groups (message-focused instruction; non-contrastive FFI) on all 8 vocabulary tasks in the immediate (p =