Session Information
31 SES 02 C, Building Competence via Translanguaging
Paper Session
Contribution
Migration flows of the 21stcentury have led to increasingly multilingual societies and schools. To engage with this ever-evolving multilingualism, students need to develop linguistic repertoires they can use flexibly and strategically. However, not all the resources of their linguistic repertoires are equally valued as language policies tend to exclusively support standard majority language(s). This unequal support translates into low achievement levels among linguistic minority students (Lewis, Jones and Baker 2012) and the reification of social stratification.
A growing body of scholars promote flexible multilingual pedagogies that capitalize on students’ linguistic resources with the aim of providing a more equitable access to the curriculum (García and Flores 2012, Weber 2014). Translanguaging, the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire (Otheguy et al. 2015), is a pillar of these pedagogies. Although debated in recent years (Hamman 2017, Jaspers 2018), research in bi- and trilingual schools has shown that translanguaging can increase participation (Kirsch 2017), understanding (Baker and Wright 2017) and identity development (García 2009). Yet, research on translanguaging including migrant languages in multilingual schools remains scarce (Duarte 2018, Rosiers 2018).
The present doctoral project investigates the translanguaging practices of students with different language and migration backgrounds in multilingual Luxembourg. As the country with the highest percentage of immigrants in Europe (Eurostat 2018), Luxembourg has a highly diverse linguistic landscape. This diversity is reflected in the education system, where more than 60% of the students indicate having a dominant language other than Luxembourgish (MENJE 2018), with Portuguese being the most used. Not only is the education system characterized by its linguistic diversity, it also is trilingual in French, Luxembourgish and German, the latter being the main medium of instruction in primary school. Accounting for 40.5% of all curricular time, language instruction leaves little room for other linguistic resources; migrant students’ home languages are largely ignored (Horner and Weber 2018) and teachers widely draw on translanguaging practices that are restricted to shifts into Luxembourgish, a Germanic language (Weber 2014). Luxembourg’s education system fails to provide access to the curriculum for migrant students with a Romance-language background. By contrast, recent studies (Kirsch 2017) have shown that in some Luxembourgish preschool, Year 1 and Year 2 classes, teachers have begun to encourage the deployment of the students’ entire linguistic repertoires. Little attention has, however, been paid to the later years of primary school where the achievement levels of students with a migration background are at their lowest (MENJE 2017). This study targets Year 4. It explores the flexible language use of 4thgraders in different school subjects and the development of their language practices across Years 4 and 5.
The present paper is based on one of the three investigated schools and focusses on the classroom interactions of an 11-year-old newly arrived student with a Portuguese background. The following research questions underpin the paper:
- In what ways and to what extent does a newcomer deploy his linguistic repertoire while interacting with his peers and this teacher?
- To what extent does his language use contribute to shape the language practices of the classroom?
- How do his language practices develop from Year 4 into Year 5?
The findings contribute to the understanding of multilingual students’ language practices and their development; provide insight into how linguistic repertoires of students with a Romance-language background can be capitalized on; and help denaturalize the ‘student with a migration background - stereotype’ by shedding light on the importance of translanguaging practices in short-cutting gatekeeping mechanisms that restrict access to educational opportunities for more than 20% of the school population (Horner and Weber 2018).
Method
The study follows a qualitative research paradigm with ethnographic research methods since they offer an effective way to gain an in-depth understanding of the deployment of the students’ linguistic repertoires over an extended period of time (Conteh et al. 2005; Copland et al. 2015). The methods include observations and field notes, video-recordings, informal discussions and semi-structured interviews. From January 2018 to July 2018 (Year 4) and from September 2018 to December 2018 (Year 5), I visited three primary schools in Luxembourg. Every fifth week for three days in a row, I observed, noted and video-recorded the students’ language use while interacting with their peers and teachers in a range of school subjects. The focus was on the student’s language shifts in order to identify key events in which they were mobilizing the resources of their linguistic repertoires. These key events were video-recorded. Subsequently, some of those recordings were shown to and discussed with both the students and the teachers in semi-structured interviews to triangulate my interpretations of the data. This paper draws its data from twelve days of observation, including field notes and video-recordings, of classroom interactions in a school characterized by a student population of mainly Romance language background. Nine days of observation in Year 4 as well as three days of observation at the beginning of Year 5 inform the present paper on the language use of an 11-year-old Portuguese newcomer in twelve French, ten Mathematics, six Sciences and three Arts lessons. Further data stem from two semi-structured interviews with the focus student, one in Year 4 and one in Year 5. Both interviews were video-taped and brought forward the boy’s views on the recorded key events; translanguaging; and the language practices of the classroom. All observations and video-recordings were transcribed. While the transcripts of the interactions between the focus student and the classroom participants were analysed with sociocultural conversation analysis (Seedhouse 2005) to provide insights into the interactions at micro level, the transcripts of the semi-structured interviews were analysed with thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2013) to further contextualize the interactions. The triangulation of the data and the analysis of pattern led to the following themes: legitimate and illegitimate language use; translanguaging practices; teacher-and student-led interactions; participation.
Expected Outcomes
First, preliminary results show that, in Year 4, the focus student, his peers and teacher deviate from the languages of instruction, mainly using French to communicate. Additionally, the other students and occasionally the teacher, draw on Portuguese to address the focus student who contrariwise perceives its use as unauthorized. In Year 5, all classroom participants deviate from the languages of instruction too, but much less frequently. More importantly, Luxembourgish supersedes French by becoming the new lingua franca and Portuguese is no longer included in the language practice of the classroom. Second, the focus student’s translanguaging practices depend less on the school subject than on the type of interaction and the time of the school year. While he flexibly deploys his linguistic repertoire to some extent to negotiate meaning in peer interactions at the end of Year 4, he almost completely drops this practice in Year 5. Conversely, with his teachers, the focus student communicates in a monolingual way, regardless of the year. Third, the focus student’s participation in learning activities seems to be linked to his language use. Whereas at the beginning of Year 4, he is hesitant to participate in discussions at every level, he is less hesitant to do so by the end of Year 4 and into Year 5. Even as his participation increases steadily over time, his language practices go through multiple phases, changing from almost monolingual French to, first, translanguaging and, then, almost monolingual Luxembourgish. In this school, translanguaging indeed facilitates meaning-making processes (García 2009) to some extent. However, it primarily serves as a scaffolding strategy specifically used by and with the focus student. Hence, it appears to be tolerated as a transitional linguistic resource in child-child interactions rather than recognized as a language practice at the classroom level (García and Kleyn 2016).
References
Baker, C. & Wright W.E. (2017). Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Bonacina-Pugh, F. (2017). Legitimizing multilingual practices in the classroom: the role of the 'practiced language policy. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 10.1080/13670050.2017.1372359 Clarke, V. & Braun, V. (2013) Thematic analysis. In A. C. Michalos (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of quality of life research. New York: Springer. Conteh, J. et al. (2005). On Writing Educational Ethnographies: The Art of Collusion. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. Copland, F., Creese, A. & Shaw, S. (2015) Linguistic ethnography. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Duarte, J. (2018). Translanguaging in the context of mainstream multilingual education, International Journal of Multilingualism, 1-16 Eurostat (2018). Migration and migrant population statistics. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statisticsexplained/index.php/Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective, Malden/Oxford: Wiley/Blackwell. García, O. & Flores, N. (2012). Multilingual pedagogies. In Martin-Jones, M., Blackledge, A., and Creese, A. (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism (pp. 232-246), New York: Routledge. García, O., & Kleyn, T. (Eds.). (2016). Translanguaging with Multilingual Students: Learning from Classroom Moments. New York: Routledge. Hamman, L. (2017): Translanguaging and positioning in two- way dual language classrooms: a case for criticality, Language and Education, 32(1), 21-42. Horner, K. & Weber, J.-J. (2018). Introducing Multilingualism: A Social Approach (2nd edn), New York: Routledge. Jaspers, J. (2018). The transformative limits of translanguaging. Language & Communication, 58, 1-10. Kirsch, C. (2017). Young students capitalizing on their entire language repertoire for language learning at school, Language, Culture and Curriculum, Vol.31(1), p.39-55. Lewis G., Jones, B., & Baker, C. (2012). Translanguaging: origins and development from school to streets and beyond. Educational Research and Education, 18 (7), 641-654. MENJE. (2017). Enseignement fondamental. Education différenciée. Statistiques globales et analyse des résultats scolaires. Année scolaire 2015/2016. MENJE: Luxembourg. MENJE. (2018). L’enseignement luxembourgeois en chiffres. Retrieved from http://www.men.public.lu/ catalogue-publications/themes-transversaux/ statistiques-analyses/enseignement-chiffres/2016-2017-depliant/en.pdf Otheguy, R., García, O. & Reid, W. (2015). Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6(3): 281-307. Rosiers, K., Van Lancker, I. & Delarue, S. (2018). Beyond the traditional scope of translanguaging. Comparing translanguaging practices in Belgian multilingual and monolingual classroom contexts. Language & Communication, 61, 15-28. Seedhouse, P. (2004). The Interactional Architecture of the Language Classroom: A Conversation Analysis Perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Weber, J.-J. (2014). Flexible multilingual education: Putting children's needs first, Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
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