Language learning: sociolinguistics and education.

I am reading currently The Handbook of Educational Linguistics edited by Bernard Spolsky and Francis M. Hult, in 2008, 44 chapters and 675 pages. This handbook has a huge scope, so my comments are selective. The Handbook’s concern is how children learn to speak, read and write, whether in one language or several. The discipline of the sociolinguist is to observe, listen and report. Mostly they are not teachers, but their observations are likely to be very relevant to learning and teaching.

A third of children in the world do not have an education in their first language. In some English medium schools (i.e. who teach in English) in the UK, there can be over a hundred different first languages spoken by pupils. Although it is true that English is a useful language for them to have, research strongly indicates that those who do not use their first language in school do not develop language or understanding as readily as those who do. If they can use both first language and English together, they get the benefit of proper development and bilingualism. It is important therefore that all children are able to approach learning through their first language. James Cummings conducted intensive research into this issue over several decades. He demonstrated that although conversational language can be picked up relatively quickly, the development of academic (more abstract) language is a much more difficult and long-term skill. This he termed ‘context reduced’ language, in that ordinary language is about objects, people in context. In other words, it is easier to be descriptive than philosophical. A child who has not been educated through a first language may consequently be several years behind those who have.

Of course, these children are also from lower status homes in that their language does not dominate the culture. Advantaged children are those who are educated in their first language, and they are in a position to perpetuate their advantage by achieving higher qualifications. This process of being a dominant language we term hegemony. This term draws from the Marxist observations of Antonio Gramsci, discussed elsewhere in this blog: he, writing in the 1930s, discussed political and ecclesiastical hegemony in his native Italy. Hegemony is now widely used of the privileges of power anywhere, for example in colonial and post-colonial contexts. In Curacao, for example, the Dutch colonial power runs Curacao schools through the Dutch language and using Dutch textbooks, even though the children speak Papiamentu as their first language. Where teaching is not bilingual (for example when Dutch teachers are used rather than islanders) the children are at a disadvantage with academic concepts. The same applies with English, French and Spanish medium schools.

In the UK, the tradition of having bilingual support teachers flourished in the 1980s, but became replace by monolingual teachers using the dominant language (English). This brought back the disadvantage. It becomes expensive and difficult to organise support when many first languages are found in a school. One implication is for parents and other family to become involved in the first language education of young children, from infancy and into the school years. Implications for schools are:
To value first languages, never making the use of first language a punishable offence. (This still often happens).
To encourage first language speakers into school and to work closely with parents and families, perhaps taping stories and lessons in minority languages.
To encourage peer support, with inexperienced children being helped by older more confident children.
To encourage the use by staff of common words of praise (Well done! Good!).

For the education system more generally, advisory teams need to prepare and train staff in how to cope with multilingual classrooms, for example:

• To develop appropriately the education and confidence of parents from minority communities
• To develop bilingual/multilingual dictionaries
• To become more confident in name forms
• To become more aware of cultural (including religious) practices such as festivals
• To develop curriculum resources, such as simple stories and lessons in the whole range of languages in video formats.
• But above all in how to encourage first language use in diverse classes.

This is an important agenda for raising children and families out of disadvantage. It means developing a partnership between the dominant cultural and linguistic community and minorities within it. Being bilingual is a significant skill that ought to be recognised culturally and in the market-place. Monolingual English children are disadvantaged in various ways. They have not developed language through regular use of more than one language; they can only use their first language in their work; they have no access to many of their neighbours, leading to cultural isolation. That bilingual pupils are advantaged, and monolingual pupils disadvantaged in life ought to be the focus of more discussion.