OPTIONAL TASK #3: Academic Reflection on Bilingualism in the USA

TED Talk: Kim Potovsky "No child left monolingual"

Our Brains are wired to be Bilingual

“65% of the world’s population is bilingual or multilingual” which is a surprising data. However, Potovsky describes USA as a nation that does not encourage its immigrants to maintain their heritage languages but she personally perceives the nation as a multilingual nation thank to its immigrants. Only 20% of the United States’ population is multilingual since this nation exhibits and promotes monolingualism in English. The reason behind this statement is that multilingualism has always been seen as damage to societies and to the individual itself.

By contrast, Potovsky has a positive view over bilingualism. As USA has no official language she proposes having a “English + Nation”, propelling this way bilingualism. To explain the benefits of becoming -as she herself expresses- an “organic bilingual nation”, she gives examples of generations of immigrants living in the country. It is striking that some grandchildren cannot communicate with their grandparents in their heritage language and it is because there are different types of proficiency: complete, partial (can understand but unable to produce) or none. It seems that it is all part of society’s pressure on being proficient only in English. For those immigrants that need to have access to certain services, it is imperative to speak English. As a consequence, immigrants abandon their heritage languages as the language of communication with their children and grandchildren. They think that by adapting their environment at home into only English next generations will be more fluent in that language and more doors will open for them.

Schooling also takes part into this process of losing heritage languages. It is true that there exist bilingual programmes in the USA. Nevertheless, their true goal is not bilingualism but mainstreaming those immigrants kids into all-English classes as quick as possible. Still, if we take one of the most effective bilingual programmes of the country, we will see that it is not “English-only classes” what makes them become more proficient. Surprisingly, the statistics of students of two-way immersion bilingual program performed way better in reading competences, for instance, than other students of different educational programmes. The reason behind this is that two-way immersion kids are exposed to Spanish (90%) and English (10%) during their first years of kindergarten, and years later their exposure to Spanish and English becomes more balanced (50% and 50%). This way, when a child is immersed in a language they do not understand the more quality of instruction he/she receives in that heritage language the better he/she is going to do in English, Maths and other subjects. Which is also interesting is that in these particular cases gaining fluency in Spanish has no cost at that of English. Hence, the belief that abandoning the home language can accelerate English language learning has no place.

Another concern that population, especially parents, might have is that if their kids know more than one language they will be confused. That is untrue because what bilinguals are good at is code-switching, meaning that they have the ability and the fluency of switching back and forth between two languages in the middle of a sentence. This shows high levels of syntax and proficiency, not confusion. As Potovsky clearly says “our brains are wired to be bilingual”, so there is no excuse for not encouraging bilingualism or multilingualism in any country. Heteroglossic classes must be part of the world’s educational system.

Taking all this into account, it is clear that bilingualism cause no problem to society but instead great benefits. Latest studies showed that bilingual people are better in problem-solving skills and that dementia is delayed 10 years, which is something impressive.

Now, if we think of how all these ideas apply to Catalan educational programmes it is a bit different to the USA case. In Catalonia both Spanish and Catalan are the official languages. Nonetheless, they receive more exposure of Catalan at school because through schooling they emphasize the Catalan identity over the Spanish one. Most Catalan kids are monolinguals at home (some have Spanish or Catalan as their L1) and when they go to school for the first time they are exposed to Catalan (80%) and Spanish (20%).  Then another extra language is introduced: English (L3). On the other hand, kids whose home language is neither Catalan nor Spanish have no access to immersion classes that promotes the protection of heritage languages. Then their only possible context where they can use their mother tongue remains at home. From my point of view, we should all include linguistic diversity in educational programmes and government should have in mind linguistic appreciation when designing their educational systems. This way it will allow teachers to teach languages in a more integrated way, to promote intercultural encounters and to value diversity among the student body. 

Food for thought: Knowing the benefits that bilingualism can bring to a whole country, would not it be great to foster it and turn it into our heritage to the next generations?

COMPULSORY TASK # 2: Teaching different languages in a particular school (PLC)

Monoglossic Policies for a Heteroglossic School

“Monoglossic ideologies of bilingualism and bilingual education treat each of the child’s languages as separate and whole, and view the two languages as bounded autonomous systems. […] A heteroglossic ideology of bilingualism considers multiple language practices in interrelationship, and leads to other constructions of bilingual education […].” (García 2009:7)

C.E.I.P. Sant Julià presents itself as a multilingual school. However, it organises the teaching of languages a bit different for each language they offer. For instance, in pre-school and primary both teachers and students use Catalan (most of the time) inside the classroom given the fact the majority of the students have Spanish as their L1. This way, they reinforce the usage of Catalan for class communication (obviously, Spanish is the vehicular language only when it is the target language). In classrooms where certain students do not have Spanish as an L1 (or just have few notions of it), but instead have Arabic, Chinese or other foreign languages as their L1, it is sometimes likely to hear different languages coming together for class interaction. Therefore, having in mind García’s reflection on bilingual ideologies, we could argue that this particular school seems to have a tendency for a monolingual approach while in their classes many heteroglossic situations have a propensity to occur. Not only have we found this with Spanish and Catalan cases but also with English as the target language. At the very early stages of the students’ learning process, when students are still getting used to this L3, it is probable to find a combination of languages from Catalan, to Spanish and a bit of English. Nevertheless, it is important to mention that when English is the target language teachers follow the rule of “only English in class”.

As mentioned in the first entry of the blog, they start learning English at the age of 4 through oral and visual techniques, such as, learning songs by heart, repetition of words/expressions, mimics, and storytelling.  All in all, they follow a highly communicative approach. At the age of 10, the school offers a combination of learning an L3 through explicit language instruction and content and language integration (CLIL) in which students learn Science in English. These particular Science classrooms clearly follow a plurilingual approach, since we are likely to find three different languages as means of communication (Catalan, Spanish and maybe English).

Summing up, this school supports a heteroglossic/developmental immersion as their bilingual programme. They are aware that their students will develop L1 and L2 inside class and they offer an L3 with the intention of becoming multilingual. On the other hand, I personally think in practice they have a monolingual approach.  It is clear they have mixed feelings when trying to bring together all three languages into the teaching context.  But since they want to be seen as multilingual and they have different cultures and students, teachers need to change their rules of “only English” and should use all three languages to teach the target language. I think teachers and the school itself should exploit these multilingual situations in class and make it part of their L3 learning process. 

*Sources: (García, Ofelia. 2009. “Introducing bilingual education”. Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective, 5-17)

COMPULSORY TASK #1: Investigate multilingualism in your school

Is Multilingualism that easy to achieve?

As we know, multilingualism is becoming a global phenomenon that is overpowering monolingual societies due to globalization and cultural openness. We are facing a society in which having access to certain services or information means having a big menu of languages to choose from. Individuals more and more are being exposed to so many different languages that it increases the need for them to acquire additional languages. And a multilingual society who is ready for this challenge starts at school.

Taking a public primary school as an example, we will do a little survey so that we can see first-hand to what extent multilingualism is present in the schools. 

C.E.I.P. Sant Julià – Sabadell

Sabadell is the co-capital of Vallès Occidental and has a population of 207,814 inhabitants, who 22,968 of its inhabitants are foreigners. (*)

The Public Pre-school and Primary school Sant Julià is located in the northeast of Sabadell, in a medium-low class neighbourhood. They embrace different cultures and students in their centre: Spanish, Catalan, self-called gitanos, Latin-Americans, Africans and Asians.  However, only 15% of their pupils are foreigners or have a language different from Catalan or Spanish as a mother tongue.

Within the department of teachers, the school is staffed by 4 non-native English teachers and a few translators and mediators for Arabic. Although the centre has several projects in mind, there is one in particular they try to stand out: teaching English in an integrated way.

At the age of 4 (P-4), students are introduced English for the first time one hour per week- divided into two half hours-. In this splitting of the groups, teachers work with two small groups (12 students each), and the teaching is on the whole orally. They listen to songs and sing along, they learn class expressions such as “Can I go to the bathroom, please?”, “Thank you” or “Hello/Good-bye”. Teachers do mimics and work with visual materials so the children can follow the lesson effortlessly, following a highly communicative approach. Besides students have a storyteller once a week. At this stage, what the school aims at is for the pupils to have a first contact of the new L3 and work on basic everyday expressions used in class naturally.

At the age of 6 (1r curs), just when students start learning how to read and write, teachers introduce books as part of their class material together with a weekly session (1h per week) to work on their oral skills. According to their educational plan, students are expected to reach an A2 level of English (CEFR) at the age of 11, that is, in their last year of school.

As mentioned before, the school is concerned about teaching English in an integrated way, meaning integrative and constructive, not instructive.  That is why they adopted CLIL methodology in their curriculum. When the kids are 10 (course 5), they experience the difficulty of learning an L3 not only through explicit language instruction but also through content and language integration (CLIL), since the school offers a combination of both approaches. Science becomes the subject for this approach to work effectively, and apparently it does. Currently teachers devote 1h per week (of the total 2h/week of science) to learn about energy and sustainability with English as vehicular language in the class. 


This methodology was first introduced six years ago in this particular educational centre. In this sense, it is quite an innovative pedagogy which follows the European guidelines of foreign language learning and teaching. Within this particular approach of teaching, teachers follow the rule of “only English” in class, so they take on a monolingual approach during that time. It goes without saying that kids cannot completely succeed in this area of speaking as naturally as they would in their L1 and L2 class in English.

The school also fosters respect for a multicultural citizenship. Regarding cultural diversity, they celebrate national and international festivities such as “Sant Jordi”. For Christmas they have their students’ parents coming over to see their sons’ performances like Christmas carols –in Catalan and English-. They also celebrate “Halloween” as an English festivity together with “la Castanyada”, which is a Catalan holiday. A weak point worth mentioning is that they do not foster any other culture beyond English. Still they spread the belief of tolerance, respect and equality through behaviour and class activities all over the centre.  

While being there something caught my attention and I had a glance at their classrooms’ doors and facilities. They happen to have labels on every single door (in three languages –Catalan, Spanish and English-) and it states the type of room you are about to enter in: “secretary’s office, secretaría, secretaria”, as an example. Apparently, it is something the school agreed on so that their pupils get used to the three languages they are exposed to. The professionals’ reflection was that during the first schooling years students tend to function visually (semiotics is important), then having these labels wherever they go around the building might help them to become comfortable with it; especially it will help in the sense of English (L3) become something natural and part of their education.

All these things considered, this particular school is aware of the changes society is undergoing nowadays -linguistically speaking-. They are trying to adapt these changes to their curriculum and to their way to teaching, following, indeed, the European directives for foreign language learning in innovative ways, and respecting the bilingual contexts, too, of the students. Hence, multilingualism becomes the key concept that is leading them to a real attainment of linguistic diversity even if, for example in the case of integration of migrant populations’ languages, they still have a long way to go.


(*)accessed 20th January 2015. Retrieved from http://www.idescat.cat/es/ (2014)