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)