First questions - Introduction

1.   What is a strategy?

If we interpret a “strategy” from the point of view of a learner, I would say that it refers to all the activities the student does so as to acquire knowledge or understand new content. However, if we talk from a teacher’s perspective, I think it has to do with the activities or methodologies they use to get their students successfully into a task.

2.   What are strategies mainly used for?

They are tools that learners and teacher have that they know will work effectively and will help them to achieve a goal, for instance to learn new vocabulary or to motivate students into a reading task.

3.   Do you use any language learning strategies? If so, which ones?

As a student I used to read page by page of a unit and then I would write a summary with the main information, or if the unit was not so thick I used to create a mind-map. Sometimes it was very helpful to explain others what I had learnt, for example my parents or my own classmates. This way I made sure that I had understood and embraced what I had read.

4.   What language teaching strategies are you familiar with?

I do not really remember the name of any but I guess that each teacher has its own “tricks” or techniques for a class. For example, in my case I have students who never remember that “people” is plural and so they always write “people is”. I once told them that they could associate the sound of “bipolar” in Spanish to remember “people are”.

5.   Are the kinds of strategies mentioned above different from communication strategies? If so, in what ways?

I think there is a difference between communication and language teaching/learning strategies. Communicative strategies are based on getting someone’s message across, for instance using gestures or faces to achieve it. 

Scaffolding

SCAFFOLDING READING EXPERIENCES FOR MULTILINGUAL CLASSROOMS (SRE)

 by Michael F. Graves and Jill Fitzgerald

Chapter 5

The article starts by stating that thousands of teachers in the US and other countries teach in classes where students have different language background, language skills, and different reading proficiency. We find this diversity even more when we teach a multilingual class.  The approach described in the article addresses only to one aspect of reading instruction. What is important is for children to have a successful reading experience. According to Graves and Fitzgerald “it is important that children understand what they read, enjoy the experience of reading, learn from what they read” (2002:96)*.

In this particular chapter, it is discussed one approach to assisting students in multilingual classrooms to read, understand, learn from and enjoy, that is, the scaffolding experience. This term was first used by Wood, Bruner, and Ros (1976) to characterise mothers’ verbal interaction when reading to their young children.  It basically consists of a process that enables the child to solve a problem or task, or even achieve a goal, which could be beyond his/her capability. Of course, it is a temporary support which enables the accomplishment of a task.

There are 3 attributes which are highly related to the scaffolding technique:

•          The scaffold itself: the temporary and supportive structure.
•          Vygotsky’s term (1978): Zone of Proximal Development.
•       Teachers must gradually dismantle their support and transfer the responsibility to complete tasks to the student. It is through this gradual process that students become more competent and independent learners.

In the SRE framework we find 4 main factors to bear in mind: the characteristics of the learner, the nature of the materials, the learning activities, and the criterial tasks. We also find two different phases – the planning and the implementation –. The planning phase consists of the creation of a particular situation with a particular reading experience. It must take into account the students, the reading selection, and the reading purpose.

The implementation phase compiles a set of pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading activities. The pre-reading tasks serve to get students interested in the topic, to remind them of things they already know, or basically pre-teaching new content, such as vocabulary or expressions. These activities are really important, especially for those whose L1 is not English and might not be familiar with certain topics. The during-activities serve to make them focus on particular pieces of information. And finally, the post-activities they provide opportunities for students to synthesize and organize information learned from reading a text and to recall and understand important details.

Here we find a list with possible activities for each group:

As a conclusion, scaffolding is a kind of lesson plan that relies heavily on the concept of scaffolding –having a temporary, supportive figure in the learning process –. The reading experience must be successful and rewarding. The goal of scaffolding is for students to become independent and lifelong readers. 

*Graves, M. F., & Fitzgerald, J. (2002). Scaffolding Reading Experiences for Multilingual Classrooms. In Garcia, G. G. (Ed.), English Learners: Reaching the Highest Level of English Literacy (pp. 96-104). Newark: International Reading Association.

COMPULSORY TASK #1: Exploring my reading experience: learner and teacher

When I was at high school reading adapted short books was basically part of the evaluation. Students were required to read them in order to have a final quiz where they would be asked about the content. Back then I imagined they did it because they wanted to check how good we were in reading comprehension and in producing such answers. Of course, given the fact that this was not a voluntary task, most people did not get to finish the book or even get started. They found the task to be quite boring and meaningless.

Personally, I did not find the activity to be that boring, quite the opposite. I realised that I understood more words and expressions than I expected, and that I learned loads of vocabulary. Perhaps the challenging part was that of producing my own answers in the quiz.

Now, as a teacher, I do not use any adapted novels. I incorporate the reading competence into class by having an activity behind. That is, if my students are about to face a reading activity, there must be a meaningful task waiting for them after that. For instance, let’s take a class of 8-9-year-old students. Imagine that they are reading something on tigers. In this reading they have information such as, where they live, what qualities they have (fast, dangerous…), physical appearance (big tail, sharp teeth…), and what they feed from.

If the reading has a catchy title or a nice picture, I tend to introduce first the topic by asking them what they can see in the picture or what the story could be about just by reading the title. We will try to read paragraph by paragraph and I will make them questions just to check if they followed without problems. Meanwhile they should have underlined those words new for them, which will be later explained.

The idea is that the reading leads to the main task, which could be a mini project on their favourite animal. They should write about one animal they like and should include, more or less, the content they have seen in the previous reading. Obviously, the task must be realistic, meaning that we should plan an activity which can be fulfilled by a 9-year-old student without big difficulties. As an alternative, we could have our students presenting their project to the rest of the class, once they have produced the text where they expose their information.

Honestly, I have never thought of reading comprehension being an innovative strategy for teaching EFL. However, I do think that it is a competence that must be trained no matter what. There is a big difference reading by pleasure and reading with a language purpose. I guess the challenge is to conceal them both in the same objective. 

COMPULSORY TASK #3: Investigate and reflect upon widespread beliefs

MYTHS IN THE STREETS

There have been many myths around teaching ESL. Parents, educators and students might have very different points of view on how English should be learned. Here are some of the most commonly spread believes among society and a brief reflection.

1)    Translating word by word :

Some parents and educators might argue that when a student faces a text in English we should not have them translating every single word of the reading. Instead we should teach them how to get the general idea, and by doing so they will gain more vocabulary and greater reading skills and/or strategies. However, educators face the students’ desire of knowing everything that appears in a text. It should be noticed that every student will eventually end up translating lots of words into their own L1 regardless of dealing with the new vocabulary through a text (reading), or a conversation (speaking) or any other area of learning.

Bilingualism has a great role in this aspect of learning. According to Jessner and Cenoz “a bilingual speaker develops a common underlying proficiency that represents a kind of linguistic reservoir enabling transfer of concepts and strategies across languages and results in potentially enhanced metalinguistic abilities” (2007:159). These crosslinguistic relationships are undoubtedly beneficial for the learning process.

2)    They are really young to start speaking English:

It is widely thought that kids are unable to talk in English until they have assimilated a great load of knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. This is not true. Let’s consider the case of learning a L1. Do we learn grammar and vocabulary at first and then we speak it? No. Children are the perfect auditory type of learner; they assimilate what they hear and see of the L1 and then imitate and/or articulate it. That is how they learn their first language and surely the second, too. Grammatical structures and the like come way after that. Hence, there is neither excuse nor limitation for young learners to speak English. This myth is highly connected with the following one.

    3)    Speaking more than 2 languages is too much for the kids: parents seem to have a certain feeling of mistrust when they say that kids might get confused if they learn more than 2 languages. They argue children can suffer from a “cognitive overload”. Nevertheless, it is in fact all the opposite. Childrens’ brains are prepared to operate “multilingually” if necessary, and it is at younger stages when they are ready to assimilate better pronunciation and to associate the new language to particular and natural contexts of their lives. As mentioned before, bilingualism has a positive influence on acquiring new language and has more advantages than drawbacks: creativity, cognitive flexibility, and metalinguistic awareness among others.

4)    The younger the better: there has been no proof that can confirm this widespread belief in schooling contexts. Great part of society thinks that an early start to learning a language is 100% beneficial and effective. It is said that younger learners’ brains are more flexible, therefore they perform better in the learning process. It is false because adults have acquired language learning strategies while young children seem to acquire social language more easily. However, age has made no miracles yet.

It is true though, that an early start would be effective and would make a difference -in comparison with those students who had a later start- as long as the context was an immersion and natural context. Therefore, exposure and quality of the teaching is essential.  In schooling contexts where kids only receive a couple of hours of English, starting earlier would not make of the young learners more proficient than those who started later. It is important to stress that children need comprehensible input so no matter how much amount of time the learner spends surrounded by a foreign language if that input he is receiving is incomprehensible.

    5)    Speaking English at home is better for their proficiency: Second language learners will acquire academic English faster if their parents speak English at home. That is what most people think. Nonetheless, it is much better for parents to speak in their mother tongue to their children. This language will be richer and more complex. As mentioned in 1), children will eventually translate that learning to English. We should encourage parents to read in both languages if they can, but we should never instruct a parent to speak only English at home.

*References: Jessner, Ulrike., & Cenoz, Jasone. 2007. “Teaching English as a Third Language”. International Handbook of English Language Teaching. Vol. 15: 155-167.

OPTIONAL TASK #1: Reflection on "30 MINUTS" documentary

Decades ago, English had no essential function in our society. Studying a foreign language was a synonym of having a few notions or knowing basic words/expressions. However, in the last 10 years, society and educational contexts have undergone a great change when focusing on English as a foreign language. And it is something unavoidable that is changing the world over.

The great impact that globalisation has made around the globe is making of this particular language an essential professional value to add to one’s curriculum- especially in Spain where exportation plays a very crucial role these days due to the financial crisis-. Hence, English has become a professional need whose ability is to open doors to success and whose roots to change the “rules of the game” remain in education.

Spain has very low rates in listening, reading, and writing skills in English proficiency in students ranging from 14 to17 years old. There is this belief that our lower results are caused by the amount of hours dedicated to English grammar and vocabulary in schools. These findings reflect the reality that governments are not doing it so well. Nowadays, learning English should not consist of memorising and repeating every year’s grammar. Instead, we should focus on teaching students to develop their communicative skills and making them able to produce English in every stage. Obviously books are much easier to work with and less demanding for teachers; still, we as teachers should create real situations of communicative need while using the target language as the vehicle language. These way students would learn a second or third language unconsciously.

This is precisely what schools are trying to adapt to their linguistic projects: introducing new methodologies more up to date, such as CLIL, or including the use of technologies as part of their classroom materials. Another resource that could be very useful would be having peer-contacts with native speakers (video calls or e-mails, for instance), since the real the contact through English language, the better their competences will be.

Nevertheless, it is not only the duty for education but also for the Catalan society. All the content in TV and media in general appears in Catalan or Spanish. Had we more exposure to this content in English population would be more aware and receptive to develop better competences in English. We need to intensify our daily contact with this foreign language, and TV shows and cinemas in original version are the only free and practical tool that society has at its disposal. 

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)