8 minute read
language matters
Developing a multilingual ethos to foster student and teacher agency
Mindy McCracken, Lara Rikers and Jim Cummins explain the process and practice
Preamble from Jim Cummins
Although we had met previously at the 2011 ECIS ESL/ Mother Tongue Conference in Düsseldorf, my first extended encounter with the instructional innovations that Lara and Mindy had initiated at the International School of The Hague (ISH) came in April 2013 when I was able to spend several days at the school as a result of an invitation from Pascale Hertay, who at the time was Deputy Head of the Primary School. The ways in which Mindy, Lara and their colleagues had integrated students’ home languages into multiple facets of instruction across the curriculum was beyond anything that I had seen up to that point. They were also actively exploring how emerging technologies could be harnessed in pursuit of expanding students’ language awareness, biliteracy development, and overall learning. We have continued to share ideas and collaborate in co-presenting at various conferences since that time. Their account of the instructional directions they and their colleagues pursued illustrates powerfully the role of teachers as knowledge-generators.
A school’s journey towards multilingual instruction
The important question we have to ask ourselves as knowledge generators in diverse schools is how we can not
‘The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step’ – Lao Tse
only translate multilingual research and theory into practice, but also enable our practice to extend our understanding of the possibilities of multilingual instruction. The short answer to this question is that we start with a single step. Empowering teachers and students to create a multilingual mindset together is not an overnight process. It has to be a carefully planned journey.
Although every school’s steps are unique, some are applicable for all schools. Our first step was to establish what we were aiming for, a clear vision to reflect our values, linked to a plan for bringing this vision to life. At the 2011 ECIS ESL/ Mother Tongue Conference in Düsseldorf, we learned about the critical role students’ home languages play in developing their knowledge of additional languages and in supporting their total well-being. From that time onwards, we wanted to bring the use of home language more actively into our daily practice and push harder for a vision that promoted language equality at our school.
By sharing the research about language acquisition with our students, parents, teachers and administrators, we slowly built up our multilingual vision through time. This shift was carried out through a series of conversations with both individuals and larger groups of school staff. When we explained bilingual research to school leaders in accessible terms, they began to understand the rich learning and personal value students’ languages and cultures could bring to learning in classrooms. They gave us permission to carry this message further. They began likewise to understand that by incorporating students’ languages into daily learning, they were giving our multilingual students the best chance of reaching their true learning potential, and not just in English but in all of their languages. This insight, that we can overcome language barriers by tapping into our students’ strongest languages, became a turning point in our school: a matter of urgency. A new mantra emerged: ‘Learning should never be put on hold while we wait for a child to acquire a language.’ (Gravelle, 2000). Through this growing, collective understanding, we helped additional school stakeholders to understand that it was counter-productive to cut multilingual students away from all they knew, simply because their knowledge was coded in another language.
In order to connect our instruction with the totality of students’ experiences, we shifted our entry criteria for our home language programmes to also accommodate those children who had acquired ‘identity languages’ or languages they identified with from living in countries abroad for extended periods. We had to recognise that the world had changed for international families and that students’ linguistic identities can indeed be very complex and not always a reflection of their passport status.
Bringing on board all stakeholders in our organisation with these important messages was absolutely crucial to setting in motion this new, multilingual vision. With this vision in place, we knew we needed to launch into action and identify the language-related needs of our multilingual students, developing flexible teaching practices that addressed their needs in both a holistic and an explicit manner. Teachers, as practitioners first and foremost, would need to see what multilingual practices could look like in their classrooms. Due to the hectic reality a teacher faces, we wanted to develop an action plan with manageable, realistic steps everyone could achieve. We had to consider the right steps for us as a linguistic and educational community. It was through these manageable steps, tailored to our individual school context, that we were able gradually to build up our innovative, multilingual ethos which continues to foster student and teacher agency today.
Towards a whole school approach
How did we accomplish this? First of all, we discovered that we needed to be the change we wish to see. So we set our first staff meeting to share video examples of the multilingual practices we were trialling in our EAL lessons. We shared these examples with class teachers and celebrated those who were willing to innovate and experiment alongside us. We strongly encouraged our teachers to experiment, to see how their home languages might best be used to further classroom learning. This, in turn, led to our students experimenting with their languages in the classroom. In taking this important step, we did not forget that the best professional development can be found in our very own schools. And our teachers, like all people, really appreciated being a part of the change process. Their ideas helped to shape our next steps forward. Having ownership of the process was essential for moving our teachers into a multilingual mindset and supporting multilingual approaches.
It is important, before implementing change in your school, to ask teachers what practices are already working well. Celebrate these successes and build on them with steps you take together. This ensures the continued development
of quality practices, centered on students’ learning. Do this instead of stripping away everything to start anew; a collaborative change process works much better than topdown imposition of change (Isola & Cummins, 2019). It is equally important to explore with teachers what isn’t working or may be blocking them. Where you find consensus about a problem area, teachers will be supportive of a change you try to make. Engaging in ongoing dialogue and feedback with colleagues will enable you to identify realistic goals that support teachers in moving forward in their understanding of multilingual education and infusing this understanding into their classroom practice.
All educators need to be involved at some stage in the decision-making process towards change, and there needs to be a solid implementation plan to carry this change through. We have to keep in mind that most teachers have extensive knowledge and expertise from their years of working in the classroom. What they may lack is the support from leadership in working out how to integrate these ideas into their daily practice. Teacher agency is likely to increase when they are given opportunities to help school leaders to prioritise school development steps that support student learning. In essence, leadership is shared across the school community in an atmosphere of professional trust and freedom.
At ISH, staff and students have undergone a significant mindset shift in how we perceive and value home languages and their subsequent development in our classrooms. Driven by this new understanding, teacher- and studentled multilingualism is changing daily practices and actively showing that all languages matter equally in our school. Our collective experience has shown that students’ awareness of language and their creativity in using their multiple languages are dramatically increased when teachers tap into their own creativity in transforming previously monolingual classrooms into vibrant multilingual instructional spaces.
Afterword – Jim Cummins
The instructional innovations implemented by Mindy, Lara, and their colleagues at ISH are not simply translating research and theory into practice; these innovations are generating knowledge and understanding of how to teach culturally and linguistically diverse multilingual students. In these classrooms, theory and practice are infused within each other. Current understandings of how to teach effectively in multilingual school contexts include the following key instructional strategies – essentially lenses through which we can collectively view and reflect upon our practice: • Scaffold comprehension and production of language; • Reinforce academic language across the curriculum; • Engage students’ multilingual repertoires; • Maximize literacy engagement; • Connect with students’ lives and the knowledge, culture and language of their communities; • Affirm students’ identities by enabling them to use their language and literacy skills to carry out powerful intellectual and creative academic work.
A visitor who walks around ISH and other schools pursuing the same vision (see, eg, Little & Kirwin, 2019) can see immediately evidence of all of these instructional strategies in students’ work displayed in corridors and classroom walls. Teachers in these schools have transformed the way students see themselves, but they have also transformed our conceptions of what constitutes effective instruction for all students.
References
Gravelle M (2000) Planning for bilingual learners-an inclusive curriculum. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. Isola R & Cummins J (2019) Transforming Sanchez School: Shared leadership, equity, and evidence. Philadelphia, PA: Caslon Publishing. Little D & Kirwin D (2019) Engaging with Linguistic Diversity. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
