Multilingual and in the Middle

This article was originally published in ELMLE Journal, December 2018.

One constant for adolescents is change. Middle school students are developing as individuals with an identity continually in flux. And transnational learners, navigating school in more than one language, bring an additional layer of complexity to the already daunting task of figuring out who they are. International educators must catalyze a shift away from viewing multilingualism as a problem towards viewing multilingualism as a resource and, in doing so, we challenge norms of English-only instruction and segregation of students receiving EAL (English as an additional language) support. Building on the unique collection of assets that multilingual learners bring into our classrooms is both an art and a science.

Serving all students in an international school community requires each of us to explore the connection between identity and worldview. And to fully appreciate how our students see themselves, we need to understand how we see ourselves, and ultimately, and how our school sees itself. We need to recognize how language policies and practices, written and unwritten, might promote or inhibit learning. Understanding this intersection of language, identity and learning helps us support today’s adolescents to become tomorrow’s global leaders, international scholars and transnational agents of change.

Student identity

We need to understand not only the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of our learners, but also who they are as individuals. In learning about students’ lived experiences, we also need to be careful not to make assumptions or generalizations. Understanding the challenges learners face as well as the assets they bring with them, requires not only listening to but amplifying our students’ voices, especially when teachers and students come from different backgrounds, live in different communities or inhabit different psychological spaces. In particular, students who are multilingual and in the middle, those at the margins and intersections, have a valuable perspective that can help us see with new eyes.

In my first year teaching in Taiwan I was invited by Akiko, one of my Japanese students, to the fall Obon festival where she was going to be drumming. An enthusiastic new teacher interested in learning about Japanese culture, I did a little research about the Bon Odori dance and traditional music at the Obon. As I arrived at the festival, I saw Akiko and her friends wearing yukata and they said they would be performing in ten minutes. With my newly acquired cultural knowledge I walked towards the stage expecting see my student drumming, celebrating Obon by honoring the spirits of ancestors. Instead, I heard the unmistakable opening guitar chords of Nirvana’s "Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Akiko was a drummer: in a rock band. Even with the best of intentions, I had put my student into a limited cultural box, based on preconceptions, assumptions and generalizations.

Teacher identity

Twenty years ago in Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer reflected that “we teach who we are.” In today’s globalized and interconnected world, inquiring into one’s own identity and intersections is an important step towards greater empathy and equity in the classroom. As international teachers, we project our own preferences and biases onto our classroom. While each human shares the same fundamental traits, Capper and Frattura (2015) observe that the choice whether to pay attention to particular dimensions of our identity - language, race, nationality or gender - which we associate with “others” can be a reflection of privilege.

In fact, if we do not recognize how privilege operates, it’s likely we’ve been members of a dominant group and therefore unwitting recipients of privilege. In turn, the choice to ignore or perpetuate systemic inequity results in practices that remain unchallenged, especially when these practices are ostensibly targeted as support. Christopher Emdin, a STEM and urban education scholar at Columbia University, observes that “once educators recognize that they may be biased against forms of brilliance other than their own, they can finally begin to truly teach” (2017). Identity development begins with recognizing and challenging our own implicit biases.

“I don’t think with an accent”

It is common but nevertheless unfair to make assumptions about students and teachers who are in the process of developing English. Whether intentionally or by default, linguistic proficiency in English is sometimes equated with academic ability, and as a result multilingual students may not be provided access to cognitively challenging classes. Emdin reflects that teachers “must work to ensure that the institution does not absolve them of responsibility to acknowledge the baggage they bring into the classroom and analyze how that might affect student achievement.” Students who have not yet developed English proficiency should not be considered less able. In the same way, some teachers may view colleagues who are multilingual, or speak with an accent, as somehow less experienced or capable. When we fail to build on the assets that multilingual teachers and students bring to an international school, we not only exclude individuals but miss an opportunity to strengthen the entire community.

As a natural next step, we need to recognize the privilege associated with language and cultural norms in order to challenge inequity and build more inclusive schools. Does “inclusion” mean that a student is simply allowed into the room, or actually offered a seat at the table? When multilingual students are segregated from general education classes or separated within a classroom, often under the banner of support, they receive a fragmented education. Likewise, when students are not able to use their home language as a tool for learning, their opportunities for meaningful engagement are limited.

Multilingualism as a resource

Transnational students in English-medium schools are often expected to check their identities at the door and leave their home language and culture outside the school. When multilingual students are forced to communicate only in English, they can experience a real loss of identity. In fact, it is taken from them. Historically, in English medium international schools, students and parents were largely monolingual English speakers, curriculum materials and assessments were published in the US or UK, and the post-secondary destination for most students was an English-medium university in their “home” country.

Today, however, multilingual students are the norm in many international schools. On one hand, English remains a privileged, neo-colonial language of global power, considered at once a lingua franca, a medium of instruction and a target language. On the other hand, multilingualism is changing how teachers and students interact in international schools. Three orientations posed by Ruiz (1984) explain how multilingualism can be viewed:

1.      Multilingualism is “a problem” and thus must be eliminated through English immersion and, ultimately, subtractive bilingualism.

2.      Multilingualism is “a right” for which students can be given special, but separate, classes to acquire English through additive forms of bilingualism.

3.      Multilingualism is “a resource” and a key aspect of global citizenship and intercultural competence, goals for both students and staff.

In today’s international schools we find an increasingly familiar if paradoxical situation: a largely multilingual student body, taught by mostly monolingual educators who, in turn, are led by primarily monolingual administrators - charged with developing policy and practices to serve ever growing numbers of multilingual students.

School identity

What we consider “international schools” are defined by their linguistic, cultural and national intersections; with a complex constellation of students, teachers and families, each school is unique. Nevertheless, most international schools share one common feature: a multifaceted and diffused cultural identity, somewhat precariously suspended within a host culture. “Everyday classroom practices, far from being neutral and natural, have ideological origins and consequences for relations of power both inside and outside the classroom” (Auerbach, 1993). We must recognize the inherent privilege created by an elite school which uses a global language of power embedded within a host country community. In this context, language policy becomes an expression of school identity.

Many English-medium international schools are defined by exceptionalism against the backdrop of a national language and education system. They may be seen as the most innovative or elite school in a particular city, with education reserved for expatriates as well as the wealthiest or most connected host-country families. Policy not only defines pedagogical boundaries but also political; as such, a change in policy changes the school’s identity. Based on a traditional view of language separation operating within “monolingual solitudes” (Cummins, 2007), some schools may worry about mixing languages or diluting a particular cultural or linguistic mission. Language policy can range from strict, punitive English-only to, at the other end of the continuum, allowing or even encouraging students and teachers to use multilingual practices in the course of learning.

In the past two decades the term “translanguaging” has described the natural use of an individual’s entire linguistic repertoire, defined as the “multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual worlds” (Garcia 2009). Translanguaging practices may be seen as a threatening if necessary linguistic compromise, challenging exclusive language policies within international schools. “In fact these terms with the trans- prefix at once advocate for the appreciation of fluidity and flexibility seen in contemporary society and underscore the very existence of categories, borders and boundaries that are called into question” (Hawkins & Mori, 2018). This sometimes uncomfortable collision of language policy and classroom practice offers opportunities for us to develop new perspectives.  New practices for both teachers and learners can transcend policy boundaries and, in turn, provide an opportunity for international schools to forge new identities.

The view from the bridge

Being multilingual and in the middle can be a gift, and students who inhabit this liminal space have a transformational perspective. Adolescents by definition stand somewhat awkwardly with one foot in childhood and one in adulthood, but this allows them to view complex problems with both maturity and innocence. Cummins observed that “communicating respect for students' languages and cultures encourages students to engage with literacy and invest their identities in the learning process” (2015). This investment is significant: learning multiple languages and learning IN multiple languages is demanding intellectual and psychological work. To fully engage with academic tasks, both students and teachers must negotiate multiple semiotic systems, and synthesize multiple cultural perspectives. This development of one’s emerging, complex and multilingual identity is what many schools aspire to for their graduates. In fact, the ability to successfully navigate linguistic and cultural boundaries is one of the core components of being a global citizen.

Consider a view of the city which is only available from a bridge, or from an airplane en route to another city. Border towns, at the intersection of two countries, provide the potential for innovation and intellectual exchange. In the same way, transnational students are able to bridge languages and cultures, developing a unique worldview in the process. In her essay “A letter to a young immigrant” published on Teaching Tolerance, author and poet Mitali Perkins captures this potential:

But don't get discouraged. In fact, you should feel quite the opposite. There is good news about life in the melting pot. There are gains to offset the losses, if you manage not to melt away altogether. You're boiled down, refined to your own distinctiveness. You realize early that virtues are not the property of one heritage; you discover a self powerful enough to balance the best of many worlds.

As 21st century international educators, we are fortunate to teach students who are multilingual and in the middle. We are privileged to be part of their journey to become more mindful, skillful and compassionate global citizens; and they are the key to helping us build schools inclusive enough to balance the best of many worlds.

Article originally published in ELMLE Journal: Bridge from the Middle, December 2018

All images taken by the author.

References

• Auerbach, E. (1993). Reexamining English Only in the ESL Classroom. TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 1, Spring.
• Capper, C. and Frattura, E. (2015). Integrated Comprehensive Systems for Equity. https://www.icsequity.org/
• Cummins, J. (2007). Rethinking monolingual instructional strategies in multilingual classrooms. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics / Revue canadienne de linguistique appliquee, Vol. 10 No.2.
• Cummins, J., Bismilla, V., Chow, P., Cohen, S., Giampapa, F., Leoni, L., Sandhu, P. & Sastri,P. (2015). ELL Students Speak for Themselves: Identity Texts and Literacy Engagement in Multilingual Classrooms
• Emdin, C. (2017). For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education. Boston: Beacon Press.
• García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden/Oxford: Wiley/Blackwell.
• Hawkins, M. & Mori, J. (2018). Considering ‘Trans-’ Perspectives in language theories and practices. Applied Linguistics, Vol. 39, Issue 1.
• Ruiz, R. (1984). Orientations in Language Planning. National Association of Bilingual Education. NABE Journal. Vol, 8, Issue 2.