Ch 6. We speak in many tongues.

Lg diversity and multicultural education

(Siempre desde el punto de vista de USA) The field of multicultural education was slow to
embrace linguistic diversity as a central focus of its work and until recently, most
conceptualizations of multicultural education did not consider the significance of language in
teaching and learning. This has changed in the past couple of decades, especially because the
growing immigrant and refugee populations in the United States makes it more apparent than
ever that linguistic diversity is a vital component of an overall understanding of diversity.

The United States is becoming a more multilingual nation than ever, if not in policy, at least in
practice. The number of immigrants entering the United States during the 1970s and 1980s
was among the largest in history.

Unlike previous immigrants who were overwhelmingly from Europe, about one-third of the
newest immigrants were from Asia and another third from Latin America (U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service 1995). The growing immigration has resulted in a concomitant
increase in the number of people who speak a native language other than English.

The purpose of this chapter is to propose productive ways that teachers and schools can
approach linguistic diversity so that they can teach language minority students to high levels
of achievement. For that reason, I focus on the importance of native and second language
development, and on strategies that all teachers—not simply those who specialize in the
education of language minority students—can use to teach them effectively.

Language Diversity and Multicultural Education: Expanding the Framework

Viewing Bilingualism as a Resource

It is evident that issues of status and power must be taken into account in reconceptualizing
language diversity. This means developing an awareness that privilege, ethnocentrism, and
racism are at the core of policies and practices that limit the use of languages other than
officially recognized high-status languages allowed in schools and in the society in general.
When particular languages are prohibited or denigrated, the voices of those who speak them
are silenced and rejected as well.

Example 1: English is the language of power in the United States. For those who speak it as a
native language—especially if they are also at least middle class and have access to formal
education—monolingualism is an asset. At times, bilingualism is considered an asset, but
commonly only in the case of those who are native English speakers and have learned another
language as a second language.

Example 2: The kind of accent one has is also critical. Speaking French with a Parisian accent,
for example, may be regarded as a mark of high status in some parts of the country, while
speaking Canadian French or Haitian Creole usually is not.

For some people, then, bilingualism is perceived to be a handicap. Socially and politically, the
languages spoken by most language minority students in the United States are accorded low
status. In this case, the major purpose of education becomes the elimination of all signs of the
native language.

Developing an Awareness of Linguicism

Language discrimination is defined by Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (1988) as linguicism. Specifically,

she defines linguicism as “ideologies and structures that are used to legitimate, effectuate, and
reproduce an unequal division of power and resources (both material and nonmaterial)
between groups that are defined on the basis of language” (p. 13).

In developing a more accurate understanding of language diversity, it is critical to review how

language discrimination has been used to disempower those who speak languages other than
English. One implication of this understanding is that language diversity needs to be viewed
using the lens of educational equity. That is, it is not simply a question of language difference,
but rather of power difference. As such, language diversity is a key part of a multicultural
education framework.

The Role of Linguistic Diversity in Multicultural Education

Expanding the framework for language diversity means redefining it as part of multicultural
education. One of the primary goals of multicultural education is to build on the strengths that
students bring to school, but even in multicultural education, language diversity is not always
considered an asset.

The failure of some supporters of multicultural education to seriously consider linguistic

diversity, and the inclination of those in bilingual education to view multicultural education
simply as a watering down of bilingual and ethnic studies programs, leads to an artificial
separation. The implication that bilingual and multicultural education are fundamentally
different and unconnected domains denies their common historical roots and complementary
goals.

Language is one of the most salient aspects of culture. Hence, the education of language
minority students is part and parcel of multicultural education. If the languages students
speak, with all their attendant social meanings and affirmations, are either negated or
relegated to a secondary position in their schooling, the possibility of school failure is
increased.

Native Language and School Achievement

The crucial role of language is well articulated by Jim Cummins (1996), who maintains that
“there is general agreement among cognitive psychologists that we learn by integrating new
input into our existing cognitive structures or schemata. Our prior experience provides the
foundation for interpreting new information. No learner is a blank slate” (p. 17).

Schools often link students’ English-language proficiency with their prospective economic and
social mobility: that is, students who speak a language other than English are viewed as
“handicapped” and they are urged, through subtle and direct means, to abandon their native
language.
In contrast to negative perceptions of bilingualism, a good deal of research confirms the
positive influence of knowing another language. Native language maintenance can act as a
buffer against academic failure by promoting literacy in children’s most developed language.

Virginia Collier (1995) has suggested that speaking English only at home among students who
are more proficient in another language can slow down cognitive development because it is
only when parents and their children speak the language they know best that they are working
at their “level of cognitive maturity” (p. 14).

Articulating the issue of the education of language minority students in this way leads to the
conclusion that language diversity must be placed within a sociopolitical context. The
prevailing view that bilingualism is a deficit for language minority students but an asset for
students from wealthy and privileged backgrounds has to do not with the relative merits of the
different languages involved, but with the sociopolitical context of education.

Approaches to Teaching Language Minority Students

A compensatory approach assumes that students are only lacking in something, rather than
that they also possess certain skills and talents. Instead of perceiving fluency in another
language as an asset to be cherished, it is seen as something that needs repair.

The most common approaches to teaching language minority students in the past quarter
century have been ESL (English as a Second Language) and bilingual education, the latter being
far more controversial than the former. In spite of the controversy surrounding it, bilingual
education and other programs that support native-language use, even if only as a transition to
English, are generally more effective than programs such as ESL alone. This is true not only in
terms of learning content in the native language, but in learning English as well. This seeming
contradiction can be understood if one considers the fact that students in bilingual programs
are provided with continued education in content areas along with structured instruction in
English. In addition, these programs build on students’ previous literacy so that it becomes
what W. E. Lambert (1975) has called an additive form of bilingual education. Subtractive
bilingual education, on the other hand, frequently occurs when one language is substituted for
another; as a result, true literacy is not achieved in either.

There is a substantial relationship between bilingual education and equity. That is, bilingual
education is viewed by many language-minority communities as vital to the educational
achievement of their children. Although frequently addressed as simply an issue of language, it
can be argued that bilingual education is a civil rights issue because it is the only guarantee
that children who do not speak English will be provided education in a language they
understand. Without it, millions of children may be doomed to educational underachievement
and limited occupational choices in the future.

There are numerous program models and definitions of bilingual education (Ovando and
Collier 1998), but in general terms, bilingual education can be defined as an educational
program that involves the use of two languages of instruction at some point in a student’s
school career. This definition is broad enough to include many program variations. A primary
objective of all bilingual programs is to develop proficiency and literacy in the English language.
ESL is an integral and necessary component of all bilingual programs, but when provided in
isolation, it is not bilingual education because the child’s native language is not used in
instruction.

The chapter characterizes three models of Bilingual education:

The transitional bilingual education approach. In this approach, students are taught content
area instruction in their native language while also learning English as a second language. As
soon as they are thought to be ready to benefit from the monolingual English-language
curriculum, they are “exited”.

Developmental or maintenance bilingual education is a more comprehensive and long-term

model. As in the transitional approach, students receive content area instruction in their native
language while learning English as a second language. The difference is that generally no limit
is set on the time students can be in the program. The objective is to develop fluency in both
languages by using both for instruction.

Two-way bilingual education (Christian 1994) is a program model that integrates students
whose native language is English with students for whom English is a second language. Two-
way bilingual programs validate both languages of instruction, and their primary goals are to
develop bilingual proficiency, academic achievement, and positive cross-cultural attitudes and
behaviors among all students.

What Works With Language Minority Students?

An intriguing conclusion from research on the importance of language and culture on

academic achievement is that cultural and linguistic maintenance seem to have a positive
impact on academic success. (This is obviously not true in all cases, and it cannot be
overstated.) We can even say that when their language and culture are reinforced both at
home and school, students seem to develop less confusion and ambiguity about their ability to
learn.

There are necessary bodies of knowledge and approaches that all teachers need to develop if
they are to be successful with the growing number of language minority students in our
schools:

(1) All teachers need to understand how language is learned. Because many teachers have not
had access to this kind of knowledge during their teacher preparation, they may need to
acquire it on their own. They can do this by attending conferences in literacy, bilingual
education, multicultural education, and ESL; participating in professional development
opportunities in their district and beyond; subscribing to journals and newsletters in these
fields; setting up study groups with colleagues to discuss and practice different strategies; and
returning to graduate school to take relevant courses or seek advanced degrees.

(2) Teachers need to develop an additive perspective concerning bilingualism. An additive

bilingualism supports the notion that English plus other languages can make us stronger
individually and as a society.
In their research, María Fránquiz and María de la luz Reyes (1998) set out to answer the
question, “If I am not fluent in the languages my students speak, how can I effectively teach
English language arts to a linguistically diverse class?” They found that teachers do not have to
be fluent in the native languages of their students to support their use in the classroom.
Rather, they discovered that encouraging students to use their native languages and cultural
knowledge as resources for learning is frequently more important than knowing the students’
languages.

(3) Teachers and schools can learn to consciously foster native language literacy.

Teachers can actively support the native language literacy of their students by providing them
the time and space to work with their peers, or with tutors or mentors, who speak the same
native language.

Teachers can also make a commitment to learn at least one of the languages of their students.
When they become second language learners, teachers develop a new appreciation for the
struggles experienced by language minority students— including exhaustion, frustration, and
withdrawal—when they are learning English.

The responsibility to create excellent learning environments for language minority students
should not rest with individual teachers alone, however. Entire schools can develop such
environments.

The researchers concluded that the success of these schools challenges the conventional
assumption that students need to learn English before they can learn grade-level content in
social studies, math, or anything else.

Conclusion

The issue of what to do about language minority students goes much deeper than simple
language diversity. Above all, it is an issue of educational equity. Whether bilingual education,
ESL, or other approaches and support services are offered, they need to be developed with an
eye toward promoting, rather than limiting, educational opportunities for all students. Given
the increasing number of students who enter schools speaking a native language other than
English, it is clear that attending to the unique condition of language minority students is the
responsibility of all educators. For students with limited English proficiency, suitable
approaches geared to their particular situation are not frills, but basic education. For English
monolingual students, too, learning to appreciate and communicate in other languages is a gift
to be cherished. When we approach language diversity as a resource that is respected and
fostered, all students benefit.