What Is Translanguaging and How Is It Used in the Classroom? by Ileana Najarro

Frankly, I always felt that language in the traditional bilingual language classroom was too stiff, creating distinct lanes for English and Spanish despite a real complexity of language often referred to as "Tex-Mex" that teachers looked down on when I was growing up. I imagine that many people still do. 

Not so in the world of bilingual education, with CUNY Graduate Center Professor Dr. Ofelia Garcia and her students like Dr. Nelson Flores and others.

When I think of the concept of translanguaging, the word, "freedom," pops immediately into my head. This piece by Ileana Najarro in Edweek affirms that view.

-Angela Valenzuela

What Is Translanguaging and How Is It Used in the Classroom?

Getty

By Ileana Najarro — July 13, 2023 | Edweek

For years, research into the best instructional approaches for students identified as English learners has pointed to the concept of translanguaging.

Identified by bilingual education researcher Ofelia García, it’s both a skill set and a total shift in the way language is thought of, used, and taught in K-12 classrooms where multiple languages are honored and addressed, even as English remains the dominant language of instruction, said Marybelle Marrero-Colon, the associate director of professional development for the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Researchers are looking into how it can be applied to formal assessments, such as state standardized tests on which English learners might struggle to demonstrate their academic proficiency because they are tested in an unfamiliar language.

Here’s a look at what translanguaging means in the context of classroom instruction and how all educators, including monolingual English-speaking teachers, can cultivate spaces for translanguaging to occur.

What is the definition of translanguaging?

Translanguaging is the ability to move fluidly between languages and a pedagogical approach to teaching in which teachers support this ability.

In translanguaging, students are able to think in multiple languages simultaneously and use their home language as a vehicle to learn academic English.

A student could be reading an article about the solar system in English, but in their brain, they are also thinking and making connections in Spanish. They might annotate in Spanish or first write down reading comprehension responses in Spanish and then figure out how to provide the responses in English, said Marrero-Colon.

It’s all about encouraging students to access their full linguistic repertoires, said Emily Phillips Galloway, an assistant professor at the Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University.

Translanguaging is also multimodal. More research is underway, for instance, on hearing impaired translanguaging by students who are part of families with American sign language, Spanish sign language, and signs families create for themselves, said Maria Cieslak, the professional development content manager at the Center for Applied Linguistics.

How is translanguaging used in the classroom?

Teachers can engage in a variety of activities that deliberately encourage translanguaging, ranging from providing vocabulary in multiple languages to collaborative translation opportunities. The goal is to get students translanguaging as a practice that can be leveraged toward supporting literacy outcomes and engagement, as well as other academic endeavors.

For example, two students could be assigned to solve a word problem, and one might be stuck on a word in English. The two students can then use an equivalent word in their home language to make sense of what the word problem is asking of them, Phillips Galloway said.

Or in group activities, students can be prompted to share with the rest of the class how something taught in English would make sense in Spanish by highlighting similar and different grammatical structures between the two languages, Marrero-Colon said.

“When you translate, you don’t have to do it word for word. You’re really trying to capture the feeling of that text,” Marrero-Colon said.

Once teachers start doing these activities, research has found that students who have not spoken before start speaking and students who were not as engaged in text-comprehension activities suddenly are, she added. That’s occurring because they are being encouraged to use their home language in class to think about language use overall.

How is translanguaging different from translation?

Translanguaging extends beyond translation to something where students gain an understanding of how language functions and works.

Although translation activities are a way to engage in translanguaging, it’s not word-for-word translation. It’s about a student using the words and thoughts they have in their home language to make sense of English and then be able to respond in English, said Kia Johnson, the director of PreK–12 language and literacy at the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Translanguaging requires students to think about language components such as the placement of adjectives, what cognates are in various languages, and more in multiple languages at once, Phillips Galloway said.

Does translanguaging require bilingual teachers?

Teachers don’t have to speak the home languages of students to help them engage in translanguaging.

It does require teachers to be comfortable being a learner themselves as students teach them what they know about their own language. Some teachers may fear that students may engage in off-task behavior in languages the teachers don’t understand, but research has found that in such cases, teachers are still able to register what is going on and get students back on task, Phillips Galloway said.

She also said that teachers who work in states with laws requiring English-only instruction can and should still allow students to use other languages in the classroom to help them access academic content.

The key, Marrero-Colon said, is flexibility. For instance, a student may need to write an essay in English. They can instead start with building a PowerPoint primarily of images that convey a story or meaning. The teacher can then use the PowerPoint to help students come up with words and phrases, then move to sentences and paragraphs, and so on.

Does translanguaging just benefit English learners?

All students can benefit from a classroom welcoming of translanguaging because few use academic English at home, regardless of their home language.

For instance, Black students may be fluent in African American Vernacular English and can use translanguaging activities to engage in academic classroom English, Johnson said.

An example of English-only translanguaging is asking students to turn William Shakespeare’s sonnets into modern pop songs, because it is a use of language in different registers, or levels of formality, Phillips Galloway said.

Students are also more interested in acquiring more languages after hearing their peers use their home languages, which helps them succeed in an increasingly global society, she added.

Would translanguaging hinder a student’s ability to acquire English?

The more opportunities students have to use language, whether that’s English or not, breeds more language use, which is then associated with language learning.

“I think the mistake that we often make is that we don’t help students to make the connections between the linguistic resources that they bring in languages other than English,” Phillips Galloway said. “And in the course of doing that, we take a whole set of resources that could be used for comprehending texts as they read in English, or learn to write text in English, we take those resources off the table.”

More research has found that allowing students to participate in translanguaging helps English learners eventually outperform their monolingual peers because they become more flexible in thinking about and using language in academic contexts, Marrero-Colon said.

How can schools overall better encourage translanguaging?

Improved curriculum, professional development, and mindsets around the value of home languages can all help schools to encourage translanguaging and support students in the process.

Phillips Galloway is working with colleagues on a curriculum that better guides teachers in translanguaging activities since not all curricular materials recognize the concept.

Researchers at the Center for Applied Linguistics, including Cieslak, also work on professional development and policy discussions that help educators and policymakers alike understand how English learners bring with them linguistic assets that should be nurtured for overall academic success.

“It’s about understanding cultural identity, and my language is part of my identity,” Cieslak said. “And I’m going to naturally translanguage, whether you tell me I can or cannot.”

 

'Stolen from us': The Latinos who lost their language and the fight to recover it | Together We Rise

What is key here in this narrative about the so-called "loss" of the Spanish language is the intent of education policy—that embodies larger social relations of power and concomitant values—is a long history of subordination that shows up at district- and school-level policy and practice as either English-only or "English-mostly." 

This experience is different for European-origin ethnic groups whose social history of immigrant incorporation into U.S. society is one of succession as "meltable ethnics" that could become white and in so doing, assimilate to U.S. society. 

In contrast, fort the "unmeltable ethnics," this is a totally different story with what I call "subtractive cultural assimilation" or simply, "subtractive schooling," ruling the day. That is, Latinas/os and other people of color are unfairly asked and expected to simply follow a line of succession that scarcely materializes, except for very few—with those few, like myself, legitimating the entire structure of inequality. 

"See, the system works!" one might say. Not so fast, my friend, even if there are cracks in the melting pot that allow some through.

Before we even attend to this question of mobility, let's engage the pained and anguished voices herein, reflecting the harm to the spirit that denying a basic right like language engenders. 

Psychologically, it might feel differently if our numbers were few or if we shared a border with Canada. Instead, our numbers are large and share the longest border with Mexico of any state in the U.S. 

Emanating, as well, from the original inhabitants of this land before there was a place called "Texas" or a "United States" frustrates this deep sense of denial that's further layered over an earlier colonial history where our ancestors were denied their native, Indigenous tongues and identities. Thursday's blog on a Lakota high school student walkout in Rapid City, South Dakota, attests to how this racial, colonial project of erasing Native American's tongues and cultures is alive and well today.

Our ongoing movements for civil rights, including bilingual education, school finance equity and inclusion, especially in state Ethnic Studies curricula, have made a positive difference—and not just for Latinas/os, but for all children fortunate enough to receive such instruction. 

As a state, Texas is well poised to embrace an ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse future. It's silly that we lag so far behind when we have so much to gain.

Sí se puede! Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

'Stolen from us': The Latinos who lost their language and the fight to recover it | Together We Rise

KENS 5's 'Together We Rise' dives into the deeper history behind why some Hispanics may not speak Spanish.

TOGETHER WE RISE

Author: Audrey Castoreno, Alex Castillo | Aug. 18, 2021

SAN ANTONIO — Many people question those Latinos who do not speak Spanish.

Joshua Amparan and Michelle Mireles both of the Hispanic ethnicity do not speak Spanish. Mireles says she's been questioned as to why.

“I’m used to it now, but for a long time, I wondered why wasn’t I taught Spanish," Mireles said. 

Both of Amparan's parents speak Spanish, but he can understand it better than speak it. 

“I will say a lot of the people I grew up with have similar upbringings," Amparan said. "Their parents were more fluent in Spanish and they really didn’t know a lot."

Many experience ridicule from Latinos and other races. 

“People would automatically go up to my daughter who is just as dark-skinned as I am speaking Spanish to her and then get after her for not speaking Spanish, Rosendo Gutierrez said. "She’d say, 'Dad, these people are getting -- some of them almost violent -- with me.'”

We turned to the Director of UTSA's Mexico Center and an Associate Professor of History, Jerry B. Gonzalez, Ph.D., for answers about when Spanish fell off for this generation.

"Here in San Antonio and South Texas, language has been at the very center of a number of discriminatory policies and actions, at the center of the disinvestment of different communities, so we kind of have to begin really early on," Dr. Gonzalez said.

Dr. Gonzalez says the treaty of Guadalupe Hildago ensured Mexican Americans would have the right to speak Spanish. 

“For most of the 19th century. Spanish was meant to be on an equitable plain with English," Dr. Gonzalez said. " At least on the books, but that’s not how it played out in every day.”

Segregation in schools ended in 1954, but still many students faced inequities. 

“There were signs all over the school bathrooms, doors, everything, 'Say It In English'. I still remember it was a white sign with red lettering," Rosendo Gutierrez said. "What bothered me the most was the fact that it kind of turned us against each other."

“That English-only mandates are what colored most of ethnic Mexican experiences in education and primary school education throughout the first half of the 20th century,” Dr. Gonzalez said. "So even though Mexican students can go to school with white folks, they still can’t speak Spanish in schools."

Many students are reprimanded for speaking Spanish in a number of ways. 

“In school, I remember speaking it or just turning around to say something in Spanish and then, 'Herlinda, go to the office,'" Herlinda Sifuentes said while holding out her hand. “They would hit you with a paddle."

"I recall hearing that they would have to pay a penny every time they were caught saying something in Spanish or get paddled," Diana Herrera said. 

"At the playground I say something, and it wasn’t nothing derogatory, but I say something and somebody, a teacher, says "You are not supposed to speak Spanish'," Richard Herrera said. "They take me to the office and they threaten to paddle me."

“That really stigmatized me, it really did because I was punished, I was paddled and I think to myself, 'I want to learn English,'" Rosendo Gutierrez said. "We went through a lot. It lasted all through elementary school and it lasted all through junior high before those signs started coming down.”

Non-Latino classmates are unaware of this treatment. 

"I am absolutely shocked when I hear it, because I know as a black person 'oh yeah we experienced racism', but for anybody else I absolutely shocked when I hear it,” Linda Love said. 

Prejudice with the Spanish language continued into the '80s with long-lasting effects. 

"What begins to happen by the ’50s, there are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of folks who are no longer learning Spanish at home or are actively being repressed of speaking Spanish out in the streets,” Dr. Gonzalez said. 

“My mom would just tell me that it just came down to school," Michelle Mireles said. "Being in school and being treated different because you spoke the language and just to protect us from all of that they just decided just strictly English."“I think just the fact that they were trying to mold us by forcing us to learn English so that we could be assimilated into the mainstream," Rosendo Gutierrez said. "I know the intentions were good, but the manner in which it was done and the results, I never felt were good."

"The result is that now we are in 2021, there are generations of Latinos that don’t speak Spanish as a result of this deep history of language suppression," Dr. Gonzalez said. 

There is hope for the next generation. 

“My kids personally, I want them to know Spanish," Michelle Mireles said. "My twins take Spanish classes to try to get to speak."

"My older son is actually probably more fluent in Spanish than I am and I know now my father tries to talk to him almost exclusively in Spanish to try to help him keep up those skills," Joshua Amparan said. 

“I think it’s important to recover in some way that language that was stolen from us, because if stolen that is too strong of a term for some people, that language that was denied us in some way," Dr. Gonzalez said. "That’s an important part of just identifying of who you are, it’s important to be bilingual, or more especially in a place like Texas which is the bilingual capital in this country."

How learning a new language improves tolerance

Well, of course! Here's a great piece that suggests why language learning can and should be integral to Ethnic Studies. It helps promote the same positive outcomes.

Angela

How learning a new language improves tolerance

December 11, 2016 10.40pm EST

Author

1. Amy Thompson
   Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of South Florida

Disclosure statement

Amy Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

There are many benefits to knowing more than one language. For example, it has been shown that aging adults who speak more than one language have less likelihood of developing dementia.
Additionally, the bilingual brain becomes better at filtering out distractions, and learning multiple languages improves creativity. Evidence also shows that learning subsequent languages is easier than learning the first foreign language.
Unfortunately, not all American universities consider learning foreign languages a worthwhile investment.
Why is foreign language study important at the university level?
As an applied linguist, I study how learning multiple languages can have cognitive and emotional benefits. One of these benefits that’s not obvious is that language learning improves tolerance.
This happens in two important ways.
The first is that it opens people’s eyes to a way of doing things in a way that’s different from their own, which is called “cultural competence.”
The second is related to the comfort level of a person when dealing with unfamiliar situations, or “tolerance of ambiguity.”

Gaining cross-cultural understanding

Cultural competence is key to thriving in our increasingly globalized world. How specifically does language learning improve cultural competence? The answer can be illuminated by examining different types of intelligence.
Psychologist Robert Sternberg’s research on intelligence describes different types of intelligence and how they are related to adult language learning. What he refers to as “practical intelligence” is similar to social intelligence in that it helps individuals learn nonexplicit information from their environments, including meaningful gestures or other social cues.

Learning a foreign language reduces social anxiety. COD Newsroom, CC BY

Language learning inevitably involves learning about different cultures. Students pick up clues about the culture both in language classes and through meaningful immersion experiences.
Researchers Hanh Thi Nguyen and Guy Kellogg have shown that when students learn another language, they develop new ways of understanding culture through analyzing cultural stereotypes. They explain that “learning a second language involves the acquisition not only of linguistic forms but also ways of thinking and behaving.”
With the help of an instructor, students can critically think about stereotypes of different cultures related to food, appearance and conversation styles.

Dealing with the unknown

The second way that adult language learning increases tolerance is related to the comfort level of a person when dealing with “tolerance of ambiguity.”
Someone with a high tolerance of ambiguity finds unfamiliar situations exciting, rather than frightening. My research on motivation, anxiety and beliefs indicates that language learning improves people’s tolerance of ambiguity, especially when more than one foreign language is involved.
It’s not difficult to see why this may be so. Conversations in a foreign language will inevitably involve unknown words. It wouldn’t be a successful conversation if one of the speakers constantly stopped to say, “Hang on – I don’t know that word. Let me look it up in the dictionary.” Those with a high tolerance of ambiguity would feel comfortable maintaining the conversation despite the unfamiliar words involved.
Applied linguists Jean-Marc Dewaele and Li Wei also study tolerance of ambiguity and have indicated that those with experience learning more than one foreign language in an instructed setting have more tolerance of ambiguity.

What changes with this understanding

A high tolerance of ambiguity brings many advantages. It helps students become less anxious in social interactions and in subsequent language learning experiences. Not surprisingly, the more experience a person has with language learning, the more comfortable the person gets with this ambiguity.
And that’s not all.
Individuals with higher levels of tolerance of ambiguity have also been found to be more entrepreneurial (i.e., are more optimistic, innovative and don’t mind taking risks).
In the current climate, universities are frequently being judged by the salaries of their graduates. Taking it one step further, based on the relationship of tolerance of ambiguity and entrepreneurial intention, increased tolerance of ambiguity could lead to higher salaries for graduates, which in turn, I believe, could help increase funding for those universities that require foreign language study.
Those who have devoted their lives to theorizing about and the teaching of languages would say, “It’s not about the money.” But perhaps it is.

Language learning in higher ed

Most American universities have a minimal language requirement that often varies depending on the student’s major. However, students can typically opt out of the requirement by taking a placement test or providing some other proof of competency.

Why more universities should teach a foreign language. sarspri, CC BY-NC

In contrast to this trend, Princeton recently announced that all students, regardless of their competency when entering the university, would be required to study an additional language.
I’d argue that more universities should follow Princeton’s lead, as language study at the university level could lead to an increased tolerance of the different cultural norms represented in American society, which is desperately needed in the current political climate with the wave of hate crimes sweeping university campuses nationwide.
Knowledge of different languages is crucial to becoming global citizens. As former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan noted,

“Our country needs to create a future in which all Americans understand that by speaking more than one language, they are enabling our country to compete successfully and work collaboratively with partners across the globe.”

Considering the evidence that studying languages as adults increases tolerance in two important ways, the question shouldn’t be “Why should universities require foreign language study?” but rather “Why in the world wouldn’t they?”

• Higher education
• Tolerance
• Language learning
• cultural stereotypes
• English language learners
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Far From Mexico, Students Try Saving Aztec Language

This is a really good episode from "All Things Considered" on NPR (transcript below) on why efforts to preserve and indeed, "save" the Nahuatl language are very important.  Not unlike the many other indigenous language groups in Mexico, Nahuatl has historically been oppressed yet has survived through the centuries. But language death, or conversely, survival, persists as a collective concern.  

I myself am getting acquainted with Nahuatl terms.  My observation is that Nahuatl has a lot of words that have lots of syllables—a higher  average number in comparison to either the English or Spanish language.  Its a different breathing pattern from either the English or Spanish languages, as well.  It takes practice but after awhile, the words roll off the tongue—and you not only feel accomplished, but it also feels rewarding to know that an ancient tongue is invoked.

All languages and dialects are worth "saving"—and teaching.  A very good point is made in the discussion below that the numbers of speakers and political power do not necessarily go hand in hand.  As long as Nahuatl is demeaned AND the Nahuatl community—the descendants of the Aztecs—buys into the stereotypical portraits made of them, Nahuatl is put at risk.  Of course these speakers are hardly a monolith.  As communities, they are differentially able to withstand the forces of (oftentimes forced) assimilation.

What is sad to consider is that for far too many, assimilating into a Mexican national identity that is itself complicated with respect to mestizaje, hardly improves their quality of life as monolingual Spanish speakers.  In my own work, I call this "subtractive cultural assimilation," or simply, "subtractive schooling."  The focus of my work though is on U.S.-Mexican youth in the U.S. where a parallel dynamic plays out but with the subtraction or erasure of the Spanish language instead.

Ultimately, "saving" and "salvation" are not technical tasks. but are accomplished instead through self empowerment and not buying into the myths of the dominant group regarding one's sense of worth, as well as our communities' cultural wealth about which Tara Yosso and others write.

One of the best things our federal government could do is really fund and get behind not just bilingual, but also multilingual, education.  This is so within our reach.

-Angela

Far From Mexico, Students Try Saving Aztec Language

November 30, 2012 3:00 PM ET

Margot Adler

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All Things Considered

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The descendant of the ancient Aztec language is one of many endangered indigenous languages. Although there may still be a million speakers of Nahuatl, it is not being transmitted to a new generation. But there is an attempt to revive Nahuatl in New York City, and students eager to connect to their heritage are taking classes.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And finally this hour, a portrait of Mexican-Americans in New York connecting with their Aztec heritage. NPR's Margot Adler has this story about their efforts to learn an endangered language.
MARGOT ADLER, BYLINE: Listen to this phrase.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking foreign language) speech with flowers.
ADLER: Speech with flowers. That's the word for poetry in Nahuatl and it's very hard for non-native speakers to pronounce these words correctly. Nahuatl descends from ancient Aztec.
DANIEL KAUFMAN: Of course, it's not identical to the language that was spoken by the Aztecs, just like our English is not Shakespearian English. But it's the direct descendent of that language.
ADLER: That's Daniel Kaufman, a linguist and the founder of the Endangered Language Alliance. There are many Nahuatl words, he says, that we might find familiar.
KAUFMAN: Chocolate, tomato, coyote, all those words are Nahuatl words.
ADLER: Kaufman says there are many indigenous languages spoken in New York City, but the speakers are often invisible minorities within minorities. The Alliance deals with more than 20 languages and a number are indigenous to Mexico. About a million people speak Nahuatl. It's the indigenous language in the Americas with the second largest number of native speakers.
KAUFMAN: So you would think that a language that large, how could it be endangered? But in fact, the number of speakers is much less important than how the language is being transmitted and so you can have languages even with a million speakers, but if the children aren't learning it, it could be gone in two, three generations.
ADLER: So when Irwin Sanchez contacted the Endangered Language Alliance and said he wanted to teach his language, Kaufman was interested. He went to Mano A Mano, an organization founded to celebrate Mexican culture, and it offered classroom space. Executive director Juan Carlos Aguirre said it was simple.
JUAN CARLOS AGUIRRE: A world with one language, two languages, is a very boring world.
ADLER: When I arrived at class, there are about seven students, including Samantha McLane and Victor Pajarito.
SAMANTHA MCLANE: I am from Mexico, so I suddenly felt that it was kind of ironic that I didn't know anything about our own ethnic languages. I'm very curious. This is my first class. I really want to like it.
VICTOR PAJARITO: My great grandparents, they spoke it, but then after a while, they just stopped speaking it because there was no one else to speak to.
ADLER: Nahuatl is a very metaphorical, poetic language and most speakers only know it as an oral language. Irwin Sanchez often teaches by reading poetry and having students read it back.
IRWIN SANCHEZ: (Speaking foreign language)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking foreign language)
ADLER: Teaching is not Irwin Sanchez's livelihood. He works in a Mexican restaurant in Queens. He says he is the last person in his family who speaks Nahautl.
SANCHEZ: Everybody speak when I was five years old. All my parents, you know, uncles, everybody speak in the house.
ADLER: But now, no one.
SANCHEZ: My brothers, they don't speak a lot. And my sister, she has five kids, so (Laughing) she's busy.
ADLER: He also tried to find people in the community, but it wasn't easy. Daniel Kaufman says that's not surprising.
KAUFMAN: People are shy to speak it in public. Many people report that, you know, even their fellow Mexicans will laugh at them if they hear them speak it on the street. And so there's a lot of stigma, old stigma that goes back to Spanish colonialism and just, you know, modern rural versus urban stigma.
SANCHEZ: A lot of discrimination in Mexico if you speak your own language. If you go to the cities, you know, they don't pay attention to you 'cause the way you speak.
ADLER: There was once an Aztec literature, but it was decimated by the Spanish, says Kaufman.
KAUFMAN: They burned everything they could get their hands on. There are a few codices that were left over, of course, but modern speakers have no idea how to read those glyphs.
ADLER: In fact, few people know how to write the language in the Latin alphabet. Teaching a modern alphabet is beginning to happen in some schools in Mexico, but the attempt to revive Nahuatl remains an uphill battle. Margot Adler, NPR News, New York.

Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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Why learning languages matters

This is a really thoughtful blog post worth reading.

-Patricia

By Dr Shirley Lawes | Battle of Ideas Blog
Friday, 19 November 2010

Ask most adults if they think that being able to speak another language is a good thing and they will invariably answer ‘Yes’ and then add, ‘ but I was useless at it at school’. Ask them why it’s a good thing, and they start to flounder. Vague answers about how the economy needs people who speak other languages is the most common response, followed by how useful it is to be able to “get by” on holiday abroad. That’s a fair enough response from the general public, but when the needs of the economy and tourism are the reasons policy-makers, teachers and government give to justify the importance of foreign language learning, then you know we’re in trouble.

Why? Instrumental arguments for learning languages are problematic because they are restrictive and reductive. They are, however, prevalent and difficult to challenge in the present climate where education has come to be seen in almost entirely instrumental terms. We no longer talk about a body of subject knowledge to be transmitted, but of skills to be acquired and applied. The aims and purposes of education now serve directly the perceived needs of society and the economy rather than being seen as a good in itself concerned with the intellectual development of the individual. No longer do we see any intrinsic value in education; ‘useful’ knowledge is all that counts.

From this perspective, the study of other languages becomes a marginal pursuit, at a time when English is the global language of business. But if we take the view that foreign languages have a broader cultural and intellectual role to play both in education and society, as well as contributing to the personal enrichment of the individual, then the position of the English language takes on a relative rather than dominant position.

Defences of foreign languages as a field of knowledge in its own terms are few and far between at the present time. Even those who recognise the contribution of foreign languages to the all-round education and personal development of individuals and the subject’s potential for broadening the horizons of young people, often still feel the need to justify their arguments in instrumental and functional terms. Perhaps what such arguments miss is to recognise what is unique about foreign language learning. The study of a foreign language has a unique transformational capacity that differentiates it from other subject disciplines in the potential that knowledge of foreign languages has of opening individuals up to human culture. As the veteran language teacher and academic, Eric Hawkins once wrote, the study of foreign languages serves to, ‘emancipate the learner from parochialism’.

Foreign languages have the unique potential of breaking down barriers between people and countries and promoting a sense of universalism in an individualised world. This is at the heart of what makes the study of foreign languages unique and that is why I believe that they should be an important part of every young person’s education throughout their schooling. Never mind the needs of the economy.

In Some Schools, iPods Are Required Listening

What a great approach and use of technology for language acquisition. I'm tempted to say "revolutionary" given the name of the middle school. -Patricia

By WINNIE HU | NY Times
October 9, 2007

A ban on iPods is so strictly enforced at José Martí Middle School that as many as three a week are confiscated from students -- and returned only to their parents.

But even as students have been told to leave their iPods at home, the school here in Hudson County has been handing out the portable digital players to help bilingual students with limited English ability sharpen their vocabulary and grammar by singing along to popular songs.

Next month, the Union City district will give out 300 iPods at its schools as part of a $130,000 experiment in one of New Jersey's poorest urban school systems. The effort has spurred a handful of other districts in the state, including the ones in Perth Amboy and South Brunswick, to start their own iPod programs in the last year, and the project has drawn the attention of educators from Westchester County to Monrovia, Calif.

The spread of iPods into classrooms comes at a time when many school districts across the country have outlawed the portable players from their buildings -- along with cellphones and DVD players -- because they pose a distraction, or worse, to students. In some cases, students have been caught cheating on tests by loading answers, mathematical formulas and notes onto their iPods.

But some schools are rethinking the iPod bans as they try to co-opt the devices for educational purposes. Last month, the Perth Amboy district bought 40 iPods for students to use in bilingual classes that are modeled after those in Union City. In South Brunswick, 20 iPods were used last spring in French and Spanish classes. And in North Plainfield, N.J., the district has supplied iPods to science teachers to illustrate chemistry concepts, and it is considering allowing students in those classes to use iPods that they have brought from home.

''It's an innovation,'' said Frank Belluscio, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association, which selected Union City educators to speak about the iPod classes at the group's annual conference in Atlantic City Oct. 24-26. ''Most people think of the iPod as just entertainment.''

At José Martí, the silver iPods, with built-in video screens, cost about $250 each and are passed out at the beginning of class along with headsets and Spanish-to-English dictionaries. The iPods are collected at the end of class, and school officials said that none have disappeared or been broken.

In one recent class, eighth-grade students mouthed the words to the rock song ''Hey There Delilah'' by the Plain White T's as they played the tune on the iPods over and over again. The braver ones sang out loud.

''It speaks to me,'' said Stephanie Rojas, 13, who moved here last year from Puerto Rico and now prefers to sing in English. ''I take a long time in the shower because I'm singing, and my brothers are like, 'Hurry up!'''

Pedro Noguera, a sociology professor at New York University who studies urban schools, said that more districts were using new technologies like iPods to connect with students. For instance, he said, teachers have designed video games around history lessons and assigned students to re-enact novels and plays on YouTube.

''You know the No. 1 complaint about school is that it's boring because the traditional way it's taught relies on passive learning,'' Mr. Noguera said. ''It's not interactive enough.''

In many affluent communities, iPods have evolved into an essential accessory for students. In 2004, Duke University led the way by outfitting its entire freshman class with iPods that were preloaded with orientation information and even the Duke fight song. While Duke no longer gives away iPods, it maintains a pool of them that are lent to students for classes. Last spring, 93 of the 2,000 or so courses at Duke required iPods.

The Brearley School, a private girls school on Manhattan's Upper East Side, has used iPods to supplement foreign-language textbooks and its music, drama and English classes. Every Brearley student in seventh through ninth grades is required to buy or rent an iPod.

Here in Union City, the iPods are a splurge for many of the immigrant families who live in this densely packed urban center, once known for its embroidery factories. About 94 percent of the district's 11,000 students qualify for free or reduced lunches.

The Union City district, which has a $197 million annual budget, places a priority on bilingual classes because more than one-quarter of its students are learning basic English skills. District officials said the stakes are high; 4 of the district's 12 schools have been identified as needing improvement under the federal No Child Left Behind law, largely because not enough bilingual students have passed the state reading and math tests.

Grace Poli, a media specialist at José Martí, said that she approached district officials about buying 23 iPods for an after-school bilingual program in 2004 after being struck by students' passion for them. Spanish-speaking students seemed bored by their English-language textbooks, she said, which they found outdated and irrelevant.

The program became so popular that it was added to the regular school schedule the following year, and in 2006, Ms. Poli received 60 more iPods. Last May, the district decided to buy 300 iPods to expand the program to other schools this fall.

Ms. Poli scoured the music charts for songs that appealed to students, compiling an eclectic mix of tunes by Shania Twain, Barry White, U2 and the Black Eyed Peas. She downloaded their songs to the iPods and typed out the lyrics. Then she deleted all the nouns -- and in turn, the verbs and adjectives -- forcing the students to fill in the missing words and learn their meaning.

In class, they sing or recite the completed lyrics back to her.

''A lot of our bilingual kids are very shy, and they feel like outsiders,'' said Ms. Poli, whose parents immigrated from Ecuador. ''You have kids who never said a word in English, and now they're singing Black Eyed Peas. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it.''

Ms. Poli has also downloaded audio books, including the Harry Potter series, and added recording devices to the iPods so that students can listen to their pronunciation as they read poetry or talk with one another.

While the iPods have been used mainly in bilingual classes, the district plans to try them with students who have learning disabilities and behavioral problems as part of the program's expansion, which is set to begin next month. Last year, Ms. Poli helped an alternative education class create podcasts of test-taking tips that were shared with the entire school.

Ms. Poli said her Spanish-speaking students -- known around the school as Pod People -- have been able to move out of bilingual classes after just a year of using the digital devices, compared with an average of four to six years for most bilingual students.

Geri Perez, the principal at José Martí, said parents have requested that their children be enrolled in the iPod-equipped classes. Ms. Perez, who does not speak Spanish, said that bilingual students who once shied away from talking to her have gained self-confidence and now come up to her in the hallways.

Dianelis Cano, 13, who moved here from Cuba less than two years ago, said that she had learned so much English that her mother, a saleswoman in a clothing store, bought her an iPod over the summer as a reward for good grades. Dianelis loads her own songs onto the iPod to practice English outside school, though she also includes Spanish music.

''I'm going to check your iPod to make sure there is English music there,'' Ms. Poli teased her. ''I'm going to make home visits.''

Learning a second language

Learning a second language

When simple solutions and anecdotes collide with the facts

By John Moore and Ana Celia Zentella
June 28, 2007

Invoking simple solutions to complex problems is an easy and effective rhetorical device. No need to do research, check facts, consider complexities – just assert the solution and, as long as it is close enough to what people already believe, the argument is won.

It works even better if you can add a personal anecdote. This was the case with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent suggestion that Spanish-speaking families turn off their Spanish television programs and watch English-language TV instead. Unfortunately, the governor's suggestion, based on his own subjective experience, belies a number of misconceptions about language demographics, second-language acquisition and pedagogy.

From media discussions, one would think that Latino communities are Spanish-only language ghettos where no one is willing to learn English. However, the facts are otherwise. More than 70 percent of Spanish-speakers in the United States are also fluent in English, and a very large number of U.S. Latinos can only speak English.

Those who do not attain fluency in English are almost exclusively first-generation immigrants who came to the United States as adults. Anyone who has tried to learn a second language as an adult knows how difficult it is. Nevertheless, even these first-generation Spanish-speakers are learning English in greater numbers than has ever been the case in our history as an immigrant nation, and many of their children are learning little or no Spanish. (Readers may have witnessed a Spanish-speaking mother talking to her child in Spanish, while the child answers in English.)

Research shows that the loss of an immigrant language once took three generations but that it is now common for a transition from Spanish to English to happen in two. The perception that Spanish-speakers won't speak English is simply false – they do and they do so faster than earlier immigrants did.

This is not to say that there are no problems. California does have a large number of limited-English proficiency students who struggle to pass the English Language Arts, or ELA, section of CAHSEE, the state high school exit exam, which was first required for graduation in 2006. These students are typically first-generation Latinos, often arriving in their teens. They quickly become fluent in spoken English, but may fail to develop the English needed in academic contexts because acquiring those reading and writing skills can take more than five years.

The evaluators of the 2006 CAHSEE found that “recently enrolled students performed less well.” Students in the 10th grade, who had enrolled since 2000, “had significantly lower ELA passing rates (below 40 percent) compared to students who had been enrolled for longer periods.” This percentage decreased to 30 and 15 for students who enrolled in 2004 and 2006, respectively. Interestingly, these same students had less difficulty with the math test; between 40 percent and 50 percent of them passed it. Clearly, recent arrivals are capable students, but many run out of time before they can learn enough English to pass the exam upon which their diploma hinges, despite having passed all other state and course requirements.

The issues are complex and are, unfortunately, not amenable to simple solutions. The journalist who asked the governor's opinion about the CAHSEE results was posing a serious question about a major problem confronting immigrant adolescents that turning off their parents' telenovelas will not solve. Because these students are generally fluent in English, they are already watching English-language TV.

Although watching TV may help in acquiring some aspects of spoken language (e.g., vocabulary and pronunciation), programs such as “American Idol” (or even “Terminator” movies) will be of little help in developing the literacy skills needed to pass the ELA portion of the CAHSEE. In fact, wouldn't it be better for all students to turn off the TV altogether? The governor's suggestion is an unhelpful and flip response to a difficult pedagogical situation.

Rarely do politicians think to consult language researchers when dealing with linguistic problems. The governor seems to think that his recollection of his own experience with learning English is enough evidence to know how to deal with complex issues of second-language acquisition and literacy among poor immigrants under very different circumstances. However, we still harbor hope that research and facts might occasionally trump a facile appeal to personal anecdotes, so often invoked in political discourse.

Moore is a professor and chair of the Department of Linguistics, and Celia Zentella is a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies, both at the University of California San Diego.

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070628/news_lz1e28moore.html

Overcoming Language Anxiety

This covers a very salient issue in our increasingly multicultural, multilingual world—language anxiety. Kudos to UT Professor Elaine Horwitz, whose research is featured.

-Angela


June 29, 2007
Overcoming Language Anxiety

The symptoms are familiar: a lack of confidence, a reluctance to speak, even insomnia in some cases. What appears to be a kind of anxiety attack or extreme phobia could become debilitating for a student’s well-being, let alone participation grade.

But this particular ailment isn’t listed in the DSM-IV.

What sounds like a case of chronic stage fright could be occurring on college campuses every day, according to a growing but contested body of research about foreign language classes.

It’s called “language anxiety.” The reasons people disagree about it are clear: students might not be aware of their problem, for example, and the number of factors that affect learning could cloud researchers’ analyses. And who hasn’t felt a little nervous learning a foreign tongue?

But scholars like Elaine Horwitz, a professor of foreign language education at the University of Texas at Austin, believe there’s a definite connection between what they’ve identified as language anxiety and performance in the classroom. Originally, when Horwitz began doing research in the virtually nonexistent field in 1986, she focused on extreme cases. But she found that the problems students described were more widespread, if milder.

“I did identify a small number of people who were just amazingly freaked out — how academic is that? — by their language class. But the real surprising thing was that I started finding that there was a reasonably large minority, and the number, about a third, keeps coming up,” Horwitz said.

When she started teaching at the University of Texas, Horwitz gained a reputation for being receptive to students with problems in language classes — especially those in the midst of the required four semesters of foreign language instruction for undergraduates. At that time, in the early 1980s, there was some interest in anxiety among students learning math and science. So it was startling when she began to meet students having the same problems with their Spanish or French classes.

“They were sleepless, they were unable to do anything else in their life but pay attention to this class. They were studying absolutely full-time and they were getting C’s,” she said.

That doesn’t mean the phenomenon is new, of course. But Horwitz speculates that in the ’80s, with an increased push for a focus on spoken language skills, as opposed to reading and writing, the problem may have become more acute.

Dolly Jesusita Young, a researcher at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville who studied under Horwitz in Austin, said she is also noticing a growing problem. “We see students who have gone to the learning disabilities center, or whatever the university calls that department or that unit. Students increasingly may have problems and they will be tested for some type of disability. That is more common, so we’re finding that there are more students than in the past with learning disabilities.”

And the issue, more likely than not, tends to manifest itself among students who are taking language as a graduation requirement, because those who major in foreign languages or take the classes as electives more likely have a natural interest or inclination toward language acquisition.

“This tends to be more of a problem at colleges and universities with a blanket language requirement,” said Michael E. Geisler, dean of language schools and schools abroad at Middlebury College, in an e-mail. “Where this is the case (and needless to say I think a blanket language requirement is generally a good idea!), some provisions are usually made for a few students whose fear of foreign languages reaches such a level of intensity that some special accommodation needs to be made for them. ...”

The Americans

Everyone’s heard the stereotype that Americans can’t learn foreign languages. To be sure, American students begin learning them later than their peers in Europe and Asia. But Horwitz has pointed out that language anxiety, as she has measured it, doesn’t confine itself to the United States.

While about a third of American students exhibit some form of the anxiety, she said, the European percentage is lower — 28 to 30 percent — which might justify a bit of that Old World snobbery. But in Asia, she said, there are actually more students with the problem, in the neighborhood of 40 to 43 percent.

Horwitz, who recently returned from a trip to Hong Kong where she was engaging with the issue of its native Cantonese speakers’ anxiety when learning Mandarin, said she sees a cultural component to the problem.

In America, meanwhile, learning difficult languages (like Chinese) calls into question one’s own perceptions about his or her language abilities — and how hard it is to acquire a second tongue. Cornelius C. Kubler, the Stanfield Professor of Asian Studies at Williams College and a member of the Modern Language Association’s Association of Departments of Foreign Languages executive committee, said part of the problem is a self-fulfilling prophecy that can transform students’ perceptions into reality.

“I don’t want to overgeneralize, [but] a lot of people literally believe that Americans can’t learn languages,” Kubler said, a belief that he said could lead to “a lack of confidence that they cannot learn this language.”

At the same time, Horwitz said, students are led to believe that it’s easier to learn a new language than it actually is — which can make the difficulties of the process that much harder to cope with. In one study, she found that 40 percent of undergraduates in French, Spanish and German classes at the University of Texas thought they could become fluent with an hour of study a day for two years or less.

“And I kind of understand that,” she said. “Why else would we have a two-year language requirement if you didn’t become fluent in two years?”

The Research, and Its Reach

The basic finding Horwitz cites to back her claims about language anxiety is a series of studies she conducted with colleagues — appearing in journals such as TESOL Quarterly, published by Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, and The Modern Language Journal — establishing a negative correlation between anxiety and achievement in language classes. The higher students’ ratings of anxiety (as indicated by a self-reported, standardized scale), the lower their test scores or final grades tended to be. The results, she said, suggested that about 25 percent of the variance in students’ achievement in foreign language classes could be accounted for by their level of language anxiety.

Of course, everyone can experience anxiety, but Horwitz said she believes there is a “range” of responses to a language learning environment. “I think that there’s some amount of inherent anxiety in language learning, because A, it’s just difficult, time-consuming and complicated, and B, I think that for some people it’s a threat to our self-concept. We can’t be ourselves when we speak the language. We have to be limited just to whatever it is that we can say.

“I use an analogy of when you have a bad haircut, you walk around going … ‘My hair will grow out, and I’ll be myself again.’”

And anxiety isn’t confined to low-performing students, either. “We see anxiety in highly advanced students, highly successful students who we’d presume to have high levels of aptitude as well,” Horwitz said, implying that the problem doesn’t necessarily manifest itself only in students who aren’t as good at languages or simply aren’t studying enough.

Several language experts contacted for this article had never heard of language anxiety as a research topic, while others had but weren’t familiar with the studies. “I have never run into this as a topic,” said Thomas E. Blair, chairman of the foreign language department at the City College of San Francisco and a member of the ADFL’s executive committee, in an e-mail. “I oversee a department with 250 language courses in 10 languages. I can’t say I’ve had it brought up by a faculty member.”

“It’s kind of a slow and steady wins the race kind of field. It’s not the hottest topic in second language acquisition going on now,” Horwitz conceded. “I would say that in some cases, there’s maybe more interest in some other countries than here.”

Still, the research has generated at least enough interest to attract critics. Richard Sparks, a professor of education at the College of Mount St. Joseph, has been one of the most prominent in questioning — in The Modern Language Journal and elsewhere — whether language anxiety is a separate phenomenon at all.

“There is little or no empirical evidence that there is an anxiety unique to foreign language learning,” he said in an e-mail. “Thus, we do not know whether it might be an impediment to learning.”

According to Sparks, the best way to predict how well a student will learn a new language is that student’s ability in his or her native language, a factor that he said is left out of many studies focusing on anxiety.

Still, Horwitz has doubts about some of the criticisms. For one, she said, there are language instructors exhibiting the same kind of anxiety.

“I can have a little bit of anxiety myself when I speak in front of an audience, so I think there was some personal interest,” said Young, who tends to take more of a synthesis approach to the issue. She said that the root of the problem could be a combination of lowered proficiency in students’ native languages — a la Sparks — and a perceived difficulty with languages, even if it isn’t true.

“This is a psychological phenomenon that is way too complex to say, ‘it’s only this,’” Young said.

Of course, getting over the self-esteem issues implied by perceived doubts requires more practice and participation, but that’s exactly what language anxiety blocks students from doing. “What it affects is their willingness to participate in class, which may ultimately affect their performance,” she added.

So how do language instructors get through to students who are anxious in their classes? Horwitz, Young and others have offered some suggestions, although Horwitz said none of them have been systemically tested yet.

Some of them — like not insulting your students — are blindingly obvious, yet perhaps still necessary. “Some language anxiety is a result of what teachers do. I’ve had people in my office who’ve had language teachers make fun of them in class. They weren’t anxious to begin with, but they developed this anxiety.”

On the other hand, there are some other practical guidelines, which mostly involve instilling more confidence in students. Kubler said that non-native-speaking role models can be an important part of building students’ self-esteem.

“Sometimes, for these super-hard languages that involve truly foreign cultures, most of the time you want most of the instructors to be native speakers. However, it can occasionally be useful to have a non-native … to come into your class, your students, and serve as a role model of what a non-Chinese person, in this case, can achieve, can prove to students what can be done,” he said. “Years ago, as a student … I found that kind of role model occasionally to be inspiring.”

At the end of the day, anxiety can be marshaled into a positive force. And if that’s done, students’ uncertainty can become a catalyst to learn even more. “My experience in the classroom has been that discomfort, in the most general sense, is a necessary aspect of language learning, both in the classroom and out,” said Downing A. Thomas, the chairman of the Department of French and Italian at the University of Iowa. “It is even to be encouraged, both in terms of coming into contact with that which is perceived as foreign or strange and in terms of getting up the nerve to speak when one has an accent or cannot follow strict textbook grammar when speaking. This is when real learning can take place.

“The trick is to convince the students that discomfort is a good thing.”

— Andy Guess

The original story and user comments can be viewed online at http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/29/language.

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