Collaborating effectively to enhance literacy Workshop Session for Bilingual Schools Network Friday, 12th August, 2011

Transcription

1 Collaborating effectively to enhance literacy Workshop Session for Bilingual Schools Network Friday, 12th August, 2011 Paul Molyneux Melbourne Graduate School of Education University of Melbourne

2 Session Overview Consideration of what is means to be literate in today s world and what we might be working towards for our bilingual, biliterate students. Case studies of students achieving biliteracy. Consideration of the teaching arrangements that support these excellent outcomes. Re-iteration of the benefits of being bilingual and biliterate.

3 Literacy Today The Literacy strand aims to develop students ability to interpret and create texts with appropriateness, accuracy, confidence, fluency and efficacy for learning in and out of school, and for participating in Australian life more generally. Texts chosen include media texts, everyday texts and workplace texts from increasingly complex and unfamiliar settings, ranging from the everyday language of personal experience to more abstract, specialised and technical language, including the language of schooling and academic study. Students learn to adapt language to meet the demands of more general or more specialised purposes, audiences and contexts. They learn about the different ways in which knowledge and opinion are represented and developed in texts, and about how more or less abstraction and complexity can be shown through language and through multimodal representations. This means that print and digital contexts are included, and that listening, viewing, reading, speaking, writing and creating are all developed systematically and concurrently. (ACARA, 2011: The Australian Curriculum: English; Version 1.2, p. 6.)

4 Languages and Literacy Today Learning languages develops overall literacy. It is in this sense value added, strengthening literacy-related capabilities that are transferable across languages (for example, the language being learnt and the learner s first language), across domains of use (for example, the academic domain and the domains of home language use), and across learning areas. Literacy development involves conscious attention and focused learning. It involves skills and knowledge which need guidance, time and support to develop. These skills include the ability to decode and encode from sound to written systems; the mastering of grammatical, orthographic and textual conventions, and the development of semantic, pragmatic and critical literacy skills. (ACARA, 2011: Draft Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Languages, p. 17.)

5 Biliteracy Today What kinds of literacy/literacies do we hope students will emerge from our programs demonstrating in their in-school and out-of-school lives? In prep, children sign their name in either/both language can select which one based on context. Similarly can choose to sing in either language. interchange of languages Confident that they are able to make connections from classroom to lived experience To participate in in country school trip Begin to be able to communicate with family members Develops their understanding that there is more than one way of doing/ saying/thinking Make connections with other similar languages Students raised awareness of Non-verbal cues Understanding Speaking/ Reading Writing Attitudinal and acceptance of alternative perspectives Valuing of diversity and not being afraid of difference Higher level thinking skills

6 Literacy Biliteracy Multiliteracies Dealing with linguistic differences and cultural differences has now become central to the pragmatics of our working, civic and private lives. Effective citizenship and productive work now require that we interact effectively across multiple languages, multiple Englishes, and communication patterns that more frequently cross cultural, community and national boundaries. (New London Group, 1996: 5) We were interested in the growing significance of two multi dimensions of literacies in the plural the multilingual and the multimodal. Multilingualism was an increasingly significant phenomenon that required a more adequate educational response in the case of minority languages and the context of globalization. (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009: 166)

7 Multiliteracies and Multilingualism Within a pedagogy of Multiliteracies, languages other than English, foreign languages, individual and societal bilingualism, and, more broadly, global language diversity justify their space. A Multiliteracies pedagogy cannot but be multilingual. (Lo Bianco, 2000: 105).

8 A Curriculum Framework for New Literacy Environments (Zammit & Downes, 2002)

9 Implications for practice Support students to read, view, create, use, comprehend and critique texts in different forms: paper-based; live; digital/electronic.

10 Implications for practice Understand the linguistic and cultural resources students bring to their learning. Sociolinguistic profiles. Learner Language: try to understand the challenges that students face: explicit teaching for transfer.

11 Learner Language Prepositions cause confusion for many native speakers of Turkish: at/ in/on; than/from; with/by; to/for, etc. Students often leave out the preposition altogether: Until the bank (meaning as far as the bank) I am living near my brother (meaning with) He went Melbourne Central. (see Swan & Smith, 1987; 2001, eds)

12 Teaching for transfer Explicit teaching around areas of need: Last Monday, our class went a visit the Melbourne Zoo. the time we arrived there, everyone was very excited. we walked the giraffes enclosure, we could see their necks stretching the sky! There was a mother giraffe standing her little baby. An adult male rubbed his long neck the wooden poles at the edge of their enclosure.

13 Maximise rich input and rich engagement with texts that can inform students writing across languages. Implications for practice

14 Support students to draw on their funds of linguistic and cultural knowledge to create meaningful texts reflecting their interests and identities. Implications for practice: Identity texts (Cummins, 2006)

15 Implications for practice: Collaborative planning Professional learning teams could plan and decide: literacy and learning expectations across classrooms; areas to focus on in one/both classrooms; teaching approaches and organisational arrangements that can be consistent across classrooms (and those that might need to be different); How to teach for transfer : supporting students meta-linguistic awareness across languages.

16 Supporting multilingualism as a component of being multiliterate can result in significant advantages for children s cognitive development, language awareness and language use. does not detract from the acquisition and mastery of English, in fact can enhance and deepen it. can help maintain and develop children's home languages that are fragile and easily lost in the early years of school. can be positively contribute to children s development of multifaceted identities.

17 Language and Learning advantages Hundreds of studies have reported significant advantages for students undertaking their learning bilingually on a variety of metalinguistic and cognitive tasks (see Cummins, 2000). While NAPLAN 2010 data reveal slightly higher numbers of students from non-lbote backgrounds meeting the minimum standard, at the highest band measure across the four year levels, LBOTE students consistently outscore English background students.

18 YEAR AREA LBOTE students Non-LBOTE students Reading Year 3 Writing (Band 6+) Year 5 (Band 8+) Year 7 (Band 9+) Year 9 (Band 10) Spelling Grammar & Punctuation Reading Writing Spelling Grammar & Punctuation Reading Writing Spelling Grammar & Punctuation Reading Writing Spelling Grammar & Punctuation

19 Language and Learning advantages Well, it s like stretching my brain a bit. And that will help me learn some more languages after I have learned a bit more Vietnamese. (Year 2 boy) So when you learn English, and then in Chinese they ask you a question, then you can think back to when you went to English class, and that might give you ideas. (Year 4 girl)

20 Does their English suffer? A review of 17 research studies investigated instructional arrangements for English-language learners (Slavin & Cheung, 2003). When compared to English-only classroom settings, the students educated bilingually were shown to have made equal or greater advances in English reading achievement in all of the studies. Slavin and Cheung (2003) stress that these advances were most pronounced in classrooms where children were being taught to read in both their L1 and in English at different times of the school day.

21 Developing second language proficiency (Cummins, 2001) conversational proficiency (daily, interactional, contextualised language use, often oral): up to 2 years to acquire. academic language proficiency (more sophisticated registers of school/literary language, often read or written: between 5-7 years to acquire to level like that of native speaker). discrete language skills (understandings about English language phonology, decoding skills, spelling, punctuation, grammar).

22 School Assessment Data School A School B School C Mandarin and Vietnamese programs Mandarin program Vietnamese program English achievement consistent with students learning only in English (teacher judgements against VELS and reading benchmarks). Students performing at or above year level expectations for NAPLAN. Bilingually educated students meeting or exceeding year level expectations in English (against VELS) 72% Year Prep 86% Year 1 100% Years % Year 5 After three years of bilingual learning, English achievement against VELS at expected levels; students successfully reading Level 20 texts (in English and Vietnamese). Are achieving better than expected NAPLAN results.

23 Vulnerability of languages Children s mother tongues, particularly when these languages are minority languages in a society are highly vulnerable and even in the most supportive of socio-political environments, easy prey for language loss, fossilisation and shift.

24 Perceptions of Language Proficiency Students rated their abilities in their languages of instruction on a four point scale, choosing a statement that was true for them.

25 Perceptions of Language Proficiency Students rated their abilities in their languages of instruction on a four point scale, choosing a statement that was true for them.

26 Vulnerability of languages In my opinion, as we attend the school, we will improve a little bit each year, they might not be able to speak Karen in the long run. (Karen parent, Preschool B) Like my child when she is watching TV, or sees animal on TV she does not know the animal s name in Karen but she knows it in English only, for example she knows only elephant. (Karen parent, Preschool A)

27 Identity enhancement fundamental to the academic success of culturally diverse students. When students developing sense of self is affirmed and extended through their interactions with teachers, they are more likely to apply themselves to academic effort and participate actively in instruction. (Cummins, 2001: 2)

28 Identity enhancement You need to know English. And if you re Vietnamese, you have to know your own language. So when anyone asks you something or talks to you, you know how to answer. (Year 4 girl). Learning both is good because I am (sic) a Chinese citizenship and an Australian citizenship. (Year 3 Chinese-born girl). When I go to Vietnam I can talk to my grandparents I need to learn Vietnamese so I can understand them. English is very important because I was born in Australia. I need to learn English so I can do things when I m older. (Year 3 boy).

29 Identity enhancement The children should know both languages. Some day if we could go back to our free country, they should know fluently both languages. Some Karen who settled here don t know Karen anymore. They should know their native language as well. That will be helpful. Some people they are Karen when they go back to their home they don t speak Karen anymore. (Karen parent, Preschool A)

30 References Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009). "Multiliteracies": New literacies, new learning. Pedagogies, 4(3), Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (2001). Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: California Association for Bilingual Education. Cummins, J. (2006). Identity texts: The imaginative construction of self through Multiliteracies pedagogy. In O. Garcia, T. Skutnabb-Kangas & M. E. Torres-Guzman (Eds.), Imagining multilingual schools: Languages in education and glocalization (pp ). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Lo Bianco, J. (2000). Multiliteracies and multilingualism. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp ). South Yarra: Macmillan. New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), Slavin, R. E., & Cheung, A. (2003). Effective reading programs for English language learners: A bestevidence synthesis. Baltimore, MD: CRESPAR/Johns Hopkins University. Swan, M., & Smith, B. (Eds.). (2001). Learner English: A teacher's guide to interference and other problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zammit, K., & Downes, T. (2002). New learning environments and the multiliterate individual: A framework for educators. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 25(2),