CHRISTINE HÉLOT EARLY START IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN EUROPE THE CHALLENGE OF MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD 1
INTRODUCTION Long history of research on bilingualism - Family context: in Ireland (thesis) - School context: in France (habilitation) In France : - Analysis of educational language policies - The conceptualisation of bilingual education - Teacher education for plurilingualism Critical approach to language education and language policies 2
THE CHALLENGES OF EARLY LANGUAGE EDUCATION Language - Which language? - Which model of language education? Early childhood teachers and teacher education - mainstream teacher vs specialised teacher - didactics of one FL vs language education Learners: monolingual or bi-plurilingual - their previous language experiences? 3
LANGUAGE The role of English across Europe? - Eurostat: Eu 27, English * Primary: 2002: 68,7% vs 2007 : 83,5% * Secondary : 2004: 82,5% vs 2009: 94,6% In some EU countries 100% of students learn English at primary (Czech Republic, The Netherlands) At policy level: the choice of language at primary influences language learning throughout education 4
POLICIES OF DIVERSIFICATION Do policies of diversification work? - example of France: 8 languages at primary (2002) - figures for 2010 (RERS) - English : 89,3% (76% 2001/02) Italian : 0,8% - German : 9,1% Portuguese : 0,1% - Arabic : 0,0% Mandarin :? - Spanish : 1,5% Russian :? Why is the policy not Dr Christine implemented Hélot, University of Strasbourg, more efficiently? 5
FIGURES FOR SECONDARY STUDENTS IN FRANCE (2010) English: 97,9% of students = 5 millions Higher figure than previous year German: less than 8% = 7,2% Spanish: 1,8% LV1 and 39,7% LV2 LV2 Spanish = 70,7%, German = 14,8 % Regional languages : 0,4% 7% of secondary students take an LV3 (99 000) http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid21645/les-elevesdu-second-degre.html 6
FLT OR PLURILINGUAL EDUCATION? Policy of diversification is not enough: «Diversifying the number of languages is a necessary but insufficient condition for acting on motivation to undertake plurilingual education» (Beacco and Byram, 2007 : 36) 7
MODELS OF LANGUAGE EDUCATION AT PRIMARY LEVEL Extensive : 2 to 3 hours per week Bilingual models: available to whom? - immersion (early): full, partial - dual language models: 50% - 50% - CLIL model: one or two subjects through L2 Plurilingual / intercultural models - language awareness: the only model that is inclusive of students home languages 8
MODELS OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION Bilingual education is conceptualised differently according to political and cultural history of different countries Bilingual models differ according to status of languages Ex France: partial immersion only possible in regional languages (in public schools) - in Alsace: German is the regional language - the aim of BE is to improve competence in German 9
THE GAP BETWEEN MAJORITY AND MINORITY BILINGUAL EDUCATION In most countries bilingual education is conceptualised differently for majority and minority language speakers Minority migrant learners are «emergent» bilinguals Schools should help to support maintenance of their L1s The importance of multilingual pedagogy 10
TEACHERS If mainstream teachers are responsible for L2 teaching - advantages: L2 learning can be integrated with other school subjects in transdisciplinary projects - challenge: most teachers feel they are not prepared well enough for L2 teaching If specialised L2 teachers: need didactics of L2 for young learners 11
TEACHER EDUCATION Language competence + some linguistic knowledge Didactic / pedagogical competence Intercultural competence International experience: two examples - Formation croisée: 3 to 4 weeks practicum in primary school in target language country - Intensive Erasmus seminars for teachers: 10 days seminars with a group of student- teachers from 6 EU countries exchanging on their experiences of FLT at primary level 12
FLT: DIDACTIC APPROACHES Problems of denomination and related status - foreign, regional, languages of origin / migrant languages - reflect political and ideological choices: power relationships Teaching is based on the notion of communicative competence and task based learning - objectives: levels to be achieved are defined by the CEFL Approach remains compartimentalised : it fails to exploit - cross-linguistic strategies - language background - metalinguistic awareness Linguistic dimension dominates over the cultural dimension 13
TO INTEGRATED APPROACH LANGUAGE EDUCATION «Plurilingual education means embracing the teaching of all languages in the same educational project and no longer placing the teaching of the national language, regional or minority languages and the languages of newly arrived communities in water tight compartments» (Beacco and Byram, 2007 : 37) 14
EUROPEAN LANGUAGE POLICIES Based on the notion of plurilingualism On the recognition of the diversity of speakers plurilingual repertoire - a repertoire of communicative resources used by speakers according to their needs A repertoire is dynamic, ever changing, not homogenous 15
LEARNERS Many learners in our schools today are in contact with several languages outside of school How do we take into account the plurilingual repertoires of these students? - Paradox: some bilingual children become monolingual again at school What do we do with all the languages present in the multilingual classroom? 16
BILINGUAL PEDAGOGY Reflecting on the aims of BE: - is it used to improve competence in the FL? - it is based on monolingual ideology? What about the link between language of schooling and L2? - What about the teaching of literacy? What about other languages present in the bilingual classroom? 17
MULTILINGUAL PEDAGOGY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION Aim: Giving young learners a first education about language and languages, about linguistic and cultural diversity How? Language awareness (Hawkins, 1984): a bridging subject Based on activities involving all languages irrespective of their status + metalinguistic work Works on pupils and teachers attitudes (rather than aptitudes) Only model which is inclusive: - helps to understand our multilingual multicultural world - helps tackle linguistic discrimination: includes citizenship education, respect for others, solidarity First introduction to multilingual literacies Christine Hélot, IUFM Alsace, Strasbourg, France 18 18
MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION Multilingual education: FOR ALL - the use of two or more languages as media of instruction in subjects other than the languages themselves - with high level of multilingualism as a goal - and multiliteracy as a goal at the end of formal schooling Bilingual education = two teaching languages is included in multilingual education 19
CONCLUSION Language education in early years should make sense for children We know children can learn to read and write in two languages at school «Bilingual education is the only way to educate children in the 21st century» (Garcia, 2009: 5) Social justice through multilingual education (Skutnabb-Kangas & al 2009): - MLE is as relevant for dominant language group children as it is for minority / indigenous Dr children Christine Hélot, University of Strasbourg, 20
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