Kate Harris

Welcome to the EAL/D conversations podcast. My name is Kate Harris, and I am the EAL/D Education Advisor K to 6 with the New South Wales Department of Education. Today I'm joined by Dr Marie Quinn, and she is a lecturer in TESOL and applied linguistics at the University of Technology Sydney. Marie has taught and researched in countries that are multilingual and developed literacy programmes where multiple languages are used. So welcome, Marie.

Dr Marie Quinn

Thanks, Kate.

Kate Harris

Today we're going to be looking at utilising languages other than English in the classroom for learning. So I thought we'd start off by thinking about, well, what do we mean when we talk about using languages other than English in the classroom?

Dr Marie Quinn

I guess to start with, we want to think about language as a resource. So it's language is something we use to get to learning. And, yes, one of those things we're learning in New South Wales classrooms is English. But just like I used my English resource to help me learn foreign languages like French or Japanese, we want to think about how we might use all the language resources, um, that students have so they're their languages they use at home or in their community, which might not be English. How we use those language resources so students can learn maths, science, sport. And also they can learn English by using their first languages as well. So we do know that English is a vital part of the curriculum, and it is our way of accessing a lot of education and other parts of the Australian public life. But we want to make sure we get there the best way. And sometimes that's not always through using English only, but by using all of the language resources that students have.

Kate Harris

So when we're thinking about using languages to learn, there's lots of different terminology that is often mentioned. But what is it actually called when we do use other languages to learn?

Dr Marie Quinn

Well, I guess I think the first thing to remember is that for most people in the world using more than one language to do anything, it's called normal. Because most people in the world are multilingual, meaning they have two or more languages that they use to live their lives and to live them very successfully. So they're learning things in their lives, they're getting by in their lives using more than one language. In fact, the monolingual only having one language. And in Australia, sometimes only having English using that one language is really unusual when we're talking globally. So many teachers might be monolingual, and so we don't always have an understanding of how successful using many languages can be, or at least using another language. So in a classroom setting or even in ordinary life, this moving between languages is sometimes called code switching. So we think of our language as a code like a secret secret code and the language as a code and the ability to switch between codes gives multiple ways of understanding and representing a message, so I don't need to stick with one language, I might switch between my codes. You might hear them every day in Australian society, people moving code switching between languages. The term that we use more widely now, it's been around since the 1990s, but it's certainly having a moment now in education, and that word is translanguaging, which, if we think about the word, is moving between - trans - moving between languages, translanguaging. It captures the idea that meaning and learning for us as teachers is negotiated through languages.

So in the case of a classroom in New South Wales, our goal is to arrive at a way of understanding and representing ideas, learning in English. But translanguaging would be the way that we get there through languages. So if we only use English if we don't do translanguaging, only use English and ask our students to only use English we might get lovely pronunciation of English words, and it sounds like Children are speaking English. But they might be missing the really important bit, knowing what that English means so we can use translanguaging to check in and to make sure students are understanding what they're saying and writing in English.

Kate Harris

So if we delve a little bit more into things like code switching and translanguaging, where did this come from? And what is the research behind this or some of the key principles?

Dr Marie Quinn

So there's been a lot of research around code switching and translanguaging, which initially has come from outside of Australia. But recently we've had a lot more researchers working in this field, which really reflects the nature of our multilingual classrooms and, in fact, our society. So if we look at what has been happening in other countries, we see situations where in countries such as Wales or Ireland, where parents felt that their, their children were losing their cultural roots by not speaking the local languages in schools and even in communities, or that their first language is of that country should have a bigger place in children's learning. Um, school started to look at how they might revitalise things like Gaelic and Welsh and use these with English in the classroom and in fact, learn in those first languages, or those maybe not even languages the Children had at home but were from that country. So this is a similar to how some Indigenous communities in Australia might want to see Aboriginal languages used in schools alongside English. And then we have a lot of research that comes out of countries where there's an official language such as English or French or Portuguese, um, and that's used in schools. But no one speaks it in the country. No one speaks it in their communities. So there's lots of African countries where research has been ah been undertaken to look at what's the impact of children coming to school when they don't speak the language that they are expected to learn at school. Now often the teachers also have the same language as the children.

So a lot of the research by um, an Australian researcher, actually, or Australian based researcher Kathleen Heugh looked at that the longer that students had to learn their first language in school, for example, if they got to speak their first languages for all of primary school, they actually got better results in high school in English. So that being able to learn really well in first language has really helped them them to learn this language that they needed for university or other official sorts of uses. So and then there's really famous and longstanding research by Collier and Thomas in the United States, looking at places where Spanish speaking children learnt for longer in Spanish before introducing English and again it showed that where children were allowed to do their initial learning and most of primary school in Spanish before introducing English as a formal language. They ended up being better English in the end. Rather than those who were told right from the beginning, you only use English in this classroom, they did worse by the end of school. So that initial learning using first language is so important. Now, of course, in Australian schools we start from English from the get go, Um, and we we really we think of our job is teaching English. But as you sort of keep these principles in mind so that we can capitalise on what we know about students using their first languages to really learn, so learning in their known language before they start putting another language English on top, for example. So having students working in their available languages won't kill English. English is way too tough for that. So people sometimes think if I don't use English from the start, English won't end up being being part of their repertoire. Trust me, it will. Allowing students, letting students, encouraging students to incorporate their known languages in the classroom may in fact help English and, of course, the other subjects that we teach in class. So we still want to teach English for whatever subject we're teaching. But that's the end product. It's not necessarily the whole process. The other languages might be used in that process. So some of the researchers in Australia we're looking at this area our Kathleen Heugh and May French in South Australia. We've also Sue Ollerhead at Macquarie University, and it's worth having a look at their work if you are interested in this area.

Kate Harris

You just mentioned some of the benefits of utilising students preferred languages within the classroom, and you mentioned some of the researchers to have a look at as well. But for teachers who want to utilise translanguaging pedagogy in their classroom, what would be some of the strategies that they could use to be able to help support this and to help their students learn?

Dr Marie Quinn

Well, you know, one of the first main strategies I would really suggest to teachers with students using other languages in the classroom is firstly, and this is hard, is not to worry about not understanding every word a student says. So teachers are great at being in control, watching everything and knowing what's going on or so we think. You know, there's always a kid down the back of the classroom, whispering possibly about you, and they're doing it in English. There's things that students will be saying using words and phrases that you don't know because you're a different generation and different generations speak another language. So there's always this idea that we don't always know what kids are talking about. And yet, when it comes to another language, monolingual Australians tend to panic. Suddenly, they don't know what the languages and they say 'oh we this can't be happening'. So my first strategy is trust the kids. If they're in your room and you have great stuff to do, and it's interesting, you know they'll want to join in. They want to join in whatever language they've got, so trust that they are, they're doing what you asked them to do. They probably are. More chances are they are doing exactly what you're asking them to do, just using a different language. So the next important idea that's come out of research is the difference between using translanguaging because it's quicker and easier and using it purposefully, so pedagogically. Which is what I want to talk about in terms of strategies. So our purpose is to say, learn mathematics and the way to read and represent mathematics in English or science or music or literature or English grammar. In this case, we're probably presenting what we're doing in English. So far, so good, and that presents the whole text in the target language. But the next step depends on whether you have the same language as the students or not. So let's start with the situation where you might have the same language as your students. So you're a Vietnamese speaking teacher, and your students are all or many of them are Vietnamese speakers, or some of them are Vietnamese speakers, or pick a language that you would like to use. You know, it's always good to start with good teaching principles. If a student is using English that and they don't understand, we might break it down to everyday versions of English. So then what we might do in terms of using another language is we're going to break it down using that language Vietnamese or Greek or Spanish. So we don't just simply translate everything that we just said into another language that would be just quicker and easier, just doing a straight translation. Instead, what we might do is give the students some of the key words the key noun groups or phrases or the verbs that we were just talking about. We give those in the other language, and then we might ask the students to tell us what they think is happening in the language that they that you share with the students. Then the teacher can see the gaps in understanding, fill those in first language and then help the students to put that back into English. The important thing here is to make sure the students understand the knowledge using first language and then renegotiate it back into English. And you might need to give some of the words many of the words the students might already know a lot of it. So it's really this idea of helping the students to make to check or you're checking their understanding and first language and then renegotiating it back into English.

Of course, we can also use the same strategies we would use with an English speaking groups of students. Sometimes when we bring a new text to students, we pre-teach the vocabulary, and we tell them what's going to happen in the text before they read it. If we're using a language, a different language other than English, we might let the students know in Vietnamese, Arabic or whatever, some of the key phrases and what's going on in the text, not translating it just tell them what they're in for, and then they're set up to know what's going on, and then they can try they can access it in English with some support. So we want to use it purposefully, not just a straight translation, for example. So this is all great if you're a teacher who shares a language with your students and what a great asset that would be. But I'm sure some of you are sitting there thinking, yeah, I don't speak anything but English. That's what can I do. So I'm going to say that you really have to work with trust and permission. So you need to let the students know that you trust them to get to English and let them use other languages purposefully. Now a lot of it is around permission, you know, teachers giving students permission, schools giving teachers permission to do this sort of work. So again, if you're in a situation where you have multiple speakers of a language, let's say a group of kids who speak Arabic, the same Arabic language or, you know, you have a group of students who speak the same Chinese language you can encourage those students, let them know it’s okay to work towards English. So encourage them to to work in that language when they're sort of nutting out the ideas. And then, then it asked them to tell you what they think the answers are using English. And when they don't know a phrase or a word, get them to use their non-English word where they don't know the English. You'll probably be able to work out what they're saying, even if they put a word you don't understand in the sentence. You know your content, so you will and you know your English so you will know the sort of word they're trying to get to. So they have their English framework, and you're filling in the blanks like a close exercise almost, and then you can give them those words. And of course you want to extend. You might extend that to give them other ways to say it. So they can negotiate with you the English in a away. You can also encourage students to use the wealth of machine translation devices that we have now at our disposal. So you know the Google translate and things like that. They're not always perfect. Of course. Well, they will sometimes give a word that you think that that's not the right word, but that's that, at least you know what the students are trying to get to and you can then extend and expand those ideas and give them those words that are more appropriate. Show them the difference between what the translations giving and what you were looking for. But importantly, give the chance to do this work and you'll find that the quality of English actually improves because the students are now working with all their languages, that repertoire of resources they have. I do this myself at university, you know, I have my Mandarin speakers in a breakout room, and I pop in they're speaking in Mandarin and then I'll say, 'Can you tell me what you said in English?' and then I can do my concept checking that way and also help them to reform it into academic English.

But what if you have that lone language speaker that one child who doesn't speak the, or no one else has the language? You any other child has that language. What do you do then? Well, similar principles. I asked them, sometimes I ask students to say it in their first language. Even though I don't understand it, try saying it in your first language. It helps, it gives the students time to sort of work out what the knowledge is without panicking about trying to put it into another language. So I can't check it, but it helps the students to work out what they're trying to get to. Sometimes they could write it down. That might even help them as well. And sometimes the look of relief for students when they realise they can just try and say it in a language they understand. Then we work with the bits they know in English. So then we sort of do a patchwork of English and other words. And maybe again, using translation will help as well translation devices. So there's always a way we can, we can use what the students know and what we know and it also teaches the students that all languages can be used for learning, not just English. So that English is a resource, and it's one that we value in Australian society and schooling. But it's not the only language that we used to learn. I would just say keep in mind that for some children they may not have the academic language in their first language. So that's another sort of a bridge I guess we want to cross as well is that sometimes students are used to using everyday registers for their in their first language, and it's they don't have that academic language in their first language. Ideally, it would be great to build that for them as well as in English. So just keep that in mind. There's some really nice research by May French in the resources links to this podcast that will show you some of the teachers doing this work and how they maintain this policy of students working in their languages, using their language repertoire to get too good learning.

Kate Harris

You shared with us some really great strategies there Marie and I like how you talked about the importance of making students aware that their language repertoire is also able to be used for learning. And I think for students having the opportunity to figure out learning in home language alongside English and using code switching between both, will also make them feel more valued within the classroom as it will make it a safer space for them to be able to experiment with trial and error around language and trying to understand these concepts too. In terms of any final messages, is there anything you'd like to leave our listeners with today?

Dr Marie Quinn

Well Kate, I guess the message that I'm really conscious of is that I often find that schools, ah teachers, do you like to talk about multiculturalism and multilingualism, and we see some lovely displays of other languages. But we've got to be careful that we're not just paying lip service, if you'll pardon the pun, to multilingualism. That we want to use languages. Um, and being teachers were good at using any resources we can to help kids learn things were really good at repurposing recycling things for learning. Well, let's make language one of those aides to learning and really use it to help children learn.

Kate Harris

Thank you so much, Marie. You've given us lots to think about in terms of being able to utilise languages other than English in the classroom setting. So thank you so much for your time.

Dr Marie Quinn

It's my great pleasure. Thanks, Kate.

Kate Harris

And thanks everyone for listening to this episode of the EAL/D conversations podcast.

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