Comments(0) Bilingualism and Language Education
Professor Ofelia Garcia from City University New York delivers the keynote speech ‘Reimagining bilingualism in education for the 21st century’ at NALDIC’s 17th Annual Conference on 14 November 2009 at the University of Reading.
category: Classroom, Language Pedagogy, Multilingualism
Comments(0) Chaired by Fiona Copland, the UKLEF SIG papers session took place during the BAAL 2011 conference. I presented a paper on children’s multilingual and multi-ethnic identity in a primary school context. The audience was warmly participative and it was great to hear their comments and suggestions. Hania Salter-Dvorak raised the question about the conversations teachers have regarding these bilingual children while Charlotte Franson stressed the importance and need of research that involves talking to these multilingual/bilingual/EAL children about their learning, identity, etc.
Abstract
Investigating Primary School Children’s Multilingual Identities: A Case Study
Author(s): Deivis D. Pothin
This paper investigates the negotiation and construction of ethnic and linguistic identities of four bilingual children in a primary school in England. By interviewing them, the teacher-researcher explores (1) how they define what ethnic and linguistic group(s) they belong to, (2) how they deal with inherited cultural heritage; and (3) how they use language to establish their ethnic identity. Reporting on the data collected in this one-form inner-city multicultural primary school in London, this qualitative pilot case-study takes into account the discursive practices of two boys and two girls aged 9 years old. The interview with the children took place after they watched a video of another boy who talked about how he felt being half-English and half-Polish. This was used as a hook to engage the children in the conversation.
In this talk, we examine some extracts of this teacher-initiated conversation and reflect on some of the discursive practices of these children from a social and ethnographic approach to the study of multilingualism. Drawing on Blackledge & Creese’s (2010) views on researching multilingualism as well as Edward’s (2009) views on language and identity, this paper is approached by taking into account the fact that although languages are social constructs, they are, at the same time, dimensions of one’s sense of self.
category: Classroom, Multilingualism
Comments(0) Today the Department for Education (DfE) published the latest statistics (November 2010) on the school workforce in England, giving a clear picture of who the teachers are in the country.
Here are some interesting facts I noticed:
* There are just over 200 thousand teachers employed in nurseries and primary schools.
* The number of unqualified teachers dropped from 6.4 thousand in Nov. 2005 to 4.1 thousand in Nov. 2010. Considering that most of these unqualified teachers are overseas trained teachers (like me in 2005), it shows the effects of the government’s decision to take primary school teachers off the list of shortage occupations and to tighten the work permit visas.
* Men are still a minority in primary school classrooms: 11% of the classroom teachers in primary school are men and 64% of them are under 40 years old. Overall, 60% of the classroom teachers (both men and women) are under 40 years old.
* Teachers from ethnic minorities tend to have lower level qualification and many are employed as unqualified teachers. 92% of the classroom teachers in publicly funded primary schools are white British/Irish. The remaining 8% consists of mixed background, black, Asian and other ethnic minority groups. It would be interesting to find out the number of ethnic minority teachers in multicultural and multilingual cities, e.g. London and Manchester. Would the teachers’ background in these areas reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of the students?
* Primary school teachers tend to be highly educated: 67% of those who provided their level of education had one of these qualifications – Doctorates and other Level 8 qualifications, Masters and other Level 7 qualifications (e.g. Post Graduate certificates and diplomas), and first degrees (excluding BEds) and other level 6 qualifications (e.g. graduate certificates and diplomas). Again, considering that the vast majority of the teachers are white British/Irish, I wonder what qualifications the ethnic minority teachers hold or what percentage of them have a qualified teacher status.
category: Classroom
Comments(0) I was thinking about my pupils and the linguistic diversity in my classroom this year. At the moment I have 25 pupils in my class. About half of them speak Arabic as fluently as English. Others come from mixed ethnic backgrounds: Britain, The Caribbean, Thailand, Holland, etc. One of my pupils was born in Amsterdam, grew up speaking Dutch, Arabic, English and understands a bit of German. Other two boys started last week and are at the early stages of second language learning acquisition, still developing their basic interpersonal communication skills in English. And we are just talking purely about language, not to mention the interactional, social, cultural, identity and religious aspects that come with the language. Now you can have an idea of what it is like to teach in a multilingual classroom – not an easy task, but certainly a fascinating one.
I was looking at the website of the Centre of Multilingualism in Education from London Metropolitan University and found Jim Cummins‘s PowerPoint presentation about Multilingualism and Equity and here’s my favourite slide:
PS. For the complete PPT presentation, click here.
category: Classroom, Multilingualism
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