1. Languages for Learning: A Pedagogy for EAL
Newcastle, UK
10th-11th November 2016
Lecture 2, day 1
Prof Nathalie Auger, Dr Leena Robertson, Rachel Lowery

2. HOME LANGUAGE USE for learning as a pedagogy : from theory to practice

3. A study of 11-year-olds in London who routinely used three languages in addition to English showed these children outperforming monolinguals from similar backgrounds, and, atypically, boys ahead of girls in their reading (Sneddon, 2000/2008)
Research by Jim Cummins in Canada showed that bilingual children perform better in school when the school effectively teaches the mother tongue and, where appropriate, develops literacy in that language. By contrast, when children are encouraged to reject their mother tongue, and its development stagnates, their personal and conceptual foundation for learning is undermined. (Cummins, , 2003)

4. Thomas and Collier’s large-scale study of different approaches to the education of children learning English as an additional language in the US proved conclusively the superiority of education using their own language as well as English over an English only approach in terms of overall academic achievement. (Thomas, and Collier, 2001)
A study of London secondary school students from Portuguese backgrounds found that those who had attended Portuguese classes were five times more likely to obtain five or more GCSEs at A*–C than those who had not been encouraged to develop their home language (Barradas, 2000/2003 )

5. Benefits of plurilingualism
(1) conceptual transfer
(2) translation and interpretation
(3) developing metalinguistic skills
(4) building cultural knowledge
(5) building learner identities
(Kenner and Mahera, 2012: 29)

6. About bilingualism Common European Framework (2001) :
“Plurilingual and pluricultural competence does not consist of the simple addition of monolingual competences but permits combinations and alternations of different kinds.”

7. Simultaneous and successive acquisition of languages (Kramer 2006: 40)
3 languages, L1 and L2
Before third year of age
L2 and L3 after the 10th year of life 7

8. The ‘Dual Iceberg’ Model of Bilingualism (Cummins, 1984)
In bilingual minds languages are inter-connected,
at a ‘deeper’ conceptual level.

9. Bilingualism is not only about being fluent in two or more languages
Each language
serves a different purpose (except in places where societal bilingualism exists at the level of everyday practice)
tends to be used with different people
tends to become a specific tool for specific ‘jobs’
has a different history and is positioned differently in the ‘linguistic market’
has different emotional ties

10. Home language use as a pedagogy
Bilingual pupils More than a transitional approach (as in “use it until you can cope without it”) – it is about language development and maintenance.
Monolingual pupils Finding out how languages work - metalinguistic skills and language awareness. Easier to learn further languages.
School as a safe space
where everyone can express different aspects of their identities.

11. ROM-tels pedagogical principles
Fits in with the requirements of the national curriculum of the place/context
Experiential, enquiry-based learning. Lessons are inclusive and meaningful for all – also to those new to schooling. Children more active.
Taking an advantage of one’s cognitive resources (i.e. we learn to read only once or languages).
Children will work at different linguistic levels and learn to use different forms of syntax, ways to write, words… because the enquiry calls for it. Lessons do not necessarily start from teaching a different syntactical form, but often it becomes an important teaching point.

12. One lesson – writing a newspaper report
Video example

13. Translanguaging in action
Changes power relationships in schools – multilingual children become more knowledgeable of their linguistic and cultural expertise and they can show more expertise than teacher
Synergy in teaching and learning through exchange with peers and teachers
Vygotskyan approach – children’s learning is extended with the help of scaffolding from others and the child scaffolds others

14. Video examples from France
Open the box!