Multilingualism in language learning
/by Ben Goldstein
Language materials should broaden out from the target language, writes Ben Goldstein. In this post Ben discusses examples of multilingualism and translanguaging in Ready to Run videos.
Rarely a first language
Today, English’s status as an International Language is undisputed. The latest figures from the Ethnologue site state that 1.08 billion people now speak English as a second language, alongside 373 million native speakers. It is hard to establish how many conversations in English now take place exclusively between native speakers, but some estimates put this as low as 4%.
These statistics have to be taken with a large pinch of salt but it clearly makes no sense to expose our students to unrepresentative contexts and conversations in which only native speakers participate. That has, in fact, long been the case. Luckily, things have changed a great deal in our language materials and non-native speakers appear frequently. In some cases, they are as prominent now as those who speak as English as their first language. More recently, speakers who lack proficiency in English are also starting to appear in language materials. For example, you may now find B1 level materials which include speakers of a similar level. As such, they represent sympathetic and diverse role models for B1 level students, rather than the inaccessible native speaker model.
Translanguaging and Code-Switching
All of these changes are welcome and, of course, represent what is an increasingly plurilingual world. I live in Barcelona, a hub for European tourism and a multi-lingual city if ever there was one. Every day, I see and hear people using different plurilingual resources such as mediation to communicate with each other. They translate, summarise, simplify or paraphrase in order to get their message across.
However, although much has changed, these kinds of multi-lingual contexts are still not commonly found in English language materials. For example, though commonly heard on the streets, it is not usual in our materials to hear or watch people change from one language to another ( “code-switching”) or use all their linguistic resources available to communicate (“translanguaging”). Languages are still kept quite separate in that respect.
The Ready to Run video collection does however include examples of code-switching and even translanguaging. For instance, in the B1 video “Dream Academy”, we see and hear two different languages side by side. The video tells the story of William Kamkwambe who, after being forced to drop out of school, taught himself how to build a windmill that ended up saving his village in Malawi from hunger.
Seeing him in these domestic settings, we get the opportunity to see the role of different languages in his life. English is Malawi’s official language but is more often spoken as a second language. Chichewa, the country’s national language is the first language for 70% of the population and is the most widely spoken. It is appropriate then that the video “Dream Academy” begins with William thinking in his two languages. Right at the start, he is asked “Is there a word for stress in Chichewa?” Interestingly, it is a question he takes a long time to reflect on and you can almost see him mentally translating from one language to another. It’s a fascinating moment and one that I think so many of us can relate to these days.
Although English is the main language spoken in the clip, there are other moments in the video when we see and hear William using Chichewa alongside English. Importantly, his English and those of his colleagues is very much their own and not an attempt to imitate a native-like model. Indeed, some of their conversations may not be 100% intelligible in an international context but the speakers clearly get their message across to one another. There is no communication breakdown between them.
For example, in one English exchange which includes interjections in Chichewa, a fellow student says to William when talking about the future:
“I don’t think I’ll be dropping soccer, I can continue playing soccer in some colleges”
That English sentence in context is by no means standard neither in pronunciation or grammatical accuracy but the message is intelligible. As such, the speaker represents a good role model and a realistic example of how English is spoken in today’s plurilingual world.
Code-switching and multilingualism - naturally
Another Ready to Run video in which code-switching can be heard and seen is “The Big Swim”. This resource tells the story of six swimmers who take on the challenge of swimming 180km across the Mediterranean from Cyprus to Lebanon in an attempt to raise awareness about the impact of single-use plastic in the sea. In the video, we see two of the Lebanese swimmers – Soumaya Merhi and Martin Mugharbil – switching from both Arabic to English. In the case of Mugharbil, he does this within the same sentence. Interestingly, Cyprus is a country with very high proficiency in English (80% of the population speak it) and many speakers code switch from Cypriot Greek or Cypriot Turkish to English.
So far, we have considered settings where English has some kind of institutional role or status – Malawi and Cyprus. However, the use of different languages can be seen in contexts much further from Anglophone connections. “Cricket in the Andes”, a video made for young learners, tells the surprising story of Sebas, a young boy who lives in Ollanataytampo, a small town in the Peruvian Andes. The narrator explains that Sebas and his family are bilingual, they speak Spanish but also Quechua. We also see Sebas in his English class and then using English with his team mates while playing cricket. He uses expressions such as “Ready, Steady, Go!” as he plays and “Cheers” afterwards when they have a drink.
English embedded in other languages
A video with code-switching in a central role is “Ruma’s School” which is set in Bangladesh, and also designed for young learners. Like “Cricket in the Andes”, the focus here is on a particular student, Ruma. We are first introduced to her singing in Bengali. Then, during the English class she attends, we see the teacher speaking in Bengali at the same time as he drills certain words in English like “laptop” and “internet”. An example of code-switching at the end of the clip comes when three different students tell us what job they would like to have when they grow up, the words “doctor”, “teacher” and “pilot” are embedded within sentences in Bengali.
Language mixing helps English learning
Rather than seeing people’s different languages as separate entities, all these videos show the reality of plurilingual contexts in which English has a similar role to that of other languages. In the past, this would have been seen as unusual in language teaching materials as the feeling was students should only be exposed to English. Now, attitudes are starting to change. Happily, there is a growing acceptance of the role that other languages can bring to the learning of English. For learners, seeing plurilingualism in their learning materials helps them to see that their own cultures and languages not only can be included but also have intrinsic value for others.