The Positive Effects of Bilingualism and Biliteracy (If We Let Them Happen)

“If beginning L2 learners do not continue to develop both their languages, any initial positive effects are likely to be counteracted by the negative consequences of subtractive bilingualism. Thus, positive effects will not be sustained unless high levels of bilingual proficiency are attained” (p. 170)

Chapter 6 of Cummins’ book outlines different argument surrounding bilingual education, laying out both the opposing and supporting arguments. What interested me much more than the underlying theories Cummins presents, however, is his persuasive argument that bilingualism (or trilingualism!) has tremendous positive effects, but only if cultivated and actively sought. Throughout chapter 8 Cummins gives several inspiring examples of this bilingualism played out in schools from the preschool to secondary school level.

Cummins draws on data showing that cognitive and linguistic abilities are enhanced when a student is literate in two or more languages. He states that this result is because the bilingual child has more linguistic input than the monolingual child. The bilingual child has been exposed to more meaning making experiences than the monolingual child. In these cases, however, the students studied were fluent in both languages: they added a second language while continuing to develop their first language (p. 168). This is termed additive bilingualism.

What is scary is the inverse: subtractive bilingualism. When bilingual students lack support in their L1 and stop developing their fluency in that language, they learn their L2 only at a cost to their home language. I believe this is what immersion programs do, for the most part. The fact that the district I am in has primarily immersion programs reflects their beliefs about bilingual education and the benefits of knowing multiple languages fluently. School administrators, teachers, and parents all want the students to learn English as quickly as possible, and I truly believe (perhaps unlike Cummins) that these individuals have the best interest of the child at heart. However, while they learn English they very rarely continue to learn their L1 in an academic way. Many student enter school in transitional kindergarten or kindergarten with no formal education in their L1. Monolingual teachers can only teach English.

For schools, perhaps this means that a model that encourages bilingualism and biliteracy is ideal, such as a dual immersion school. In this model, students begin school learning the majority language in school, along with another language. Students might enroll in school with either language as their L1. Through this type of bilingual education, all students are benefiting from the linguistic benefits of formal education in two languages. Cummins writes that, “there is usually also a need for formal instruction in both languages to realize the benefits of cross-linguistic transfer” (p. 183). Dual immersion schools allow for this explicit teaching; students can reap the benefits of bilingualism. As Cummins would point out, these schools can also help students negotiate between languages and their supposed values in society.

Personally, I have many friends who were educated in multiple languages. They can understand words at a tremendously deep level. Their ability to communicate is much more broad than mine. This leaves me with no doubt that bilingualism is beneficial, personally as well as academically. It should never be looked at as a deficit.  

Cummins spends an entire chapter – chapter 8 – sketching images of schools that promote bilingualism and biliteracy. These schools fascinated me. They went beyond teaching language to teaching values and promotion of positive identities. For instance, the Oyster Bilingual School in Washington, D.C. states its goal as students becoming bilingual and bicultural. The language learning in this school represents something deeper: “diverse ways of interacting,” which are to be respected and upheld (p. 239). Similarly, the Bilingual Bicultural Mini School in East Harlem focuses on bilingual education, but also incorporates technology to enable students to investigate their own communities.

These stories are truly inspiring. Yet they, coupled with the data Cummins reveals in chapter 6, leave me puzzled. This is because I am going to be a teacher. I hope I will be a good teacher, even, with time and experience. But I am not bilingual. I probably will never be bilingual (given my attempt to learn French in high school and college with little lasting success). Further, I was raised in the mainstream culture. Quite frankly, growing up I had little awareness of other cultures and ways of living. Knowing these truths about myself, how can I provide my students with an L1 different from my own a beneficial and effective education? How can I create an environment that encourages their continued learning of their L1 if I do not know that language? I am wrestling with this as I read Cummins’ work. And in my residency placement how can I not be another educator facilitating, although unintentionally, subtractive bilingualism and coercive power relations?

I do not have answers to these questions. Not really. I don’t think I will have definitive answers. But I do think I can be aware. And maybe that’s a good first step. Knowing that my students would benefit from formal education in their L1 – Spanish, for all but one of my ELLs – and chances to use that language in school, I can attempt to bring in volunteers or materials that use pieces of their first languages. I can encourage them to pursue learning those languages more fully when the opportunities present themselves, such as taking high school language classes for native speakers. I can honor their cultures and linguistic backgrounds and try to learn about them. I should look for opportunities to weave those languages and their unique cultural knowledge into the classroom. Perhaps I could have a Spanish section in the library in my future classroom to encourage those who do read in Spanish to develop those reading abilities further. At the conclusion to chapter 8, Cummins writes that it takes courage for educators to step outside the bounds of what exists now and to proclaim that children have the right to develop their first languages (p. 253). Perhaps being a voice and an advocate is a role that I can take.

I want to explore this further this year in my classroom and through my ethnography. I think insight will come from other educators, perhaps those who are bilingual themselves. However, I think a potentially undervalued resource is the parents of my students. Many of the parents I will be speaking with for my ethnography are bilingual. Most do not have the same cultural background as I do. What do they want their children to experience in the classroom? Like the parents in East Harlem, do they wish there were bilingual education opportunities available to their children? Do they experience the value of their own cultures? I am looking forward to the experiences ahead of me that will allow me to begin exploring the answers to these, and many more, questions.

Strategies for Academic Language Acquisition: Relationships are the Key

“Knowledge of, and effective classroom implementation of techniques such as use of graphic organizers, cooperative learning, total physical response, developing learning strategies, peer tutoring, dialogue journals, authentic assessment, and so on are important but they do not necessarily translate into effective instruction. Much more crucial is the recognition that human relationships are fundamental to students’ academic engagement…For students to invest their sense of self, their identity, in acquiring their new language and participating actively in their new culture, they must experience positive and affirming interactions with members of that culture” (p. 132).

In chapter 5, Cummins lays out a framework for effectively teaching academic language to English Language Learners. The framework focuses on meaning, language, and use, with specific strategies in each component. However, Cummins’ larger argument is the necessity of this framework taking place in the scheme of positive and identity-shaping teacher-student interactions. In short, even the best strategies, the most researched techniques, and the most thoughtfully planned lessons are ineffective without interactions that affirm students’ cultural and linguistic background and knowledge.

Although the majority of the chapter is spent developing the focuses within the framework, Cummins never fails to point out that identity negotiations are always occurring. These negotiations can take place within coercive relations of power or collaborative relations of power. What Cummins does well in this chapter is spell out how strategies used within a classroom can foster the affirmation and positive creation of students’ identities. I found these strategies helpful; I can imagine them taking place in an average classroom (albeit one in which the teacher is striving for the well-being of the ELL students) and I have seen many of them in my own classroom.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Cummins’ framework is his third focus, a focus on use. This includes speaking and writing, two of what I believe are some of the most ignored aspects of academic language learning, especially for ELLs. One point the author makes is that for the use of language to be meaningful, students need to be provided with an authentic audience. I remember our instructor, Maria, sharing a similar concept last summer in our literacy class. She displayed a “big book” her class had collaboratively made. They wrote the story – each page was about Clifford – and illustrated it. They were motivated because they had an authentic audience: other classes. They were not students working on an assignment. They, in that moment, were authors and illustrators. I asked Maria in my reading notes how realistic it is that students consistently be provided with an authentic audience for their works of writing. She replied wisely: it is possible if the teacher is willing to make it possible. She suggested writing a newsletter to be sent home, working on a book to be published in the classroom library (which Cummins also discusses on p. 146), or sharing writing with other classes. These are all doable by teachers, with even minimal planning. I hope to instill in my current and future students a sense of purpose in their writing, encouraged in part by the knowledge that they are authors.

Interested in the subject of writing for a real audience, I did a quick Google search and came across an article explaining the importance of real audiences for student writers, but at the high school level. For the National Writing Project, high school English teacher and author Anne Rodier (2000) writes, “[Our students] have to believe that what they have to say is important enough to bother writing. They have to experience writing for real audiences before they will know that writing can bring them power.” (Here is the full article.) This ties in with what Cummins argues throughout his writing. Writing can bring power not only in the ways Rodier writes of (telling a story and providing a platform to elicit change). It can also form identity – especially for the bilingual student.

In oral language use children also need authentic audiences and they need the space to simply produce language. In my classroom, the students are preparing research projects for our upcoming “Diversity Day.” This project affords countless opportunities to produce language, and language of different kinds. When speaking to group members, students typically use colloquial language. When writing their research, their language is more formal and precise. The key component to this project, however, is that students will stand next to their project boards on the final day to share with parents, staff, and other students what they have learned. Providing this kind of audience motivates students to work hard on their presentations, but also gives them opportunities to be important. They are the ones sharing knowledge with others. They are becoming the experts.

However, there is always room for growth. Cummins writes that teachers and principals believe that too much time devoted to writing and language production will cause students to “suffer on the standardized tests used to police instruction” (p. 147). I have seen this to be true. Beyond the large project the students are working on, both the ELLs and the English-only students rarely write. Occasionally they work on guided writing assignments, but I have seen this mostly in conjunction with preparation for a trimester assessment. Authentic, identity-shaping writing, and even speaking, rarely occurs. This is not because the teacher does not want her students to develop these language skills. It is because she wants to provide her students with strategies to be successful when the test does come around. However, I wonder if in the long term of a student’s life it is more important that they know which bubble to fill in or if they have a positive and meaningful identity and feel confident in their language and communication abilities. I suspect it is the latter.

Cummins suggests daily writing or dialogue journals, in which the teacher responds to the student’s writing. I would love to incorporate some of these ideas into my own classroom, and I think it could be done with little interruption to the daily schedule. With some of my ethnography focus students, at least one of whom will be an ELL, I want to focus on literacy, both reading and writing. Journal writing might be a good tool to implement. However, as Cummins refers to throughout the chapter, I want to keep in mind the importance of striving to foster positive identity negotiations and be a learner of my students’ cultures. Through my ethnographic research I would like to learn how to better incorporate their linguistic and cultural backgrounds into their learning process. As Cummins writes, “in order to teach effectively [teachers] must learn from their students about students’ culture, background, and experience” (p. 133).

Reference

Rodier, A. (2000). A cure for writer’s block: Writing for real audiences. The Quarterly, volume 22 (number 2). Retrieved from http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/817