Language Awareness

University of Alcal De Henares

Language Awareness
By Abdelmoughit Alassfar

Professor: Ana Halbach Teaching in Bilingual schools A/Y: 2013/2014

Language Awareness

University of Alcal De Henares

Language Awareness

Introduction
Throughout the last three decades the societies, especially the developed ones, have undergone major changes. Firstly, there has been a noticeable rise of cultural and linguistic diversity as a result of massive migration, world global economic integration and multiculturalism. Secondly, the rapid development of technology and the expansion of new communications media. These changes have affected directly the lives of people in general, and the educational systems in particular. (Elsner, 2011) Since this articles main focus is on this latter, i.e. the educational system, the targeted societal institution will be the school, therefore; the different components of this institution ranging from pupils as the mainly concerned ones, then teachers and parents. My intention is to highlight the notion of plurilingualism, or as Hawkins (1984) coined it; Language awareness. In addition, I would also shed light on some projects held by some schools concerning the implementation of Language awareness in the school. The result of a multicultural society is the presence of a vast number of languages and cultures in todays school. (Masats, Cit, Candelier, 1998) Consequently, formal education can no longer deny meeting the needs of a heterogeneous classroom of multiple languages, cultures and social backgrounds, as Masats (n.d) argues that if we really believe one of the duties of schools is to educate students to become active citizens in a multicultural society, schools need to make the most of the advantages such a social context might have, and try as much as possible to minimize the cons of this latter. If we take Europe as an example, it is home to 700 million people from diverse ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. There are 40 official languages and about 200 other spoken languages across the continent. So as to break cultural stereotypes, enhance creativity and encourage thinking outside the box, citizens should be fluent in more than one language beside their mother tongue. (Elsner, 2011, Cit. European Commission 2008:2). According to the Eurobarometer Survey, a large number of people are growing up bilingually by birth, 56% of all EU citizens claim to speak one language in addition to their L1. (Elsner 2011, Cit, European Commission 2006: 6). The presence of more than one

Language Awareness

University of Alcal De Henares

language in the school context has become a reality and not an exception. Therefore, plurilingualism in schools should be considered first as a precondition, and second as a learning objective that must be reflected in the school curriculum. Learners should value and develop their language repertoires; meanwhile schools should recognize these languages as legitimate learning resources. (Elsner.2011, CEFRL, 2000). This plurilingualism in schools is the key to the development of mutual understanding, tolerance and respect, and a motivation of teachers to introduce different languages, therefore cultures, into their daily teaching routines.

The notion of Language Awareness

According to the oxford dictionary, Awareness is knowing that something exists and is important, as well as, being interested in it. The notion of language awareness and its association with language started in the late 1950s, when many scholars and linguists, such as Hawkins, Halliday, began to support the idea that helping students to learn the target language should not be the solely aim of teachers, theyd better guide them about how to deal with issues related with language in general, to culture and to learning. (Masats, n.d). The concept of language awareness seen from a teacher-centered perspective implies a thorough knowledge of language by the teachers, for this reason, a linguisticallyaware teacher will always be in a strong and secure position to accomplish various tasks : preparing lessons, evaluating, adapting, and writing materials, understanding and interpreting, designing a syllabus or curriculum, ultimately, testing and assessing learners performance. (Wright, et al. 1993). As we have previously mentioned, the rapid changing social context made our schools a melting pot of languages and cultures. Therefore, it might result impossible for teachers to be aware of all the existing languages. Awareness in this sense refers to the proficiency level of those languages, ranging from what is grammatical, phonological, morphological, and the cultural. Nonetheless, awareness in the classroom might not be an impossible aim to achieve, if we apply the meaning of the word Awareness as knowledge about language, i.e. to know of its existence, as an interest that we show towards this language and as an evaluation of that language after all.

Language Awareness

University of Alcal De Henares

Two may not disagree about the importance of acknowledging pupils cultures and origins. It is of crucial importance that children of different backgrounds feel their existence within a classroom. One of the aims of Language awareness is promoting this feeling of existence, in addition to the learning about others, and otherness. No child should be expected to cast off the language and culture of the home as he crosses the school threshold, nor to live and act as though school and home represent two totally separate and different cultures which have to be kept firmly apart. The curriculum should reflect many elements of that part of his life, which a child lives outside school. (Debono, (n.d) cit ,Bullock, 1975) Researchers and scholars of what is known as the Language awareness movement insisted on making this latter as an obligatory element in the school curriculum and not as a passive activity that teachers can do from time to time. As a result, many schools felt the urgency of implementing projects that would enhance language awareness, therefore, multiculturalism, plurilingualism and acceptance of the other. What follow are examples of school projects that were introduced in some multicultural classrooms.

Language of the month

This is a project that is held by a primary school in London called, Newbury Park Primary School, its aim is to shed light on all the existing languages in the school, by choosing every month a different language and make it noticeable, learn about it, and be aware of it. The school considered many reasons why it was important to learn about others languages and cultures, among them are:

Give bilingual students the chance to demonstrate their linguistic skills that they bring to schools. Enhance the status of bilingual children Broaden the horizons of monolingual English-speakers. Show respect for other languages and cultures Give parents the opportunity to be actively involved in their childrens learning.

Language Awareness

University of Alcal De Henares

(Debono, n.d) The project is divided into many different sections dealing with multiple activities. Who speaks the language? is the first section that tries to detect the different existing languages in the classroom. It also focuses on the situation of the existing countries on a world map, showing photos of the country and making it known to the rest of the class, (see fig.1). Listening to speakers of the language is another section that consists of learning words and phrases from other languages taught by the speakers of those languages, as well as, inviting parents to the school to speak and tell stories in their languages, highlighting the existing differences in terms of pronunciation in each language. The school has made a set of words and expressions such as, thank you, welcome, hello, good morning and good afternoon, please, yes, no and well done, come here, and sorry, good bye and numbers from 1-12. Through different activities and games, teachers should try to make use of the expressions in the targeted language of the month, together with trying to apply them in real situations. An example of such activities is to use the word good morning, for instance, when passing the list in the target language. Say thank you, when the teacher is collecting the dinner money, or when the children are given fruit and milk. Say goodbye, when leaving the classroom. Teachers might also link the language of the month to special events, e.g. Portugal Euro 2004, Athens 2004 Olympic games, South Africa 2010 world cup.

Fig. 1 Class displays for the Language of the Month. (Debono, n.d)

Language Awareness

University of Alcal De Henares

All these activities and many others, are not limited only within the school walls, there is a very interactive website (http://www.newburypark.redbridge.sch.uk/) where all children and parents can introduce and teach their home language to others, the thing that makes this project accessible to everyone interested in learning about other cultures, and languages. The internet makes it possible for other schools, and teachers that might want to try out this project in their schools.

The Mu-ViT project

The MuVit (Multi-literacy Virtual) project is based on the phenomenon of the rapid development of new information technology, the massive communication of people, the exchange of information through the web, the possibility of reading each others texts being in different places and different languages. It is aimed at the new generation of the so called GoogleGeneration who is constantly connected through smart phones and computers with infinite friends from all over the globe. (Elsner, 2011) this generation according to Gunter (2009) is more motivated to read multimodal texts from a computer screen than pure texts without images from paper in hand. Using a keyboard for these children results far more comfortable than writing in a spiral notebook. The project team consists of ten partners from five different countries with profound expertise in the fields of new media (TZI Bremen and TILDE, Latvia), language and literacy development (Goethe-University, University of Koblenz-Landau, Istanbul University, Shuya University), language awareness (University of Pompeu Fabra, Goethe University, University of Koblenz-Landau), not to mention the valuable expertise on the field of innovative and differentiated teaching approaches in multilingual settings (Liobaschule Vechta, EichendorffGrundschule Moers), moreover the design of teaching materials for such educational settings by (Oldenbourg Verlag Mnchen); together with the funding of the European commission. (Comenius report, 2010)

In the first place the MuVit project is about the development and evaluation of digitalized picture-books in five different languages (English, Spanish, Turkish, German, and Russian [Cyrillic and Latin]) through a software and a web community, allowing students to autonomously read and simultaneously listen to a variety of stories on the computer screen. So far the MuVit team has developed six story books that were translated to the five languages; an example of these stories is The Magic Maddox (see fig. 2) which is a story about a boy who wanted to be a magician and

Language Awareness

University of Alcal De Henares

accidently magics his sister to a cat. (Comenius Report, 2010). The MuVit software can be used both, inside and outside the classroom; encouraging pupils to actively work with, explore and compare multilingual books on their smart screens through an authoring tool that is a web based application that allows pupils to upload their own narratives in as many languages as possible, together with a web community which is a registration system serving as a forum for pupils and teachers all over the world. (Elsner, 2011)

Fig. 2 Example page of MuVit book, prototype designed by Wahju A.Widjajanto (member of MuVit group)

The structure of the digitalized story-books resembles the three steps of the traditional storytelling methodology. A pre-reading phase, where key vocabulary is introduced. A while reading phase where support is given for the words functions and pronunciation. Finally a post reading phase that includes interactive online tasks, comprehensions questions, cross-linguistic comparisons and vocabulary training. All this, in the five existing languages. (Elsner, 2011) The project aims were very clear, raising childrens interest in different languages; contributing to plurilingualism, acceptance of teachers and pupils; additionally, developing pupils language awareness on a linguistic-systematic and social-cultural level. (Elsner, 2011).

The MuVit approach to language awareness and multiculturalism has mainly focused on the new concept of literacy. While the traditional denotation of being literate only referred to the ability to read and write in a standardized form, literacy in its new form implies the incorporation of multimodal, critical, cultural and media competencies practices, beside the traditional skills of

Language Awareness

University of Alcal De Henares

reading, writing and speaking. (Elsner 2011, cit Rosenberg et, al 2010). For this reason the project wanted to make use of the new information and communication technologies, so as to achieve the aims of linguistic and cultural awareness and raise the solidarity based on mutual understanding, tolerance and dialogue. (Elsner, 2011, cit UNESCO, 2011)

The MuVit team has shown great satisfaction on the project, considering it as an innovative tool for plurilingualism; since it encourages the autonomous and product-oriented learning. The development of the MuVit website has been a great success for the team (http://www.mu-vit.eu/), in addition to the publication of flyers, where detailed information about the use of the project, its aims, products and addresses for researchers and teachers are available. (Comenius report, 2010). Their prospects are also ambitious, hoping that the MuVit might offer a rich field for investigation concerning language awareness, language development or linguistic behavior of mono-and plurilingual learners. (Elsner, 2011) The team is also looking forward to offering teacher training courses and workshops to familiarize them with the aims and the implementation of such projects. They are also willing to make public the accessibility of the MuVit web community for pupils, teachers, and parents alike. (Comenius report, 2010)

In conclusion, we should point out that projects about language awareness are numerous, and are growing each time bigger, due to the augmenting need for such projects in a multicultural context. The forms and the applicability might vary from one school to another, according to the needs and the possibilities of each one. A project like The language of the month might be a handy one; since it hardly requires any sophisticated materials or demanding skills. The project received the European Award for languages 2005, and has become an example to follow in many European schools; this is owing to the accessibility of the project materials, and the easiness of its application. I believe that such a project is a very ambitious and realistic one. Its application on multicultural schools might result easy and successful if it is accompanied by a serious willingness from the school staff, pupils and parents alike. Meanwhile the MuVit project might seem quite harder to generalize among all the schools. Since it is conditioned by the use of computers, and online connection; tools that might seem evident that everyone can have access to; a fact that the KIM-Study (2010) supports by a survey which showed the 90% of pupils have access to a computer at home and use it in a daily basis. (Comenius report, 2010). One cannot deny the fact that some social classes still dont have total and easy access to a daily available computer and a house set connection. Nevertheless; this fact wouldnt, in any way, make the project an inapplicable one, prestigious, or inaccessible by all sorts of students.

Language Awareness

University of Alcal De Henares

The claim here might be that the time scope in the curriculum doesnt allow such activities inside the classroom, since teachers are sometimes obliged to cover a set of cognitive skills, and expect students to acquire certain knowledge by the end of the course. Language awareness may not be sometimes included in that knowledge. Consequently, for such projects to be successful, the call for language awareness should be a collective objective that urges the partnership and the collaboration of all the components of educational systems. Applying one project or another is not what really matters if the result is the achievement of a context where acceptance, tolerance, coexistence with and learning from the other are all values that we can see in our schools.

Language Awareness

University of Alcal De Henares

Bibliography Debono, J., & Newbury Park Primary School, (n.d.). The language of the month, 100 ideas to promote language awareness.

Elsner, D. (2011). Developing multiliteracies, plurilingual awareness and critical thinking in the primary language classroom with multilingual virtual talkingbooks. Encuentro, (20), 27-38.

Masats, D. (n.d.). Language Awareness: An international project. Barcelona: Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona.

Wright, T., & Bolitho, R. (1993). Language awareness: A missing link in language teacher education? ELT Journal, 47(4), 292-304.