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I want to thank Andrea for all she has done tonight.

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I want to thank all the directors,

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every department working on this project,

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whatever it was to request FHWA is getting done.

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We call on everybody to call on us in the right time

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so we can お前たちが出る日本語…

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so we can get all the FHWA back to our countries

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once and for all,

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and I want to thank you all.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Gracias. Thank you.

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It's also a tremendous honor for me to be here,

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and I would like to just personally thank

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the regional ministry

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and the organizers of the conference

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generally for the opportunity to be here.

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I've learned an enormous amount in the last few days,

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and I'm just amazed at the degree of hospitality,

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warmth, generosity that has characterized

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everybody in the conference,

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so thank you for the opportunity to be here.

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What I'm going to try and do is to react

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to some of the things that I've heard

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and some of the things I haven't heard

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in the conference today,

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but first I'd like to give you a sense

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of where I'm coming from,

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what's my engagement with these issues,

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what's my experience,

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so that you can better interpret the things I'm going to say,

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so I'm going to first of all try and locate myself

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in relation to the issues,

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and then, as I said, talk about things that I've heard

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that I think are important to reinforce,

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and then some things that might be worth thinking about

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that I haven't heard discussed very actively

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or widely in the sessions that I've been able to attend,

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and the goal of all of this is not obviously to criticize,

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it's to highlight the issue of how can we make CLIL

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even more effective than it already is,

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and I bring to this an engagement

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with the French immersion programs in Canada

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as well as bilingual programs in the United States

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and elsewhere,

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and I have several hats to wear in that respect.

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I've got the hat of a researcher who's done research

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on various kinds of bilingual programs

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in different parts of the world,

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but also as a parent whose kids have gone through

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a French immersion program,

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and I've experienced the pleasures and frustrations

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of seeing their experience

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and thinking about what it might be,

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how it could be improved in that context.

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But first of all, going back to the issue

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of locating myself in this situation.

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As probably some of you know,

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and probably others can tell from the deviant phonemes

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that are bouncing off the walls,

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my background is not originally Canadian.

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I grew up in Dublin in Ireland,

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and my first experiences of language learning

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and bilingualism came in Ireland.

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As probably most of you know,

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Ireland is two official languages,

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English, which everybody speaks,

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and Irish, which is an endangered language,

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it's the historical language,

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but was in a very threatened state

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at the beginning of the Irish Free State back in the 1920s.

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The government tried to revive the language

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through various language planning efforts,

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one of which involved education.

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The language was a compulsory subject in schools,

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and also there were a variety

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of bilingual programs implemented.

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These were called Gaelscóil in it,

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Irish-speaking schools, or Irish immersion schools,

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and I had the experience

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of both of these programs growing up.

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In the infant schools,

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Irish was taught just as a subject

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for probably 20 minutes, half an hour a day.

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I don't remember that far back.

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But when I was in the equivalent of grade one, age seven,

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my parents sent me to a Gaelscóil, to an all-Irish school.

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They sent me there not because they were fervent advocates

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for the revival of Irish.

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It just happened to be the school nearest

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the one that my older brother was going to,

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so we could go in on the bus together.

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So, you know, there was nothing very profound about it,

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and I assume I failed the test

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to get into that other school,

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so I had to wait another year or so.

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But I can remember initially not understanding

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much that was going on,

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but by the end of that school year,

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by April or May, I can remember going home on the bus

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with friends and speaking Irish with them.

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And so it was an example of what a colleague of mine

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in Toronto, Meryl Swain,

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has called bilingualism without tears.

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The tears started the following year

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when I went up the road to the more typical school,

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which taught through English,

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with Irish just taught as a subject.

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It was taught for 45 minutes a day,

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and every second of those 45 minutes dragged,

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because they presumably had done a lot of research

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on how to teach languages,

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but got it wrong somehow,

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because they managed to shove every method

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that has been proven since time immemorial

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to fail in teaching languages into those 45 minutes.

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They taught vocabulary out of context.

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We learned lists of words.

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We never got to a stage

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where we could do anything with the language.

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It was just a, we learned the skeleton of the language,

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and not something that was living.

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We'd write little assignments,

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and they'd come back not with any comments on the ideas,

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but all those grammatical mistakes marked up in red.

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The best description that I've heard

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of what those classes were like

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was that they were like grammar and syntax crisis centers,

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where the focus was just on the skeleton of the language,

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and not surprisingly,

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I ended up a lot less fluent at age 18

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than I was at age eight,

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despite a lot of pain and suffering in between.

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I did well on exams,

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and so that distinction

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between conversational fluency in a language

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and being able to do the academic work in the language

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is one that I've come back to in my professional life.

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I did my initial degree in Dublin,

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and then I went to Canada to do graduate work,

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and when I got to Canada,

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I was really surprised to find

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that there was a program in place

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called French Immersion Programs

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that looked very much like

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what I had experienced as a child in Ireland,

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in the Gaelskull.

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The target language was used

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for most of the instructional time in the primary years,

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and then it became a bilingual program,

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50-50 by about grade four or five,

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and I realized that the Canadians

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thought that they had discovered immersion.

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Everybody was very proud of this.

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Everybody was very excited.

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In actual fact,

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immersion programs of various kinds

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have been in operation in many countries of the world.

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They weren't necessarily called that,

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but what the Canadians did do

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was carry out an enormous amount of research

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on these programs,

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and I ended up doing my own research

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in a French-English bilingual,

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or what would, in the United States right now,

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be called a dual-language program,

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out in Edmonton,

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where I did my graduate program.

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Those of you who know where Edmonton is

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will know that it's most northerly

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of the big Canadian cities,

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and I spent five frozen years of my life there

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before escaping back to Ireland

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and do some more research in Gaelskull,

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and then coming back to Canada.

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So when I look at the research in these issues,

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my own experience is very much confirmatory

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of that research.

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Teaching second languages as subjects,

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where the focus is on the rules of the language,

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just on the vocabulary,

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tends to provide very disappointing results,

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and we see that in the Canadian context

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when French is taught as a subject.

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We've heard it here at the conference today

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about the dissatisfaction or disappointing results

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that come when English is taught just as a subject.

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Students can learn the language for five, six, seven years,

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and still not be able to carry on a conversation,

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and that's certainly the case in the Canadian context

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with what's called core French teaching.

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And what the immersion program showed

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was that you can get much better results

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when you use the language as a medium of instruction.

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So just to give an overview of the issues

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that I want to touch on in terms of what I heard

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that I want to reinforce,

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I think we need to come back to issues of definitions.

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We've heard the French immersion programs

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being talked about, Fred Genesee focused on them.

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We've heard content-based programs being talked about.

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We've obviously talked about CLIL,

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bilingual education is a term that's been thrown around.

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I think it would be useful just to clarify

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how all of these terms link together,

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so I'll mention some issues in relation to that.

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We've heard talk about the positive effects

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of bilingualism on children's development.

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Again, more and more research is pointing in that direction.

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We've heard talk, Fred used the visual metaphor

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of the iceberg that I suggested at one point

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about interdependence or transfer across languages.

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I think we can revisit what the pedagogical implications

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of that are.

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We've heard about the centrality of scaffolding meaning,

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and also the importance of integrating new concepts

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and skills with what we already know,

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the importance of prior knowledge.

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So these are all things that I'll touch on very briefly,

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and just reinforce the centrality of all of these issues.

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But there are also some things that I didn't hear much of

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about in the discussions.

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One of them is that we're not in a bilingual context

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in most urban centers around the world,

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we're in a multilingual, a plurilingual context.

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I think we need to take account of what are the implications

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of population mobility, of increasing multilingual realities

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in our urban centers.

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In cities like Toronto and Vancouver,

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more than half the students in the school system

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come from home backgrounds other than English.

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And so that has implications if we have students

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from these backgrounds in our CLIL programs,

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or immersion or bilingual programs.

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What does that mean?

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What's the implication of having additional languages

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in those programs?

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Should we just ignore them and go on with business as usual?

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Or are there some opportunities that that might present?

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Another issue that I think is important to revisit

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is what do we mean by English?

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What is language proficiency?

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What are we talking about

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when we talk about teaching English?

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And obviously, a lot of work has been done

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in the European context over the last few years

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with the Common European Framework of Reference

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for language teaching and language learning.

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But I think there are issues specifically

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in relation to English that provide

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some important opportunities for teaching the language

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when we understand the nature of the language.

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Literacy engagement is a term that I haven't heard.

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And obviously, it's in the title of my talk.

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There's a lot of research out there

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from both first and second language contexts

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that the best predictor of student achievement

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is the amount of literacy engagement

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that students are involved in.

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It's a stronger predictor than socioeconomic status.

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And so when we look, one of the critiques

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I would make of the French immersion programs,

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one of the disappointments, I think,

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is that there hasn't been the kind of focus

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on getting students engaged extensively with reading,

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reading extensively in the target language.

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And this becomes particularly an issue

269
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when we extend print beyond just the hard copy print

270
00:11:56,900 --> 00:11:58,420
into electronic media.

271
00:11:58,420 --> 00:12:02,420
How can we get students harvesting the language

272
00:12:02,420 --> 00:12:04,340
from what they're reading?

273
00:12:04,340 --> 00:12:06,900
How can we motivate them to read in a second language

274
00:12:06,900 --> 00:12:10,100
when it's much easier to read in the first language?

275
00:12:10,100 --> 00:12:14,820
I think if we can do that, the rewards will be tremendous.

276
00:12:14,820 --> 00:12:16,740
And so I want to talk a little bit about

277
00:12:16,740 --> 00:12:19,740
what that might mean and how we can do it.

278
00:12:19,740 --> 00:12:22,500
I haven't heard much about identity issues.

279
00:12:22,500 --> 00:12:24,620
I'm going to suggest that identity issues

280
00:12:24,620 --> 00:12:28,420
are absolutely central to planning

281
00:12:28,420 --> 00:12:30,140
for any kind of instruction,

282
00:12:30,140 --> 00:12:33,860
but particularly instruction in multilingual contexts.

283
00:12:33,860 --> 00:12:37,220
And one of the reasons, one of the hypotheses

284
00:12:37,220 --> 00:12:41,180
that I would suggest in relation to why

285
00:12:41,180 --> 00:12:43,060
typical second language programs

286
00:12:43,060 --> 00:12:44,620
where the language is taught as a subject

287
00:12:44,620 --> 00:12:46,300
have not been more successful

288
00:12:46,300 --> 00:12:48,460
is that students have never,

289
00:12:48,460 --> 00:12:51,860
many students never get beyond a threshold level

290
00:12:51,860 --> 00:12:53,580
where they can do something useful,

291
00:12:53,580 --> 00:12:55,380
something meaningful with the language.

292
00:12:55,380 --> 00:12:57,340
If they're always in a passive role,

293
00:12:57,340 --> 00:13:00,260
the language never becomes something that they own,

294
00:13:00,260 --> 00:13:02,820
that they can do things with, that they can be proud of.

295
00:13:02,820 --> 00:13:05,700
And I think if we understand the role

296
00:13:05,700 --> 00:13:08,180
of identity investment in learning,

297
00:13:08,180 --> 00:13:09,820
and particularly second language learning,

298
00:13:09,820 --> 00:13:11,980
it opens up pedagogical possibilities

299
00:13:11,980 --> 00:13:13,740
that I'll try and talk about.

300
00:13:13,740 --> 00:13:15,940
And then the final issue that I want to

301
00:13:16,860 --> 00:13:18,020
talk a little bit about is

302
00:13:18,020 --> 00:13:19,820
the role of students' first language.

303
00:13:21,540 --> 00:13:24,060
In the way French immersion programs in Canada

304
00:13:24,060 --> 00:13:26,420
were originally conceptualized,

305
00:13:26,420 --> 00:13:29,900
the goal was to keep the two languages apart.

306
00:13:29,900 --> 00:13:32,660
The first language was constructed almost as the enemy.

307
00:13:32,660 --> 00:13:37,540
And there was a lot of focus on ensuring

308
00:13:37,540 --> 00:13:40,180
that teachers stayed in the target language,

309
00:13:40,180 --> 00:13:41,540
teachers spoke only French.

310
00:13:41,540 --> 00:13:46,540
There was initially a goal for the teacher,

311
00:13:46,940 --> 00:13:48,220
or for the students not even to know

312
00:13:48,220 --> 00:13:50,500
that the teacher understood English.

313
00:13:50,500 --> 00:13:54,180
And so what I've called the two solitudes assumption

314
00:13:54,180 --> 00:13:56,420
has dominated French immersion programs in Canada.

315
00:13:56,420 --> 00:14:00,700
And it's fairly common in other kinds of programs too.

316
00:14:00,700 --> 00:14:03,300
I think there's obviously an important role

317
00:14:03,300 --> 00:14:06,260
for creating a space for the target language

318
00:14:06,260 --> 00:14:08,380
within the school, an extensive space,

319
00:14:08,380 --> 00:14:09,940
because that's often the only place

320
00:14:09,940 --> 00:14:11,980
that students get access to it.

321
00:14:11,980 --> 00:14:13,980
But I think there are costs also.

322
00:14:13,980 --> 00:14:18,980
And when we look at what we're potentially losing out on,

323
00:14:19,340 --> 00:14:22,540
because of the two solitudes assumption,

324
00:14:22,540 --> 00:14:24,420
I think it's worth revisiting, rethinking

325
00:14:24,420 --> 00:14:28,140
how we can teach for transfer,

326
00:14:28,140 --> 00:14:30,980
build on students' prior experience in their first language,

327
00:14:30,980 --> 00:14:33,300
and enable students to use their first language

328
00:14:33,300 --> 00:14:35,300
as a tool for learning.

329
00:14:35,300 --> 00:14:38,820
So these are the issues that I want to focus on.

330
00:14:38,860 --> 00:14:41,940
Because of time, I'm gonna go through them fairly quickly.

331
00:14:41,940 --> 00:14:46,460
But the conclusions that I want to make,

332
00:14:48,540 --> 00:14:50,420
just in case I don't get to them at the end,

333
00:14:50,420 --> 00:14:54,740
is that I think we can improve the outcomes

334
00:14:54,740 --> 00:14:58,020
of CLIL programs, bilingual programs, immersion programs,

335
00:14:58,020 --> 00:15:00,900
all of the above, by doing a number of things.

336
00:15:00,900 --> 00:15:03,380
First of all, if we understand the nature

337
00:15:03,380 --> 00:15:06,780
of the English language and its links to Spanish.

338
00:15:06,780 --> 00:15:10,020
Many people don't see English as a romance language.

339
00:15:10,020 --> 00:15:11,740
They see it as a Germanic language.

340
00:15:11,740 --> 00:15:13,820
It's not like the languages of Southern Europe,

341
00:15:13,820 --> 00:15:16,700
which we see as romance languages.

342
00:15:16,700 --> 00:15:19,900
But if we understand that English is a hybrid language,

343
00:15:19,900 --> 00:15:22,580
its everyday conversational lexicon

344
00:15:22,580 --> 00:15:25,020
comes predominantly from Germanic sources,

345
00:15:25,020 --> 00:15:28,540
but the academic language comes from Latin and Greek sources.

346
00:15:28,540 --> 00:15:30,220
And if we understand that,

347
00:15:30,220 --> 00:15:33,820
that opens up really important pedagogical possibilities

348
00:15:33,820 --> 00:15:37,020
in terms of drawing students' attention to language,

349
00:15:37,020 --> 00:15:39,180
building up language awareness,

350
00:15:39,180 --> 00:15:41,100
linking up what we're doing

351
00:15:41,100 --> 00:15:43,380
in the Spanish language arts program,

352
00:15:43,380 --> 00:15:44,700
the mother tongue program,

353
00:15:44,700 --> 00:15:46,300
with what's happening in English.

354
00:15:46,300 --> 00:15:48,860
And in the French immersion programs in Canada,

355
00:15:48,860 --> 00:15:50,420
because we've bought into this, I think,

356
00:15:50,420 --> 00:15:53,660
very problematic two solitudes notion,

357
00:15:53,660 --> 00:15:54,900
and we haven't done that.

358
00:15:58,140 --> 00:16:00,500
So I think if we teach for transfer,

359
00:16:00,500 --> 00:16:02,540
two-way transfer across languages,

360
00:16:02,540 --> 00:16:05,460
by complementing monolingual instructional strategies

361
00:16:05,460 --> 00:16:07,340
with bilingual instructional strategies,

362
00:16:07,340 --> 00:16:09,820
I think we can get further.

363
00:16:09,820 --> 00:16:11,540
I think, as I said before,

364
00:16:11,540 --> 00:16:15,700
we need to look closely at the research,

365
00:16:15,700 --> 00:16:17,340
talking about literacy engagement,

366
00:16:17,340 --> 00:16:20,780
and ask ourselves, are we promoting literacy engagement

367
00:16:20,780 --> 00:16:22,380
as actively as we might?

368
00:16:24,540 --> 00:16:28,340
Obviously, when students only have the teacher

369
00:16:28,340 --> 00:16:32,100
as their authentic source of input in the second language,

370
00:16:32,820 --> 00:16:34,140
then that's very limited.

371
00:16:34,140 --> 00:16:36,140
But there's a world of print out there

372
00:16:37,300 --> 00:16:38,580
that is authentic,

373
00:16:38,580 --> 00:16:41,980
that can be used to engage students.

374
00:16:41,980 --> 00:16:45,060
And if we can get students reading voluntarily

375
00:16:45,060 --> 00:16:46,900
in the target language,

376
00:16:46,900 --> 00:16:49,860
then that's gonna dramatically increase the input

377
00:16:49,860 --> 00:16:52,300
that they get in the target language.

378
00:16:52,300 --> 00:16:54,900
And then the third conclusion that I wanna make

379
00:16:54,900 --> 00:16:59,900
is that we need to give students

380
00:16:59,940 --> 00:17:02,900
a means of showcasing their bilingual identities,

381
00:17:02,900 --> 00:17:04,100
their biliterate identities,

382
00:17:04,100 --> 00:17:06,100
by showcasing the creative work

383
00:17:06,100 --> 00:17:07,740
they're doing in the two languages,

384
00:17:07,740 --> 00:17:09,260
by enabling students to develop

385
00:17:09,260 --> 00:17:12,940
what some people have called identities of competence

386
00:17:12,940 --> 00:17:16,220
through the creation of what I'm calling identity texts.

387
00:17:16,220 --> 00:17:18,340
And texts are being used broadly here.

388
00:17:18,340 --> 00:17:19,660
It's not just written text.

389
00:17:19,660 --> 00:17:21,340
It may be music that they create.

390
00:17:21,340 --> 00:17:24,380
It may be a webpage that older students create.

391
00:17:24,380 --> 00:17:27,980
It may be any project, any artifact,

392
00:17:27,980 --> 00:17:31,500
where students invest their identities in creating it.

393
00:17:31,500 --> 00:17:33,260
And it could be individual, it could be group.

394
00:17:33,260 --> 00:17:35,140
And then once it's out there,

395
00:17:35,140 --> 00:17:36,940
once it's published in some form,

396
00:17:36,940 --> 00:17:38,540
it holds a mirror up to students

397
00:17:38,540 --> 00:17:40,660
in which their identities are reflected back

398
00:17:40,660 --> 00:17:41,820
in a positive light.

399
00:17:41,820 --> 00:17:44,340
If we want students to take ownership of the language,

400
00:17:44,340 --> 00:17:46,340
we've gotta provide them with means

401
00:17:46,340 --> 00:17:49,340
of showcasing what they can do in the language.

402
00:17:49,340 --> 00:17:51,860
And this is an area where I've worked

403
00:17:51,860 --> 00:17:52,740
over the last few years

404
00:17:52,740 --> 00:17:55,540
with students from immigrant backgrounds

405
00:17:55,540 --> 00:17:57,340
in the Canadian context,

406
00:17:57,340 --> 00:17:59,380
and the affirmation of identity

407
00:17:59,380 --> 00:18:03,580
that students get under these conditions is tremendous.

408
00:18:03,580 --> 00:18:05,740
So this is where I'm going.

409
00:18:05,740 --> 00:18:07,420
Okay, definitions.

410
00:18:08,500 --> 00:18:12,020
I would use bilingual education as the broad term

411
00:18:12,020 --> 00:18:17,020
and define it as the use of two or sometimes more languages

412
00:18:17,740 --> 00:18:20,660
of instruction at some point in the student's career.

413
00:18:20,660 --> 00:18:22,340
So it's a very broad term.

414
00:18:22,340 --> 00:18:24,740
So each language is used as a medium of instruction

415
00:18:24,740 --> 00:18:26,340
to teach subject matter content

416
00:18:26,340 --> 00:18:28,300
rather than just the language itself.

417
00:18:29,380 --> 00:18:30,980
And so this refers to,

418
00:18:30,980 --> 00:18:32,340
CLIL would be included within this,

419
00:18:32,340 --> 00:18:34,940
French Immersion is a form of bilingual education.

420
00:18:36,540 --> 00:18:41,540
And the distinction that I would draw an operational

421
00:18:41,700 --> 00:18:45,260
and working distinction between second language immersion

422
00:18:45,260 --> 00:18:46,940
and CLIL is that typically

423
00:18:46,940 --> 00:18:49,220
in the second language immersion context,

424
00:18:49,220 --> 00:18:52,460
there's at least 50% of the instruction

425
00:18:52,460 --> 00:18:54,580
is through the target language.

426
00:18:54,580 --> 00:18:56,180
If it falls below that,

427
00:18:56,180 --> 00:18:58,700
Fred Genesee would call it partial immersion,

428
00:18:58,700 --> 00:19:00,940
but in the European context, we're looking at CLIL.

429
00:19:00,940 --> 00:19:03,740
CLIL usually involves one or two subjects being taught

430
00:19:03,740 --> 00:19:05,140
through the target language,

431
00:19:05,140 --> 00:19:08,980
but seldom goes above a 50% threshold.

432
00:19:09,820 --> 00:19:14,260
Content-based instruction is again a broad term

433
00:19:14,260 --> 00:19:18,660
that within which both CLIL and immersion can be included,

434
00:19:18,660 --> 00:19:20,020
but content-based instruction

435
00:19:20,020 --> 00:19:22,020
can also include a monolingual program.

436
00:19:22,060 --> 00:19:25,140
So the second language teaching techniques

437
00:19:25,140 --> 00:19:26,500
or the kinds of things that we talk about

438
00:19:26,500 --> 00:19:27,940
in terms of scaffolding

439
00:19:27,940 --> 00:19:30,340
would all fall within content-based instruction.

440
00:19:30,340 --> 00:19:33,140
So if we're teaching immigrant children,

441
00:19:33,140 --> 00:19:36,780
the Spanish or in the Canadian context, English,

442
00:19:36,780 --> 00:19:39,940
we'll typically be doing that in a content-based way.

443
00:19:39,940 --> 00:19:40,860
And typically that'll be

444
00:19:40,860 --> 00:19:43,100
in a monolingual instructional context.

445
00:19:43,100 --> 00:19:45,780
So this is just an attempt to clarify some of those issues.

446
00:19:45,780 --> 00:19:47,660
And this goes back a long way.

447
00:19:47,660 --> 00:19:50,980
The initial talk or the initial proposal

448
00:19:50,980 --> 00:19:53,500
that we should be teaching language across the curriculum

449
00:19:53,500 --> 00:19:57,460
goes back to the Bullock Report in the UK,

450
00:19:57,460 --> 00:19:59,380
which was published in 1974.

451
00:19:59,380 --> 00:20:01,140
So it's not a new concept.

452
00:20:01,140 --> 00:20:03,220
So we're building on things that have been

453
00:20:05,460 --> 00:20:07,780
talked about for 30 or 40 years.

454
00:20:10,020 --> 00:20:13,180
Another point that came up in several sessions

455
00:20:13,180 --> 00:20:15,260
was the bilingual advantage.

456
00:20:15,260 --> 00:20:17,820
The fact that there's a lot of research out there

457
00:20:17,820 --> 00:20:20,180
talking about bilingual students

458
00:20:20,180 --> 00:20:23,300
experiencing various kinds of advantages.

459
00:20:23,300 --> 00:20:27,140
One research study that was done recently

460
00:20:27,140 --> 00:20:29,020
that I think dramatically reinforces this,

461
00:20:29,020 --> 00:20:30,820
and it's obviously very good news

462
00:20:30,820 --> 00:20:33,100
for probably everybody in this room,

463
00:20:33,100 --> 00:20:38,100
is a study carried out by a colleague in Toronto,

464
00:20:38,180 --> 00:20:39,420
Ellen B. Allistock.

465
00:20:39,420 --> 00:20:44,420
And they looked at residents of senior citizens' homes

466
00:20:44,780 --> 00:20:49,220
or older people's homes.

467
00:20:49,220 --> 00:20:53,500
And they got about close to 200 people in the study.

468
00:20:53,500 --> 00:20:57,300
And they looked at people who were showing the signs

469
00:20:57,300 --> 00:21:00,220
of the onset of dementia or Alzheimer's,

470
00:21:00,220 --> 00:21:02,260
some loss of cognitive function.

471
00:21:02,260 --> 00:21:04,140
And what they found was that the onset,

472
00:21:04,140 --> 00:21:06,700
among the sample of people who were beginning

473
00:21:06,700 --> 00:21:08,460
to experience these symptoms,

474
00:21:08,460 --> 00:21:11,540
the age of onset was about four years later

475
00:21:11,540 --> 00:21:15,180
among the bilinguals as opposed to the monolinguals.

476
00:21:15,180 --> 00:21:17,420
So keep on using those languages.

477
00:21:17,420 --> 00:21:18,660
It's good for your brain.

478
00:21:20,140 --> 00:21:23,060
But I think that just reinforces what's come from

479
00:21:23,060 --> 00:21:25,820
a lot of other studies showing positive effects

480
00:21:25,820 --> 00:21:29,220
on children's metalinguistic awareness,

481
00:21:29,220 --> 00:21:32,420
possibly greater flexibility in terms of thinking, et cetera.

482
00:21:34,300 --> 00:21:38,020
Another point that came up in a number of sessions

483
00:21:38,020 --> 00:21:40,260
is the fact that you can teach,

484
00:21:40,260 --> 00:21:43,060
you can take time away from children's mother tongue

485
00:21:43,060 --> 00:21:44,540
and teach through a second language

486
00:21:44,540 --> 00:21:48,300
without any cost to the mother tongue.

487
00:21:48,300 --> 00:21:53,300
And so under these circumstances, it seems paradoxical,

488
00:21:53,540 --> 00:21:55,140
or when this happens, it's paradoxical.

489
00:21:55,140 --> 00:21:58,140
And this was a major reason why in the Canadian context,

490
00:21:58,140 --> 00:22:00,220
so much research was carried out

491
00:22:00,220 --> 00:22:01,460
on French immersion programs,

492
00:22:01,460 --> 00:22:03,860
because people couldn't believe that there were no costs.

493
00:22:03,860 --> 00:22:06,860
And there was, when this became verified

494
00:22:07,620 --> 00:22:12,220
through many, many studies, people were saying,

495
00:22:12,220 --> 00:22:14,580
well, what are all those English language teachers

496
00:22:14,580 --> 00:22:16,220
doing in their classrooms?

497
00:22:16,220 --> 00:22:18,980
If we can take 50% of the time or more away

498
00:22:18,980 --> 00:22:21,660
and it doesn't cost anything in terms of achievement,

499
00:22:21,660 --> 00:22:23,100
what's happening?

500
00:22:23,100 --> 00:22:25,900
But clearly what's happening is transfer.

501
00:22:25,900 --> 00:22:28,660
I've used the term interdependence.

502
00:22:28,660 --> 00:22:29,780
And I'm not gonna go into this,

503
00:22:29,780 --> 00:22:33,100
but this is just a formal statement of that hypothesis,

504
00:22:33,100 --> 00:22:36,140
which has been reinforced in bilingual programs

505
00:22:36,140 --> 00:22:37,420
around the world.

506
00:22:37,420 --> 00:22:39,660
I think you could call it principle at this point.

507
00:22:39,660 --> 00:22:42,820
But it explains why students in bilingual programs

508
00:22:42,820 --> 00:22:45,020
don't suffer negative academic consequences

509
00:22:45,020 --> 00:22:48,060
despite spending a lot of time through a second language.

510
00:22:48,060 --> 00:22:49,540
This applies not just to students

511
00:22:49,540 --> 00:22:51,100
from majority language backgrounds,

512
00:22:51,100 --> 00:22:53,540
but to minority language backgrounds.

513
00:22:53,540 --> 00:22:56,500
So if we take any number of programs

514
00:22:56,500 --> 00:22:59,220
that have been implemented for minority language students,

515
00:22:59,220 --> 00:23:01,180
exactly the same principle applies.

516
00:23:01,180 --> 00:23:03,620
They can spend time through the minority language

517
00:23:03,620 --> 00:23:07,300
at no cost to their academic development

518
00:23:07,300 --> 00:23:09,060
in the majority language.

519
00:23:09,060 --> 00:23:13,540
And that's because when you're learning content,

520
00:23:14,700 --> 00:23:15,940
you're learning concepts.

521
00:23:15,940 --> 00:23:18,060
And those concepts are not fixed

522
00:23:18,060 --> 00:23:20,580
in the language that they were learned in.

523
00:23:20,580 --> 00:23:21,940
So they transfer.

524
00:23:21,940 --> 00:23:25,220
So if a child, let's say an immigrant child comes to Spain,

525
00:23:25,220 --> 00:23:26,580
say a 12-year-old child,

526
00:23:26,580 --> 00:23:28,900
and she knows how to tell the time,

527
00:23:28,900 --> 00:23:30,900
she knows that there are 60 seconds in a minute,

528
00:23:30,900 --> 00:23:32,300
60 minutes in an hour,

529
00:23:33,300 --> 00:23:36,260
then she doesn't have to relearn that concept all over again.

530
00:23:36,260 --> 00:23:37,100
She's got it.

531
00:23:37,100 --> 00:23:38,940
She's got to learn the new vocabulary

532
00:23:38,940 --> 00:23:41,780
to express herself in the ways of telling time

533
00:23:41,780 --> 00:23:42,740
and talking about it.

534
00:23:42,740 --> 00:23:44,740
But the concept is there, okay?

535
00:23:48,060 --> 00:23:51,860
The conventional way in which monolinguals

536
00:23:51,860 --> 00:23:54,220
have, and many policymakers,

537
00:23:54,220 --> 00:23:56,340
certainly in North America and elsewhere,

538
00:23:56,340 --> 00:23:57,980
have thought about bilingualism

539
00:23:57,980 --> 00:23:58,820
has been what I call

540
00:23:58,820 --> 00:24:00,820
the separate underlying proficiency model

541
00:24:00,900 --> 00:24:03,060
where the two languages are separate.

542
00:24:03,060 --> 00:24:05,900
So if you spend time through a second language,

543
00:24:06,820 --> 00:24:10,060
that's going to take time away from the first language.

544
00:24:10,060 --> 00:24:15,060
And in actual fact, if this model were valid,

545
00:24:15,580 --> 00:24:17,100
then again, everybody in this room

546
00:24:17,100 --> 00:24:18,660
would be in a very strange predicament

547
00:24:18,660 --> 00:24:21,220
because let's suppose that

548
00:24:21,220 --> 00:24:23,260
some of you are speaking Spanish together in a group

549
00:24:23,260 --> 00:24:26,540
and somebody like me who's got minimal Spanish comes up

550
00:24:26,540 --> 00:24:29,100
and so you're polite and you switch into English.

551
00:24:29,100 --> 00:24:32,140
You wouldn't be able to tell me what you're talking about

552
00:24:32,140 --> 00:24:34,940
because it would be in a separate part of the brain.

553
00:24:34,940 --> 00:24:36,740
And obviously, that's absurd.

554
00:24:36,740 --> 00:24:41,740
This would be linguistic schizophrenia at its worst.

555
00:24:41,940 --> 00:24:43,620
And clearly, that doesn't fit our experience

556
00:24:43,620 --> 00:24:44,500
or the research.

557
00:24:44,500 --> 00:24:45,500
But the research is saying,

558
00:24:45,500 --> 00:24:47,980
this is another variant of the iceberg diagram

559
00:24:47,980 --> 00:24:49,580
that Fred Genesee talked about.

560
00:24:49,580 --> 00:24:51,580
We've got a common underlying proficiency

561
00:24:51,580 --> 00:24:53,540
that allows for transfer across languages.

562
00:24:53,540 --> 00:24:57,260
So if a student has acquired the concept of photosynthesis

563
00:24:57,300 --> 00:25:01,740
in a science lesson, in a CLIL program in English,

564
00:25:01,740 --> 00:25:03,420
that concept is understood

565
00:25:03,420 --> 00:25:06,740
and he or she can probably talk about it in Spanish also

566
00:25:07,940 --> 00:25:09,060
with exposure.

567
00:25:09,980 --> 00:25:11,180
What transfers?

568
00:25:11,180 --> 00:25:12,860
Several things transfer.

569
00:25:12,860 --> 00:25:15,340
Primarily, we're talking about concepts.

570
00:25:15,340 --> 00:25:18,780
So if somebody understands the concept of photosynthesis,

571
00:25:18,780 --> 00:25:20,940
it's there, it doesn't have to be retaught.

572
00:25:21,900 --> 00:25:23,340
We're talking about transfer of cognitive

573
00:25:23,340 --> 00:25:25,140
and linguistic strategies.

574
00:25:25,180 --> 00:25:28,100
So if we're developing good reading strategies

575
00:25:28,100 --> 00:25:31,060
to help students comprehend text in one language,

576
00:25:31,060 --> 00:25:34,180
then they can apply those strategies in the second language.

577
00:25:34,180 --> 00:25:37,180
But what this implies here is that we need to,

578
00:25:37,180 --> 00:25:40,580
or be very useful in teaching the two languages

579
00:25:40,580 --> 00:25:43,660
and developing literacy in the two languages to coordinate

580
00:25:43,660 --> 00:25:45,060
so that we're doing things

581
00:25:45,060 --> 00:25:47,020
that are going to reinforce each other

582
00:25:47,020 --> 00:25:49,220
rather than assuming that the two languages

583
00:25:49,220 --> 00:25:50,460
have no connection.

584
00:25:50,460 --> 00:25:54,180
So if students are developing reading strategies

585
00:25:54,180 --> 00:25:56,140
in English in a CLIL program,

586
00:25:56,140 --> 00:25:58,020
then having those strategies being taught

587
00:25:58,020 --> 00:26:00,300
at roughly the same time

588
00:26:00,300 --> 00:26:02,580
in the Spanish language arts program

589
00:26:02,580 --> 00:26:04,260
would make a lot of sense.

590
00:26:04,260 --> 00:26:05,500
We're talking about transfer

591
00:26:05,500 --> 00:26:09,940
of specific linguistic elements, such as cognates,

592
00:26:09,940 --> 00:26:12,700
and also transfer of phonological awareness.

593
00:26:12,700 --> 00:26:14,020
These are the main things.

594
00:26:15,860 --> 00:26:19,740
So other things that I heard that were reinforced,

595
00:26:19,740 --> 00:26:22,140
obviously the importance of scaffolding.

596
00:26:22,140 --> 00:26:27,140
This is the toolkit that comes from Applied Linguistics

597
00:26:27,300 --> 00:26:29,780
that helps students get concepts

598
00:26:29,780 --> 00:26:31,300
even when their knowledge of the language

599
00:26:31,300 --> 00:26:33,780
is less well-developed.

600
00:26:34,700 --> 00:26:38,180
We heard about, from Pam, obviously about scaffolding,

601
00:26:38,180 --> 00:26:39,540
we heard about the importance

602
00:26:39,540 --> 00:26:41,500
of activating students' prior knowledge.

603
00:26:41,500 --> 00:26:43,300
And again, this raises an issue

604
00:26:43,300 --> 00:26:45,060
that I think is worth revisiting.

605
00:26:45,060 --> 00:26:47,100
If students' prior knowledge

606
00:26:47,100 --> 00:26:50,260
is encoded in their first language,

607
00:26:50,260 --> 00:26:51,500
well, that means their first language

608
00:26:51,500 --> 00:26:53,860
is relevant to the learning of the second language.

609
00:26:53,860 --> 00:26:57,180
And so how do we address the connections

610
00:26:57,180 --> 00:26:58,820
between those two languages?

611
00:26:58,820 --> 00:26:59,860
And what I'm gonna suggest

612
00:26:59,860 --> 00:27:02,820
is that if transfer is going on anyway,

613
00:27:03,900 --> 00:27:05,580
it may be going on in a haphazard way,

614
00:27:05,580 --> 00:27:07,820
it may not be going on as efficiently

615
00:27:07,820 --> 00:27:09,340
as it might for all students,

616
00:27:09,340 --> 00:27:12,020
then surely it makes sense to give it a helping hand.

617
00:27:12,020 --> 00:27:13,820
And so I'll come back to that point.

618
00:27:14,820 --> 00:27:17,540
These are some of the things that people talk about

619
00:27:17,540 --> 00:27:19,600
in terms of scaffolding language.

620
00:27:20,380 --> 00:27:21,420
I'm not gonna go into them,

621
00:27:21,420 --> 00:27:24,900
but they're things that everybody's familiar with.

622
00:27:27,140 --> 00:27:29,740
Prior knowledge is a core element.

623
00:27:29,740 --> 00:27:32,540
All of the cognitive psychology research

624
00:27:32,540 --> 00:27:35,220
highlights the importance of prior knowledge.

625
00:27:35,220 --> 00:27:38,660
There's a quote here from three American researchers

626
00:27:38,660 --> 00:27:40,500
that I think says it fairly well.

627
00:27:40,500 --> 00:27:42,500
They say, every opportunity should be taken

628
00:27:42,500 --> 00:27:45,300
to extend and enrich children's background knowledge

629
00:27:45,300 --> 00:27:47,540
and understanding in every way possible.

630
00:27:47,540 --> 00:27:49,980
For the ultimate significance and memorability

631
00:27:50,700 --> 00:27:52,800
of any word or text depends on whether children

632
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:54,460
possess the background knowledge

633
00:27:54,460 --> 00:27:57,660
and conceptual sophistication to understand its meaning.

634
00:27:57,660 --> 00:28:01,500
And so again, this highlights the relevance

635
00:28:01,500 --> 00:28:04,940
of linking up what's happening in the first language,

636
00:28:04,940 --> 00:28:06,540
in Spanish language teaching,

637
00:28:06,540 --> 00:28:09,780
with what's happening in the target language.

638
00:28:09,780 --> 00:28:12,420
So if we look at the content

639
00:28:12,420 --> 00:28:16,060
of what students are learning in Spanish,

640
00:28:16,060 --> 00:28:17,540
if we're learning reading strategies

641
00:28:17,540 --> 00:28:20,140
or we're extending vocabulary,

642
00:28:20,140 --> 00:28:22,260
then that's background knowledge

643
00:28:22,260 --> 00:28:24,540
for what they're doing in English.

644
00:28:24,540 --> 00:28:29,460
And so coordinating those two activities

645
00:28:29,460 --> 00:28:30,500
makes a lot of sense.

646
00:28:30,500 --> 00:28:32,420
If they're taught by different teachers,

647
00:28:32,420 --> 00:28:34,200
then having the teachers talk to each other

648
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:35,840
in terms of what the overlaps might be

649
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:38,620
and how we can reinforce that underlying knowledge

650
00:28:38,620 --> 00:28:41,140
and transfer across languages makes sense.

651
00:28:42,060 --> 00:28:44,140
Okay, some of the things I didn't hear about

652
00:28:44,140 --> 00:28:46,320
that I just want to highlight.

653
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:48,440
As I said, this is not a criticism at all.

654
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:51,340
It's just a reminder that there's

655
00:28:51,340 --> 00:28:52,980
a broader context out there.

656
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:56,480
Population, mobility, and cross-cultural contact

657
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:58,800
are at an all-time high in human history.

658
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,040
And so in the Canadian programs,

659
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:04,160
there's an increasing number of students

660
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,820
coming into the programs who are from Chinese backgrounds,

661
00:29:07,820 --> 00:29:10,800
Portuguese backgrounds, Spanish backgrounds.

662
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,280
And if we're talking about affirming students' identity

663
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:16,840
as a core element of what we should be doing,

664
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:20,920
then I think it's missing an opportunity

665
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:22,920
when we ignore students' first language.

666
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:25,520
And in the past, and still in some places today,

667
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:28,120
for example, in Germany and in the United States,

668
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:31,380
there's a fairly strong discourse

669
00:29:31,380 --> 00:29:34,360
that is very contradictory to what we're talking about here

670
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,280
because bilingualism is not seen as an asset

671
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:39,000
when we're talking about migrant children.

672
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:40,920
Often the first language is blamed

673
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:42,760
as the cause of children's difficulty.

674
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:45,400
If parents would only speak Spanish or German

675
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:46,520
or English in the home,

676
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:48,400
then the kids wouldn't have this problem.

677
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:52,240
And so we get into a very subtractive orientation

678
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:54,200
that has no basis in research.

679
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:55,800
And what I want to suggest is that

680
00:29:55,800 --> 00:30:00,280
if we have multilingual students in our classes,

681
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:04,600
and I think we should be actively searching for sites

682
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:06,320
where we can include those students,

683
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:07,880
then this provides an opportunity

684
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:09,940
to build up students' language awareness,

685
00:30:09,940 --> 00:30:13,500
to help them engage in comparison of their languages,

686
00:30:13,500 --> 00:30:18,340
to enrich all students' knowledge of geography,

687
00:30:18,340 --> 00:30:19,280
knowledge of language,

688
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:21,180
by having students talk about their language.

689
00:30:21,180 --> 00:30:25,300
So if we construct plurilingualism as a resource,

690
00:30:25,300 --> 00:30:29,240
I think it can enrich what's happening in CLIL programs.

691
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:32,620
So that's just a note about the broader context.

692
00:30:32,620 --> 00:30:35,780
If we look at the nature of English proficiency,

693
00:30:36,740 --> 00:30:39,760
I've made a distinction that probably has been inflicted

694
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:44,520
on many people here between BICS and CALP.

695
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:48,520
BICS, basic interpersonal communicative skills

696
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:51,360
or conversational fluency, more simply,

697
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:53,720
and CALP, cognitive academic language proficiency,

698
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,880
or what I tend to call academic language proficiency now.

699
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:00,040
This reflects the nature of the English language,

700
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:01,400
which is a hybrid language.

701
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:03,800
There's a third category that is, I think,

702
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:08,080
important to note also,

703
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:09,520
and that's discrete language skills.

704
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:12,120
We're talking here about the rule-governed aspects

705
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:14,360
of the language, so things like phonics,

706
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:15,600
spelling, grammar, et cetera.

707
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:17,520
We spend a lot of time both in first language

708
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:19,400
and second language contexts on those.

709
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:20,960
They're important, but they're different

710
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,480
from academic language proficiency.

711
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:26,480
Conversational fluency is what all children

712
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:28,680
who are developing normally acquire in their first language

713
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:30,080
by the time they come to school.

714
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:32,960
So by age four, age five, students are fluent

715
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:36,280
in their first language, and yet we take those children

716
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:40,120
and we spend another 12 years teaching them language.

717
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:42,280
We call it literacy, we call it language arts,

718
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:45,720
but it's extending the basic knowledge of the language

719
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:49,200
that they bring to school into a much broader range of areas.

720
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,200
And so we're getting into academic language proficiency,

721
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:54,240
and I'd like to spend just a couple of moments

722
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:56,880
on what I mean by academic language proficiency.

723
00:31:57,800 --> 00:31:59,920
This is just a sampling of a list

724
00:31:59,920 --> 00:32:02,560
that some people put together a few years ago

725
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,680
of the most frequent academic words in English.

726
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:07,720
These are words that are not specific

727
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:09,360
to a particular subject area.

728
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:12,880
They're words that cut across different subject areas.

729
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:15,320
So you'll find a word like photosynthesis

730
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:18,200
or molecule in science, but you won't find it in literature,

731
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,200
at least not any literature that most of us would wanna read.

732
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:25,440
But if you look at these words,

733
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,800
I think most people here will notice something immediately.

734
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,520
The vast majority of these words come from Latin sources

735
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:33,640
and some Greek sources.

736
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:36,720
So if we look at how we nominalize verbs

737
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:39,720
like accelerate, contribute, fluctuate,

738
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:42,480
acceleration, contribution, fluctuation,

739
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,120
in Spanish it's C-I-O-N rather than T-I-O-N,

740
00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:47,160
but basically the same pattern.

741
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:52,040
We have often root words that are preceded by a prefix

742
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:53,360
and then have a suffix.

743
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:55,040
And these follow particular patterns.

744
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:58,600
If we see the word pre in front of a word,

745
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,800
and we understand that pre is Latin for before,

746
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:03,720
that gives us access to the meaning.

747
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:06,840
But here when you're talking about a CLIL program

748
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:09,560
where Spanish and English are the two languages involved,

749
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:11,800
you have tremendous possibilities

750
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:13,720
for reinforcing students' awareness

751
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,640
of how the language works because there's a lot of overlap.

752
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:19,480
When you get into the academic area,

753
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:21,280
obviously you're not gonna get the same kind

754
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:23,940
of cognitive relationships for everyday language

755
00:33:23,940 --> 00:33:26,000
because those come from Germanic sources.

756
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:30,480
If you look at some examples here,

757
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:34,240
typically in English, the high-frequency word,

758
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:38,800
the word we use in everyday context,

759
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:42,440
will come from Germanic sources, Anglo-Saxon sources,

760
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:44,160
and these will often have cognates

761
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:46,680
with languages of Northern Europe.

762
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:48,640
But English is an extremely rich language.

763
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:51,680
It has approximately twice as many words

764
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,480
in its typical dictionaries as any other European language,

765
00:33:55,480 --> 00:33:58,600
precisely because it's drawing from these two major sources.

766
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:00,480
The low-frequency words in English

767
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:02,440
come from Latin and Greek predominantly.

768
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:04,240
So you've got velocity,

769
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:08,440
which links up with the Spanish word.

770
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:12,760
Encounter links up with the low-frequency synonym,

771
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:15,680
whereas meet is the more common one.

772
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:18,840
If we look at a word like infirmal, meaning sick,

773
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:20,560
the cognate in English is infirm.

774
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:22,880
Now not too many of us here are going to go to our doctors

775
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:25,960
and say, help me please, I'm feeling really infirm today.

776
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:30,080
But it gives access to words like infirmity or infirmary,

777
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,600
low-frequency words, but words that distinguish

778
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:36,280
those who have a very strong vocabulary in the language

779
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:39,040
as opposed to those who have just the basic vocabulary.

780
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:45,040
If you take, this is an example from Edgar Allan Poe,

781
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:48,760
one of his stories from the 1700s.

782
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:50,840
I'm not gonna go through this,

783
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:53,920
but if you look at the words I put in red,

784
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:58,000
they all have either direct or indirect cognates in Spanish.

785
00:34:58,000 --> 00:34:59,320
These are the low-frequency words,

786
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:00,920
the difficult words in the text.

787
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:02,320
And so if a student is,

788
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:05,160
from a Spanish first language background,

789
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:06,760
is reading through a text like this,

790
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:08,480
and they come across the word encountered,

791
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:10,520
okay, this is a big long word, it's I don't know it,

792
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:11,920
I've never seen it before,

793
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:14,800
all they have to do is search their internal database,

794
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:16,880
their lexical database in their first language,

795
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,640
and immediately they find the word.

796
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:22,640
And so building up those linguistic detective skills

797
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:26,480
in students is an important strategy that we use,

798
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:28,000
or that should be used, I think,

799
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:30,520
in helping students to acquire the language.

800
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,520
Okay, another aspect, so basically to sum up

801
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:39,040
in terms of the nature of English,

802
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:41,960
if we understand the hybrid nature of English

803
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,240
and the fact that it is a Romance language

804
00:35:44,240 --> 00:35:48,000
in its academic vocabulary, in its academic lexicon,

805
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:50,200
that opens up all kinds of possibilities

806
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:52,200
for making connections across languages

807
00:35:52,720 --> 00:35:54,280
and exploiting cognitive relationships.

808
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:57,520
We're not doing that in the French immersion programs

809
00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:00,600
in Canada because we've bought into,

810
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:03,640
we've oversubscribed to this two solitudes notion

811
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:07,160
that the two languages are kind of in opposition

812
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:09,160
to each other and have to be kept apart.

813
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,440
I'm suggesting that we need to talk about

814
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:14,520
how we can bring them together.

815
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:17,160
It may be that we spend part of the week,

816
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:19,680
an afternoon maybe, doing cross-linguistic work

817
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:22,240
where we talk about the connections between languages

818
00:36:22,240 --> 00:36:25,640
and focus on building up students' language awareness,

819
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:27,480
or it could be in the Spanish part of the day,

820
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:28,560
we're doing things that coordinate

821
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:30,800
with the English part of the day.

822
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:32,800
Okay, literacy engagement.

823
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:35,600
This is a quotation from the PISA study.

824
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:37,200
PISA stands for Program for International

825
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:38,400
Student Achievement.

826
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:40,720
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

827
00:36:40,720 --> 00:36:43,960
has been doing comparisons among countries

828
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:48,040
in reading and several other content areas

829
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:50,320
over the last 12 or so years.

830
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:52,480
What they find is that data on the reading attainment

831
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:54,760
of 15-year-olds in almost 30 countries

832
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:57,520
show that the level of a student's reading engagement

833
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:00,000
is a better predictor of literacy performance

834
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,640
than his or her socioeconomic background,

835
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:05,160
indicating that cultivating a student's interest

836
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,720
in reading can help overcome home disadvantages.

837
00:37:07,720 --> 00:37:09,040
If we were to look at our programs,

838
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:12,280
and obviously I don't know to what extent this is happening,

839
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:14,760
but if I were to look at French immersion programs

840
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:17,040
in a Canadian context, what I would see

841
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:20,440
is that there's a strong emphasis on books and literacy

842
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:22,480
in the primary grades, the early grades.

843
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:25,800
Students are often bringing books home from the school,

844
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:27,800
from the school library, from the classroom library

845
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:28,760
to read with their parents.

846
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:31,120
Their parents may or may not know French,

847
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:35,200
but there's a strong focus on getting students into reading.

848
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:36,880
These are typically picture books,

849
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,320
so there's lots of support.

850
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:43,520
But after about grade two or three, this begins to fall off,

851
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,640
and it coincides with the time when students are,

852
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:49,360
their English language skills or English reading skills

853
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:52,400
have spontaneously developed in most cases in grade one

854
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:54,160
without any formal instruction,

855
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:56,200
and it's much easier to read books

856
00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:58,320
in their more familiar language.

857
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,480
And so the only reading that students do

858
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:05,440
is reading within class in school, in the target language.

859
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:07,720
And I think we're missing out big time when that happens,

860
00:38:07,720 --> 00:38:11,600
because where do you find low-frequency vocabulary?

861
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:14,520
Where do you find the language that goes beyond

862
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:16,600
the everyday conversational language?

863
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:18,920
You find it in print.

864
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:24,760
You don't find big long words, low-frequency Latin-based words

865
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:26,600
in everyday conversation.

866
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,440
Now, there are some people out there,

867
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:32,680
they exist in every university in the English-speaking world

868
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:35,680
who speak like a book, okay?

869
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:37,280
And one of the things I've noticed about these people

870
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:38,880
is they have no friends, okay?

871
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:43,080
This distinction is something that we're all familiar with,

872
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:47,280
unless we understand that to expand students' knowledge

873
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:48,880
of the language, we need to get into

874
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:50,720
low-frequency vocabulary.

875
00:38:50,720 --> 00:38:53,120
It's part of the content, it's part of the science content

876
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:54,600
that they're learning.

877
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,240
So let's build up their awareness of how this works,

878
00:38:57,240 --> 00:38:59,680
and their first language can be an important resource

879
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:00,920
in doing that.

880
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:04,480
But if we can get them reading, provide reward systems

881
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:07,320
for them to read in the target language,

882
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:10,280
that is gonna dramatically increase their access

883
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:12,920
to the lower-frequency words.

884
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:15,720
And grammatical structures and discourse structures

885
00:39:15,720 --> 00:39:16,560
in English.

886
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:20,600
So this is the framework that I would use,

887
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:24,320
or suggest as a starting point for discussion.

888
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:27,480
It's not prescriptive, but it's a way of trying

889
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:30,320
to pull together a lot of what the research is saying

890
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:34,320
about how we can build strong academic development

891
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:36,840
in, when we're in multilingual context,

892
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:38,640
when we're talking about children who are learning

893
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:41,320
a second language, whether they're from migrant backgrounds

894
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:45,040
or majority backgrounds, what the research is saying

895
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:49,240
is that if we look at predictors of literacy attainment,

896
00:39:49,240 --> 00:39:52,680
the strongest predictor, and it's not just the OECD studies,

897
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:54,400
there's lots of research out there,

898
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:57,080
the strongest predictor is literacy engagement.

899
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,400
So if we look at our programs, and we see that students

900
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:03,680
are not doing a lot of reading in the target language,

901
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:07,080
they're not readers at home, then this is something

902
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:09,160
that we should be focusing our efforts on.

903
00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:12,880
Is our libraries in the schools where we've set up

904
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:14,560
these programs, are they adequate?

905
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:19,560
Are we encouraging parents to get books for their children,

906
00:40:19,720 --> 00:40:23,120
both in the first language and in English where possible?

907
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:25,880
What kind of reward systems, are we encouragement,

908
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,520
are we giving to students to engage in this?

909
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:33,120
If we ask how we can get students engaged with literacy

910
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:35,720
when it's a second language context,

911
00:40:35,720 --> 00:40:38,840
a lot of the research can be summarized in these four boxes.

912
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:41,840
We need to scaffold meaning, not just input,

913
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:44,360
we normally here talk about comprehensible input,

914
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:46,760
but output is also incredibly important,

915
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:48,200
and writing is important.

916
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:51,720
We need to activate students' prior knowledge

917
00:40:51,720 --> 00:40:54,720
and build background knowledge, we need to affirm identity

918
00:40:54,720 --> 00:40:56,000
and extend language.

919
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:01,680
If students are getting the language only in the classroom,

920
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:04,840
then we've gotta take every opportunity to extend it

921
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,060
as much as possible across the curriculum.

922
00:41:07,060 --> 00:41:08,280
So I'm gonna spend a little bit of time

923
00:41:08,720 --> 00:41:11,840
on these last two boxes since they haven't been talked

924
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:12,760
about that much.

925
00:41:14,240 --> 00:41:17,800
This is a, let me give you the context here.

926
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:20,440
A project that I've been involved in over the last few years

927
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:22,280
has been termed the Multiliteracies Project.

928
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:25,360
We're talking about literacy not just in terms of print,

929
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:27,760
but all of the literacies that are associated

930
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:31,320
with digital technologies, as well as the multilingual

931
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:33,760
literacies that children are bringing into our schools.

932
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:38,240
So this project took place in a monolingual classroom.

933
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:40,280
There were students from a number of different

934
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:42,800
language backgrounds in the classroom,

935
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:47,600
and the teacher was interested in bringing in

936
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:49,600
bilingual instructional strategies,

937
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:53,040
affirming students, affirming to students

938
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:54,440
that their knowledge of their first language

939
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:57,320
was legitimate, that their first language was important,

940
00:41:57,320 --> 00:41:59,000
that it was not in any way an impediment

941
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,040
to learning English, and finding a way to engage

942
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:04,660
newcomer students as quickly as possible

943
00:42:04,660 --> 00:42:06,360
in literacy engagement.

944
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:08,920
So this was a story that was done in the context

945
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:12,320
of a unit on immigration, so it was a social studies unit,

946
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:15,400
where it was a culminating project.

947
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:17,400
The three students wrote a story.

948
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:18,820
They wrote a dual-language story,

949
00:42:18,820 --> 00:42:20,480
and they were writing it for younger students,

950
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:22,600
and many of the younger students were also from,

951
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:25,000
of Pakistani origin, speakers of Urdu.

952
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,240
So they suggested to the teacher that they do it

953
00:42:27,240 --> 00:42:29,320
in both languages so that the younger students

954
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:31,360
could understand it also, and their parents

955
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:32,440
could understand it.

956
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:34,920
Now, Mehdi had just arrived in Canada

957
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:38,960
about six weeks previously, so her English was minimal.

958
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:41,600
Suman and Kanta had been in Canada

959
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:42,920
for about three and a half years,

960
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:44,600
so their English was pretty good.

961
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:47,440
They wrote, the process that they went through

962
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:50,440
is that they first of all talked about the story in Urdu,

963
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:52,440
which was a language that was common to all of them.

964
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:55,120
They figured out what the story was gonna be about,

965
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:56,960
who the main character was gonna be,

966
00:42:56,960 --> 00:42:58,480
what was gonna be in each page,

967
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:00,480
so all of the planning was done,

968
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:03,500
what the illustration should look like, et cetera.

969
00:43:03,500 --> 00:43:06,460
Then they wrote the first draft in English,

970
00:43:06,460 --> 00:43:08,860
and then they discussed it with the teacher,

971
00:43:08,860 --> 00:43:11,620
the teacher made some suggestions, made some corrections,

972
00:43:11,620 --> 00:43:14,380
so they finalized the English draft,

973
00:43:14,380 --> 00:43:17,860
and then went back to Urdu.

974
00:43:17,860 --> 00:43:20,380
They translated it back into Urdu,

975
00:43:20,380 --> 00:43:22,180
and again, when you look at the videos of this,

976
00:43:22,180 --> 00:43:24,940
there's all kinds of metalinguistic talk going on

977
00:43:24,940 --> 00:43:26,540
about how you say this in Urdu,

978
00:43:26,540 --> 00:43:29,560
or what would be the best way of saying this in English.

979
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:31,180
So the two languages were being brought

980
00:43:31,180 --> 00:43:34,780
into productive connection with each other.

981
00:43:34,780 --> 00:43:37,300
When this was done, we scanned it in,

982
00:43:37,300 --> 00:43:40,460
it's up on the webpage of the project,

983
00:43:40,460 --> 00:43:42,940
anybody from around the world can look at it.

984
00:43:42,940 --> 00:43:45,380
I'll just give you a sample of what it looks like.

985
00:43:45,380 --> 00:43:47,500
They invented a composite character called Sonia

986
00:43:47,500 --> 00:43:50,820
that encompassed a lot of their experiences,

987
00:43:50,820 --> 00:43:53,260
and this text goes like this.

988
00:43:53,260 --> 00:43:55,780
Sonia's dad, for the first time, had his own car.

989
00:43:55,780 --> 00:43:58,100
He drove the family to the new apartment.

990
00:43:58,100 --> 00:43:59,340
The apartment had an elevator,

991
00:43:59,340 --> 00:44:01,820
and Sonia actually thought the elevator was her home.

992
00:44:01,820 --> 00:44:05,000
This is not fiction, this was one of their experiences.

993
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:06,980
She also thought that when she would press each button,

994
00:44:06,980 --> 00:44:08,420
things would pop out.

995
00:44:08,420 --> 00:44:09,660
Then when the elevator opened,

996
00:44:09,660 --> 00:44:11,580
Sonia saw a lot of doors in front of her.

997
00:44:11,580 --> 00:44:14,180
She thought they were all rooms in her new apartment.

998
00:44:14,180 --> 00:44:16,140
Okay, so this is a charming story.

999
00:44:16,140 --> 00:44:17,860
It's what we call an identity text,

1000
00:44:17,860 --> 00:44:20,780
because students invested themselves in this.

1001
00:44:20,780 --> 00:44:21,920
This was their story.

1002
00:44:22,860 --> 00:44:25,720
Their prior experience came into it.

1003
00:44:25,720 --> 00:44:28,180
Use of the first language enabled them

1004
00:44:28,180 --> 00:44:30,900
to plan it out in a way where they were operating

1005
00:44:30,900 --> 00:44:33,820
at the top of their cognitive abilities.

1006
00:44:33,820 --> 00:44:37,180
If you were to take the case of Madiha, who just arrived,

1007
00:44:37,180 --> 00:44:39,820
and so ask what she could do

1008
00:44:39,820 --> 00:44:43,680
if English was the only language that was accessible to her

1009
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:45,500
or made accessible to her,

1010
00:44:45,500 --> 00:44:48,940
you might have got one or two painful sentences out of her.

1011
00:44:48,940 --> 00:44:51,460
In this context, because the social rules

1012
00:44:51,460 --> 00:44:52,640
of the game were changed,

1013
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:55,540
she's the very proud author of a 20-page book

1014
00:44:55,540 --> 00:44:58,160
that's being read by thousands of people.

1015
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:01,680
I want to give you a sense of what this was like for Kanta.

1016
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:05,360
We presented with the four of the students

1017
00:45:07,720 --> 00:45:08,820
at a conference.

1018
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:12,560
And hopefully this will work.

1019
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:17,960
Hi, we're gonna start by introducing Kanta,

1020
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:21,840
who's going to tell us a little bit about herself.

1021
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:23,920
Hi, my name is Kanta.

1022
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:25,200
I'm from Pakistan.

1023
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:27,920
My first language was Punjabi.

1024
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:30,000
My second language was Urdu,

1025
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:31,900
and my third language was English.

1026
00:45:31,900 --> 00:45:35,000
I came here in grade four, and now I am in grade nine.

1027
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:37,360
How did you feel writing the book in two languages,

1028
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:40,500
and how did you see it helping you or the others?

1029
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:45,360
It helped me a lot, and using two languages

1030
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:47,960
helped us a lot to understand English better.

1031
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:50,840
And when Madiha was actually new here,

1032
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:54,040
and then, like, in Urdu, if you would write,

1033
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:55,160
you would say three words.

1034
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:57,920
In English, you would actually have to write five words.

1035
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:00,040
So then, if you're thinking in Urdu,

1036
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:02,120
you would be only writing those three words.

1037
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:04,200
And then, so those sentence structures

1038
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:05,200
didn't really make sense.

1039
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:08,240
But while we were doing it, it made a lot of sense to her.

1040
00:46:08,240 --> 00:46:10,200
And then, how it helped me,

1041
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:13,200
it helped me that when I was here,

1042
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:15,200
and when I came here in grade four,

1043
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:17,720
like, the teachers didn't know what I was capable of.

1044
00:46:17,720 --> 00:46:20,360
I was given a pack of crayons and a coloring book,

1045
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:22,880
and to get on coloring with it.

1046
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,000
And then, after, I felt, like, so valuable

1047
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:28,720
that I am capable of doing much more than just doing that.

1048
00:46:28,720 --> 00:46:32,520
Like, I have my own inner skills to show the world

1049
00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:35,000
than just coloring, and then I felt like

1050
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:37,440
those skills of me were important also.

1051
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:38,960
So when we started writing these books,

1052
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,760
I could actually show the world that I am something

1053
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:43,480
instead of just coloring.

1054
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:46,560
And then, so that's how it helped me.

1055
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:49,320
And then, it made me so proud of myself

1056
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:51,600
that I am actually capable of doing something,

1057
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:53,800
and here today, I am doing something like that.

1058
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:55,280
That I can actually show the world

1059
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,640
that I'm just not a coloring person.

1060
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:01,000
I can actually show you that I am something.

1061
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:05,080
Okay, I'm gonna wrap up just in the interest of time.

1062
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:08,280
But basically, what I'm saying here is that

1063
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:12,160
I think if we revisit that fundamental assumption

1064
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:15,120
that was made back in the mid-60s

1065
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:17,200
when French immersion programs first started,

1066
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:20,120
that the two languages should never meet.

1067
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:22,760
And think about what we can do

1068
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:26,200
when we implement bilingual instructional strategies

1069
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:29,960
to complement monolingual instructional strategies.

1070
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:31,320
We can do a lot of things.

1071
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:33,440
We can exploit cognitive relationships.

1072
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:35,160
We can develop students' awareness

1073
00:47:35,160 --> 00:47:39,120
of how the language works in both classes,

1074
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:42,440
or both Spanish teaching and English teaching.

1075
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:44,000
And we can develop their awareness

1076
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:45,520
of how the language works.

1077
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:48,160
The research says students tend to do this anyway,

1078
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:50,360
but let's give it a helping hand.

1079
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:55,280
We can have students create,

1080
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:57,000
showcase their bilingual talents,

1081
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:01,800
their multilingual talents by connecting the languages,

1082
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:03,160
by writing dual-language texts

1083
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:05,680
that increase the audience quite dramatically.

1084
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:09,640
And by putting this material up on the web,

1085
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:12,520
it generates a huge amount of pride in students

1086
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:15,300
so the language becomes a language that they own.

1087
00:48:15,300 --> 00:48:17,440
It extends their sense of self.

1088
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:18,840
And remember what I said,

1089
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,760
one of the reasons why typical second-language teaching

1090
00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:22,960
has never worked very well,

1091
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:26,280
except for a small minority of highly motivated students,

1092
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:27,920
because the vast majority of students

1093
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:29,560
never cross the threshold

1094
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:31,280
where they can do anything with the language

1095
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:33,480
that is meaningful to them themselves.

1096
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:36,600
And so there's no affirmation in it.

1097
00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:38,840
You can see the kind of affirmation that comes

1098
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:40,480
when students do something like this.

1099
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:43,120
So there's absolutely no pedagogical reason

1100
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:44,600
why students in CLIL programs

1101
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:47,120
should not be writing bilingual books,

1102
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:48,640
doing bilingual projects,

1103
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:51,920
if we coordinate it across the different parts of the day.

1104
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:54,720
And then the third thing that I'd like to highlight

1105
00:48:54,720 --> 00:48:56,320
that can add to all of this

1106
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:58,760
is the importance of sister class projects,

1107
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:01,520
where we connect up with sister classes.

1108
00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:03,360
They may be across the city.

1109
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:05,760
It may be just another CLIL program within Madrid.

1110
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:10,080
Or it may be a program in the UK, Australia, Canada.

1111
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:14,620
But we do substantive, challenging projects together.

1112
00:49:14,620 --> 00:49:16,960
We publish the results together.

1113
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:18,840
This goes way beyond pen pals.

1114
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:20,080
It's got to be substantive.

1115
00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:22,000
It's got to be engaging.

1116
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:24,560
It's got to be something that becomes an identity text,

1117
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:26,280
where students will invest their identities

1118
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:27,240
into creating it.

1119
00:49:27,240 --> 00:49:28,880
I think if we were to move in these directions,

1120
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:31,000
we're going to increase literacy engagement,

1121
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:33,720
because students will be doing much more research

1122
00:49:33,720 --> 00:49:35,160
where they're reading.

1123
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:38,160
It's going to increase identity affirmation.

1124
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:41,520
We're going to tap into students' prior knowledge

1125
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:43,840
much more actively than we might be doing right now.

1126
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:45,480
And we're scaffolding production

1127
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:47,960
that's going to be at a much higher level.

1128
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:51,600
So these would be the, if I were speaking to,

1129
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:54,280
in a Canadian context, based on my knowledge

1130
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:56,360
of what has happened and is happening

1131
00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:57,880
in many French immersion programs,

1132
00:49:57,880 --> 00:49:59,800
these would be the directions

1133
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:01,920
that I would suggest we talk about.

1134
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:04,860
Within the school, talk about what we can do.

1135
00:50:04,860 --> 00:50:08,440
But it's got to be a grassroots discussion

1136
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:10,260
of what possibilities we have,

1137
00:50:10,260 --> 00:50:13,160
how we can enrich students' language learning

1138
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:15,160
and literacy learning experiences

1139
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:19,520
based on what we have observed in our own context,

1140
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:21,760
and also what the research is saying.

1141
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:26,760
So again, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here.

1142
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:28,560
The progress that has been made

1143
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:30,760
in a short amount of time is staggering.

1144
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:33,800
I'm sure everybody here must be exhausted,

1145
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:36,040
hopefully not just because of my presentation,

1146
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:38,400
but because of all of the work you're doing

1147
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:39,880
throughout the year.

1148
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:42,000
But I wish you well in what you're doing,

1149
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:44,440
and thank you again for the opportunity to be part of it.

1150
00:50:44,560 --> 00:50:45,400
Thank you.

1151
00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:46,260
Thank you.

1152
00:50:46,260 --> 00:50:47,240
Thank you.

1153
00:50:47,240 --> 00:50:48,080
Thank you.

1154
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:48,920
Thank you.

1155
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:52,180
Thank you.

1156
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:03,420
Okay, we have about five minutes for a couple of questions.

1157
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:06,520
The first question is,

1158
00:51:06,520 --> 00:51:08,240
we have another question as well.

1159
00:51:09,500 --> 00:51:10,400
Thank you, oops.

1160
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:15,400
What strategies can we use to get our students

1161
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:20,800
to read more books when they've got a bazillion number

1162
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:25,800
of TV channels, DVDs, consoles, and access to internet?

1163
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:27,720
Thank you for your presentation.

1164
00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:33,000
You've got to build on students' culture,

1165
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:34,120
on the popular culture.

1166
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:37,760
If they're watching TV channels

1167
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:39,360
and they have their favorite programs,

1168
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:43,880
or they have their favorite music that they listen to,

1169
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:45,400
build on that.

1170
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:50,400
So have students work in groups to build a soap opera,

1171
00:51:51,760 --> 00:51:53,840
build a role play, a drama,

1172
00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:55,080
based on things that they know

1173
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:57,520
where they're going to use English.

1174
00:51:57,520 --> 00:51:59,520
And so I think we build on that.

1175
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:01,560
We don't try and replace it.

1176
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:06,200
But the teacher is in many ways the boss within the classroom.

1177
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:09,120
You can set the requirements for what students do.

1178
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:11,480
So if you have a requirement that students

1179
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:14,120
carry out research, that they come back

1180
00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:16,400
and be able to talk about it in English,

1181
00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:20,960
that we have books that are engaging to students,

1182
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:22,600
that they're expected to read,

1183
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,360
and we talk about these books, we dramatize them,

1184
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:29,040
I think that's going to help.

1185
00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:30,960
It's not going to be necessarily easy,

1186
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:34,120
but if we establish this from the day the student

1187
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:37,360
walks into the CLIL program in grade one,

1188
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:41,440
or even before in the infant schools,

1189
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:43,200
if students are listening to stories,

1190
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:44,960
if stories are part of their lives,

1191
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:46,120
they will want to read.

1192
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:48,040
And so they've got to be able to identify

1193
00:52:48,040 --> 00:52:49,400
with what's happening in the stories.

1194
00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:50,640
They've also got to have the opportunities

1195
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:53,240
to become writers, and to be the protagonists

1196
00:52:53,240 --> 00:52:55,240
of their own work.

1197
00:52:55,240 --> 00:52:58,240
They can do this in groups, you can scaffold it.

1198
00:52:58,240 --> 00:53:01,040
What the research is saying is that it's central,

1199
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:03,400
and so it's worth the effort.

1200
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:05,400
There aren't any formulas for doing it,

1201
00:53:05,440 --> 00:53:08,160
but if it's not highlighted enough in the curriculum,

1202
00:53:08,160 --> 00:53:10,040
then let's talk about how we can put it in there,

1203
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:13,120
and learn from each other in terms of doing it.

1204
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:16,160
Okay, we have time for two more questions, okay.

1205
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:19,080
Given the research support for transfer,

1206
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:21,600
what is the reasoning behind starting to read

1207
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:23,160
in language two in Canada?

1208
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:26,720
What the research says is it doesn't matter

1209
00:53:26,720 --> 00:53:28,600
what language you learn to read in.

1210
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:34,480
It's the rationale for starting in the second language

1211
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:39,320
was that they wanted it to be an immersion program.

1212
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:40,920
And they found that students could acquire

1213
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:45,200
decoding skills fairly successfully in the second language.

1214
00:53:45,200 --> 00:53:48,680
They'd had kindergarten totally through French.

1215
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:50,240
They had some comprehension of the,

1216
00:53:50,240 --> 00:53:52,360
or they have some comprehension of the language.

1217
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:56,440
And so teaching phonological awareness

1218
00:53:56,440 --> 00:54:00,040
and phonics skills in French can work fairly well.

1219
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:01,560
You're talking about high frequency words

1220
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:03,920
that you're using to do this.

1221
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:05,480
And what we find is that typically students

1222
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:08,680
by the end of grade one will have spontaneously transferred

1223
00:54:08,680 --> 00:54:13,040
their reading skills or decoding skills to English

1224
00:54:13,040 --> 00:54:14,680
without any formal instruction.

1225
00:54:14,680 --> 00:54:17,640
So what research in Ireland says,

1226
00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:19,600
what research in Canada says is that

1227
00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:23,320
it really doesn't matter whether you start in L1 and L2.

1228
00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:26,280
Ideally, I would like to see students

1229
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:28,560
developing reading skills in both languages

1230
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:30,720
more or less at the same time,

1231
00:54:30,720 --> 00:54:33,160
so that as they're learning to read in one language,

1232
00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:36,400
we're explicitly transferring some of those skills

1233
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:37,240
to the second language.

1234
00:54:37,240 --> 00:54:39,640
And in a CLIL program, you can obviously do that.

1235
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:42,120
Okay.

1236
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:43,880
Due to the difference between English spelling

1237
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:45,520
and pronunciation, for example,

1238
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:50,480
encountered would be recognized phonetically spoken,

1239
00:54:50,480 --> 00:54:55,080
but an average Spaniard would read encountered, okay?

1240
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:57,440
So the question is, shouldn't listening comprehension

1241
00:54:57,440 --> 00:55:00,280
be promoted more actively than reading literacy

1242
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:02,240
since the transfer would be easier?

1243
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:05,720
I don't think the transfer would be easier.

1244
00:55:05,720 --> 00:55:08,240
Students can figure out that the words have

1245
00:55:09,240 --> 00:55:10,600
most of the letters in common,

1246
00:55:10,600 --> 00:55:13,680
and that kind of initial confusion

1247
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:15,080
is a learning opportunity.

1248
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:18,480
Students will pronounce it incorrectly in English,

1249
00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:20,200
and that gives the teacher the opportunity

1250
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:22,360
to provide corrective feedback.

1251
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:24,840
So I don't see it as being an issue at all.

1252
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:30,520
And I don't see literacy engagement

1253
00:55:30,520 --> 00:55:32,040
and a focus on reading and writing

1254
00:55:32,040 --> 00:55:37,040
as being in any way different or superior to

1255
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:41,080
or inferior to a focus on listening and speaking.

1256
00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:44,160
What I'm saying is that if we postpone

1257
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:48,120
or see literacy development as being secondary

1258
00:55:48,120 --> 00:55:49,360
to speaking and listening,

1259
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:51,880
then we're missing out big time and opportunities.

1260
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:54,080
Do you have time?

1261
00:55:54,080 --> 00:55:57,160
What are the main influences of learning a second language

1262
00:55:57,160 --> 00:56:00,440
in the process of constructing a student's identity?

1263
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:05,720
Well, as everybody here knows,

1264
00:56:05,720 --> 00:56:09,040
when you speak two or more languages,

1265
00:56:09,040 --> 00:56:11,880
you can interact with a lot more people.

1266
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:13,400
You have built competence,

1267
00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:16,920
and whenever any of us builds up expertise in any area,

1268
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:18,640
we feel good about it.

1269
00:56:18,640 --> 00:56:23,640
And so when students develop

1270
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:26,520
usable skills in the second language,

1271
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:28,440
that says something about who they are.

1272
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:30,920
They're intelligent, they're competent,

1273
00:56:30,920 --> 00:56:32,560
they're linguistically talented,

1274
00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:34,560
and that's going to have payoff

1275
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:36,640
in terms of their overall sense of self

1276
00:56:36,640 --> 00:56:40,320
and their sense that they can succeed academically.

1277
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:43,720
They're seen as, in many cases,

1278
00:56:43,720 --> 00:56:45,280
little linguistic prodigies,

1279
00:56:45,280 --> 00:56:46,880
these six-year-olds, seven-year-olds

1280
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:48,880
who can actually hold a conversation in English

1281
00:56:48,880 --> 00:56:50,760
or in the Canadian context, French.

1282
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:53,320
They get a lot of positive feedback for that.

1283
00:56:53,320 --> 00:56:55,960
So identity and language learning

1284
00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:58,760
are very, very closely tied together.

1285
00:56:58,880 --> 00:57:01,920
Okay, and one more quick question, okay?

1286
00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:03,840
Bilingualism, CLIL, immersion,

1287
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:05,320
you talked about the differences

1288
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:07,480
in terms of exposure to the target language.

1289
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:09,560
Aren't there many other variables as well,

1290
00:57:09,560 --> 00:57:11,840
for example, contextual?

1291
00:57:11,840 --> 00:57:14,120
Well, in every bilingual program,

1292
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:17,960
there are contextual variations.

1293
00:57:17,960 --> 00:57:20,920
Ireland is not the same context as Canada.

1294
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:24,680
So the contextual variations

1295
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:27,600
are going to vary across every bilingual program.

1296
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:30,520
Between two schools in the Madrid region,

1297
00:57:30,520 --> 00:57:32,520
you're going to have different contextual variables

1298
00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:34,160
in terms of who the students are,

1299
00:57:34,160 --> 00:57:37,000
what the income level of parents is, et cetera.

1300
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:39,400
So context is always going to be important,

1301
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:41,720
and that's why I think it's important

1302
00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:44,040
to understand the core principles

1303
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:46,960
that are operating across context,

1304
00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:49,360
but then how we interpret those

1305
00:57:49,360 --> 00:57:51,400
will be specific to our own context.

1306
00:57:51,400 --> 00:57:54,120
So that's why what I've tried to present

1307
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:57,480
are essentially reflections rather than prescriptions.

1308
00:57:58,360 --> 00:57:59,320
What I'm saying is here's what the research is saying,

1309
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:01,480
here's how we can synthesize

1310
00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:04,120
a lot of the central issues in the research,

1311
00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:07,200
but how you in any particular center or school

1312
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:09,800
interprets this for your context

1313
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:10,720
is going to be something

1314
00:58:10,720 --> 00:58:13,240
that should be decided in that context.

1315
00:58:13,240 --> 00:58:15,960
So obviously we have curriculum being developed

1316
00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:19,480
in a top-down way in most situations.

1317
00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:22,000
So that's the curriculum that we have to teach,

1318
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:24,560
but also we have to, if we understand the research,

1319
00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:25,960
we've got to link that curriculum

1320
00:58:25,960 --> 00:58:27,320
with students' prior knowledge.

1321
00:58:28,160 --> 00:58:29,000
That means we've got to have students

1322
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:30,680
brainstorming about issues.

1323
00:58:30,680 --> 00:58:32,120
If we're talking about photosynthesis,

1324
00:58:32,120 --> 00:58:33,840
to come back to that same example,

1325
00:58:33,840 --> 00:58:36,200
then we might start with asking students

1326
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:39,000
what do they know about how plants grow?

1327
00:58:39,000 --> 00:58:41,160
Get students to brainstorm about that,

1328
00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:44,200
think about it, and get their suggestions.

1329
00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:46,800
And then we've built up the basis

1330
00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:50,240
for teaching that concept much more effectively

1331
00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:51,920
than if we just do it cold.

1332
00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:54,160
The curriculum that's handed down may say,

1333
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:56,400
may not specify that we should do that,

1334
00:58:56,440 --> 00:58:57,680
but we can reinterpret that

1335
00:58:57,680 --> 00:58:59,440
in terms of what we know about the research.

1336
00:58:59,440 --> 00:59:01,640
So the context is always going to be important,

1337
00:59:01,640 --> 00:59:04,440
but basically immersion and CLIL

1338
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:06,760
are two forms of bilingual education

1339
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:10,320
that will be interpreted differently in different contexts.

1340
00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:13,200
CLIL programs in Finland and Italy

1341
00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:15,680
are going to be different than CLIL programs in Spain,

1342
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:16,920
and that's not a problem.

1343
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:20,520
Okay, I think that's all we have time for.

1344
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:22,080
Thank you very much.

1345
00:59:22,080 --> 00:59:22,920
Thank you.

1346
00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:24,120
Thank you.

1347
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:34,200
Thank you.

1348
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:39,920
And we're going to have a few words.