Dealing with Multilingualism in Education.: A Case Study of a Dutch Primary School Classroom

Tilburg University

Dealing with Multilingualism in Education.

Bezemer, J.

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2003

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Bezemer, J. (2003). Dealing with Multilingualism in Education. A Case Study of a Dutch Primary School

Classroom. Aksant Academic Publishers.

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DEALING WITH MULTILINGUALISM

IN EDUCATION

...

UNIVERSITEIT *€ e *VAN TILBURG

.:.

STUDIES

IN MEERTALIGHEID

/

STUDIES IN

MULTILINGUALISM

The aim ofthisseries istodisseminatetheoreticalandapplied linguistic knowledge

and resultsof empiricalresearch in the field of individualand societal

multilingualism. Editors

Guus Extra & Ton Vallen

Babylon, CentreforStudies oftheMulticulturalSociety

TilburgUniversity, TheNetherlands

Editorial board

Rend_{Appel, University}of Amsterdam

Hans Bennis, Meertens Institute Amsterdam

Kees de_{Bot, Universityof Groningen} Kris Vanden Branden, University ofLeuven DurkGorter, FryskeAkademyLeeuwarden

Roeland van Hout, University of Niimegen lacomine Nortier, Utrecht University Previouslypublished

No. 1 leanneKurvers (2002)

Met ongeletterde ogen. Kennis van taal en schrift van analfabeten

No. 2 Chefena Hailemariam (2002)

Language and Education in Eritrea. A Case Study of Language Diversity, Policy and Practice

No. 3 Yahya E-Rammdani (2003)

DEALING

WITH

MULTILINGUALISM

IN EDUCATION

A

Case

_{Study of}

a

Dutch

Primary School Classroom

UNIVERSITEIT * VAN TILBURG I

BIBLIOTHEEK TILBURG

PROEFSCHRIFT

ter verkrijging vandegraadvandoctor

aandeUniversiteitvan_Tilburg

op gezag van derector magnificus, prof. dr. F.A. van der DuynSchouten,

in het openbaarteverdedigentenoverstaan van een door het college voorpromoties aangewezen commissie

in de aula van deUniversiteit

op dinsdag16december 2003 om 16.15 uur

doorJosephus lohannes Bezemer,

promotor: prof. dr. G. Extra

copromotor: dr. S. Kroon

Theresearchreported in thispublicationwasfunded by the MinistryofEducation,Culture, and

Science of the Netherlands. Theministry, however, does nottakeresponsibility for thefacts stated,opinionsexpressedandconclusions reached in thispublication.

ISBN 90 5260 125 9

©2003Aksant AcademicPublishers, Amsterdam

All_{rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission of the}

publisher.

© I997,1998Zwijsen Educatief,Tilburg(Figures 6.2,7.1,8.I, 10. I, II.2)

©_{I984 Bekadidact,}Baarn(Figures 9.1,9.1,9.3,9.4)

Coverdesign:_Jos Hendrix, Groningen

Printedandbound in the Netherlandson acid-free_paper

Aksant Academic Publishers

Table

of

contents

Preface ix

I Introduction I

Background I Focus 2 Relevance 3

Outline 4

Terminology 6

2 Practical knowledge and multilingual classrooms 9

Introduction 9

Practicalknowledge IO

Sociolinguistic perspectives I4

Languageteaching perspectives I7

Conclusions 20

3 Design of tbe study 23

vi Dealingwith multilingualismineducation

4 Policies on multilinguatism and education 35

Introduction 35

TheDutch_{education system 36}

The I970s and I9805 38

The_{early I99O5 41}

The late 19905 45

The case

of

Stolberg 47

Conclusions 49

s "A multicultural society in a miniature" De Rietscbans prinzary school SI

Introduction LI

The pupils 52 Theschool policy 57

The teacher 60

The subjects and textbooks 64

Conclusions 69

6 "Tbat's wbat we work bard on" Vocabulary in tbe inai,istream clissroom 7I Introduction 7.r

Subjectmatter_{and materials 73}

A key episode 79

Expectations andresponses 83

Linguisticdemands 86

Teacher accounts 87 Conclusions 89

7 "Tbey o#en don't bear that" Spelling in the mainstrcain classroom 9I

Introduction 9I

Subjectmatterand_{materials 93}

A key episode 95

instructionsandaccounts 99

Pupil responses IoI

Metonymic formulas I03

Tableofcontents Vii

8 "Is tbat bow we say tbat in the Netberlandsf" Gramma,· in tbe nurinstreain

Classrown I09

Introduction IO9

Subjectmatterandmaterials I.ro A key episode I14

Instructionsandaccounts /20 Pupil responses 02

The textbookauthor's_{account 125}

Divergentinterpretations ofthe subjectmatter 126 Conclusions /28

9 "They know tbe language" Mathematics iii tbe niainstream classrooin I3I

Introduction I:iI

Subjectmatterand_{materials I32}

A key episode I34

Instructionsand responses I39

Problems

of

understanding 14I Teacher accounts I45

Conclusions I47

„

IO You don't need to know tbe Turkish word" Vocabula,7 in the inintigrant

minority la,iguage classroom 149

Introduction I49

Defining 'language support' ISO

A key episode I54

From DutchtoTurkish I6O

From BerbertoArabic via_{Dutch I63} Divergentinterpretations ofthe subject Ids Conclusions I68

II "Lettbe pupils talk" Voctibulary in tbe D,itch as a second language classroom I7I

Introduction I7I

Defining'Dutch asasecondlanguage' /72 Subject matter and materials I74

A key episode I77

Constructing meaning ISS

viii Dealingwith multilingualismineducation

I2 Conclusions and discussion !93

Recapitulation I93

Languages in theclassroom I95

Thelanguage_{curriculum /97} Languageskills I99

Dealingwith multilingualism 202

Notes 205

References 207

Preface

In June 1997, the then State Secretary

of

Education, Culture, and Science of the Netherlands, Mrs TinekeNetelenbos,fourmembers o fherStaff,andthree specialists

from thefield

of

languageandeducation paid aworking visit toOslo, Norway. The

aim

ofthe

visitwas tolearnabout decentralised policies onimmigrant minoritypupils and pupils

with

specialneedsparticipating inmainstream education inNorway. The

delegationmetschoolpractitioners, educationalists,andpolicy_makers,including the

thenMinister ofChurch,Education,and ResearchofNorway,

Mr

GudmundHernes.

It was on

this occasion that the Ministries of Education

of

Norway and the

Netherlandsinitiatedaresearch_{project with the aim}

of

_illuminatingand_comparing everyday practicesoflanguage teaching and learning in multicultural classrooms in the

twocountries. Members

of

_{Babylon, Centre}forStudies of theMulticultural_Society

at

Tilburg

University, andtheInstitute

of

Psychology attheUniversity of Oslo were

invitedtowritea

joint

proposalforsetting upandcarrying out this project. InJanuary

I998, the proposal submitted bytheseresearchinstitutes,entitled'LanguageLearning

in a Multicultural

Context;

A

_{Comparative study}

of

First and _{Second Language} Learning in Dutch and Norwegian Elementary Education', was approved by the Ministries.

In October I998,the Norwegianresearch team,Astri Heen Wold, Else Ryen, and Lutine deWalPastoor,embarked onthe project.TheDutchteam,consisting of Guus Extra,SjaakKroon,JanSturm, andme,commencedin March 1999. Inthefollowing

years, wegathered, exchanged, reviewed, analysed, and compareddatadocumenting

everyday practices

of

teaching and learning in multicultural classrooms in the two

countries. In the _{autumn of 2003,} the project wascompleted and presented to the

Ministries

of

Education

of

Norway andtheNetherlands inaconcise report.

My contribution tothe projectconsistedofsetting upandcarrying out acasestudy

of

language practices in a mainstream classroom attended by pupils from different cultural and language backgrounds. In the present book, this part of the project is

x Dealing thmultilingualismineducation

teachers from primary schooldeRietscbans. _{Many thanks to all of them for welcoming} I

me totheirclassrooms. I am alsograteful to myDutchandNorwegiancolleagues, my parents, andmy friends, for thefeedbackandsupportthey offeredmethroughout the

project.

Tilburg,October 2003

Jeff Bezemer

CHAPTER I

Introduction

Background

As a result

of

politically, economically, and socially motivated migration, the

Netherlands has _{undergone considerable demographicchanges since}

World War II

(Lucassen

&

Penninx 1994)·Whiledecolonisation of theDutchIndies and Surinam

brought about significant inflows

of

migrants in the earlyfiftiesand mid-seventies,

respectively,foreign labour policies ledtomigrantflowsfromMediterranean countries in the sixties and the early seventies.

Although it

was expected that these migrant

workerswould return to their countries

of

originonce their workingcontracts had expired, the majority

of

TurkishandMoroccan migrantssettledpermanently in tile

Netherlands. Family reunions and marriageswith spouses from these countries of origin subsequently led to new migration. In addition, there has been afluctuating

migration flow fromtheoverseas territories

of

Aruba and the DutchAntilles,while

refugeesfrom acrosstheworldhavecontinued toseekasylum in the Netherlands.

Consequently, in2002,almost3

million

inhabitants out

ofa

total population of 16

million people hadat leastone_{parent who was born outside} theNetherlands (CBS

2002). Numerous inquiries havebeencarried out intothesocio-economicand

ethnic-culturalposition oftheseresidentsin Dutch society in the lasttwodecades_(Heeren,

Vogel

&

Werdm6lder I996). As in publicandpoliticaldiscourse, the first andsecond

generation migrants originating from non-Western countries, notably Turkey, Surinam, Morocco, and the Dutch Antilles and Aruba, have been the focus of

attention

within

thisrealm

of

research.

Evidently, theculturaldiversitybroughtabout bymigrationmanifestsitself in the

pupil populations

of

primary_{schools. In 2002, ts·2} percent ofallpupils atprimary

schools were registeredas belonging to 'cultural minorities', which means that their

parents are admitted refugees, or that at least one of them was born in Turkey,

2 Dealingwith multilingualismineducation

OCW

2002). Language surveys have shown that thesepupils speak many different

languages at home (Broeder

&

Extra _{1998; Extra et aL 2002). In} the Hague, for

instance,thethirdlargest city ofthe_{Netherlands,45}percent

of

primaryand secondary schoolpupils indicated that theyareexposedtoanotherlanguage athomeapart from

or instead

of

Dutch (Extra et al. 2001). Whilethepupils mentioned more than eighty different languages,_{Turkish,Arabic, Berber, English,} andHindustaniaccounted for

almost 70 percentofthe instancesinwhichlanguagesother thanDutchwerereported.

EspeciallyTurkish-, Arabic-, andBerber-speakingchildren indicated that theyspeak those languageswith theirparents most of the time.

Thedifferentpatternsofhomelanguageuseamong pupils, which leadtodifferent

levels

of

proficiency inboth Dutchandother homelanguages,markedly contrast with

the monolingualcharacter

of

mainstreamschools, whereDutch is not onlyacentral subject, but also the standard language

of

instruction.

Only

primary reception of immigrantpupils who donotspeakDutch at all may take placeinanother_language. ThecurriculumStatus

of

'non-indigenous'languagesassubjectsin theirown right has

always been acontroversialissue_{in political}and_scholarlydiscourse _{(Kroon & Sturm}

2003) · As a result

of

their limited use

of

Dutch at home, the average level of

proficiency in this national standardlanguageissignificantlylower amongpupils with

Turkish, Moroccan, and other immigrant backgrounds than among monolingual, Dutch-speaking pupils (Verhoeven

&

Vermeer1989). Theselowerlevelsofproficiency

inDutch often go hand in handwithlower levels

of

school achievement,and,among

parents,with lower socio-economicstatus (Tesser

&

Iedema 200I).

The command

of

Dutch

ofpupils

from'cultural minorities'hasbecome akeyissue

in Dutch rhetoric on education. A host

of

_{educational policies, informed by a} knowledge base for good language teaching practices in multilingual contexts

established and promoted by educationists and linguists (cf. Emmelot, Van Schooten

& Timman 2000), havebeen issued bynationalandlocal governments on this matter. At a practical level,differentlanguage reaching materialsandprogrammes have been developed andintroduced toschools,whichareclaimed tobetailoredtomultilingual

classrooms. _{In addition,}numerousspecial_{committees, councils, advisoryservices, and}

individual experts have tried to steer language policy and practice related to multilingualism in diverging directions.

Within

this context, teachers are challenged

to deal with the linguistic heterogeneity among their pupils in everyday school practice.

Focus

It was the purpose of this ethnographic case study to gain insight into everyday practices

of

dealingwithlanguage inamultilingualclassroom intheNetherlands. The

Introduction 3

populations and the monolingual character ofthe official curriculum for primary

education promptedgeneralquestionswhichguided the collectionand analysisofdata

on the selectedclass

of

pupils with differentlanguagebackgrounds.Thesequestions

are:

• What

picture emerges from thelanguagepractices in the classroom Who speaks

what language variety to whom, when, why, and how2 Which subject matter of which languageistaught to whom, when, why, and how

. Whatpictureemerges from theteacher'saccounts

of

these languagepractices

0 How can these practices and accounts

of

dealingwith language in amultilingual classroom beunderstood2

The first question concerned actual practices

of

dealing with language from both

sociolinguisticand language teaching perspectives.The formerperspective focuses on language use in themultilingualclassroom,irrespective oftheactivityinwhichteacher

and pupilsareinvolved._{The latter perspective}focuseson _{language as}a_{subject to be}

mught to and learned by a multilingual pupil population. Thethesecondquestion concerned the teacher'sarticulated view

of

teaching hislinguistically heterogeneous

pupil population.Thethirdquestionrefers tothesearch foraplausibleinterpretation

of

thedocumented practicesand teacher accounts in the

light of

thecontextinwhich

they were realised. This context was thought to encompass, at least, the language backgroundsofthepupils, the educational and professional backgroundoftheteacher,

the background of the teaching materials used, andthe languagepolicies

ofthe

school

and thelocaland_{national governments.}

While these guiding questions were present from the outset,

particular foci of

attention emerged fromthe collected data. On thebasis

of

repeated reviewing of the

data, reaching episodes were selected which were believed to have the potential to

epitomize the practice

of

dealing with language in the classroom. These episodes represent language practicesin threedifferentsettings.Thelanguage practices in the mainstream'classroom, inwhich theform teacher of theselectedclasswasinvolved, were exemplified bykey episodes ina_vocabularylesson, a_spellinglesson,a_grammar

lesson, andamathematicslesson.Thelanguagepractices in thespecialclassrooms, in whichateacherof'Dutch asasecond language'and teachers

of

immigrant

minority

languages wereinvolved,wereexemplified by two other vocabularylessons.

Relevance

In spite

of

ample attention having been given to multilingualism in research on

reaching and learning _{(Baker 200I), little} is known about what actually goes on in

4 Dealingwith multilingualismineducation

of education, but, as a result

of

immigration, notthe dominanthome language of all pupils(cf. Green

&

Bloome I997; Watson-Gegeo I997)· Inasmuchasactualpractices inthemicrocosmos

of

multilingualclassrooms werethefocus

of

research, the aim was,

first and foremost, to

_identi&

'good practices', rather than to understand the emergence of thepracticeobserved.Inparticular, the practitioner's considerations and motivations behindobserved practices, that is, the insider's perspective of theteacher

regarding what goes on in his or hermultilingual classroom, have been _{neglected in}

researchon teaching.An in-depth,ethnographiccasestudythatwouldcontribute to

the understanding ofsuch insider'sperspectives is relevant for theoretical, political,

and_practicalreasons.

Fromatheoreticalpoint ofview, suchastudy canbeexpectedtocontribute to the

understandingofthe working

of

(Dutch)teachers"practical knowledge'.Thisconcept stands for a variety

of

theoretical ideas stemming from the realm

of

educational

research that seeks to gain insight into the knowledge thatteachers possess (Meijer

1999). The conceptis concerned with the relationsbetweenpractice and cognition,

between_cognitionand_{knowledge or}beliefs, andbetween _{knowledge or beliefs and}

prior educational experiences. Thus, practical knowledge iS taken to underlie and

originatefrom participationin practice.Unravellingthe complex, reciprocalnature of

practical knowledge enhances the understanding of what goes on in a classroom.

Throughethnographicresearchin which bothpracticewasobserved and the teacher's voice was heard, the present study aimed to contribute to this enhancement of

understanding. i

This study isalsorelevant in the light of the endeavourtoreform educationinorder

toenable pupilswith different backgrounds to benefitoptimally from education, in which both politics and intermediariesbetween policy, theory, andpractice such as

teacher educatorsandtextbook authors areinvolved.After all, in order to be able to reform practice, itisessentialto understand the genesis oftheknowledge

of

teachers

underlyingtheirpractice, as it is this knowledgethatservesastheirframe

of

reference

forinterpreting,adopting, adapting, or refusing reforms.Ultimately, insight into this

knowledge enables reformers to anticipate how and whyteachers respond to their

suggestions.

Finally, it was expected that theteachers involved inthe Studywouldbenefit from theirwillingness to cooperate in that they would be encouraged to reflect on their

philosophiesand practices

of

teaching in multilingual contexts intheinterviews that were conductedoncetheirpractices hadbeenobserved.

Outline

This bookconsists

of

twelve chapters. The presentchapterisfollowed bytwo other

Introduction 5

presented. Thenotion of'practical knowledge' is elaborated on,and sociolinguistic

and educational research that casts light on language practices in multilingual

classrooms is reviewed.

In

Chapter 3, the methodological design ofthe study is

expounded. Theethnographic approach adopted in this studyisexplained, and the

selection of the research school and the strategies

of

collecting, analysing and interpreting the dataaredescribed.

The empirical dataarepresented and discussedin Chapters 4-II. In Chapter 4, the

educational context of the Netherlands is introduced.Theeducation system and the national and local languageeducational policiesare discussed, withspecialattention being paid to those policies that apply to the grade level of the selected class. In Chapter 5,the readerisintroduced tothe school,theteachers, andthe pupils involved inthestudy. The school'spolicyon multilingualism,the pupils' home language use andschool achievements, and theteachers'educational and professional backgrounds

are described.In addition, officialandactualtimeschedules forthe classroominvolved and the textbooks used in this classroomarepresented in this chapter.

The following

four chapters deal with language practices in tile mainstream

classroom guided by the form teacher. In each

of

thesechapters, the introductory

sectionisfollowed byasection onthesubjectmatterand materialsatissue in the key episode thatispresented in thethirdsection. These episodesaretakenfromlanguage

arts lessons and a mathematics lesson. In the following sections, an analysis and

interpretation is provided ofthe teacher's instructions and the pupils' responses to these instructions. The teacher's instructions are analysed in terms ofhis taCit and articulated intentions and driving beliefs and his way

of

respresenting the subject

matter, andareconfronted with the aims ofthematerials used._{The pupils' responses} are analysedinterms

of

theirmastery overthelanguageskillspresupposed by thetasks

theyarefaced with in theepisode.

Chapters io and II dealwithclassespulled out fromthemainstreamclass.Chapter Io focuses on alesson inwhichaspecialsubject teacher usedTurkishor Moroccan-Arabic asamedium

of

instructionin ordertoteachDutch. Theinterpretation

ofthis

lesson is _{informed by} a discussion ofthe national _policy on _{immigrant minority}

languageteaching,whichfacilitated this educationalarrangement.Chapter IIisabout

a lessonin 'Dutch asa_{second language',whereby}a_{subgroup of}themainstreamclass

received specialinstructioninDutch fromanotherteacher.Finally,inChapter I2, the

outcomes ofthe analyses and interpretations

of

Chapters 6-I I are compared and conclusionsaredrawnwithrespect to theanticipatedresearchproblem introduced in

6 Dealingwith multilingualismineducation

Terminology

In formaland informal Dutch, the wordallorbtonenis often usedto distinguish an idiosyncratically defined subgroup

of

individuals residing in the Netherlands from

those taken to represent the indigenous population, who are usually referred to as

autocbtonen.Within the field of education, this pair of terms is often used to refer to

groups of pupils as _{allocbtone leerlingen and autocbtone leerlingen} Alternatively, the

opposition between _{buitenlandse leerlingen, i.e., foreign pupils,} and Nederlandse leerlingen, i.e.. Dutch pupils, is used to refer to these groups of pupils. Another distinction frequently made is thatbetween NTI-leerlingen and NT2-leertingen. The abbreviations in these labels stand forNederlands als eerste taal,i.e., Dutch as a first

language, andNederlands als tweede taal\.e.,Dutch as a second language. In official regulations issued bythe

Ministry

of

Education, one comes across the terms

cumi-leerlingen.i.e.. pupils from cultural minorities defined as such by the Ministry, and

0.90-leerlingen, i.e., cumi-leerlingen whoseparentsare ratedamong theworkingclass

(see Chapter 4). It isalsocommonpractice, inevery context,torefertosubgroups of allocbtone leerlingen as

'Turkish

pupils', 'Moroccan pupils', et cetera.

In quotations appearing in this book, theterm _{allocbtone leerlingen}wastranslated as 'immigrantminority

pupils' if it

appeared thatthe quoteewasreferring to thesocial

position of

the pupils

concerned. If

the quotee was referring to the language

background ofthe pupils, the termwastranslatedas 'non-nativeDutch pupils'. The term _{autocbtone leerlingen}was translated as 'native Dutch pupils'. The other terms

were translated literaly. NTI-leerlingen andNT2-leerlingenwere translated as

'DLI-pupils' and 'DLz-pupils'. Buitenlandse kinderen and Nederundse kinderen were

translated as 'foreign pupils' and 'Dutch pupils',and_{cumi-leerlingenand o.go-leerlingen}

as 'cumi-pupils'and'O.90-pupils'

In the analyses of the key episodes, a distinction is occasionally made between

'nativeDutch pupils'and'non-nativeDutch pupils'. NativeDutchpupils include all pupils who predominantlyspeak a_variety

of

Dutch with their_parents. Non-native

Dutchpupils includeallpupils who predominantlyspeakalanguageother than Dutch with their parents. In general, this holds for the pupilswhose parents were born in

Turkeyand_{Morocco (Extra et al. 2002). In Chapter 5, this}distinction is amplified

with respect to the pupils from the classroom investigated. 'Immigrant minority

pupils' refers to the children and grandchildren

of immigrants who hold a

disadvantagedsocio-economicposition in Dutchsociety.Thisapplies to themajority

of

the pupils whose parents were born inTurkey and Morocco (Tesser

&

Iedema

2001).

Quotations and classroom interactions were transcribed and translated literally. Inasmuch as the analysis required it, additional information was

given in the

Introduction 7

Table1.1:_{Transcription conventions}

'

Symbol .Explanation - 1

/ self-repairor restart

\ interruption

marked_lengtheningof previous vowel

; markedstressonfollowingsyllable

x inaudible part of a word

XX inaudible word

/phoneme/ transcription ofphonemeininternationalphoneticalphabet {text} uncertaintranscriptionor uncertainidentificationofinterlocutor (text) impressionisticcomments

* _non-standard

pronunciation or word I.

non-standardwordorder

The transcripts contain both the original utterances and the English translations.

CHAPTER 2

Practical

_knowledge

and

_multilingual

classrooms

Introduction

At

the outset ofthe present study, Kathryn Anderson-Levitt's notion

of

'practical professional knowledge' served as a _point

of

_departure in _{investigating language}

practices in a multilingual classroom. In hercontribution to Spindler

&

Spindler's (I987) Interpretive Etbnograpby and Education: At Home and Abroad,she reports on her

participant observations in first-grade classrooms inFrance.As regardsthefocus

ofher

study,sheexplains that

I ... m

this report concerns teachers' practical professional kowledge, their_{savoir Jaire}or

know-how": neither what they think nor what they do, butwbat they think as they are doing what

theydo.Knowledge, then, is a shorthand term for the beliefs, values, expectations, mental models, andformulasfor doing things whichthe teachers usein interpreting and generating

classroomevents." _{(Anderson-Levitt I987:174)}

Her conceptualisation ofpractical professional knowledge touches on a number of illuminatingtheoretical and empirical insights fromthegrowing body

of

research on teachercognitions. Like other earlycontributors to the researchstrand

of

teachers'

practical knowledge, such as _{Elbaz (I983) and} Clandinin _(I986), Anderson-Levitt is

concernedwithunderstanding what teachers know and what ison theirminds when teaching, rather than with what they ought to do according to theoretical models proclaimed by those who do notneccesarilysharethe insiders'perspective.Thenotion

of

practical professional knowledge

of

teaching, then,

corresponds with the

ethnographer's interestinunderstanding livedandsituated experiences from the emic or insider's

point of

_{view (Woods I986).}

It

implies understandingteachers'taCit and articulated thoughts, their concerns, considerations, and rationales underlying

classroom events.

As the studyproceeded, relatedinsights intotheworkingandstructureofpractical

knowledgewere takenon board in interpretingtheobservedclassroom practices. In

10 Dealingwith multilingualismineducation

contents of the practical knowledge underlying the teaching ofmultilingual pupil populations were sought to frame the research process by providing sensitizing

concepts.Asensitizingconcept

...

is a starting point inthinkingabout aclass ofdata ofwhichthe social researcher has no

definite idea and provides an initial guide to her research. Such concepts usually are provisional and maybedropped as more viable and definiteconcepts emerge in the course

ofherresearch." (Van den Hoonaard1997:2)

Such concepts not only emerge from the data, but they may also be derived from existing knowledge to alert the researcher to directions along which to gather and interpret data. However, although a host

of

ethnographicstudies

of

everyday school practices have been carried out, with multilingualclassroomsbeinga_{major locus of}

ethnography over the past ₂₅ years, few studies document, through transcripts, knowledge underlying language practices in multilingual classrooms (cf. Green &

Bloome I997; Watson-Gegeo I997).

The conceptual framework thatemerged from these endeavours is spelled OUI in this chapter. The framework does not reflect the author-researcher'sconceptionsprior

to data collection, nor does it constituteanexhaustiveliteraturereview. Rather, it is

a retrospective account of the knowledge and beliefs that informed the collection,

analysis, andinterpretation of data in this study. The next section of this chapterdeals

with thenatureand structure

of

practical knowledge. In thefollowingsection, some ethnographic studies, casting light on the contents of practical knowledge manifest in

multilingual classrooms, are discussed. In the following sections, this practical knowledgeisexploredfrom sociolinguisticand languagereaching perspectives. In the finalsection,conclusionsare drawnfromtheseexplorations.

Practical

_knowledge

Drawing on participant observation in fourteen first-grade classrooms in France in 1978, Anderson-Levitt(1987) showsthat, despite the teachers'idiosyncracies, many of

thereading practices they engaged inweresimilaracrossthe classrooms.Theteachers

were found to use more or less thesameinstructional method, theysharedasense of

proper

timing of

the instructionalstages and of how and when togrouppupilS, made

similar use

of

chalk and pens, and organised their lessons alike. The teachers also shared concepts and theories for categorising pupils in terms of their abilities and

backgrounds. Besides unveiling these similarities, Anderson-Levitt also draws

comparisons between French andAmerican teachers' knowledge to

point out that

much of what teachers do is based on a shared, cultural pool of professional

knowledge.

Practicalknowledgeandmultilingual classrooms 11

andinformaltransmissionofknowledge.The education system delimits the variety of

classroom practices,forinstance,in prescribingthe school calender andtime table, the

agefrom which children gotoschool,thefundingavailablefor Staffand materials, and

the con[ents or objectives of

the official curriculum.

Apart from

such formal

regulations, habitual ways

of

organising schooling which are not laid down in policy

documents delimit_{practices. Grouping pupils} into different _grades, for_{example, or}

scheduling Wednesday afternoons off, are voluntary, yet widespreadpractices in the Netherlands.Otheraspects

ofthe

educationsysteminclude the availability of teaching

materials and the position ofthe variousagencies and authorities in the educational

landscape.

The knowledge that teachers sharealso arises from thehorizontal transmission of

knowledge from teacher to teacher. While teacher trainingcolleges serve as formal,

institutionalisedmediums

of

transmission, much ofwharateacherknows istheresult

of

informalcontactbetweenteachers. Infact,Anderson-Levittarguesthat, given the fact that the majority of the teachers she investigated did not attendteacher training

college at all,professional teacher knowledgecanbeacquiredpurely onthe basis of the

latter:

"Only a few clues from veteran teachers-alabel to hang on a certain kind ofstudent

behavior,apolitical attitudetoassociate withacertaininstructional method-maysuffice toguidenoviceteachersinto independent rediscovery of approximately the same knowledge thatveteranteachersuse."_{(Anderson-Levitt I987:I89)}

Moreover, teachers have been participating in 'lifeinclassrooms' since theyenrolled in primary school as pupils, where cultural knowledge is transmitted vertically. Through participatingin practice, theyhavebecomeacquaintedwith"beliefs,values,

expectations, mentalmodels, andformulasfor doingthingswhichtheteachers use in

interpretingandgeneratingclassroom events"_{(Anderson-Levitt I987:I74),}

with

which

they, in turn,familiarizetheirpupils. It is this

"implicitly

taught,tacitlyagreed upon,

and cooperatively maintained" (Cazden

&

Mehan 1989:50), or 'taken-as-shared'

knowledge, which provides the basis for the interaction throughwhich teaching and learningtakes place. Itisprecisely this type

of

culturalknowledgewhichethnography

attemptsto _{unveil (Altheide}

&

_{Johnson I998).}

Pupilsand teachers arethusenculturatedinto traditionalschoolactivities and ways

of

thinking throughout theirschoolor professionalcareers,whichmakesthepractice

of

teaching rather resistent to fundamental change _(Putnam

&

Borko 1997).

Educational practice, however, is to be distinguishedfrom views onandaccounts of teaching, which are more susceptibletochange.Apart frompractitionersthemselves,

such 'rhetorics'areconveyedby educationalists, politicians, school administrators, and other actors in the field

of

education. Looking back on the scholarly rhetoric

concerning standard language teaching in the Netherlands from I940, consecutive

12 Dealingwith multilingualismineducation

observedincontemporaryteaching practices. Sturm (2000), forinstance,whoportrays

a Dutch multilingual classroom, relates the teacher's concern for the stylistic appropriateness ofthepupils' solutions toanexercise thatwasintendedtoteach the pupils to

identify the past participle

in sentences to the 'individual-expressive'

paradigm

of

language pedagogy that was dominant at the time of her educational

career.

What teachers say in interviews may, from the observer's angle, not only be

incongruous with therhetoricdominating at the time, but it may runcountertotheir

own practice as well. From their analysis of classroom events in a multilingual

classroom in theNetherlands, Kroon

&

Sturm (I996:50) conclude that

"

a significant contradiction continuestoexistbetween the levelofrhetoric,atwhich 'our

teacherclearlyarticulatesher consciousengagement with the educationandemancipation

of her multilingual pupils

through multicultural education, and the-mostly

unconscious-level of the _{pedagogic practice} at which she realises _{her professional} knowledge." [translation JB]

A teacher's

practice, then, is not per

se

consonant with his or

her articulated philosophy. Obviously, aspractical knowledgeis mostly tacit, i.e., coversthings that

go

without

saying,practitioners oftenhave

difficulty

verbalising

it

(SchBn I983).

Anderson-Levitt's

definition not

only emphasises thar practical professional knowedge is cultural, but it also underscores that it is concernedwith wbat teacbers

tbink as tbey aredoing what tbgdo,rather than with what they think or what they do.

These cognitions inherent in teacher's actions seem to correspond to what Meijer

(I999)refers toas'interactive cognitions', which, togetherwithparticular knowledge

and beliefs,constituteateacher'spractical knowledge.Shetakesateacher'sknowledge and beliefs to be stored in the teacher's long-term memory, encompassing all that a

teacher knows or believes to be trueabout reaching. As soon as theyareconfronted withclassroom events, Meijer(t999:25) contends, "teachersactivateappropriate and

familiarelements fromtheirlong-term memoryinto their workingmemory, and use

these toestablish a way to deal with the event." That is, whatteachers"think as they

are doing what they do" (Anderson-LevittI987:173) arises from theinterplaybetween

agiven classroomsituation andabroad pool

of

knowledge

of

teachingwhichispartly

idiosyncratic, and partly shared with other teachers and pupils through cultural transmission.These new experiences havethepotentialtoaffect theteacher'spractical knowledge; practical knowledge bothgenerates classroom eventsand originates from

participationinclassroom events,

According to Herrlitz (I994:28), in everyday classroom interaction, practical knowledge manifests itself in a _{meronymic structure, in}

which "ein Teil [...] als

Stichwortdient, umdasganze-das Lernproblem unddie einzelnen Elementeseiner

Practicalknowledgeandmultilingual classrooms 13

"Dieses praktische Wissen zeigt (bei Lehrern ebenso wie bei Schulern) die Struktureines Eisbergs: Uber derWasseroberflache wird die Tafelreihe als Spitze sichtbar; gleichzeitig

damit ist furleden Eingeweihtengegeben, daEunterderWasseroberfluche der eigentliche

Berg derRechischreibprobleme,Phasenschemata,Interaktionsmusterusw._{verborgen ist, der} dasweiterepfidagogische Handeln strukturiert." (Herrlitz 1994:28)

Intheclassroom from which thisepitomicepisodestems(seeKroon

&

Sturm I996),

it was usualto discuss such a row

of

wordswritten on theblackboard. Thesewords

were readaloud by the teacher,whilethepupilswereexpected toread along. In this particularepisode, the row on theblackboard consisted

of

wordswhich all end with

a 4 while theyarepronounced with a /t/. For theinsiders,thething that went without

saying was that the spelling rowrepresentedaspecificspellingdifficultywhich was to

be identified, that one had to findaparticularstrategytoresolve it, that thisstrategy

was tobeapplied to thegivenwords, and thataparticularinteractional model was to

be observed. Forthe insiders, thevisible rowofwords ontheblackboard formed a key

tothe appropriateroutine thatwashidden under thesurface, hence,toparticipation

in interaction,through which teachingandlearningtakes place.

As regards the contents or categories

of

practical knowledge a teacher uses in generatingandinterpretingclassroom events,Wilson, Shulman & Richert (I987:II3-II4) contend that

"Teachersusetheircontent_{knowledge»cheirunderstanding of the facts or concepts}within a domain-as wellastheir grasp of the structures ofthe subjectmatter_{(Schwab I964)· [···]}

Teacher's knowledge ofeducational aims, goals, andpurposesalsocontributestopedagogical decisions. Frequently teachers usetheirknowledge ofotbercontentihal:isnot wichin the scope

ofthediscipline theyareteaching. Teachersusegeneralped,tgogical knowledg-knowledge

ofpedagogical principles and techniques that is not bound by tOpiC or subject matter.

Teachers also have knowledge oflearners,including_knowledgeofstudent characteristics and

cognitions as wellasknowledgeofmotivational and developmentalaspects ofhow students

learn.Finally,teachersfrequently draw upon theircurricularknowledge-theirunderstanding

ofthe programs and materialsdesigned fortheteachingofparticulartopiCSand subjects at a_givenlevel."

The specific knowledge and beliefs underlying ways

of

dealing with language in a

multilingualclassroom as theyunfold in ethnographicclassroom studiestouch on a number ofthe categoriesdescribed in thisquotation. Notwithstanding the fact that Wilson, Shulman

&

Richert (I987) sought to categorise the knowledge essential for teaching, rather than the knowledge teachers actuallypossess,their definitionprovides directions along

which to look

at language practices in multilingual classrooms.

Another dimension along which such practices can be viewed

pertains to the

distinction between language as a subject and language as a

medium of

communication acrossthecurriulum. When takingthesedimensions into account,

14 Dealingwith multilingualismineducation

investigatingtheknowledge andbeliefsinvolved in language practices in multilingual

classrooms:_{sociolinguistic andlanguage teachingperspectives.}

Sociolinguistic perspectives

Fromasociolinguisticperspective,multilingualclassrooomsraisequestions about tacit or explicated agreements between the teacher and learners on who speaks what

languagevariety to whom, when, why, and how. These questions also bear on the

status accorded to different languages and the access pupils gain to subject matter

taughtat school througha particularlanguage

of

instruction. Various ethnographic

classroom studies have documented _{language practices in different multilingual} settings thatshedlighton theseissues.

Heller 0996, I999) portrays a French-language

minority high school in the

predominantly English-speaking area

of

Toronto, Canada. She discusses _language

practices illustrating the norms for and contestation ofwhat counts as _appropriate

language use._{Adopting Bourdieu's (I977) concept of}thelinguistic market,shetakes

language in the classroom to be legitimate if uttered by a legitimate speaker, in a legitimate situation,addressedtolegitimatereceivers,andformulated inthelegitimate phonological and syntactic

forms of

the legitimate language. She presents several

transcripts to illustrate how the explicit school norm

of

using French only (Parle

FranGaishisenacted in the classroom. Marginal infringements of this norm appear to

be tolerated only ifthey serve the objective of the lesson. The science teacher, for

example, allowed students to use English words fornatural fibres. In fact, she gave Englishtranslations oftheFrenchwordsforfibresherself, andcouldnot avoid using

some of the _English words from a _{poster listing jobs} in science. _Pupils at times contested the French-only rule to challenge theteacher'sauthority, while languages other than French were also used regularly in asidesamong the students. As regards

norms for what counts as _'good French', it was found that all teachers _{displayed a} preference for standard French over Canadian vernacular forms, and corrected anglicisms likerelaxer or »t.

Notwithstanding theethnolinguistic minorities whicharose outofrecent migration

toCanada, Heller's case is situated in what can be regardedadyadicSOCiety_(Lambert I995) inwhich the majority ofthe residentsbelong totwodistinctiveethnolinguistic

groups. In contrast, the multilingual schools _{portrayed by Hailemariam (2002) are}

situated in the mosaic societ:y

of

Eritrea, where a considerable range

of

indigenous ethno-linguistic groups are represented in the classrooms. In all of the schools

Hailemariam

visited, a particular language was the authorised medium of

Practicalknowledgeand_multilingualclassrooms 15

in theepisodes discussedby Hailemariam weremultilingualthemselves.In principle,

theseteachersandstudentscouldchoosebetween two or morelanguages.

In

theeducationalcontext

of

nationstateswhich, asaresult

of

immigration, only

recently developedinto multilingual societies, teachersgenerally do not have such a

choice. For instance, in theUnited Kingdom, theNetherlands, and Germany, most

teachers are solely native speakers of_(avariety of) the national language. If, in this

context, mother tongue instruction is thought to be beneficial forpupils speaking

otherlanguages at homefor culturalor emancipatoryreasons, thisrequiresadditional

teachers. _Martin-Jones

&

_{Saxena (I996), e.g., discuss practices}

ofbilingual

education

in which British primaryschool _{pupils' home} or _{community languages were used}

across the curriculum as additional languages

of

_{instruction, for which} special

assistants were present in the classroom. In this practice, the valueaccorded to the

languages used nexttoEnglish, andthestatus ofthebilingualassistant

within

theclass

hierarchywasrelatively low.

Kroon

&

Sturm (I996) present aDutch multicultural schoolwhere it was a rule generallyacknowledged by all teachers not to havepupils speak any language other

than Dutch intheclassroom.Whenpupilsspeaklanguagesother thanDutch, it was „ „

argued, we areexcluded and maybelieve negativethingsare_beingsaidabout one of us, while at the same time, it was seen as a lostopportunitytopractise Dutch. Some

of

theclassroom episodesKroon

&

Sturm present show how this rulewasenforced in practice.

During

agroupdiscussion, pupils gaveeachotherturns tocontribute to the

discussion. WhenaTurkish girlasked_{her neighbour}in Turkish tobe_{nominated by}

her, she was reprimanded by the teacher for using Turkish. When a Dutch boy's

birthday was being celebrated, the teacher praised the boys' pronunciation and translation ofawritten Turkishcongratulation. The nativeTurkishpupils corrected

his pronunciation andobjected that the boycouldeasily haveguessedthe meaning of

the message fromthecontext.In neither

ofthe

twoevents,nativespeakers

ofTurkish

were given the opportunity to display their expertise in that language. Comparable reluctance to give room to pupilsto displaytheir knowledge

of

other languages was observed in Flemish (Ramaut 2000) and German (Neumann 2000) multilingual

classrooms. Also in theBritishcasedescribedby Bourne (2000), wherepupils did in

fact use _{Bengali and Cantonese in} the classroom _among each other when

_jointly

engaged in alearning activity, knowledge

of

these languages wasapproached as an 'exotic' phenomenon rather thanan everydayreality.

As pointedoutbefore, language practicesatschoolalsorevealcertainnorms for the legitimate

forms of

the language in use, including the pronunciation, spelling,

grammar, and style

of

those languages. Frey(2000),whoreports on anethnographic study ofaGerman_{multilingual primary}school,discussesa_{classroom episode}inwhich

the pupilswere askedto

think

_{of'how-words', that}is,'words that say whatathing is

like'. Soon after this request had been conveyed, the monolingual

pupils took a

16 Dealingwith multilingualismineducation

suggesting how-words like 'stupid', 'crazy', 'in love', and 'besotted'.

While the

monolingual pupils thus challenged the teacher's call for 'nice sentences', the few

multilingualpupilsparticipating intheepisodecarefully followedtheir monolingual

classmatesrather than the grammar o f the words._Freyconcludes that it_{was precisely}

those children whose contributions hadan impact on the educational practice who understoodthe teacher's norms.

Similar observations were made byJaspaert

&

Ramaut (2000), who report on an

ethnographic casestudy ofa Flemish multilingual primaryschool. In theclassroom episode they present, thepupils were asked to explain things about certain sports.

When soccerwas _beingdiscussed, pupilsinstantlycoined English wordslike 'corner

and 'penalty'.Theteacherthenaskedthepupils to name the Flemish equivalents, but

the pupils were

reluctant to do so. They

repeatedly tried to explain that they

commonly use the English terms. In contrast, when tenniswasbeingdiscussed, the teacher'sfavoritesportbutlikely to belessfamiliar to the pupils thansoccer, it was the teacher who came up

with

English words. In theirreplies,the pupils usedthe Flemish

pronunciation ofthesewords. Yet, theteacher now wantedthepupilsto pronounce the words in proper English. Jaspaert

&

Ramaut

point out

that, while the teacher

alternately

adhered to the norm of

not using English

words and the norm of

pronouncing the English words correctly,those_{pupils whoopenly questioned}these

norms were the mostproficient pupils oftheclass.They argue that

The greaterthe socialdistance, the morepeople make great effortstOadapt themselves to thevalidnorms ofthelinguistic market (Bernstein,1971; Bourdieu,I982).Forpupils who

[...] don't form part of the dominant language communityandculture of the school, it is important to accommodate totherules of the teacher. Doing this, they have morechances

ofsymbolic gain andcanimprovetheirposition inthe class."(Jaspaert & Ramaut 2000:37)

Ramaut (2000), reporting on another Flemish teacher in a multilingual school, presents an episode in which a Moroccan boy explained that the

window of his

mother's hairdressingsalon wasbroken, so thattelephonescouldbe"sneaked".While

the teacherexplicitlyrepudiated this instanceofcolloquialspeech, withamonolingual

pupil giving the accepted alternative 'stolen', she merely

implicitly

corrected a

monolingual pupil who usedadialect variety of theword 'handbag',which she told

wasoncestolen fromhermother. Ramautargues that the teacherfocused on the use

of

colloquial speech more than on dialect forms, as the pupils who used colloquial formswere perceived to havelowsocialstatus.Inordertoenable them to gainprestige

in society, they weremadefamiliar withthelegitimate language. The pupils who used dialect forms instead all appeared to havea higher social status, so that they were

expected tobeacquainted

with

thesenorms.

As language isavehicle for theconstruction

of

knowledge in the classroom, norms

forthelegitimacy

of

language also bear on theextent towhichpupils can gainaccess

to subjectmatterother than language.Manyclassroom studies haveexplored the role

Practicalknowledgeandmultilingual classrooms 17

every classroom, the use

of

ambiguous or infrequent words can formaseriousobstacle

to grasping mathematics, social studies, or any other subject matter (Hajer I996)

Problems

of

understanding language in the classroom, however, tendtooccur more often whentheproficiencylevels of thepupils inthe language

of

instruction islower

than what the

teacher expects. This is where the knowledge, beliefs, and

presuppositionswithrespect to thepupils'languageabilities come into play, as well

as the extenttowhich problems

of

understandingaresignalled, noted, and clarified in negotiations of meaning.

In that light, Gorgorid

&

Planas _(200I)discuss an episode from a math lesson in

a _{Spanish multilingual} classroom in which a _{Pakistani, Panjabi-speaking pupil}

encountered the word for 'will' inCatalan, which wasthe language

of

instruction of the textbook and the teacher. The word was used in the

formulation of a word

problem explaining that afarmerhad three sons and that "in his will", he gave them

seventeen cows, tobedividedaccording to a certaindistribution code. Whenthepupil

requestedclarification of theword, other Panjabispeakersfailedtotranslate the word

(apparently, in this

case, using languages other than Catalan was allowed

instrumentally), and theteacherconcluded that it wasapresentthe father gave to his

children. When the solution to the problemwas discussed later, it turned out that

several_{pupils were}notaware of the fact thatthe father was dead when the cows were

divided, and thussuggested havingthe father buy another cow to make the number

of

cowseasiertodivide.Whenanotherpupilthen responded that the father was dead,

.

the Pakistani boyangrily shouted "Why do you want to kill him2

Language

teaching perspectives

Fromalanguagereachingperspective,multilingualclassroooms raisequestions about

which subject matter

of

which language is taught to whom, when, why, and how.

Usually, this isconstrained byanofficialnationalcurriulum,

with

national standard

languages being given the most attention and, possibly, facilities for additional provisionsforspecificgroups

of

pupils. This includes immigrant

minority

language

teaching forpupils speaking otherlanguages at home,orlanguagereceptionclasses for recently arrived immigrant pupils. In the microcosmos ofthe classroom, primary school teachers shape this language curriculum On the basis

of

their practical knowledge.Apart fromcontentknowledge ofthe language(s)taught and the objectives

and structure

of

language as a subject, riley possess what Shulman (I986) called

pedagogicalcontentknowledge'. This includes, for themostregularlytaught topics

in the subject area,

"

the most useful forms of representation ofthose ideas, the most powerful analogies,

illustrations, examples, explanations and demonstrations-in a word, the ways of

18 Dealing_{with multilingualism}ineducation

are no single most powerful forms of representation, the teacher must have at hand a veritable armamentarium of alternative forms

of

representation, someofwhich derive from

research whereasothersoriginate inthewisdomof_{practice." (Shulman t986:9)}

Arguably, this implies

"an understanding ofwhat makes the learning

of

specific topiCS easy or difficult: the

conceptionsandpreconceptions that studentsofdifferent ages andbackgrounds bring with

them to the learning of those most frequently taught tOpiCS and lessons.

If

those preconceptionsaremisconceptions,which they so often are, teachers needknowledge of the

strategiesmost_{likely to be fruitful in reorganising the understandingoflearners, because}

"

those learnersareunlikelyto appearbefore them as blankslates. _{(Shulman I986: 9-Io)}

In a multilingual classroom, the ways

of

representing and formulating aspects of language that a teacher thinks make language comprehensible to his pupils imply

certain knowledge,beliefs,or_{presuppositions}

with

_{respect to}the_{languageproficiency} of nativeandnon-native learners. These_{subjective insights or assertions may or may}

not beinaccordancewith_{empirical insights.As regardsthe proficiency o}

f

_immigrant

minority pupils in Dutch, the bottom line

of

these _{insights, details}

of

which are considered in the respective

chapters of this book, is that,

throughout primary

education, thesepupilsare outperformed by the nativeDutchpupils. Ingrades four,

six,andeight, forinstance,

ir

would takethe_{Turkish,Moroccan,} and

Antillian

pupils

at least one and a

half

schoolyears to reachtheaveragelevel

of

proficiencyinDutch of their nativeDutch_{peers. For}the Surinameseandothernon-nativeDutch _pupils,

this would takeatleast_{a year}(Tesser

&

Iedema200I).Linguistsdisagree ontheextent

to which such significant differences justify, or require,

differential 'LI' and 'Lz'

didactics(cE Kroon

&

VallenI996;Kroon, Vallen & Vanden_{Branden 2002).}

Some ofthe forms

of

representation used by theteacher may be triggered by his

conceptions of tile language backgrounds of his _{pupils or multilingual pupils in} general, while others are used without the teacher having given thought to these

languagebackgrounds. In thelatter case, the form

of

representation nonethelessrests on certain presuppositions of the pupils' language background. Two classroom episodes from amultilingualclassroom presentedby Crooymans

&

Evers (I993) and

Kroon & Sturm (I996) illustrate this. Both episodes concern the Dutch word_goed

(good; pronounced with a

_/t/),

which has tWOinterrelated difficulties. Firstly, when it is used attributively, i.e., before a noun, it usuallybecomes_{goede,pronounced with}

a /d/. Secondly,in accordance with the Dutch orthographic rule

of

unity in form, both the /t/ and the /d/ are spelled with a d The episodes show that the teacher expected

the pupils to be able to 'hear' that constructions

like goed stad _{(good city) are} ungrammatical, and that 'when you make it longer',goedbecomesgoede, rather than

goete,which would imply that it is written with a d In calling upon a shared feeling

for whatDutchshould sound like,the teacherassumed thatallpupils' conceptions of

Practicalknowledgeandmultilingualclassrooms 19

Asimilarepisodeisdescribed by_{Neumann (2000), whopresents} severalepisodes in a lessonin which pupils inaGermanmulticulturalclassroomwrote acomposition

about their holiday experiences. Inthese episodes, discussionsarose on howto write

certain words, wherebythe teacheralternately referred totheprinciple thatonewrites

as one speaks, and that one speaks as onewrites. Neumann points out that these principles, the former being a traditional German, didactic maxim, are not only

disputableon linguisticand didaCtiCgrounds, but they also neglect the fact that both

articulation and speech perception are dependent on the children's differential

language experiences. Besides, for those _{pupils who} are _acquainted with different writingsystems,'the'linkage between a particularsound and letter is notas obvious

as it is forthe monolingualteacher. Asamatter offact,duringthe episodes,the pupils

and theteacher were confronted with thelimited applicability

of

theseinstructions as soon as the pupilsstarted using namesandwords from otherlanguages and dialects

than standard German.

In a similar fashion, cultural knowledge was taken for granted in the classroom episode presentedby _{Kroon (I987).} Hediscusses alanguagelessonwhich tookplace

in a multilingual, secondary school in which materials were used from a _language awareness programme aimed atpromoting 'interculturaleducation' (see Chapter 4).

In a teacher-leddiscussion, the pupilsfirstdiscussed theetymology

of

Dutch words like suiker(sugar), noting that the product it stands for originates from the country

thatfirstnamedk.Whilethesedicussionsflowed rather smoothly, that is,the Students replied as the teacherwished,thefollow-up ofthelesson,inwhichtheetymologies and

origins of

the French

_{bhbord and tribori}

_{the English} yacht, and the German Matjesbering wereexplored, clearly broke down. The pupils did not understand the

teacher'sexplanation that the Netherlands used tobeimportantin shipping and that, in thiscountry,herringisstillmuch fished for.Kroonpoints out that, in this case, the

pupils, many of whom had parents born outsidethe Netherlands, did not share the teacher'scultural frame

of

reference.Bytakingknowledge of the Netherlands' Golden Age, i.e., the I7th century, andotherculturallybound knowledgeas_shared,thelesson

ran counter to the teacher's own view that intercultural education is to put languages

and culturesinto_perspective.

Likewise,Kroon

&

Sturm (I996)observed how theWestern European,Middle-Age

literary association of theshield ofaturtle with theshield ofaknight isgiven more

prominence in the construction

of

meaning of the word 'shield' than the everyday associations thepupils come up with, such as the peel of anapple,which in Dutch is

referred to with almost the same word. Sturm (2000) presentsaclassroomevent that

concerns thequestionofwhetherthegivensentence'Thechildren have been ... in the garden' shouldbecompleted withthe given pastparticiple'swimming',as suggested by aTurkish pupil, Chennet. Despite the fact that this matchmakessense in thar one

could imagine childrenswimming in apool located inagarden, theteacher, who put

20 Dealingwith multilingualismineducation

asked whatoneneedswhen swimming.WhileChennet came up

with

severalthings she may well haveconsidered tobeprerequisitesforparticipating in suchanactivity,

such as aswimming suir, the teacher made

it

clear thatwater is the only neccesary

condition to swim. Unlike Chennet, the teacher considered swimming without a

swimming suit as a realistic option.

Conclusions

In this chapter, the _{practical knowledge}

of

teachers was defined as a _{broad pool of}

knowledge and beliefs about teaching,which ispartlyidiosyncraticandpartlyshared

with otherteachers and pupils as a result

of

culturaltransmission. It isreciprocal in that

it

generates classroomeventsand originatesfrom participationin events. It is this tacit, ortaken-as-sharedknowledge,whichprovidesthe basis fortheinteraction in the

classroom through which teaching and learning takes place. In multicultural

classrooms,practical knowledge canbeexpectedtoencompassknowledgewithrespect

towhospeakswhatlanguagevariety to whom, when, why, and how,andknowledge with respecttowhich subjectmatterofwhichlanguageistaught to whom, when, why, and how.

The ethnographicclassroom studiesreviewed in this chapter reveal that in various

multilingual settings-dyadic societies, mosaic societies, societies that became

multilingual as a result

of

recent

immigration-the

language of the dominant ethnolinguistic group, i.e., a national standard language, usually counts as the

legitimate language inschools, withspecificlinguisticforms beinglegitimate and the

use

of

other languagesandlanguage forms being implicitly or explicitlydiscouraged in the mainstream classroom _{for cultural-political, emancipatory, and pedagogical}

reasons. In the classroom episodes discussed, contestations of the norm for what

counts as alegitimate languagewere initiatedby those pupils who,as members of the

dominant ethnolinguisticgroup, couldbeexpected to beacquainted with the norm.

Teacherswereobserved to allowformarginal infringements of the norm when the use

of

other languages was instrumental to the learning objective, or in informal,

extracurricular activities. In case of the latter,multilingualismsometimes appeared to be approached asan'exotic' phenomenon,without multilingualpupils being given the

opportunityto display theirknowledge

of

multiple languages. At the same time, in

several cases, multilingual pupilswere observed to use other languages among each other inasides. Forthem, multilingualism wasan everydayreality.

The Studies further revealed various instances in which the teachers'

forms of

representation

of

certain aspects

of

language-spelling, morphology, erymology,

stylistics-presupposedshared preconceptions

of

language and culture which were

Practicalknowledgeandmultilingualclassrooms 21

monolingualism was established by discouraging the use

of

other languages and focusing on_{one target language}

within

thecurriculum.Secondly,monolingualism was

presupposedin certain didacticpractices. These practices relate towhat Gogolin (I994) refers to as der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Scbule. AdoptingBourdieis (1980) idea ofa habitus asasystem

of

dispositions acquired inanimplicit or explicit

learning process,

Gogolin hypothesised that a

socio-historically determined

monolingual habitus moulds contemporary teaching practices in multilingual

classrooms:

"

the monolingual orientation, which canbeobservedamongteachersin Germanandother

European schools, is an intrinsic element oftheirprofessionalhabitus as members of the nationstateschool system. [...]Thisprofessionalhabitusmeans that it is part of the teachers'

profession to traditionalize monolingualism in the official national language." (Gogolin I998:IGI)

A survey, as well aslong interviews conducted

with

teachersin Hamburg, showed that,

while astrict monolingualorientation was notdiscernable, themonolingual habitus

recurrentlymanifests itself in the rhetorics of teachers. TheDutchand German case studies discussed in this chapter, which revealed taken-as-shared knowledge of the

CHAPTER 3

Design of

the

study

Introduction

In the introduction to a reissue of

his

_{Life in}

Classrooms _{from 1968, educational}

psychologist PhilipW. _{Jackson reminisces}aboutaturning

point in

hisprofessional

career. In_{the autumn of I962, after having attended}aseminar run by anthropologists who studiedthe socialbehaviourofprimatesby prolonged observationin theirnatural habitat,Jackson thought

of

adopting this method

of

inquiry in studying education.

Rather than relying on experimental designs, tests, questionnaires, and samples of

subjects he himselfhad never met, hebegan to visit ordinaryclassrooms andtreated

them as if they were distant cultures. While sitting at the back ofa classroom, he adoptedtheposture

ofa

foreign visitor,"aMartianperhaps,who understoodnothing

aboutwhypeoplebehaved as they did inthis environment and who thereforepuzzled over thegross contoursofhuman activity"_{(JacksonI990:xiv). He had no}idea

ofwhat

to look fornor

ofhow to

goaboutlooking, but trusted that both would Occur to him

as hewent_along.

Like Jackon's study

of

everyday life in various classrooms of an American elementaryschool, the presentstudy was ethnographic in that itwasconcerned with

„

what people are, how they _{behave, how they interact together. It aims} to uncover their

beliefs,values, perspectives, motivations, and how allthese thingsdeveloporchange over

time or from situation to situation. It tries to do :111 thisfrom within_{the group, and from} withintheperspectives of thegroup's members. It is theirmeaningsandinterpretations that

"

count. This means learningtbeirlanguage and customs with all their nuances. (Woods

1986:4)

UnlikeJackson's (I968, I99O) comprehensive ethnography, it was the preconceived

discontinuity between the traditionally monolingual character oftheprimaryschool

curriculum and recent _{demo-linguistic developments in} the Netherlands that

prompted questions about language _{teaching and language use in multilingual}

24 Dealingwith multilingualismineducation

generated a 'foreshadowed problem' (Hammersley

&

Atkinson _1995:24), which, in

light of

the notion_{of'practical knowledge' (see Chapter z), can be reformulated as}

follows:

Whichpractical knowledge underlieslanguage useand language reaching inaregular,

multilingual classroom2

Who

speaks what language variety to whom, when, why, and how Which subject matter

of

which language istaught to whom, when, why, and

how?

While these generic questions were present from the outset, the research site was

entered

without

overly precise formulations of the problem, as these were seen to

.

close

off

prematurely the process

of

discovery of that which is significant in the

setting." (Wilcox 1980:5). In thetermsof Green

&

_{Bloome (I997:I83), this undertaking} boiled down to adoptingan ethnographicperspective,a"focussed" approach, rather than doingacomprehensive ethnography, like Jackson (I968, I990), or merely using

ethnographic tools.

Apart from its emic interest in everyday life andthe absenceofspecific,preordained

research questions, the present study was ethnographic in its aim to achieve an intersubjectiveunderstanding ofwhat goes on inamultilingualclassroom on thebasis

of multiplestrategies

offield

research (BurgessI984) Therefore, naturalistic data were collected usingmultiple,qualitative methods

of

inquiry,includingobservations, open interviews, and document analysis.

Multiple

reviewers-the teacher portrayed,

researchersfromdifferentcountriesanddisciplines-wereengaged in the analysis and

interpretation of this data. Thus,ahermeneutic methodologywasadopted from the constructivistresearchparadigm (Guba

&

Lincoln _I989).

In this chapter, this methodologyis elaborated. As regards data collection, it is

explained howentrancewasgained toamultilingual classroom, and howandwhich

datawascollected in thatclassroomthrough observations, interviews,anddocuments. In the followingsections, an account is given of the way in which these data were

structured,_{analysed, and interpreted.}

Gaining entrance

With

the foreshadowedproblem in mind,the school in which thestudywascarried

outwascarefullyselected on the basis ofanumber

of

criteria that weretoensure the

multicultural and multilingual character of the school on the one hand, and the

mainstream character of theschool'sdenominationandpedagogic orientation, on the

other.Arguably, giventhefocus

ofthe

study, multilingualism had to be a hallmark of

the school. This was thought to be the case if

at _{least 40} percent ofthe pupil