Young multilingual children
learning:
at home and at school
DR ROSE DRURY, THE OPEN UNIVERSITY
Children’s, practitioners’ and families’ experiences of early years care and
education
October 30 & 31, 2015, TACTYC, Birmingham
This presentation aims to:
explore:
• multilingual children’s, practitioners’ and families’
experiences of early years care and education;
• multilingual children’s, parents’ and practitioners’ ‘funds of
knowledge’.
challenge:
• current national policy-driven terminology and deficit models
in relation to multilingualism.
reveal:
• the remarkable skills of young multilingual children.
• the growing importance of transnationalism and superdiversity.
• the silencing of multilingualism in early years
settings.
Outline:
1. Nazma
2. Context and terminology
3. Research study 1
4. Research study 2
5. Samia
6. Ways ahead
Nazma: a child’s perspective
Drury, R (2007) Young bilingual learners: at home and
school. Trentham
Nazma at home
•
•
•
•
•
Nazma:
enjoys dressing-up and role play activities with siblings, sorting
clothes and helping prepare and cook food with her mother.
talks in her mother tongue, Pahari, with all members of her
family.
hears her older siblings talking in English and looks at the
school reading books they bring home.
listens to her mother and grandmother telling stories from their
childhood.
watches her older siblings preparing for Qur’anic classes,
reciting verses in Arabic and older members of family reading Holy
Qur’an.
Nazma: a mother’s perspective
‘I don’t know about school, but the teachers know
how to help my daughter.
Nazma: a teacher’s perspective
• ‘Nazma is extremely reluctant to communicate in
English. She understands most instructions given to her
but obstinately refuses to say anything. Occasionally,
she will say a whole sentence but soon becomes silent
again.’
• ‘She is refusing to speak, knowing it is required of her …
I expected her to verbalise more, language is taking a
long time to come out.’
Funds of Knowledge
Luis Moll (et al) Funds of Knowledge
Socio-cultural perspectives – young children as expert
learners and as expert language learners
Cremin, T., Mottram, M., Collins, F., Powell, S. &
Drury, R. (2015) Researching Literacy Lives: Building
Communities between home and school. London:
Routledge.
Super-diversity
• Vertovec (2009) – super-diversity and a recognition of
the complexities of families’ transnational identities
• ‘Rather than working with homogeneity, stability and
boundedness as the starting assumptions, mobility,
mixing, political dynamics and historical embedding are
now central concerns in the study of languages,
language groups and communication’
(Blommaert and Rampton, 2011, p. 3)
Context
• More than a million children aged 5-16 in UK
schools - more than 360 languages spoken.
(www.naldic.org.uk)
• Diversity of languages includes arrivals from
the European Union, refugee and asylum
seekers and children from long-settled
minority ethnic communities.
Historical context
• 1966 Section 11 of the Local Government Act funded
additional teachers to help ‘immigrants from the new
Commonwealth’ to ‘overcome disadvantage’ brought
about by differences of language or culture. ‘ESL
children’ withdrawn from mainstream classrooms.
• 1985 The Swann report (Department for Education and
Science) – the right of bilingual learners to be included
in the mainstream.
• 1993 Section 11 extended to include all minority ethnic
pupils
• From 1990s – centralised, monolingual national
educational policy -English as an additional language
(EAL)
Early Years Foundation Stage,
2014
1.7 ‘For children whose home language is not English,
providers must take reasonable steps to provide
opportunities for children to develop and use their home
language in play and learning, supporting their language
development at home. Providers must also ensure that
children have sufficient opportunities to learn and reach
a good standard in English language during the
EYFS, ensuring children are ready to benefit from the
opportunities available to them when they begin Year 1.’
(DFE, 2014, p.9)
EYFS continued
‘When assessing communication, language and literacy
skills, practitioners must assess the children’s skills in
English. If a child does not have a strong grasp of
English language, practitioners must explore the child’s
skills in the home language with parents and/or carers,
to establish whether there is cause for concern about
language delay.’ (DFE, 2014, p.9)
Policy concerns
• Unfounded implication that language delay is
a cause for concern.
• Conflicting discourses:
- Encouraging and supporting mother tongue;
- Ensuring that all children reach a good
standard in English.
A Day in the Life of a Bilingual
Practitioner
Robertson, L.H., Drury, R. & Cable, C. (2014) Silencing
bilingualism: a day in the life of a bilingual practitioner.
International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism, Vol. 17, No. 5, 610-623.
Project aims
• 2 urban early years
classrooms in England
• To explore the ways in which
2 bilingual practitioners, Razia
and Sadiye, supported the
learning of 3-4 year-old
multilingual children, their
parents and teachers
The practitioners - Razia
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Speaks, reads and writes Pahari, Urdu and English
Speaks Punjabi and Hindi
Educated in Pakistan
Has always worked in the early
years
Worked as a bilingual practitioner
for about 18 years
Currently works in two schools
Has worked in school where we filmed for 18 years
Lives locally
The practitioners - Sadiye
•
•
•
•
Speaks and writes English
Speaks Cypriot Turkish
Educated in UK
Worked as a nursery nurse
for about 16 years
• Has always worked in the
early years
• Has always worked in school
where we filmed
• Lives locally
Hazal’s morning
DVD clip – Hazal’s morning
The ‘Silent Period’ – what do we understand of the role of
‘silence’ in young bilingual children’s early learning?
Drury, R. (2013) How silent is the ‘Silent Period’ for young
bilinguals in early years settings in England? European
Early Childhood Education Research Journal, Vol. 21,
No. 3, 380-391.
What languages do children
use in school?
• During 5 hours of filming in two schools, generally
children did not speak in mother tongue.
• But mother tongue translation very valuable; parents
use it often with both Razia and Sadiye.
In Razia’s school
Razia uses mother tongue to interpret whole class talk to
individual children (mainly in a whisper).
She uses mother tongue during activities such as
playdough, but children respond in English.
Twice one word labels were spoken when requested by
Razia:
• In the home corner – ‘choori’ – knife (in Urdu)
• In a small group phonics game – ‘bunda’ – monkey (in
Urdu)
In Sadiye’s school
Throughout the day Sadiye uses mother tongue to
interpret whole class talk to individual children and
groups of children, switching quickly between English
and Turkish (using some Kurdish, too) .
She translates and sings and comments and instructs in
mother tongue frequently:
• Some older and more confident children respond in
English. No evidence of children using Turkish.
• Some younger and less confident respond nonverbally by smiling or nodding.
Loss of first language
‘They’re losing everything. So if you had a little input of their first
language, I think that would be a benefit for everybody; parents,
families, schools and children because the more languages they
have, I think the mindset is opening up to languages, not closing
so lots of languages are, we are losing languages every day
almost. Now all the children who’ve been through my time at this
school, not many of them are reading or writing their first
language at all.’
Razia
Ethnography of an early years
teacher – super-diversity in a
London nursery class
To document ways and times when a nursery teacher and
her multilingual practitioners collaborate to support
multilingual children and their families in a nursery class in
one year.
Robertson, L.H. & Drury, R. (2014) (Forthcoming)
Methodology & data gathering
• Ethnographic case study of life in a London
nursery in one year
• Focus group meetings with teachers, mothers,
grandmothers, bilingual practitioners
• Interviews
in
nursery
teacher,
school
documentation and assessment profiles.
The Nursery Teacher
• Mary has worked in the school for 26 years
• 2 Teaching Assistants in the nursery – Zara (Arabic
and Farsi speaker and Sevgi (Turkish speaker) and a
nursery nurse, Emily (works in the morning session)
Mary’s nursery class
• Total number of children in nursery class - 41 29 bilingual and 12 with English as their mother tongue
• 15 Mother tongues spoken by children in the nursery
Super-diversity: some examples
Reynie’s family returns to Sierra Leone for celebrations and
funerals. Father is in Sierra Leone. Mother is a diplomat so
will be posted somewhere else soon. Grandmother looks
after Reynie, and Skypes with her adopted children in
Sierra Leone every day.
Orianna’s parents are Polish. Father came first, then mother.
Now Orianna’s maternal grandmother looks after her for 6
months whilst the parents go to work. Then she goes back
and the paternal grandmother comes for 6 months. Then
they swap again.
Samia’s remarkable skills
‘Samia didn’t speak today. She sometimes says one or
two words’
(Samia’s nursery teacher)
Samia & Sadaqat play school
[Samia: 4 years old, Sadaqat: 2 years old]
[Pahari in italics]
1. Samia:
5.
Sadaqat, stand up
we're not having group time now
group time
you can play, Sadaqat
shall we play something?
you want to do painting?
[noise from Sadaqat]
O.K. get your water
let's get a water
Sadaqat:
20.Samia:
let's get a water
let's get a paper
baby didn't cry
hurry up (whispering)
you want paper
and put in the painting
do that and what are you choose colour
Black
back
no, there's a black
did you finish it?
painting
you make it
Sadaqat, do it with this finger
25.
30.
35.
Sadaqat:
do it like this, do it like that
wash
which colour are you going to choose
next thing
don't do it, Sadaqat
orange satsuma
I'm doing it satsuma colour
(clapping, knocking)
you are having your...
(crying)
like it?
mummy [calling to mother]
[Drury, 2007, p.27-28]
Ways ahead: 1
Multilingual children’s funds of knowledge offer a strong
basis for learning, and practitioners need to:
•Recognise and build upon bilingual parents’ and
practitioners’ funds of knowledge to open up new ways of
working with children.
•Create opportunities for bilingual staff to mediate between
home and school and to build on children’s ‘funds of
knowledge’ as they enter the setting.
Ways ahead: 2
Recognising multilingual children as active learners,
practitioners need to:
•Understand the role of ‘silence’ in young children’s early
learning in the context of home and school.
•Explicitly encourage multilingualism in early years
settings.
References
• Blommaert, J. and Rampton, B. (2011) Language and Superdiversity. UNESCO:
Social and Human Sciences, 13 (2), 1-21
• Cremin, T., Mottram, M., Collins, F. M., Powell, S. & Drury, R. (2015) Researching
Literacy Lives building communities between home and school. London:
Routledge.
• DFE (Department for Education) (2014.) Statutory Framework for the Early Years
Foundation Stage. London: Department for Education.
• Drury, R. (2013) How Silent is the ‘Silent Period’ for young bilinguals in early
years settings in England? European Early Childhood Education Research Journal,
Vol. 21, No. 3, 380-391.
• Drury, R. (2007) Young bilingual learners: at home and school. Trentham
• Gregory, E., Long, S. and Volk, D. (2004) Many Pathways to Literacy. London:
RoutledgeFalmer.
• Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D. and Gonzalez N. (1992) Funds of Knowledge for
Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms.
Theory into Practice, 31: 132-141.
• Robertson, L. H. (2004) Multilingual flexibility and literacy learning in an Urdu
community school. In Gregory, E., Long, S. and Volk, D. (2004) Many Pathways to
Literacy. London: Routledge Falmer.
• Vertovec, S. (2009) Transnationalism. London: Routledge.