.
It is perhaps easy as a scholar of language and educational linguistics to laud the value of “multilingualism”, “hybridization”, and “translanguaging”, and to call for pedagogies which attend to and empower those points at the traditionally less powerful ends of the continua of biliteracy (Hornberger & Skilton-Sylvester, 2003, pp. 38-9). As an ESL or bilingual teacher, burdened with “standardized” content and exams, and balancing an overwhelming teaching load, I wonder if it might not seem less possible to enact such valuable practices. Hardman (2003), for example, describes an ESL/bilingual teacher who “seems to feel a bit powerless in the face of the demands of [Content-Based Instruction]” (p. 241). Can such teachers be empowered to enact the types of pedagogies which nurture bi(multi)-lingual students' full bi(multi)-lingualism/literacy? Numerous examples of teachers negotiating the micro-level practices and content of their classrooms both suggest that this is possible and point to the crucial role of critical reflection.
.
The KEEP-Rough Rock partnership highlights the value of critical reflection if teachers are to “construct empowering learning environments for [Navajo] children” (McCarty, 2002, p. 149). Prior to the collaboration, teachers described themselves as “technicians” and “parrots” (McCarty, 2002, p. 149) reading a standardize content script mandated by district officials. The KEEP teacher training program, eventually extended to Rough Rock, empowered teachers by encouraging “teacher thinking and reflection” and providing the time and resources necessary for such reflection (Vogt & Au, 1995, p. 102). Trained to reflect upon their practice, to utilize local funds of knowledge and qualitative assessments, and to question the implicit value of “standards”, teachers assumed ownership of their curricula and pedagogies and began to value local cultural knowledge as an education resource for their students (Begay, et al., 1995; McCarty, 2002; Vogt & Au, 1995).
.
Within the classroom, critical reflective practices emerge in pedagogies which feature contextualized content (Hornberger & Skilton-Sylvester, 2003, pp. 50-56), value multiliteracies (The New London Group, 1996, pp. 63-64), and embrace bilingual norms (Cahnmann, 2003, pp. 188-89). For example, Mexican-American bilingual teachers in training reflectively constructed “shared social identity” with students, thus enabling them to contextualize content within shared cultural knowledge (Perez, Flores, & Strecker, 2003, pp. 227-28). Schwinge’s (2003) study demonstrated that even teachers constrained by “standardized” content could promote the development of bi(multi)literacy by adapting and augmenting the manner in which they presented such content. Additionally, educators aware of the tension between learner-centered and curriculum-centered content empowered students by teaching more than simply the decontextualized standard forms (Hardman, 2003).
.
Returning to the original questions, there does seem to be hope that critically reflective practitioners – even constrained by a “standardized” curriculum – can indeed empower and facilitate the bi(multi)-lingualism/literacy of their students. While it may seem at times an overwhelming and daunting task, micro-level pedagogic choices do make a difference. As Schwinge (2003) optimistically concludes:
.
While individually each of the curricular adaptations and elaborations that are provided by teachers who act as bottom-up language and literacy planners are small changes to classroom literacy activities, in the long run they may have a large effect on the ability of students to increase their knowledge of the content of the texts they read and to develop biliteracy. (p. 264)
.
References
Begay, S., Dick, G.S., Estell, D.W., Estell, J., McCarty, T.L., & Sells, A. (1995). Change from the inside out: A story of transformation in a Navajo community school. The Bilingual Research Journal, 19, pp. 121-39.
Cahnmann, M. (2003). To correct or not to correct bilingual students’ errors is a question of continua-ing reimagination. In N.H. Hornberger (Ed.), Continua of biliteracy: An ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings (pp. 187-204). Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters, Ltd.
Hardman, J. (2003). Content in rural ESL programs: Whose agendas for biliteracy are being served? In N.H. Hornberger (Ed.), Continua of biliteracy: An ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings (pp. 232-47). Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters, Ltd.
Hornberger, N.H., & Skilton-Sylvester, E. (2003). Revisiting the continua of biliteracy: International and critical perspectives. In N.H. Hornberger (Ed.), Continua of biliteracy: An ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings (pp. 35-67). Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters, Ltd.
McCarty, T.L. (2002). A place to be Navajo. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Perez, B., Flores, B.B., & Strecker, S. (2003). Biliteracy teacher education in the US Southwest. In N.H. Hornberger (Ed.), Continua of biliteracy: An ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings (pp. 207-31). Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters, Ltd.
Schwinge, D. (2003). Enabling biliteracy: using the continua of biliteracy to analyze curricular adaptations and elaborations. In N.H. Hornberger (Ed.), Continua of biliteracy: An ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings (pp. 248-65). Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters, Ltd.
The New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66, pp. 60-92.
Vogt, L.A., & Au, K.H.P. (1995). The role of teachers’ guided reflection in effecting positive program change. The Bilingual Research Journal, 19, pp. 101-20.
