‘Shared Education’ and translanguaging; students at Jewish and Arab schools learning English together

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on a study that examined a Shared Education program recently implemented in Israel based on the Northern Ireland model. Sixth-grade children from two schools – one Jewish and one Arab, who study in separate education systems and have very limited contacts with one another – met to learn English (as an additional language) together. The study explored patterns of language use (English, Arabic, Hebrew) as well as the ways children perceive the meetings as an arena to meet ‘the others’ and their languages. Findings show that the shared education approach yielded rich interactions between the three languages, enabled open encounters with the ‘others,’ and allowed diverse teaching methods. The analysis of the lessons’ transcripts via a coding system developed specifically for this study revealed a complex pattern of translanguaging between the three languages that served specific pedagogical purposes and expressions of solidarity as well as situations of discomfort and concern vis-à-vis the ‘other.’ Results are discussed in terms of their contribution to the concept of translanguaging and its role in such complex education settings, as well as their practical implications for the role that Shared Education and contact can play in the promotion of tolerance.

KEYWORDS:

• Shared Education
• Israel
• translanguaging
• conflict
• tolerance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Jewish education system is divided also into sub-sectors, which include state-religious education as well as other smaller systems according to unique educational streams (see more in Gibton 2011).

2 In another model, individual students or small groups attend the other school to learn a subject of their choice, usually one that is not offered in their own school. Yet another option is a shared campus where learners meet and return to their ‘organic’ school upon completing the joint study. Where geographical distances are large, students spend an entire school day each week at the other school.

3 The wall between the Jewish and Arab neighborhoods in this city was built in the 1990s in response to a number of severe incidents of violence in the Arab neighborhood related to drug trafficking.

4 Situations of direct translations, when the teacher used a word/phrase/sentence and immediately its translation in the other language, were coded separately as ‘translation.’ These codes were not counted in the ‘Mix’ category since we aimed to explore language mix beyond the practice of translation, which is common in language lessons, in homogenous classes (in terms of students’ mother tongues) as well. On the difference between translation and translanguaging, see also Creese, Blackledge, and Hu (2017).

5 [H] stands for Hebrew, [A] for Arabic and [E] for English.

6 The Hebrew and Arabic texts are translated in the right column. If text was uttered originally in English by the teacher or students, it appears in English in the left column (e.g., ‘Nineteen’ by Jewish teacher above). Henceforth in all excerpts from the sessions.

7 This is part of a game played on the first lesson to encourage students to use English and become acquainted. Students faced one another in two concentric circles according to their schools and asked each other in English, in turn, pre-prepared questions written on cards such as: How many languages do you speak? How many brothers and sisters do you have?

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the Chief scientist, Ministry of Education, Israel [Grant Number 9856].

Notes on contributors

Dafna Yitzhaki

Dr Dafna Yitzhaki is a lecturer at the English Department, Kibbutzim College of Education and a Teaching Fellow at the School of Education, Tel-Aviv University. Her research interests include language policy, multilingualism in education, and teaching languages in the context of conflict. Her most current research focuses on the implementation of the Northern Ireland Shared Education model in the Israeli context in collaboration with the Center for Shared Education at Queen's University, Belfast.

Michal Tannenbaum

Dr Michal Tannenbaum is a senior lecturer and the head of the Program for Multilingual Education, School of Education, Tel Aviv University. Her research interests and teaching areas include linguistic patterns of minority groups, psychological and emotional aspects of immigration, multilingual educational policy, inter-group relations, and the exploration of meeting points between language issues and arts.

Elana Shohamy

Prof. Elana Shohamy is a Professor of Multilingual Education at Tel Aviv University where she teaches and researches various issues of multilingualism as they relate to language testing, language policy, immigration, linguistic landscape from a perspective of criticality and social justice. She authored The Power of Tests: A Critical Perspective on the Uses of Language Tests (2001), Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches (2006), and edited Testing and Assessment volumes of The Encyclopedia of Language and Education (Springer, 2009 and 2018).