The relevance of identity in languages education

ABSTRACT

Ofsted's 2021 Curriculum Research Review outlines a language pedagogy predicated on an exclusively cognitivist approach to language learning, which relies on three ‘pillars of progression': phonics, vocabulary and grammar. The review makes a brief acknowledgement of the importance of motivational factors, including ‘pupils' positive views of themselves as language learners' though these factors do not seem to inform its conclusions about what constitutes ‘high-quality languages education'. Tellingly, the authors seem to believe that motivational factors are unrelated to learners' perceptions of the relevance of language learning in their lives. Addressing the issue of learners' perception of ‘the relevance of languages in their lives’ is indeed an important challenge, as the literature indicates, yet it is difficult to see how an exclusively cognitivist approach to language education can do this effectively. In this paper, we point to the growing recognition in languages education research of the key role played by multilingual identity development in successful language learning. We draw also on evidence from our recent AHRC-funded interventional study of Year 9 and Year 10 pupils (ages 13-15) in schools in England to argue for an identity-oriented language pedagogy as an integral component of a transformative approach to language learning.

The metaphor of ‘building blocks’ as an explanation of the process of language learning has the appeal of offering a simple solution to the problem of language teaching: identify basic components of the target language and teach them. However, language learning is a complex sociocultural experience that crucially has at its centre the language learner as an individual. The approach to languages education taken by Ofsted's Curriculum Research Review (henceforth OCRR) predicated on an exclusively cognitivist approach to language learning which defines the building blocks as three ‘pillars of progression’: phonics, vocabulary and grammar. This perspective is premised on questionable assumptions about the process of language learning. The report implies that acquisition of these basic skills and knowledge must be achieved before other communicative uses of the target language can be developed. The report is silent about the stage at which these other uses can be introduced within the relatively short span of the timetabled school languages curriculum. Rather than a ‘basic knowledge first’ approach, a more effective strategy would be to combine knowledge input with motivational, affective and communicative development. While cognition is undoubtedly an important component of the process, it does not operate separately from other broader factors which are not accounted for within the framework outlined in the OCRR. The learner appears to be conspicuously absent from this perspective. Can we rely on input of these three building blocks of language to trigger effective language learning, regardless of issues of personal dispositions, motivations, social and familial influences, and other psychosocial factors? Are learners merely neutral receptacles of knowledge with no agentive influence on the language learning experiences they are exposed to?

The preamble to the OCRR presents a brief list of ‘possible motivational factors’ affecting language learners which it implicitly dismisses with the comment that, ‘However, studies have shown that many pupils struggle to see the relevance of the subject in their lives’ (p.4). The implication here is that motivational factors are unrelated to pupils’ perceptions of the relevance of language learning in their lives. Instead, the OCRR turns to the concept of self-efficacy and the cognitivist framework of the three pillars as curricular and pedagogical solutions. How such an approach resolves the issue of perceptions of relevance remains unexplained and, on the face of it, seems inexplicable.

One way of connecting the experience of language learning to pupils’ perceptions of its relevance to their lives is through encouraging them to reflect on languages in their lives and through developing their sense of identity as language learners and users. This needs to be done not as an add-on but embedded in the planning and delivery of the curriculum. Educational researchers have provided empirical evidence of the link between identity-oriented pedagogy and academic achievement (Kaplan and Flum 2009; Schachter and Rich 2011). Pedagogical interventions aimed at changing pupils’ identity-based motivations have been shown to lead to enhanced pupil motivation and higher academic outcomes (Horowitz et al. 2018). Similarly, researchers have found that learners’ ‘self-regulatory possible selves’ are a predictor of engagement in learning and of academic achievement (Oyserman et al. 2004).

The implications of this approach have been explored by researchers in different subject fields. Studies of identity-oriented approaches in the context of school science and STEM education research, in particular, have shown that through engagement in ‘identity work’ activities, learners develop a sense of their identity as students of science with positive outcomes in terms of persistence in learning motivation, academic achievement and future sense of self in relation to science including future career decisions (Calabrese Barton et al. 2013; Carlone and Johnson 2007; Steinke 2017; Trujillo and Tanner 2014). Similar findings have emerged in intervention studies of student identity in mathematics education (Boaler and Greeno 2000; Heffernan et al. 2020; Radovic et al. 2018).

In the field of language learning, researchers have long examined the role of identity as a mediating agency in the process of motivational orientations. Noels et al. (2016), for instance, in a study of heritage and non-heritage learners of German, used Self-Determination Theory as a model for describing the role of identity in the accomplishment of ‘socio-cognitive tasks including the negotiation of new identities’ (Noels et al. 2016: 19). More explicit identity interventions have been carried out by Cummins et al. (2015) through the use of ‘identity texts’ as a pedagogical strategy for raising academic achievement among immigrant-background multilingual school students in Canada and Europe. Prasad (2018: 212) has used identity texts as a way of helping ‘all students (including those who do not speak languages other than the language(s) of instruction)’ to heighten their awareness of linguistic diversity and their motivation to expand their linguistic repertoire.

The experience of languages learning differs from that of other subject fields in that a language learner’s identification and engagement with their subject (namely, the particular target language they are studying) is overlaid with the broader influence of their sense of a more generic multilingual identity. As well as reflecting the demographic reality of societal multilingualism that is increasingly the context in which language learning and use is set, the notion of multilingual identity, if interpreted in the sense of recognition of competence of one’s own use (however limited) of different languages, dialects and other semiotic systems, reflects the presence and development of an individual’s personal linguistic repertoire. Such a perspective aligns with the CEFR (Council of Europe 2020) concept of ‘plurilingual competence’ which refers to the uneven range of languages, dialects and varieties an individual possesses and is less dauntingly exclusionary than the dichotomous novice-expert model adopted in the OCRR. The trend towards this view of multilingualism is evident in other national settings such as Norway (Ministry of Education and Research 2019), Wales (Curriculum for Wales 2022) and in the Curriculum.nu framework which is informing the ongoing reform of the languages curriculum in the Netherlands where multilingualism is identified as a ‘building block’:

Pupils learn to become aware of the languages around them and in society, of stereotypes and prejudices surrounding languages, and of their own multilingual repertoire: what is my first language, which (words from) other languages do I know?’ (www.curriculum.nu).

Our study, entitled ‘The influence of multilingual identity on foreign language learning’, part of the interdisciplinary AHRC-funded MEITS project¹, investigated the link between students’ multilingual identification and their performance in learning French, German and Spanish in secondary schools in England. The longitudinal mixed-methods study involved over 2,000 students in Years 8–9 (ages 12-14) and Years 10–11 (ages 14-16) in seven state schools in London and the East of England. Analysis of a subset of 818 Year 11 (ages 15-16) participant students showed that there was a significant correlation between students’ self-ascribed multilingual identity and their performance in a range of GCSE exams including MFL subjects (see Rutgers et al. 2021). This correlation was stronger than that between students’ school-ascribed or self-ascribed English as an additional language (EAL) status and GCSE results, indicating that personal perception of multilingual identity by all students (whether EAL or non-EAL) was a decisive factor rather than whether or not their home languages were reported to be other than English. The experiential, evaluative and emotional aspects of multilingual identity would seem to be at play.

A further aim of the study was to see whether appropriately designed pedagogical strategies and activities can affect students’ self-perceptions of their multilingual identity, which in turn might lead to enhanced motivation and engagement in target language learning. Drawing on prior conceptualisations of the construct by other L2 researchers (e.g. Aronin 2016; Henry 2017), ‘multilingual identity’ was defined in our project as consisting of three dimensions: experience of languages, evaluation of languages and of oneself as a language learner, and emotional response to languages and language learning. A quasi-experimental intervention programme involved 268 Year 9 (13-14 year-old) students at four participant schools, divided into full, partial and control groups. Six hour-long lessons with corresponding classroom and homework activities were developed in consultation with the classroom teachers spread out over the course of a year. The lessons tied in with the grammar and vocabulary being taught in their normal lessons but also explored multilingual identity themes such as ‘Being multilingual; You are what you speak; Languages in the school; Languages in the community’.² In order to determine whether reflexive and affective factors were significant in the intervention’s impact on the participants, the lessons with the partial group dealt with the topics from an exclusively knowledge-oriented approach while the full group were also encouraged to reflect on the relevance of the topics to themselves and on their emotional response to the language issues (for a more detailed account of the intervention and of the analysis of the results, see Forbes et al. 2021). Analysis of pre- and post- intervention measures of multilingual identity, perceptions of beliefs about languages, and views on enjoyment and pride in language learning revealed that the participants in the full group outscored the other two groups with statistically significant levels of increase in scores for these measures.

The relevance of identity for language learning is neatly captured in a comment by a student in an interview at the end of the project. When asked to comment on the ‘You are what you speak’ topic explored in the intervention, the student, who was planning to continue with French at Year 10, replied ‘you are not what you speak, you are what you allow yourself to be’. Learning languages involves an openness towards difference and a loosening of attachments to a fixed monolingual identity. Curricula, pedagogy and Ofsted’s inspection framework should be looking at ways of helping students to develop their multilingual identity.

Our research suggests that the following measures need to be adopted by languages teachers, policy-makers and others in the interests of promoting a more flourishing language learning future for this country.

• Policy-makers should re-position the learner at the heart of the languages curriculum with the overall aim of fostering students’ positive self-perceptions as future multilingual speakers.

• Teachers should integrate knowledge about multilingualism in their languages lessons (including knowledge about the range of languages spoken in their community and about the cognitive and social benefits of language learning).

• Teachers should provide students with opportunities to reflect on their own developing identity as language learners and language users.

• Ofsted inspectors should bear the above points in mind when considering the quality of language teaching in school inspections.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 https://meits.org MEITS | Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies (MEITS)

2 The lessons and activities, in English, French, German, Spanish are freely available from www. wamcam.org