DESIGNING ENVIRONMENTS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING HISTORY IN MULTILINGUAL CONTEXTS

Abstract

Educational interventions designed to serve the needs of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S. public schools are developed within a fractured social context. Recent language and immigration policy debates in the U.S. have focused on the importance of English in attaining socio-economic success. On the other hand, research in applied linguistics has shown that immigrants who become English monolingual do not fare better than their counterparts who develop bilingual skills and maintain a connection to their heritage. All of these discussions place the emphasis on what individuals have and do not have. The paper presents an alternative view of how to address issues of multilingualism in education by framing them in terms of opportunities the environment affords. This perspective is illustrated with a professional development program focused on designing environments with opportunities to develop critical language awareness. The case study reports work done with history teachers working with ELLs in the mainstream classroom.

Notes

¹This means that thinking about designing a space to learn where multilingual students' culture and knowledge are seen as assets implies not only adopting a set of strategies or “best practices” but also questioning dominant monolingual language ideologies. There needs to be a radical re-thinking of the issue in terms of socialized intelligence and linguistic market, to better understand how the educational context creates spaces for learners (and teachers) to learn from each other and value other forms of making meaning.

²The project, “Teaching and learning history in a multilingual classroom,” is funded by a small research grant from the Spencer Foundation.

³This project emerged from my collaboration with the Disciplinary History group of the Institute for Learning (IFL, http://www.instituteforlearning.org). Our collaboration in this professional development program has enabled history teachers from several school districts around the country to be exposed to the theoretical framework and practical application of the functional approach to disciplinary literacy and enabled me to continue exploring these issues working with teachers in their classroom.

⁴The teachers independently design the lessons but maintain periodical conversations with the researcher and discuss their ideas with her before and after implementing them.

⁵Metalinguistic awareness is used here in a broad sense, as the explicit consciousness of how language operates and about how its structure functions to construct meanings.