The need for bilingual instruction.
Many beginning students do not like English only classes and textbooks because at times they get confused and are not able to ask questions. And they often do not understand the teacher. The only solution of course is to provide bilingual instruction and textbooks.
When I have brought this up in the past the usual objection is that in a class that contains people who speak different languages it is impossible to provide bilingual instruction.
Actually it is not as difficult as you may think. For example if students had the use of a picture dictionary they could make their own bilingual beginners text. They all could learn a basic vocabulary and at the end of three months would share a common English vocabulary. In other words there is no real reason not to provide bilingual or multilingual instruction in a beginning ESL class.
A benefit of multilingual or bilingual instruction is that student interest will increase. And I assume the dropout rate would decrease.
Comments
You are so right, Paul, that learners can create their own bilingual dictionaries. They can also create their own bilingual flashcards to study vocabulary. I'm sure many teachers who are teaching monolingual and/or multilingual classes encourage the learners to do so. How about it teachers?!
Cheers, Susan
Moderator, English Language Acquisition CoP
My record class membership once was 28 students, 17 languages. Most were genuine beginners. We met in the education building of Covenant Presbyterian Church; my support came from Central Piedmont Community College. Some of the class members had been in Charlotte, NC for less than a month. They had varying levels of formal education, many knew several languages, and they had widely varying language learning skills. The students were adults from 18 to over 60 in age. We laughed a lot. I used TPR (Total Physical Response) at the beginning. We didn't have any picture dictionaries. We had three-hour classes, so there was plenty of time to add in many of the elements of language learning, including letter recognition and formation. The literate-in-some-language folks started flash cards, with their own notes and sketches. Those with only oral language skills learned to print in English for the words we were working on, and they drew pictures or we cut out pictures from magazines, etc. (Pre-Internet days.) People who shared a language helped each other. And people who didn't share a language helped, too. It was a lovely time. I am smiling at my computer screen just thinking about all those wonderful people. It worked.
Yesterday, I suggested to my beginning writing class that they could do their brainstorming in their own language and in English. Then, they could look up the words or phrases they didn't know in English and add them to the brainstorm BEFORE starting to write sentences. The class population this time includes people who are literate in their own languages, but honestly, we don't get to laugh as much!
I appreciate your comments, Paul. Unfortunately, a lot of program administrators are still singing the English Only song. It totally baffles me, with no science behind it, with the California proposition voting it in, then out. Often I have classes with French and Spanish speakers only and the bilingual picture dictionaries are terrific. Also, I think that encouraging native language use contributes to developing interconnectedness in the classroom (Marshall, 2013) and promotes language development with the social interaction (Vygotsky), reduces affective filter (Krashen) and makes eveyone feel respected (Culturally Responsive Teaching, Ladson-Billings). Many students often enjoy learning their comrades' language as well, which facilitates their language acquisition process. Many adult students in my classes develop relationships as a result of working together, enjoying the process of learning.
Great discussion! We're seeing increased numbers of 1-2 languages in our lower level classes--mostly Afghani women who speak Dari, Pashto or both. And we see a lot of them making very very slow progress. We're considering running a class just for this group so we can bring in a TA to help with translation and interpreting. Have any of you done this? Taught a version of an EFL class, using native speakers as a TA? Would love to hear more.