Challenging the dominance of English in international schools - Part four: PD and classroom practice

Most international schools have some kind of PD provision for all teachers focused on effective instruction for English language learners. This training and coaching is of course essential, but not sufficient. To build more equitable and inclusive approaches, training in English across the curriculum should be supplemented with PD that promotes understanding of and respect for multilingualism and practical strategies for leveraging languages other than English as resources for learning. This PD should include developing teachers’ multilingual critical language awareness (García, 2015) as “a way to center students and their dynamic language practices rather than static language systems, thus challenging existing linguistic hierarchies and advancing more socially-just perspectives of language teaching and learning”(Deroo & Ponzia, 2021). Shifting teachers’ hearts and minds - to foster empathy for multilingual learners, to build an understanding of their needs, to raise consciousness of how they might be marginalised, for example - is just as significant as skilling teachers up to embed English learning into their subject teaching.

Reflection Questions:

• What kind of PD related to language(s) does your school currently provide? Does it promote understanding of and respect for multilingualism?
• How can you help shift teachers’ hearts and minds, as well as skilling them up, to leverage linguistic diversity in their classrooms?

Explore More:

• Beyond Crises: Overcoming Linguistic and Cultural Inequities in Communities, Schools, and Classrooms
• The EAL Academy offers an online professional development course about plurilingualism.

In contexts like international schools, where the primary language of instruction in most classrooms is likely English, pedagogical translanguaging is a powerful and effective approach to leveraging linguistic diversity as a resource for learning as well as promoting inclusion and wellbeing for multilingual learners. Translanguaging refers to “…the act performed by bilinguals of accessing different linguistic features or various modes of what are described as autonomous languages, in order to maximise communicative potential” (García, 2009, p.140). What we often treat as separate, named languages actually exist as a single linguistic repertoire, and translanguaging occurs when students deploy their “full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named languages” (Otheguy, García & Reid, 2015, p. 281). Pedagogical translanguaging is the intentional, planned use of translanguaging as part of learning (Cenoz & Gorter, 2020, p.3), using activities such as multilingual reading partners, vocabulary inquiry across languages, and multilingual research, as outlined in CUNY-NYSIEB’S Translanguaging Guide for Educators. Beyond its academic benefits, translanguaging is identity-affirming (Lin and He 2017, p.228) and creates “third spaces where language minoritized students can voice their realities, perform their ways of being, demonstrate their expertise and create new realities” (Yilmaz, 2019, p.211). In the act of translanguaging, English is decentered as the only legitimate language of knowledge production and so translanguaging is a practical pedagogical counter to the dominance of English in international schools.

Reflection Questions:

• How could translanguaging be more intentionally enabled as part of learning in your classroom?
• How often do teachers in your school intentionally plan for translanguaging in their units and lessons? How could you encourage more teachers to implement pedagogical translanguaging?

Explore More:

• Translanguaging — what is it and how do you plan for it?

Despite the common assumption in many international schools that English is ‘owned’ by ‘native-speakers’ from places like the US and the UK, English is a global language. In fact, it’s probably better to speak of World Englishes, as localised varieties of English have developed in different regions, gaining unique features in each place. This diversity within a language is a rich source of learning for students, and exposure to different World Englishes through representation in the curriculum and among teaching staff is an important component of being internationally minded. Where possible, teachers can ensure their teaching resources, such as the videos we show, represent a range of Englishes and accents, including those from formerly colonised regions like Kenyan English or Singaporean English, as well as other regional varieties relevant to the school context.

As teachers, learning more about different forms of English can help us better understand those in our communities and avoid attempting to ‘correct’ students for what is in fact variation. In my case, reading books like Is English an Asian Language? has helped me shift my thinking and become more familiar with Englishes, such as Korean English and Chinese English, used by some of my students. Alongside the inclusion of texts and resources from different languages (for example with subtitles, in translation, etc.), more representation of World Englishes, such as through the inclusion of literary texts from different regions in English courses, is another way in which we can diversify our curriculum and make it more culturally relevant. The diversification of the varieties of English that students are exposed to will challenge their assumptions that language is static, monolithic, or inextricably linked to particular cultures, and will better prepare them to communicate using English – alongside their other languages – in local and global contexts, as well as being a starting point for an inquiry into the colonial histories that led to the spread of English across the globe.

Reflection Questions:

• What varieties of English are represented among your teaching staff and student body?
• To what extent do your curriculum materials expose students to different accents or varieties of English?

Explore More:

• Changing Englishes

The suggestions here might not make sense in every context — every school’s context and linguistic ecosystem is unique, after all. Some of the action points might be more relevant or more pressing than others. But the important point is that, while English is dominant in our schools and likely to remain so, we think critically about it and take action to rethink and reconfigure the role of English to move our schools closer towards equity and inclusion, to become more truly international. These changes, however, are not enough.

At the same time, we keep working for bigger transformation, honouring and leveraging the linguistic diversity of our school communities (for inspiration on this, see Spiro & Crisfield, 2018, and García, Skutnabb-Kangas & Torres-Guzmán, 2006) and building new visions for multilingual international education.

This article marks the end of my series on the importance of challenging the dominance of English in international schools.

Here you can find the first, second and third chapter of this series.

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How do you foster multilingual competence, address linguistic discrimination and build linguistic inclusion in your school? Register for your free profile and leave a comment below!

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(This article is part of a piece originally published on Medium)