A multilingual class is a class where the learners speak a variety of first languages. Multilingual classes can be compared to monolingual ones, where all the learners speak the same first language.
Americans speak more than 150 languages at home, from Bengali to Tatar to Swahili. More people speak Spanish in the United States than in Spain.
But in America's all-English classrooms, what's a teacher do when faced with students for whom English is a foreign language?
Jesi Holschbach, a high school science teacher in New York City, worries. Many of her students are native Spanish speakers. She has Spanish-speaking tutors in the classroom to help, but she says her students don't just need to understand the concept. In order to pass their classes in New York, they need to be able to explain it in English.
"My tutors try to explain a concept and continue to get frustrated until they explain the topic in Spanish. Then tell me that the students understand the material but they cannot convey their understanding to me," Holschbach says. "But they need to complete state exams in English."
She says her students are often tripped up "by words that many English speakers take for granted." For example, she says, "when the state exam asks what the benefit of a particular thing is and students answer with a disadvantage."
Tammy Conard-Salvo, the head of Purdue University's Writing Center, says that even students who speak English with a good degree of fluency can get tripped up by idiomatic phrases like "tripped up." Idioms are hard for native-English-speaking teachers to avoid, she says: "One reason they are idiomatic is because they are so ingrained." But phrases like "miss the boat" and "back to back" which mean something different than the words mean on their own, can be baffling for a student who didn't grow up speaking English.
The most important thing, she says, is to gives students space and time to ask questions without being embarrassed. Teachers also need to be good judges of body language. "Students won't tell you when they're confused," she says, "because they're too embarrassed to say they don't understand it."
Holschbach says she pairs up her Spanish-speaking students, and works with them to express their ideas creatively. They portray their knowledge in pictures, or through their tutors.
The students who don't understand Spanish don't always like to hear it spoken. "The English-only speaking students feel as though when the other students speak Spanish, they are talking about them." Holschbach says. "Then the English-speaking students start fights with the Spanish-speaking students."
Even so, Holschbach says teaching to a mixed-language audience changes her teaching in a good way. "I present new vocabulary with pictures to help the students," she says. "I do not necessarily slow down, and the things I do also benefit English-speaking students."
Conard-Salvo encourages teachers to see multi-lingual classrooms as an opportunity.
"A lot of times there's that expectation that students learn English and become acclimated to American culture," she says, "when we could be a lot more open minded and looking to what we can learn from students from other backgrounds."
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From a classroom management standpoint, however, a bigger challenge is when such obstacles turn to frustration and students from differing linguistic backgrounds begin to tune each other out or, worse, exhibit irritation. Fortunately, when handled well, a multilingual classroom is a great place for students to try out their real-world conversation skills. If they can make themselves understood not only to ESL teachers and to others linguistically like themselves, but also to the world at large, then they are communicating.
The following are some suggestions for increasing cross-cultural student-to-student engagement and understanding in the ESL classroom.
Example
Multilingual classes are typically found where learners have travelled from other countries to learn a language, e.g. summer schools.
Multilingual classes are typically found where learners have travelled from other countries to learn a language, e.g. summer schools.
In the classroom
In a multilingual class there can be much more use of the target language, because it will be the only common language between the learners, who will use it for their normal interactions both in and out of class. Learner behaviour and cultures can be very different, which may create problems but can be used as a focus of comparison and discussion.
In a multilingual class there can be much more use of the target language, because it will be the only common language between the learners, who will use it for their normal interactions both in and out of class. Learner behaviour and cultures can be very different, which may create problems but can be used as a focus of comparison and discussion.
But in America's all-English classrooms, what's a teacher do when faced with students for whom English is a foreign language?
Jesi Holschbach, a high school science teacher in New York City, worries. Many of her students are native Spanish speakers. She has Spanish-speaking tutors in the classroom to help, but she says her students don't just need to understand the concept. In order to pass their classes in New York, they need to be able to explain it in English.
"My tutors try to explain a concept and continue to get frustrated until they explain the topic in Spanish. Then tell me that the students understand the material but they cannot convey their understanding to me," Holschbach says. "But they need to complete state exams in English."
She says her students are often tripped up "by words that many English speakers take for granted." For example, she says, "when the state exam asks what the benefit of a particular thing is and students answer with a disadvantage."
Tammy Conard-Salvo, the head of Purdue University's Writing Center, says that even students who speak English with a good degree of fluency can get tripped up by idiomatic phrases like "tripped up." Idioms are hard for native-English-speaking teachers to avoid, she says: "One reason they are idiomatic is because they are so ingrained." But phrases like "miss the boat" and "back to back" which mean something different than the words mean on their own, can be baffling for a student who didn't grow up speaking English.
The most important thing, she says, is to gives students space and time to ask questions without being embarrassed. Teachers also need to be good judges of body language. "Students won't tell you when they're confused," she says, "because they're too embarrassed to say they don't understand it."
Holschbach says she pairs up her Spanish-speaking students, and works with them to express their ideas creatively. They portray their knowledge in pictures, or through their tutors.
The students who don't understand Spanish don't always like to hear it spoken. "The English-only speaking students feel as though when the other students speak Spanish, they are talking about them." Holschbach says. "Then the English-speaking students start fights with the Spanish-speaking students."
Even so, Holschbach says teaching to a mixed-language audience changes her teaching in a good way. "I present new vocabulary with pictures to help the students," she says. "I do not necessarily slow down, and the things I do also benefit English-speaking students."
Conard-Salvo encourages teachers to see multi-lingual classrooms as an opportunity.
"A lot of times there's that expectation that students learn English and become acclimated to American culture," she says, "when we could be a lot more open minded and looking to what we can learn from students from other backgrounds."
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Tips for Teaching Conversation in the Multilingual ESL Classroom
Cara PulickIntroduction
Leaving aside completely the matter of potential cultural conflicts and misunderstandings, teaching conversation in the multilingual classroom presents challenges beyond those faced in the monolingual classroom. The difficulties inherent in a conversational ESL class--namely, speaking and listening in another language--are multiplied when the participants in those conversations are neither native speakers nor from the same linguistic background. Problems ranging from grammatical mistakes to vocabulary limitations to, perhaps most troublesome, pronunciation issues complicate the process of conversing in a foreign language.From a classroom management standpoint, however, a bigger challenge is when such obstacles turn to frustration and students from differing linguistic backgrounds begin to tune each other out or, worse, exhibit irritation. Fortunately, when handled well, a multilingual classroom is a great place for students to try out their real-world conversation skills. If they can make themselves understood not only to ESL teachers and to others linguistically like themselves, but also to the world at large, then they are communicating.
The following are some suggestions for increasing cross-cultural student-to-student engagement and understanding in the ESL classroom.
Mix It Up
- Incorporate as many communicative activities as you can into your lesson plans--role plays, Q&A sessions, information-gap exercises, realistic problem-solving tasks--and group students from distinct linguistic backgrounds together.
Keep the Student on Their Toes
- After a student answers a question, tells a story, or makes a sentence, throw a mini listening pop quiz. Choose a student from a different linguistic background to see if he understood the original student's comments. Ask him to rephrase, repeat or summarize what he heard. This is a good double-check on both speaker and listener.
- Play linguistic Hot Potato in the classroom: If a student asks you a question, divert the question back out to the class to see if another student can provide an answer or explain it to the others. In this way, students won't tune out while the others are talking and they have yet another chance to interact with each other.
Let the Students do the Work
- At the beginning or end of class or after a comprehension exercise, have students ask each other questions about the material covered. That will get them used to listening to each other's accents, not just to yours. Plus it provides an oft-needed review of the frequent problem of question formation in English.
- Try not to echo your students or summarize their comments.If you "help out" students with pronunciation difficulties in this way, the others will feel free to ignore them and wait for you to repeat it more clearly.
Work on Everyone's Difficulties
- If you are doing a pronunciation exercise or discussing a false cognate for one linguistic group follow it up with one for another group. This will help teach the students to be patient with each other's linguistic limitations, as they learn that while the problems may not be the same for each group, each group has its own problems.
Explain It to the Students
- Emphasize that communicating effectively means not only speaking so that a teacher can understand, but speaking so that everyone can understand. Students who speak the same language often understand each other not because they speak correctly but because they make the same mistakes. If you can do so tactfully, you can use a multilingual conversational exercise to point out the difference between what a student thinks he is saying and what his classmates actually hear.
- As students tend to forget, communication also means accurate listening, not just to the video or to native speakers, but to each other as well. For those students who think it is pointless or even detrimental to listen to other non-native speakers, remind them that in today's global society, the chances are that they will find themselves conversing, doing business, or otherwise interacting in English with other non-native speakers.
Have Fun
- One of the best aspects of multi-lingual classrooms is that the widely varying cultural, linguistic and personal backgrounds of the students provide a constant source of interesting conversational material. Use this to your advantage by creating activities where students have to speak--and actively listen--to each other describe how things work in their culture or country
You can make it easier for students to use English by:
• Describing your rationale clearly and getting their support from the beginning,
• Deciding where you place yourself in the classroom. The groups nearest you are more likely to use English than those further away. So take an interest in what each group is doing and move around so that groups have less chance of switching back to their own language.
• Monitoring more overtly: for example, by having a pen and paper in your hand.
• Making the work task-oriented. If the final product has to be in English, whether it is a story, a film review or just answering comprehension questions, a greater use of English is ensured.
• Keeping speaking activities short until the students have more confidence and increased fluency. It is better to have a shorter time than is strictly necessary than having time to spare at the end of group work.
• Making sure that the students have the English to do what you ask. You might find it helpful to start off with very structured activities after you have taught some essential words and expressions so students are not at a loss for words.
• Starting with “open” pair work (a dialogue in front of the class) as a model for the “closed” pair work (every pair working simultaneously).
• Assigning roles. If everyone knows what he or she must do, they are more likely to do it in English. You might consider giving someone the role of “language monitor” - someone to make sure English is used in the group – or “evaluator” - someone who will report back on the of the group overall, including their use of English and of their mother tongue.
Finally, don’t be too concerned if your students resort to their mother tongue in group work or pair work activities. Sometimes it saves time in the long run, as when they are clarifying instructions before they begin the task. It is worth remembering that if you are doing group work as an alternative to whole class work, then even if only 2 people are using English simultaneously you have doubled the amount of student talk for that time.
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