Impact of Multilingual Instructors on ELL Learning

INTRODUCTION

While it is known that learning and development for a child begin in the home and is furthered in the classroom, the structure and tools available to a student in the classroom are equally imperative to their cognitive development. One of the primary tools is the same provider of structure: the instructor. The instructor serves as the nexus from which all student academic learning derives. With proper attention to the instructor’s attributes, skills, and diversity, one can note that instructors may have a significant effect on student academic performance and progress. Typically, the instructors for English Language Learners are native English speakers, aimed at assisting students with their language acquisition. However, it should be considered that adding diversity of language and instruction as a variable within the classroom greatly benefits both the student in the reception and the instructor in their instruction. Instead of adhering to the norm of monolingual instructors guiding and, oftentimes, misunderstanding and misinterpreting bilingual and/or non-English speaking students, the status quo of the instructor’s own learning is called into question.

PROPOSED STUDY

Through this study, I will examine some of the literature available on the effect of multilingual instructors on English Language Learners (ELLs) students’ learning. I propose a study to compare the monolingual instructor and the multilingual instructor on students’ academic performance with a qualitative approach. This study seeks to purport that multilingual instructor's skills and demonstrated experience with language acquisition are advantageous to ELL students’ learning, academic performance, and cognitive development in comparison to the instruction received from a monolingual instructors. Documentation to support this study derives from previous research conducted on bilingual/multilingual students’ resources, identity, and cognitive development. Questions for this study are: How can multilingual instructors have an advantageous effect on ELL students’ learning through their own language acquisition and multilingualism? Does this multilingualism on behalf of the instructor encourage or intimidate ELL students’ learning? Is the instructor multilingualism a resource for ELL students? What are some challenges that students and instructors may face while navigating this space? What skills, behaviors, and mindsets are demonstrative of student success with a multilingual instructor in comparison to a monolingual instructor? Can multilingual instructors act as the catalyst for challenging quintessential classroom environments and dynamics?

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LITERATURE REVIEW

In their article “Mediating Multilingual Children’s Language Resources”, D.Potts and M.J. Moran present the developing reality of multilingual students’ presence in classrooms. They discuss a students’ multilingualism as an “asset” and challenge conceptualizations of bilingual education and multilingual classrooms. They further that diverse learning can have a place in formal education and through this additional diversity, students’ language acquisition and development can surpass preconceived barriers and obstacles. They seek to redefine the meaning of “language” and to use this new definition as the basis to present language as a resource as opposed to solely an idiom (Potts & Moran, 2012). They write: “Thus in understanding language as a resource, language is not only a dialect or mother tongue, a course subject or a tool. Rather, as the ‘stuff ’ or semiotic material of knowledge, it is inseparable from our understandings of the world and our ways of knowing (Potts & Moran, 2012). Here they further the idea that language has the ability to develop beyond its initial use and understanding. Instead of being utilized passively, it can have an active presence to ignite change, diminish differences between members of various groups, and improve future learning. They support this claim with:

“In contrast, we approach languages: (a) as the semiotic resources with which an individual makes meaning of their world, their personalized meaning potential (Matthiessen 2009); and (b) with the understanding that students’ access to their home language is simultaneously accessed to their existing knowledge and their full capacity to mean. The distinction between language as resource and language as linguistic family/dialect also distinguishes research on bi-/multilingual education from our perspective on multilingualism in mainstream classrooms” (Potts & Moran, 2012).

In relation to the classroom, Potts and Moran argue that “more attention must be paid to pedagogic practices that capitalize on children’s multilingual capacities if educators are to better support these students’ growth as meaning-makers” (Potts & Moran, 2012). They conduct their study with three students’ text on home language function, context, and then mediation and conclude that home language is a resource as prevalent as classroom instruction and encapsulates a student’s potentiality for thought, “for feeling and for reflecting on the ways in which the students make meaning of their worlds” (Potts & Moran, 2012). This reinforces the claims present in this study in favor of multilingual education and reform.

TENTATIVE DISCUSSION

This study is significant because it emphasizes the importance of multilingualism and diversity for students from classroom instructors. The procedure intends to further the concepts presented in “I May Be a Native Speaker but I’m Not Monolingual”: Reimagining All Teachers’ Linguistic Identities in TESOL” by Elizabeth M. Ellis and her engagement with “Identity-as-Pedagogy” (Ellis, 2016). In this work, the primary question surfaces repeatedly: “How rich is your linguistic repertoire and how can this be deployed as a psychological resource?” (Ellis, 2016). Ellis presents teacher linguistic identity as not only a defining factor in a student’s learning but a catalyst for reforming the classroom dynamic and environment. Ellis writes, “However, rather than focussing only on teachers’ identities in relation to English, I contend that it is crucial to examine teachers’ identities in relation to their entire linguistic repertoire” (Ellis, 2016). Ellis’ study takes a similar approach to the study conducted here:

“Twenty-nine teachers agreed to participate after they had been selected via the screening questionnaire. As this questionnaire asked some simple questions about languages spoken, as well as demographic data, I attempted to select a balance of those with circumstantial bilingual, elective bilingual, and monolingual experience” (Ellis, 2016).

This research allows further discussion on the results of this study on multilingual instructors on ELL students’ learning. The section of Ellis’ article, titled “Virginia’s Identity-as-Pedagogy” answers many of the questions proposed in this study. Virginia’s multilingualism does, in fact, serve as an asset and resource for students’ learning because it propels her into an alternative formulation of thought. This reformation of thought patterns and conclusion of thought allows her to recall how learning and acquisition occur from her own personal experience, which she then parallels to the experience of the students in her classroom: “Asked if her second language experience contributes to her teaching ESL, Virginia explained that it gave her an understanding of how she learned, and how she overcame the fear of making mistakes—a lesson she now passes on to her students” (Ellis, 2016).

Ellis later writes, “In other words, the many ways in which Virginia has encountered languages have shaped her identity as a learner and as a teacher. She is able to draw on her linguistic and learner identity as a pedagogical tool, to understand her students and to place herself in their shoes” (Ellis, 2016). Here, the notion of the teacher as a pedagogical tool is actualized and Virginia acts as proof of the necessity for diversity and variance in linguistic and learner identity.

“Literacy and English-Language Learners: A Shifting Landscape for Students, instructors, Researchers, and Policy Makers” by Jim Cummings presents the classroom as an ever-changing environment. The classroom must have a sense of fluidity and adaptability to fully support the specific needs of the ELL student. Through this fluidity, the power of academia can reach its full potential. Cummings writes, “The panel concluded that “language-minority students instructed in their native language . . . and English perform, on average, better on English reading measures than language-minority students instructed only in English” (Cummings, 2009). When students are provided with the opportunity to understand beyond typical parameters, their learning potential expands and improves the classroom environment as a whole. Cummings later states a claim that furthers this notion even more, “In other words, bilingual education is a legitimate and empirically supported option for developing language-minority students’ reading and writing skills both in English and in their home languages” (Cummings, 2009).

In “Translanguaging in the Bilingual Classroom: A Pedagogy for Learning and Teaching?” (Creese et al, 2010), Angela Creese and Adrian Blackridge offer that the language ecology metaphor is “a way of studying the interactional order to explore how social ideologies, particularly in relation to multilingualism, are created and implemented” (Creese et al, 2010). Creese and Blackridge center their phenomena around language separation and bilingualism, whilst presenting the methodology via a series of case-studies, audio-recordings, observations, photographs, and interviews. The study concluded that there was a “...need for both languages, for the drawing across languages, for the additional value and resource that bilingualism brings to identity performance, lesson accomplishment, and participant confidence” (Creese et al, 2010). Creese and Blackridge’s study confirms prior research on motivation and inclusivity in the classroom as an asset to student development. Creese states, “We argue for a release from monolingual instructional approaches and advocate teaching bilingual children by means of bilingual instructional strategies, in which two or more languages are used alongside each other” (Creese et al, 2010). Taking a nuanced approach to bilingual student’s learning provides a sense of empowerment and a means of communicating and connecting with others.

With this prior research in mind, the anticipated results of this study are that multilingual instructors will provide multiple and diverse options to solve the proposed scenarios in comparison to monolingual instructors.

Implications

Implications of this study encourage multilingualism to be reformed as the norm amongst instructors to enhance their pedagogical approach and invigorate ELL students’ learning potential. Though this reformation will come with its own challenges, the overall benefit of a diverse and nuanced pedagogy has the potential to expand learning beyond the classroom and into the student as an individual, as well as out into the world at large. Learning starts within the home and is reinforced and expounded upon in the classroom. It is because of this that students should receive the optimal environments and tools to attain a variety of successes and this often begins with not only the instructor’s course of action to aid the student, but the instructor’s sensitivity to learning acquisition themselves.

Limitations

Limitations of this study’s approach lie in the procedure solely eliciting the viewpoint and result from the instructor and not from the students. In this way, the judge's conclusions are not based on student feedback but on the instructor’s perception of their effectiveness. The group for the study is also small and a larger group may elicit more varying results. Additionally, participants awareness of their own limitations being judged by the aim of the study, i.e. monolingual vs. multilingual, can cause the monolingual instructor to oversell their influence and the multilingual to undersell.

Future Research

Future research could include more participants and students as a variable with attention to the specificity of student age and learning acquisition measurements through testing and/or interviews. This study overall seeks to question the nature of the question and question the nature of the instructor. The tools the instructor has available for understanding how to guide become the foundation of the student’s success. It is only by unpacking learning and placing the beginning of it in the learning patterns and behaviors of the instructors, can one fully begin to understand approaches for future students (Ellis, 2016).

REFERENCES

1. Creese, Angela & Blackledge, Adrian. (2010). Translanguaging in the Bilingual Classroom: A Pedagogy for Learning and Teaching?. The Modern Language Journal. 94. 103 - 115.
2. Cummings, Jim. (2009). Literacy and English-Language Learners: A Shifting Landscape for Students, instructors, Researchers, and Policy Makers. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X038005382
3. D.|Moran, & J., M. (2012, November 30). Mediating Multilingual Children's Language Resources. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1023672
4. Dynamic Bilingualism as the Norm: Envisioning a ... (n.d.). Retrieved from https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/J_Schissel_Dynamic_2014.pdf
5. Waller, L., Wethers, K., & Costa, P. I. (2016, March 31). A Critical Praxis: Narrowing the Gap Between Identity, Theory, and Practice. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/tesj.256