Learning to write in two languages

1. Learning to write in two languages Professor Anthony Liddicoat University of South Australia Bilingual Schools Network Camberwell PS, March 2013

2. Starting assumptions • Plurilingualism is qualitatively different from monolingualism. • An individual’s languages are interrelated in complex ways. • An individual’s languages influence each other. • Language capabilities consist of both language specific and language general features • Although the surface aspects of different languages are clearly separate, there is an underlying cognitive/academic proficiency that is common across languages. (Cummins, 2007)

3. Starting assumptions • Bilingual education is not a form of foreign language teaching – it involves at all points the development of two (or more) languages. • both L1 and L2 teachers are engaged in the same basic enterprise

4. Biliteracy • Mastery of the fundamentals of speaking, reading, and writing (e.g. knowing sound/symbol connections, conventions of print, accessing and conveying meaning through oral or print mode, etc.) in two linguistic systems (Reyes, 2001). • Constructing meaning by making relevant cultural and linguistic connections with print and the learner’s own lived experiences, as well as the interaction of the two linguistic systems to make meaning (Reyes & Costanzo, 2002).

5. Writing development in two languages • A caveat • Not well researched • Most research is on the individual languages of the bilingual (i.e. misses interrelationships) • Research has focused on how L2 literacy may draw on L1 literacy, but the reverse is rarely the case. • Most research is on cognate, ‘Latin alphabet’ languages (issues across non-cognate languages and writing systems are more complex)

6. Writing development in two languages • Features of learning to write in two languages: • strategic code switching • positive literacy transfer • interliteracy

7. Strategic code switching • Young writers engage in hybrid language and literacy practices that encompass: • their knowledge of L1 and L2 • their prior knowledge and experiences (developed in either L1 or L2) • their formal and informal ways of communicating and meaning making, • their developing bilingual and bicultural identities

8. Positive literacy transfer • Developing bilingual writers appropriately apply skills learned/used in one language to the other language. • Writing strategies developed in one language are applied to the other. • Emergent literacy processes, i.e. writing strategies that enable writing, but are not the conventions of developed literacy emerge at different times • L1 →both L1 and L2 → L2 → neither • E.g. Emergent: ‘Mixes upper case and lower case letters’, ‘Joins simple sentences’ (often overusing the same connectors • Mature literacy practices, i.e. writing practices that remain in developed literacy are developed in L1 and transferred to L2. • E.g. Mature: “uses upper case and lower case appropriately’, ‘Uses a variety of linking words’ • We need to understand practice across languages to understand how writing is developing.

9. Interliteracy • Interliteracy is • a literacy system intermediary between two (or more) languages • is literacy in development for bilinguals • may include the application of rules of one written language when writing the other. • the temporary application of linguistic elements of literacy (including syntax, phonology, and semantics) of one language to the other, and • the application of print conventions (including graphophonemic relationships, orthography, and print conventions) of one language to the other.

10. Writing as plurilingual activity • Developing plurilingual writers • draw from both languages in the process of creating L1 and L2 texts • Develop ideas in L1, writing in L2 • Use L2 information in composing L1 texts • Move between languages in writing • Bilingual students bring to learning a linguistic repertoire that cannot be measured in a single language. • Regardless of the language they are using and their particular proficiency level, bilinguals are influenced by their knowledge of another language and their cross-cultural experience.

11. Writing as plurilingual activity • Developing plurilingual writers • Recognise differences across languages • Seek to make connections across their languages • Kenner (2004) found that bilingual children (Chinese-English, Arabic-English, Spanish-English) understood the differences between their two writing systems, but they also looked for ways to connect them to transform meaning across the languages.

12. Writing as a plurilingual activity • Writing in two languages involve transfer between languages at a number of levels: • Transfer of conceptual elements (e.g. understanding the concept of photosynthesis); • Transfer of metacognitive and metalinguistic strategies (e.g. strategies of visualizing, use of graphic organizers, mnemonic devices, vocabulary acquisition strategies, etc.); • Transfer of pragmatic aspects of language use (willingness to take risks in communication through L2, ability to use paralinguistic features such as gestures to aid communication, etc.); • Transfer of specific linguistic elements (knowledge of the meaning of photo in photosynthesis); • Transfer of phonological awareness – the knowledge that words are composed of distinct sounds.

13. Consequences • Literacy-related skills and knowledge are interdependent across languages and cross-lingual transfer occurs as a normal process of bilingual development. • Rather than leaving this process to unfold in a potentially sporadic and haphazard manner, it is necessary to teach for two-way cross-lingual transfer (L1 to L2, L2 to L1) in order to render the process as effective as possible.

14. Aspects of practice for literacy in two languages • Focusing on cognates – activating vocabulary awareness across languages • Comparing language conventions – activating literacy conventions across languages, e.g. punctuation, graphophonemic relationships, text organisation and layout. • Encouraging making connections between languages

15. Aspects of practice for literacy in two languages • Translating stories written in one language into another – encouraging parallel literacy development • written translation can foster bilingual children’s metalinguistic awareness • translation should be “bidirectional”: L1→L2 and L2 → L1 • focus of process and product can be available for thinking about writing as a task

16. Aspects of practice for literacy in two languages • Creation of dual language texts – writing about similar material in two languages • original writing in two languages • translation between languages • Writing strategy linking – making conscious links between ways of doing writing across languages

17. Aspects of practice for literacy in two languages • Assessing and evaluating writing across and withinlanguages: • literacy development is the overall development across languages • assessment tasks need to make space for the evaluation of the whole language repertoire • judgments of development need to be made across the repertoire – each language shows something different about literacy development