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Belinda A. Sauret is the Editor of this column, see picture on the right.
May 2009

The International Baccalaureate Approach to Native Language Study

B. A. Sauret

Although a college astronomy professor first showed me the Flammerion wood engraving* as a metaphor for how drastically the study of astronomy changed during the Renaissance, the image conjures up other worldview-shattering experiences as well. A traveler in long cloak, cap and carrying a cane, seems to have ventured away from the town in the distance beside a lakeshore. The sun gazes benignly on the scene, watching from the dome of the sky, kept company by the stars. But this universe doesn’t occupy the entire frame. Outside the dome he finds another heaven with other celestial engines. In the moment the artist captured, the traveler has come to the edge of the dome, and has, according to the caption, just found the point where the sky and earth touch. But our traveler has done more than the caption gives him credit for; he hasn’t just found the seam between the two, he has discovered that there’s more on the other side. He has slid under the dome and gazes at a whole new expanse. He doesn’t react with fear, he stretches out his hand and has already begun to pull his walking stick through, thinking, no doubt, that he’ll need it as he walks on that new space.

I’ve taught languages for a long time, so it’s not too surprising that I see the walker as someone learning a whole new way of looking at the sky, finding out that his culture’s constellations aren’t the only things humans see when they look up. A language-learner, a daring thinker, a person who has seen a new country, all those things come to my mind. But a recent conversation with Andrew Flory of the International Baccalaureate Organization made me rethink how I look at and think about the Flammarion woodcut; more specifically, his remarks have made me reconsider the position the walker is in, absolutely in-between, neither here nor there, more knowledgeable than the others in the village, but still part of them.

After sixteen years teaching and directing schools in IB schools outside the United Kingdom, Flory works in the languages section of the diploma program managing with his colleagues a mixture of languages A1 and B. Language A1 is a student’s native or dominant language and language B is the second language in which the IB requires an intermediate (using the ACTFL scale) level of proficiency (CEFR B1 and B2*). Since IB policy on language is built around the notion that every student has the right to study at the highest level in his own language, some 44 languages are readily available for students to study as a Language A. In addition to this if a student ‘s mother tongue is not in these 44 they can request that an examiner to set and mark papers is found. Each year we have 25 to 30 “special request” languages A1 from Azeri to Zulu. That means that any student can undertake analysis of literature, in their native tongue, as part of the rigorous IB course of study. So foreign students living in the United States, for example, could take English as their second or B language, while using their mother tongue, whether Urdu, Swahili or Italian, as language A1. As part of the two-year diploma program for students in grades 11 and 12, all students in A1 courses take tests that are scored by external evaluation; papers on international literature and recorded oral commentary on literary works are also graded by evaluators outside the school.

All this external evaluation requires graders, so Flory and his colleagues find evaluators with training and expertise equivalent to that of a university lecturer, not only for the 44 languages in which tests are offered every year, but also for some 28-30 special request languages, including Shona, Dari, and in the Middle years programme an Australian aboriginal language, Ngarrindjeri, whose study required the permission of the tribal elders. As part of this support for languages, IB encourages schools to have books in the mother tongue in libraries, but since some students are refugees and have oral language but no literacy, policy-makers at IB have been asking themselves how to support those kids. After all, throughout the three levels of IB programs, the value of bilingualism is recognized and encouraged. But questions of equity, not discriminating against any language, also occupy Flory’s mind.

Flory points out that “lots of IB students have complex language profiles, but want to do English, especially in Asia.” And among some parents whose own language is Malay or Chinese, for example, there may be the desire to put their children in an advantageous language position is strong. But Flory points to mother tongue research that indicates that youngsters lose a tremendous amount of previously gained ground if, instead of studying A1 in their first, best, most-used, or native language, they are cut off from academic development in that tongue. Since “mother tongue is central to cognitive development” students may also complete an additional IB requirement, the extended essay, in their mother tongue. Sensitivity to parents’ concerns though, requires that Flory and IB representatives in diploma schools show parents that “mother tongue study advantages students” and not the opposite.

In response to my question about whether U.S. schools in particular might find such a requirement burdensome, Flory replied that school compliance has not been a problem, since the policy has been in place since the inception of IB and since only those communities that are in agreement with IB’s goals of intercultural understanding seek to offer the diploma program. “If you buy into what IB offers, you buy into intercultural competence,” he says.

In IB programs, teachers too recognize that language is central to learning, but that no language is transparent or neutral in terms of meaning. Professional development programs attempt to support schools in maintaining the mother tongue because that first language is “central to cognitive development” and because these truly bilingual students bring extra insight to their classes. Indeed, Dan Shiffman, an IB English-language literature teacher in Japan points just how intercultural these literature studies can be. In the January 2009 issue of IB World he writes about his bilingual A1 students and their class, “Japanese creeps into lessons in interesting ways. Discussion of the treatment of gender roles in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was broadened by students explaining the connotations of various Japanese words for ‘wife’. Looking at a character with a split personality, we compared the different Japanese and English terms for that. So while the conversations are all in English, Japanese words often open things up.” (30)

After all, says Flory, what we’re after in IB is that students come away with “additive, not subtractive bilingualism.”

There, that was what did it. That was the phrase that made me rethink how I look at the Flammarion Woodcut. “Additive, not subtractive bilingualism.” The traveler in between in the woodcut. What would happen in the next frame, if there were one? Would the traveler go to the new side? If he crossed and met other beings, would they share a new language with him gladly, or do it only at the cost of his forgetting his own? Would the price of the new be reaching back into that dome and erasing from his memory and his person everything that caused him to reach through the sky in the first place? Not if he were at an IB school.

* CEFR=Common European Framework of Reference; Level descriptions: B2 Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and Independent disadvantages of various options. B1 Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes and ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.

For more information on the Flammarion wood engraving, see Absolute Astronomy.

See Andrew Flory's article in IB World here.

March 2009

Discourses in Dying Languages: My Story With Yiddish

On January 25, the National Museum of Language hosted University of Maryland Professor Miriam Isaacs. as part of the Marian M. Jenkins Memorial Speaker Series. A Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish in the Jewish Studies Program of the University's Meyerhoff Center for Jewish studies, Isaacs spoke about her family history and how she became interested in the Yiddish language. Born in a post-war refugee camp in Germany in 1946, Isaacs grew up in Montreal with parents who exclusively spoke Yiddish at home. Isaacs recounted a story of how one day, when she was 10, her father explained why it was important for her to know the language.

"He told me that that I was an intelligent girl and that I could learn English well anyhow," Isaacs said. "But if I didn’t speak Yiddish at home, I wouldn’t know where I came from."

Since that conversation, Isaacs said, she has had an interest in sustaining the Yiddish language and other fading languages of ethnic minorities. Isaacs gave a brief history of Yiddish in modern times, starting from the late 19th Century. She said that as the Enlightenment spread throughout Europe, Ashkenazi Jews (Jews living in Europe) underwent large and quick changes in lifestyle, transforming from a life focused on religion and community to one much more cosmopolitan.

"Jewish thinkers were foremost in understanding the implications of modernity, both good and bad," Isaacs said. "Included in their ranks were the first linguists and anthropologists."

With Modernity, Yiddish had been transformed from a vernacular into a sophisticated language of literature and theater. There were and still are Yiddish authors, Yiddish newspapers and Yiddish plays. Yiddish was also involved with significant political movements in Europe and the United States.

Isaacs expanded on the question of whether Yiddish is a "dying language". She said that its position as the primary language of most Jews was permanently damaged by the Holocaust, in which 5 million of the 6 million Jews killed were Yiddish speakers.

Isaacs also recounted the decades-long 20th century struggle between Yiddish and Hebrew, a struggle to define the linguistic identity of Jews. Hebrew speakers often considered Yiddish to be a remnant of the Diaspora – a language of persecution that did not deserve pride. Yiddish speakers, on the other hand, wanted to retain a part of the spoken and literary heritage of the Ashkenazi Jews in Europe.

Now, while Hebrew has become the native language for millions of Jews in Israel, Isaacs said that Yiddish is the primary language for only some tens of thousands of people, mostly ultra-Orthodox Hasidim. However, the language is taught at some universities, and there exist a number of organizations that try to preserve Yiddish.

Isaacs also brought up the interesting fact of non-Jews learning and speaking Yiddish. On a Yiddish program in Lithuania that Isaacs attended last summer, about half of the students and teachers were not Jewish.

"While Yiddish has gone out of fashion for many Jews," Isaacs said, "quite a few non-Jews have begun to study it."

In Poland, Germany, Lithuania and other European countries, there are Yiddish-centered cultural institutions and university courses in the language. Isaacs said that one interpretation she has for this desire to study Yiddish is as a "gesture of good will."

"There’s an awareness that Yiddish was brutally destroyed in Europe, and that this is a way of showing in a very meaningful way a respect for the language," Isaacs said.

Isaacs also discussed how her involvement in the preservation of Yiddish has endeared her to the struggles of other people trying to preserve their languages. She described the pains of a native Lakota teacher who was interested in the revival of the Hebrew language.

"When I described the process," Isaacs said, "That it had taken dedicated effort for the better part of a century to bring Hebrew to where it is as a modern language, he became disheartened. Lakota, he told me, did not have that much time."

Isaacs said that too many schools were not interested in preserving the languages of their minority cultures, and merely tried to make everyone learn English. She saw a similar assimilationist attitude during a recent trip to Mexico. While there, Isaacs met a family of indigenous Zapotec speakers in Tenochtitlan. Isaacs said a man told her how his children were embarrassed to speak Zapotec, and that the parents have to send them to a Spanish-language school in another city, Oaxaca.

"What really struck me was the sense of shame on the part of the kids – that they’re embarrassed by their parents, and how frustrated the parents are that this is the reality that they have," Isaacs said.

In Mexico City, Isaacs visited a Spanish-language Jewish school that also teaches Hebrew and Yiddish. When the students at the school asked her why they should be learning Yiddish, Isaacs responded that having its own language gives a group a feeling of peoplehood and shared heritage.

"It occurred to me that when we speak a different language, it’s how you define ‘us’ and ‘them’. And when your own language becomes a ‘them’ language, then you’ve cut yourself off from prior generations – in attitude as well as in comprehensibility," Isaacs said. "People are perfectly capable of being multilingual… But in order to keep multilingualism going, one must give those languages a purpose."
To see a podcast of this lecture, click here to go to the National Museum of Language podcast.

February 2009

Ninging the praises of My Friends - Spanish for Native Speakers
An interview with Sara Urquhart
By Belinda A. Sauret

So, why are you reading about Spanish for Native Speakers on the Internet? Wouldn’t it be faster to go to the teacher next door and ask her what to do with the students who struggle to tell “hogar” from “ahogar” when they read. Why not just turn to the new and fun SNS activities section of your regular Spanish textbook? Or, maybe you could flip back through the SNS chapter of your foreign language methods class text.
In your dreams, right? In my dreams, come to think about it. And, as it turns out, in Sara Urquhart’s dreams too.
This year, not far from the vineyards and farms in Newburg, Oregon, Sara started a program new to her school to develop the academic reading and writing skills of her native speaker students in Spanish. For this class she has no colleagues, no curriculum, no statewide objectives, no prerequisites, no placement tests, no texts, nor even enough desks for her 37 SNS students; all this to help her teach a class the other Spanish teachers turned down with a “No, thanks!”
Sara, however, did not see anything in front of her that was much more difficult than the duties she had discharged in her two years as a Peace Corps worker in Macedonia, and this first year teacher undertook her task with little more than daily writing prompts and the Dibels literacy scale. Even with 160 students and three other preparations, Sara has managed to find considerable joy in the creativity that preparing these classes allows her. She has helped them build their confidence in using Spanish in an academic setting, so much so that her students have even written two essays in that language.
It certainly wasn’t a lack of preparation that left Sara having to resort to finding whatever newspaper and magazine articles, poems or stories she thought her students might find compelling. Before she graduated from Virginia Tech in 2005, she had taken a methods class with Dr. Judith Shrum, one of the authors of the reputable “Teachers Handbook: Contextualized Language Instruction”. But even that text had, she says, only a few pages on instruction for native speakers, so Sara was pretty much on her own.
Sara set out to conferences, and at one of them, COFLT, a regional languages conference, she met Mary Ann Casas, also a new teacher, trying to find or develop suitable units and measures of achievement for a class on heritage speakers of Spanish at Centennial High School, not far from Gresham, Oregon. Mary Ann, already a big fan of social networking sites, had set up http://teachingsns.ning.com/ also known as “My Friends - Spanish for Native Speakers”. Teachers who wish to take part in the dialogue on the site only need to submit their name and email address on the first visit to the site. Soon a confirmation message will allow access.
Mary Ann had spent too many evenings staring down her computer screen in search of helpful ideas for her SNS students. The helpful people at teachers.net had loads of experience in L2 language teaching, but SNS was and is another matter.
Mary Ann and later other SNS teachers began to post useful information on the site: videos, photos, websites with appealing readings, jokes or comic strips. But best of all, the forum allows all the 119 (and counting) members to plead for help. A question about making a unit on Latin American legends has brought seven replies; one about devising a lesson on coming to the U.S. has brought five helpful references to books, authors and Internet available websites. Latin Food units, history of the Spanish language, and even managing a classroom all figure as discussion topics on the forum.
Certainly, many readers will already be familiar with listservs like FLTeach (you can sign up at http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/ and listservs that address the needs of teachers of specific classes like AP Spanish Language or AP Spanish Literature (http://it.stlawu.edu/~rgol/AP-Spanish ), but for other teachers who are in the vanguard of teaching native speakers of Spanish in the public schools, there is one Ning for us.