Hello all,

Dermot, I agree it is a shame to hear about language discrimination taking place and I like your activity. It is relevant and I am all for this type of multilingual activity.

Maybe some of us are viewing this differently, but I don´t think having one or two activities like Dermot´s in a course creates a multilingual classroom or pedagogy, just like having a few activities about religion doesn´t mean I have now created a theological ESOL pedagogy. It follows then, that a multilingual ESOL pedagogy necessitates a much more integrated use of other languages. Which? How often? For how long? When? How? For what language learning outcome?

Di, thank you for your response. I am open to having an academic discussion about this. I don´t view your listing two surnames and a British Council article as being - rigorous. Thanks to boolean logic, I was able to track down Mercer (Neil Mercer - University of Cambridge) you were referring to, unfortunately there are many studies in which a Saffer participated. 

I could not find anything in the literature in which Mercer provided any support for multilingualistic ESOL teaching which you implied; although, I did find some mention of language switching. Language or code-switching is very likely what you were referring to when writing about metacognitive improvement in multilingual approaches. Quickly switching between languages or tasks is cognitively beneficial and could help improve scores on intelligence tests.

From what I read, Mercer supports language switching, although he states: "The extent to which code-switching between English and another language occurs in a particular setting will therefore be influenced by factors such as (a) the degree of fluency" i.e. as fluency increases, language switching decreases. Language switching is an interesting teaching method and there are studies on it which show it can be helpful for lower-intermediate level learners and I have already found 1 empirical study conducted in 2014 which states: 

"The perceptions of all participants on code-switching overlapped in that they believed that it was a tool that fostered learning in beginner levels and could be used to attract attention or for jokes, yet should be abolished as the proficiency level increases".

In addition to this, Mercer even states: "when code-switching amounts to translation by the teacher of the curriculum content being taught, its use as an explanatory teaching strategy is somewhat controversial".

Jacobson (1990) also states that: "the translation into the child's vernacular of everything that is being taught may prevent him/her from ever developing the kind of English language proficiency that must be one of the objectives of a sound bilingual program".

Let´s bring this into context: language switching is used in bilingual classrooms. Even then, it is used only as a method for clarifying meaning; it is not a pedagogy or approach. If it is controversial to use the students´ vernacular in bilingual ESOL classrooms, especially for intermediate-higher level learners, what follows then if we extrapolate this to the multilingual ESOL classroom in which many foreign vernaculars are used? 

I am not going to go into too much detail yet as I want to read much more into these and relating articles before writing a more academic expository on it. I am studying an MSc in TESOL and my next assignment is discourse analysis, so granted the opportunity I may even base the assignment on this.

Best regards,

Shaun.

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