Language Diversity in the Classroom - ymerleksi - home

Introduction 3The consequences, in terms of impediments to learning, early curtailmentof formal education and reduced chances in the world beyond theschool gates can be enormous.Sympathetic VoicesThere have been several contemporary calls for the sort of attentionI hope to highlight in this book, as well as earlier ones demonstrating thelongstanding nature of the issue. There has, for instance, been a numberof recent works arguing for greater and more precise attention to theteaching of foreign languages, and almost all these works stress theimportance of the ideological framework within which this occurs.Unlike earlier and more linguistically focused treatments, these laterones encourage a broader sociolinguistic and sociocultural contextualization(e.g. Osborn, 2000; Reagan & Osborn, 2002). Their very existence,of course, testifies to a continuing need. In the American context, theneed is particularly evident where Hispanic children are concerned:Flores (2005) presents a rather chilling chronological table in which theassessments of the 1920s a time when Spanish speakers were sometimesjudged to be mentally retarded have now become condemnationsof bilingual education programs that prevent the most efficient acquisitionof English. (Flores’ table can be interestingly set against another,provided by Baker [2006], which charts the rise and fall of languageprograms in the USA.) A recent small-scale example demonstrates thecontinuing tendency for alleged language deficiencies to be taken asevidence of underlying cognitive weakness (Commins & Miramontes,1989). In another setting, Hélot and Young (2005: 242244) show that,since the French educational system is still largely ‘envisaged from amonolingual point of view... it is difficult for most teachers to view thedifferent languages and cultural backgrounds of their pupils as otherthan problematic’. The authors suggest that, where linguistic diversitydoes seem to be mildly encouraged by the education ministry, this is‘mainly as a policy to counterbalance the hegemony of English’. Thisalerts us to the possibility that, in some contexts, concerns for ‘small’languages and cultures are more apparent than real, often masking otheragendas.Work by McDiarmid (1992) and McDiarmid and Price (1990) revealsthat multicultural training programs in America seem either to makelittle impact on teachers-to-be or, worse, they actually reinforce minoritygroupstereotyping. Drawing upon this, Deering (1997: 343) argues formore, and more effective, ways to encourage teachers’ multicultural