In this final section, I offer some thoughts regarding possible ways forward if a particular country is to engage successfully with a national ELL programme for primary schools. It will already be clear from the preceding sections that different sorts of factors are involved.
Table 2 sets out a possible framework of four different factors, each illustrated by five examples, and a range of different possible outcomes of a national policy development.
It should be emphasized that for each of the four factors there are many more examples that could be included. In the case of pupil factors, for example, one might add “ethnicity,” “first language,”
“prior literacy,” “cognitive style,” “learning style,” and “personality-type.”
Table 2
Possible Factors and Outcomes in Respect of National Policies for Languages at Primary School
Societal
Political will Clear policies Input and
interaction Age Plurilingual competence
language Motivation Intercultural competence
for TL use Time & intensity Cognitive
challenge Aptitude Global citizenship
Business links International
contacts Management Socio-economic background
Transferable skills and qualities
Before discussing the four factors, a brief word should be offered in respect of the “outcomes” column. There, the outcomes are presented as “pupil outcomes,” and these must be surely the most important set of outcomes of any ELL policy. With regard to
“plurilingual competence,” this is an outcome strongly endorsed by the Council of Europe. In other words, the aim of language teaching at school (including ELL) is not to develop a number of separate
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competences, one for each language. Instead, the aim is to develop
“one” competence which embraces and integrates all of the languages which the child has acquired and is learning. One of the reasons for this is an acceptance that in the modern, globalized world, when people from different countries and cultures interact with each other, there may be many occasions in which some degree of
“language switch” is appropriate. As a learner of two Chinese languages (Cantonese and Mandarin), I certainly find this when I am in Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong or among Scotland’s Chinese community. In such contexts it helps greatly if one shows willingness to interact in Chinese, even if most of the interaction is in English. It introduces into the interaction a feeling of respect for the other person’s language. So, globalized ML-users will have a repertoire of languages on which to draw, one or two of these likely to be at a high level of proficiency and the others at a lower level but still playing a vital role in each individual’s projection of their identity; and in addition globalized ML-users will develop strategies which enable them to decide on whether, when, to what extent, and how each particular language in their repertoire might be brought into play.
It is also worth reflecting on the possible outcomes of ELL not only for pupils but also for teachers, primary schools, secondary schools, and society.
In respect of possible outcomes for teachers, for example, we might think of “job satisfaction” and “self-improvement.” In other words, has a teacher’s participation in an ELL approach given her or him real “job-satisfaction” and to what extent has it enabled her or
him to “develop both as a person and as a teaching professional”? It is true, of course, that education at primary school should be for the benefit of the pupils, but it is appropriate to remember that this should not be inconsistent with benefits for teachers too, particularly as primary school is where they choose to spend a large proportion of their working lives.
We should think also of outcomes as benefiting schools, in addition to benefiting pupils and teachers. Among the benefits to primary schools might be “internationalization” through links with other countries which have been facilitated by their participation in ELL; and another benefit for schools might possibly be
“reinvigoration of their curriculum” through the opportunities that English as global language might offer. An obvious benefit to secondary schools should be the opportunity to build on what has been achieved at primary school, in order to enable secondary schools to take their students to higher levels of proficiency and intercultural competence than what secondary schools had been able to achieve before ELL at primary was introduced.
Nor should we forget other outcomes in terms of possible benefits to society which might arise from the successful implementation of ELL at primary school. After all, this is something which politicians will take seriously into account when willing the funds for ELL in the first instance. They will be unlikely to will sufficient funds unless they can see a clear and probably measurable pay-off for their society—and being politicians, they will probably wish to claim the credit for this. Accordingly, in developing policies for ELL, it is most important to be thinking of how this will benefit a country’s society at
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large, and not just the individual pupils at primary school. Clearly, one possible societal benefit might in the long run be “economic” in that a gradually increasing capacity in English as global language is likely to bring economic benefit to the particular country. However, I believe it would be short-sighted to leave it at that, since I would wish to argue that ELL also has the capacity over time to enhance a country’s “quality of life” by enabling more and more of its citizens to achieve a deeper understanding of other ways of life and to interact in positive, friendly, and interesting ways with people from other countries and cultures.
Let me now turn to the four factors and outcomes as set out in Table 2. All factors in the four columns are important, if a national policy across schools is to be successful. Each individual factor would indeed merit a series of articles on its own, something which is well beyond the scope of the present article, and so for present purposes I shall make only one brief statement about each factor.
A national policy for ELL will tend to be successful to the extent that it takes account of the following “societal” factors:
• It gains and maintains support from politicians and government, because of the high likelihood that substantial funds will be needed over a number of years in order to put in place a policy that will sustain itself.
• It takes seriously the needs, perceptions, and interests of parents who themselves may not be particularly proficient in the additional language and who may not know much about the teaching and learning of languages.
• It takes due account of the power of national examinations at secondary school. In some societies, innovation in the ELL curriculum becomes almost impossible, because it is blocked by highly traditional national examinations at a much later stage, exerting downwards pressure on what is possible at the earlier stage. If ELL is really to succeed, then arguments need to be developed for modernizing national examinations so that they take account of what schools are trying to achieve.
• It maximizes opportunities for making use of the target language not only in primary schools but also in society outside the school, e.g. through the media, visitors to the particular country.
• It exploits business links where this is possible. Many businesses I have had contact with have declared themselves keen to be investing in the education of young children whom they rightly see as future leaders of society. Some form of link between ELL and the world of business can be very good for pupils, teachers, and schools, because it can show them that the additional language actually has a practical use and can put them in touch with those who use it. As such, it can help children develop the beginnings of instrumental motivation, something which does not seem to come naturally to them at an early age.
It will tend to be successful to the extent that it takes account of the following “provision” factors:
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• It develops a policy for ELL which is clear to all interested parties, which is inclusive (that is, for all pupils in the country, regardless of socio-economic, religious, ethnic or other background), which is soundly based (ideally, informed by high-quality research findings) and which is sustainable in the long term. I have come across several examples of policies which lasted less than two years and were then overturned in favor of another policy which in turn did not last very long.
• It provides for an adequate supply of teachers who are sufficiently well-trained in the knowledge and skills needed for helping young children to learn an additional language in school conditions. This is clearly a major challenge in several countries—the scale of the challenge in this regard in China, for example, is almost beyond contemplation, yet it is a challenge which must be confronted if a national policy is to succeed and give all children across the country equality of opportunity.
• It makes strong provision for continuity between sectors, so that children who have begun their learning of a particular language at primary school may continue to receive good support in this when they proceed to secondary.
• It exploits such opportunities as exist for maximizing the amount of “time” available for learning and using the additional language (for an authoritative discussion of the importance of the “time”
factor, see Curtain, 2000), and also the “intensity” of the experience by, for example, not only teaching the language but also teaching at least some aspects of other subject content through the medium of the language. This does not mean that a
full form of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) has to be put in place. I have seen several teachers who have done excellent work “embedding” certain aspects of content-teaching for brief periods in their ELL teaching—one particularly good example was a teacher who had been teaching a science lesson based on river pollution and who managed to exploit this with great skill through her following lesson in French as a foreign language. For an indication of the positive effects of “time” and
“intensity” combined in an early partial immersion initiative set in an area of substantial socio-economic disadvantage, see Johnstone (2002).
• It sets up international contacts for all schools, particularly through the use of ICT networks, thereby enabling pupils to participate in a living international community of practice and to gain invaluable intercultural experience through doing joint projects with their peers in other countries. I do believe that this is an essential component of ELL for the future and will help considerably in preparing children for global citizenship.
It will tend to be successful to the extent that it takes account of the following “process” factors:
• Teachers expose their classes to substantial amounts of varied input in the additional language and encourage particular types of interaction, often initiated by pupils themselves. Of particular interest will be the integration of form-focused corrective feedback episodes into interactions that are essentially communicative. The input and interactions will not only enable
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them to learn an additional language but also to use it in various ways and to reflect on and monitor the correctness and appropriateness of their language-use.
• Explicit links are developed with pupils’ first language, whether this is the majority language of the country or a first language spoken by a minority. Of particular interest will be the development of an awareness of linguistic concepts which are common to the various languages which a child has or is learning.
• It helps children to make an early start on reading and writing, as well as listening and speaking, in the additional language. The benefits of this not only in terms of metalinguistic awareness but also in terms of proficiency in the first and the additional language are becoming evident from an increasing number of recent research studies, as has been shown earlier in the present article. Much remains to be learned, however, from good teachers as to how they actually go about this with their classes.
• It ensures that all children, regardless of their abilities, receive an appropriate amount of cognitively challenging activity. This is both to help them develop and maintain a positive motivation but also to help them extend their grammatical range and then to impose control over that extended range after possibly going through a predicted period of “Systemturbulenz” as described earlier in the present article.
• The school staff work effectively as a team that supports all members and that is well-managed by effective leadership which makes due provision for planning, shared decision-taking,
collaboration with other schools and sectors, monitoring, evaluation and consultation, e.g. with parents.
It will tend to be successful if it takes into account the following
“individual pupil” factors:
• Pupils are taught, not on the basis that one particular age (whether young or old) is best for learning an additional language, but rather in ways which exploit the particular advantages that each age brings. My article has set out some ways in which different ages generate different sorts of advantage, but there is much still to learn from good teachers as to how they actually do this.
• A strategy is developed for enabling children to engage in holistic learning, drawing not only on their cognitive abilities but also on their emotional intelligence, their sense of movement and rhythm, their musical and artistic abilities, and any other talents which they may possess.
• An inclusive strategy is developed for making the learning of an additional language accessible to all children, regardless of their gender, socio-economic background, personality characteristics, levels of anxiety and language-aptitude, as opposed to an exclusive strategy which favors an elite minority only.
• Further examples of inclusion are children’s first language, especially if it is a minority first language), ethnicity, religion, and cultural background. These are valued and seen as a stimulus for learning an additional language.
• A strategy is developed for encouraging children not only to experience intrinsic motivation for learning an additional language, but also for enabling this motivation to develop and unfold through
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describable phases, e.g. from association with pleasurable activity (or, fun), to interest, curiosity, intellectual challenge, and then to perception of self as successful language learner.
The above list of factors is not intended to be prescriptive. It aims to function simply as an incomplete checklist when thinking about the introduction of ELL across large numbers of schools. I do believe that all of the factors need to be addressed in some way that is satisfactory within the country concerned. However, no country will be at the absolute starting point for every single factor in the list, so a possible merit of the list may be that it offers a reminder of what is involved, that it may promote reflection, may offer some reassurance that on some of the factors in the checklist the particular country is already doing quite well, and may help in identifying priorities for development.
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