Language user group and language teaching

Bilingual and multilingual education

By group 4

two Danish and Brazilian

businessmen are using English to do business with each

other

a Cantonese man is speaking

Mandarin in London

A Japanese woman is using Spanish on holiday in Spain

L2 users’ lives, experiences and situation are as varied as human lives can be.

L2 users reflect the amazing diversity of humanity.

1. Multi-competence Background

a perspective called multi-competence, originally defined as ‘the compound state of a mind with two grammars’

Cook ,1991

Multi-competence is not a model of second language acquisition

a way of looking at second language acquisition from the vantage point of the L2 user as a distinct kind of person rather than

The multi-competence perspective was productive in supporting the growing movement to regard the L2 user

As multi-competence came out of a Chomskyan tradition

Cook (2007c) distinguished five meanings of ‘language’

Language 1 A representative system known by human being

Human language

Language 2 An abstract entity The english language

Language 3 A set of sentences Everything that has aor could be said. (the language of Bible)

Language 4 The possessio of a community The language of French people

Language 5 The knowledge in the mind of an individual

I have learnt French as a foreign language for 8 years

Multi competence was conceived in language 5

2. Communities and language user groups

people who belong to a social network (Gumperz &

Levinson, 1996)

people united by a uniform style of speech (Bloomfield,

1926

as people living in an area such as the Lower East Side of New York (Labov, 1966)

Speech community

The core value of a community

minority ethnic community is seen as identifying itself with its own language, protecting it and maintaining it as a heritage

‘An individual’s use of two languages supposes the existence of two different language communities; it does not suppose the existence of a bilingual community’ (Mackey, 1972, 554)

This denies the reality of the multilingual communities in the world with more than one language at their core

what Brutt-Griffler (2002) terms the ‘multi-competence of the community’?

multi-competence reversal monolingual community as an aberration

multilingual community as normalviewing

Toronto mother tongue English Mother toungue French

speakers of neither English nor French

2,746,480 58,590 2,160,330

Vietnamese and Poles

Speak Italian In their workplace

Just as the concept of individual multi-competence stressed the L2 user in their own right

Canagarajah (2007), ‘Linguistic diversity is at the heart of multilingual communities.

English D

E SW

AAN

HIE

RARC

HY

HYPECENTRAL

SUPERCENTRAL 12 Super Central Languages.

CENTRAL

PERIPHERAL (LOCAL)

6 languages were dispersed via colonialism: Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish

Bahasa

Minang

4. Groups of language usersPeople speaking their L1 to each other

English L1 speakers in London or Polish L1 speakers in West London

native local language

people using an L2 within a larger community

Bengali L1 speakers using English L2 in shops etc in London

central language

people using an L2 internationally for specific functions

international communicators;purpose specific (Seaspeak), academic, religious, business, etc

supercentral language

people using an L2 globally for a wide range of functions

English as Lingua Franca hypercentral language

people historically from a particular community (re-) acquiring its language as an L2

Mandarin for other Chinese dialect speakers; returnees

Identity language

people using an L2 with spouses, siblings or friend

bilingual couples: parents and children Personal language

• no-one is a native speaker of ELF• no-one treats it as their prime identity• they simply use it for communicating with

other people like themselves.

EFL

De Swaan (2001) sees the acquisition of second languages as typically going up the hierarchy.

hypercentral

supercentral

central

local

De Swaan (2001) claims that L2 users are the glue that keeps these societies together

As well as these six reasonably distinct groups, other groupings seem to combine these categories in one way or another.

Tourists for example expect to be able to get along with L2 English, regardless of the local language – Japanese tourists using English in Cuba

A further groups; People gaining an education through a

second language. There are also people who return to their

country of historical origin and need to re‑acquire the first language, or indeed to acquire it for the first time

A large group consists of children being taught a second language as part of the school curriculum or CL group

Finally it is perhaps obvious that an individual may have multiple memberships in these groups

5. Language groups and SLA research

How SLA research handles these groups

Group B central languages come out of untutored acquisition

The supercentral language acquired by Group C

Group D, the acquisition of the hypercentral language, is starting to be studied as a specific form of acquisition

CL group of learners in classrooms and the group of immigrants to the United States

6. Language groups and language teaching

Group B learning and teaching of central languages

concerned ethnic minority children and immigrants

The target is four types of learner: 1. Settled communities such as Hong kong2. Refugees3. Migrant workers 4. Partners and spouses of learners

The content of the curriculum is defined in terms of ‘can-do’ statements

Group C teaching of supercentral languages

their limited use across for a small range of functions.

characteristics

its use for public domains in different countries

The most taught languages

Europian countries

English 50% of all pupils

German northern and eastern Europe

French southern Europe

Russian the Baltic and Bulgaria

The project set up by the Council of Europe called the Common European Framework aims

‘to facilitate communication and interaction among Europeans of different mother tongues in order to promote European mobility, mutual understanding and co-operation, and overcome prejudice and discrimination

Language Passport (2007

inco

rpor

ated

Two goals:Understanding a conversation between native speakersUnderstanding a native speaker interlocutor’.

Group D. teaching the hypercentral language World English English as an International Language

English as Lingua Franca Retain their own l1 identity

to teach this particular variety of English for global use for many functions.

on establishing and teaching the ELF variety of English

Some varieties of English have indeed become independent of British or American national standards,

• Indian• Singaporean• Australian

So there has been a danger of confusing the two issues

British English should be taught as a central language in a particular country rather than a local standard (in india)

The functions of English hypercentral and central language are different

7. Conclusions

So language teaching has to be clear whether it is teaching: - a local language to people who want to take part in a monolingual

local language community - a central language to people who want to take part in a multilingual

community where the language is used

- a supercentral language to people who want to use it for specialist cross-national uses

- a hypercentral language to people who want to use it for a range of

purposes across the globe.