1. Planning & Implementing Bi- /trilingual Teacher Development Programmes
Trilingual Education: National and International Experience
Astana, Kazakhstan, November 2016
Kathleen Heugh

2. Outline Considerations for planning a teacher education programme
What we learned at the University of Cape Town through trial & error
What we learn from teachers
What we learn from students
Reflection, reflexivity and on-going classroom-based research

3. Theoretical & pedagogical considerations for planning a programme
How language, bilingualism and trilingualism are understood and foregrounded in the design of the teacher development programme
Differences between:
teaching literacy and language as a subject, and
teaching literacy and language across the curriculum
Role of code-switching, translation, interpreting and translanguaging in the teaching and learning:
of language as a subject
across the curriculum
How to build academic literacy and language into curriculum and assessment
Bilingual and trilingual assessment
Language repertoires of the teachers (student teachers)
Language ideologies of the teachers (student teachers)

4. What we learned at the University of Cape Town: Advanced Certificate in Multilingual Education
Original Design
National Language (Education) Policy
Bilingual education models
Language acquisition/learning
Theory
Teachers’ language learning:
Xhosa, Afrikaans, English
Developing bi-/trilingual teaching resources
Teaching practice
Assessment tasks in English
Re-prioritisation
Identifying teachers’ own good practices
Sharing how teachers are already developing bi-/trilingual resources
Focus on teaching practices
Assessment of (student) teachers in Xhosa, Afrikaans & English
Importance of teachers as language learners
Bilingual education theory & practice
National Language (Education) Policy

5. Bi-trilingual education involves all teachers
Differences between:
teaching literacy and language as a subject, and
teaching literacy and language across the curriculum
All teachers need to understand that learning a language and using a language to learn are not the same.
All teachers need to build the language and literacy needs of the subject into teaching of the subject.

6. Gaps between early literacy and academic literacy (in African contexts)
Literacy in L1 – loses emphasis by year 3.
Gap between early literacy
‘Learning to read’ narratives
and the kind of literacy required across the curriculum
‘Reading to learn’ science, maths, history, geography etc.
from year 4 onwards.
Attempts to use L2 [when learners have ± words]
for whole curriculum [ ± words]
from year 4 ≠ workable. The double jump is too great.

7. What we learn from teachers: experience, expertise, knowledge in informal education
Muskaan -
Community-based organisation
Located in a ‘slum’ setting of Bhopal, in India
Tribal Gondi children participate in informal educational programmes here
Chandni, young Gondi- speaking teacher (right-hand corner of pic)
This is a photograph taken outside a small CBO, Muskaan, in Bhopal in September Muskaan works in a slum with children from a Gondi Tribal background. From time to time there is collaboration with Eklavya. Here we see a young Gondi speaking teacher, Chandni, in far right corner, cleaning child’s nails. [Muskaan is led by Shivani, and Eklavya led by Anjali Noronha]

8. Literacy and bilingual intervention supports learning & teaching of Hindi and English
Eklavya, NGO, provides bilingual education (Hindi – English) & teacher education
Teachers at Muskaan participate in the bilingual project
Rama Agnihotri, University of Delhi, suggests that keeping languages separated prevents most multilingual children from writing and speaking.
Mixing languages (code- mixing, code-switching) is normal. .
Anjali Noronha, Chandni and two other Eklavya teachers reading the materials that Eklavya has prepared in Hindi and English and that are being used in Muskaan with the children who are speakers of Gondi. Note that Chandni is holding one of the published texts.

9. Don’t try to translate!

10. Learning from teachers 2: Migrant community from Afghanistan in South Australia
T1: uses bilingual Dari-English methodology with girls T2: uses jokes to defuse tension & maintain student participation; connects Dari lesson content with South Australian sport/sporting clubs – teaching boys
Young members of the Hazara community Not trained in bilingual education Both find ways to connect the learning of Dari to the South Australian context and the context in Afghanistan Both use informal spoken Dari & English (translanguaging) & formal writing in Dari

11. Learning from teachers 3: two South African teachers - translanguaging & formal bilingual teaching
Lappies Labuschagne
Zanele [Naledi] Mbude
1986: during apartheid
Teacher of Afrikaans - Cape Town
‘Illegitimate’ linguistic capital:
Tsotsitaal – gangster language of townships near Johannesburg
[Nguni/Sotho + Afrikaans]
Rebellious English-speaking high school students –
Access to this code = linguistic capital
Trade access with compliance in the Afrikaans literature class
: Post-apartheid Multilingual Teacher Education programme, University of Cape Town
Science teacher:
Teaching Science: Xhosa- English bilingual pedagogy
Rebellious Xhosa-speaking youth
Teacher switches to IsiCamtho
[Nguni-based urban / gangster language + Afrikaans]
Students become co-operative
Teacher returns to structured bilingual Xhosa-English Science teaching

12. What we learn from multilingual children / teenagers in Uganda
Ekkehard Wolff (2000):
Multilingualism among Ugandan children & youth who use:
Nubi (an informal local language),
Luganda (regional language Uganda), Swahili (regional language East Africa) and English
Young people make deliberate choices about when to change language (code-switch).
Older children decide who is allowed to use which code, and when.
Younger children may only use Nubi and Luganda in the presence of the older children,
Older children show off their linguistic power by using all languages in their repertoires
especially Swahili and English to symbolise their superior status to younger children
When older children are not there, younger children experiment with KiSwahili and English
Children experiment with their language repertoires outside of the classroom
. (
LWC – lingua franca, language of wider communication

13. Successful teacher development
Recognise that bi-/trilingualism is normal for most people, including teachers and their students
Recognise what (student) teachers already know
Build on (student) teachers’ own linguistic repertoires
Encourage
Reflection
Reflexivity and
On-going classroom-based research
Children to teach one another and their teachers
Teachers can encourage children / students to bring their languages into the classroom
Teachers do not need to know all of the languages of their students
A functional multilingual approach makes use of conventional bilingual pedagogy and translanguaging

14. A functional view of bi-/trilingualism in education
Horizontal & Vertical dimensions  
 
Horizontal
Co-operative, inclusive & bridging practices
Fluid moving back & forth between languages
Code-mixing, code-switching, texting,
hybrid languages
(Translanguaging)
Vertical
Exclusive, bounded & practices of difference
Multiple parallel monolingualisms:
education, government, legal systems, literary works
Formal translation & interpreting
Horizontal and vertical
Reduces inequalities, & maximises recognition & development of students’ linguistic resources