The Multicultural Classroom: Learning from Australian First Nations Perspectives

3.2.1 Two-Way Education

Linguist François Grosjean (2010, 239) describes a two-way program as a form of bilingual education “that promotes bilingualism and biliteracy, as well as a very real understanding of the people and cultures involved.” Both languages are actively implemented in class and used throughout schooling with students who usually come from one of two main language groups (Grosjean 2010, 239).

In the context of the United States, Baker (2011) outlines that this strong form of bilingual education is typically applied when an almost equal number of minority and majority language speakers exists in one classroom. Baker exemplifies this with a group of learners in which one half speaks Spanish as their home language while the other half speaks English as their L1. Generally, ensuring a language balance in both status and number of speakers in order to prevent one language variety from becoming dominant is paramount in two-way schools (Baker 2011, 222–223).

The major goal of such types of schooling is to foster bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism for all students. In order to achieve this aim, several practices are employed such as assigning both languages equal status, implementing a bilingual school ethos, and making use of bilingual staff members and language minority parents as teacher aides (Baker 2011, 225–226).

3.2.2 Immersion Education

Another possibility for actively acknowledging various linguistic and cultural backgrounds in educational settings is immersion education, which qualifies as a strong form of bilingual education (Baker 2011, 222) (see Table 1). Various scholars have demanded that educational approaches only qualify as immersion education if at least 50% of class time is spent on subject-specific education using a language other than students’ L1 for instruction (Surkamp 2017, 134; Tedick, Christian & Fortune 2011, 2).

Generally, Brown (2007) outlines that immersion education is predominantly adopted in additive bilingual contexts in which learners normally share the same home language and show close levels of proficiency in the target language. Frequently, the teachers in immersion education know or even share the students’ linguistic or cultural background (Brown 2007, 141). In this regard, García (2009, 149) emphasizes that “[d]espite the immersion of the child in the other language for education, the child’s home language is honoured, respected, used throughout the school, and taught right after the immersion period.”

Differentiating between programs, Tedick, Christian, and Fortune (2011) name foreign language immersion, bilingual immersion, and Indigenous language immersion as the three major types of immersion education. These as well as their respective characteristics are consolidated in Table 2:

Table 2: Types of Immersion Education7

Building on this three-fold typology, Baker (2011) suggests a further differentiation be made according to the learners’ commencing age and the total amount of immersion time. Table 3 illustrates Baker’s approach:

Table 3: Decisive Factors in Immersion Education8

In reference to both Table 2 and Table 3, Surkamp (2017, 134) notes that education systems in multicultural contexts favor two-way immersion programs in which teachers and learners from two language groups work together.

3.3 Education Policies

Building on several of the previously addressed challenges and realities concerning teaching and learning in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms, different education policies will now be investigated regarding their respective effects on minority language speakers, specifically looking at their situation in schools.9

In regards to teaching and learning in multicultural classrooms in a global age, Hornberger (2009, 197) observes that “[e]thnolinguistic diversity and inequality, intercultural communication and contact, and global political and economic interdependence are more than ever acknowledged realities of today’s world, and all of them put pressures on our educational systems.” Fundamentally, Serra et al. (2018, 33) establish that “the culture of an education system reproduces the culture of a society’s dominant classes—in other words, schools are microcosms of societal power structures.” Contrasting policy statements and legal documents from designated multilingual and multicultural countries across the globe, it is possible to detect greatly differing levels of importance attributed to them and varying degrees of readiness to implement educational approaches in multicultural classrooms. Hence, Churchill’s observation from the 1980s is undoubtedly still valid today:

[P]olicy making about the education of minorities must cope with an overriding fact: almost every jurisdiction in the industrialized world is failing adequately to meet the educational needs of a significant number of members of linguistic and cultural minorities. (Churchill 1986, 8)

Adding to this and to Yiakoumetti’s observation in section 3.1., Trudgill (2000, 126) states that the “teaching of minority languages […] is obviously of benefit to minority-group children, not only in the learning of reading and writing but in other subjects as well.” According to Trudgill, doing so would have “an effect of recognizing the child’s social and cultural identity and integrity and encourages the development and growth of minority cultures” (ibid., 126). In this sense, Pike (2015, 159–160) identifies the following necessity:

As majorities can so easily pay scant regard to the wishes of minorities in a democracy, it is vital to educate members of the majority about the perspectives of minorities. […] A focus on understanding and appreciating the differences between the cultural background of minority ethnic groups and the majority should not be eschewed.

Moreover, in connection with modern language education policies and globalization, García, Flores, and Woodley (2012, 72) argue the following:

As language diversity becomes more complex as a result of globalisation, […] language education policies throughout the world have often become more intolerant of language differences. Thus, more students are increasingly taught in the dominant language of the state without harnessing the linguistic resources they bring.

Also connecting the dimensions of globalization, minority language groups, and education policies, Grosjean (2010, 231) clarifies that

in areas of the world with minority groups that come from immigration, rare is the country that has a deliberate education policy of allowing minority children to acquire and retain both their home, immigrant language and the majority language, and hence a policy of fostering bilingualism.

In order to receive a better idea of what education policies might or might not undertake in regards to the educational needs of their linguistic and cultural minorities, Churchill’s (1986) framework provides an overview of the “six principal policy responses to the educational and language needs of minority groups within the OECD” (May 2012, 18).10 These are presented in ascending order according to their degree of incorporation and recognition of minority languages in Table 4.

Table 4: Stages of Education Policies for Language Minority Groups11

Stage one policies strongly advocate a fast transition to the target language and claim that the use of minority languages is the reason for the educational disadvantage and failure of minority groups. Initial minority aspirations include efforts for the recognition of the existence and specific needs of linguistically and culturally diverse people. At stage two, family and social backgrounds are identified as the main cause for educational detriments for minorities. Thus, programs and projects are enforced to help minority groups adjust to the majority language and culture. Stage three policies recognize that disadvantages for minority groups in education grow from the lack of recognition, acceptance, and a positive attitude towards their languages and cultures. Level four acknowledges that the minority language needs to be supported at least temporarily to facilitate learning and thus incorporates it in the first years of schooling. From this type of transitional bilingualism, minority aspirations might aim at extending minority language programs. At stage five, termed the private use language maintenance, minority groups obtain the right to practice their home language and culture in their private lives. A common policy response at this level includes maintenance bilingualism programs in schools, i.e. ongoing schooling in the minority language. Minority aspirations at this stage focus on the improvement of quality and the incorporation of the minority culture in education. Finally, the minority language is granted official status and autonomy at the language equality stage. The latter encompasses an allocation of language programs in several public institutions over which minority groups obtain full control and which they organize and is thus termed the multilingual co-existence phase (May 2012, 19–31).

Linking education policies with multilingual education and First Nations perspectives, Hornberger (2009, 197) expresses a “deep conviction that multilingual education constitutes a wide and welcoming educational doorway toward peaceful coexistence of peoples and especially restoration and empowerment of those who have been historically oppressed.” Thus, proceeding from an Indigenous perspective, Hornberger proposes ten certainties about multilingual education policy and practice which are relevant for any classroom at a global age (Hornberger 2009, 197):

 National multilingual language education policy opens up ideological and implementational spaces for multilingual education.

 Local actors may open up—or close down—agentive spaces for multilingual education as they implement, interpret and perhaps resist policy initiatives.

 Ecological language policies take into account the power relations among languages and promote multilingual uses in all societal domains.

 Models of multilingual education instantiate linguistic and sociocultural histories and goals in each context.

 Language status planning and language corpus planning go hand in hand.

 Communicative modalities encompass more than written and spoken language.

 Classroom practices can foster transfer of language and literacy development alongside receptive-productive, oral-written and L1-L2 dimensions, and across modalities.

 Multilingual education activates voices for reclaiming the local.

 Multilingual education affords choices for reaffirming our own.

 Multilingual education opens spaces for revitalizing the Indigenous.

With these certainties and the revealed potential of multilingual education for Indigenous voices and perspectives in mind, the next chapter focuses on languages and cultures in Australia.

1 Modified from Edmondson & House 2011, 8.

2 This book makes use of the terms multilingualism and multilingual to refer to the totality of an individual’s or society’s linguistic resources. Bilingualism and bilingual is used with the same inclusive reference.

3 Data and Images retrieved from García 2009, 72–74.

4 Within the scope of this book, an exhaustive presentation of the concept of culture cannot be given. Therefore, an overview of select discussions in the field, and the definition of culture underpinning this research study, is provided.

5 Data retrieved from Baker 2011, 207.

6 Modified from Baker & Wright 2017, 199.

7 Data retrieved from Tedick, Christian & Fortune 2011, 2.

8 Data retrieved from Baker 2011, 239.

9 A specific analysis of education policies relevant for Indigenous Australian learners can be found in IV.5.

10 OECD is an acronym for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international organization which was founded in 1961.

11 Modified from Churchill 1986, 157.

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