Dyslexia and multilingual settings

Deirdre Martind.m.martin@bham.ac.uk

School of Education,University of Birmingham

Dyslexia Guild Summer Conference 19.6.2014

Introduction

• Linguistic landscapes

• Intersectionality

• Trees and rhizomes

Linguistic landscapes• 19th century preoccupation with standardisation and

codification of languages;• Bounded languages: distinct and bounded systems of

grammar, vocabulary, and speech sounds/pronunciation;• National academic institutions to maintain standards of

grammar and lexis;• Exported to colonies;• Ideological processes: linking language to political

authority and legitimacy in national contexts

One nation-one language &

Linguistic minorities• Post-2nd WW and de-colonialisation: the link between

language and nation-building was challenged;• Revitalisation of minority languages, eg in Europe, Welsh,

Catalan, Basque, and in USA• Linguistic minority: understood within an ideological context

of nation-building (Heller 1999)

• Language diversity is seen as a threat to national cohesion• Confusion and reluctance to address multilingualism and

EAL policies and provision

Language diversity in Super_diversity

• 95% of the British popx are monolingual English speakers• 1.4% speak Scottish Gaelic (Scotland)• 6.6% speak Irish Gaelic (N.Ireland)• 21% speak Welsh (official status)• 5.5+% speak other languages, of which• 2.7% speak South Asian languages Bengali, Punjabi, Hindi, Gujerati, as well as Cantonese, Italian,

Polish, Greek, Turkish• 45% of the total minority ethnic community lives in London (BBC Homepages)

Super-diversity is…..• Meshing and interweaving of diversities following new patterns of

migration and post-migration;• ‘dynamic interplay of variables among an increased number of new,

small, and scattered, multiple origin, transnationally connected, socio-economically differentiated and legally stratified immigrants who have arrived over the last decade’ (Vertovec 2007:1024)

• Neighbourhoods and schools are local/translocal, and real/virtual with an effect on language practices, language use, and literacies and literacy learning;

• Although not necessarily in opposition but complementary• Working in /with these phenomena stretches the limits of existing

frameworks for understanding multilingualism and language change (Blommaert 2010:8)

Intersectionality

•Intersectionality (eg Crenshaw 1989): studying the small spaces (interstices) between forms of oppression and discrimination

•‘Racialization of ability’: the disproportionate representation of racial and linguistic minorities in special education (Artiles 2014)

Particular interstices between language and literacy needs/difficulties and EAL in multilingual contexts •Change in knowledge and understanding calls for a critical re-definition of the problem and to broaden the frames of research

Researching multilingual literacy difficulties

• Dominant conceptual approach to researching communication disabilities, eg SLCN, & literacy difficulties/dyslexia) focus onindividual cognitive and social traits; multilingualism as bounded languages, and as EAL;a cognitive processing approach to ‘what works’

• Alternative research contexts in the interstices:pairs and small groups with dyslexia/literacy diffics,translanguaging/trans-scripting incl EAL,multilingualism, multiliteracies, digital literacies,+ poverty, gender, age, social inclusion/exclusion

SEND Code of Practice (April 2014)

In the ‘near final’ Draft SEND Code of Practice (April 2014)

ONE reference to multilingual learners:Chapter 6: Schools; para 6.21 (p84)“Identifying and assessing SEN for children and young people whose first language is not English requires particular care. Schools should look carefully at all aspects of a child or young person’s performance in different areas of learning and development or subjects to establish whether lack of progress is due to limitations in their command of English or if it arises from a SEN or disability. Difficulties related solely to limitations in English as an additional languages are not SEN.”

Working with dyslexia and multilingualism

• Assessing strengths, needs, difficulties• Usually multiple and complex• Identifying a cause?• Description?• ‘labelling disabling’ a learner while learning EAL?

How do we distinguish additional language learning from additional literacy learning?cause - consequence : troubling relationships between assessment, diagnosis, and learning

represented by two metaphors: tree and rhizome

Comparing metaphors of learning Tree and Rhizome

Tree metaphor: vertical structure,with beginnings and endings;cause-consequences linkover timeEg biological, cognitive:as in: Chomskian language devt;Neurological causes of literacy difficulties

Rhizome metaphor for learning

Rhizome: tubor eg lilies, potatoesHorizontal growth, underground connections that don’t seem related on the surface, multiple non-hierarchical entry and exit points;growing ‘difference’ by

'ceaselessly establishing connections between semiotic chains’

Rhizomes: dyslexia and multilingualism?

• Horizontal growth, rather than vertical cause-consequence• Learning is continuous but not usually visible• What is visible on the surface may not appear to be connected but is

connected through the same tubor/rhizome• Any point of a rhizome can be/must be connected to any other part

of a rhizome• Growth and re-growth can start anywhere on the rhizome• Depicting the growth of a rhizome as a map and not a tracing o Each rhizome tubor is unique in its growth

Pause for thought…

• Any ideas about applying these metaphorsto learners with literacy difficulties?

Tree or rhizome?

Eg: literacy difficulties and behaviour difficulties literacy difficulties and EAL

•Cause –consequence : Chicken and egg? •Hierarchy of structures of difficulties?OR•What is visible on the surface may not appear to be connected but is connected through the same tubor/rhizome?•Any point of a rhizome can be/must be connected to any other part of a rhizome?

Implications for working in contexts of dyslexia and multilingualism

Shift the gaze from vertical cause-consequence structural approach in assessment and following a programme

Assessment alternative: Dynamic assessment

Towards continuous mapping of growth of complexity

Awareness of the Other (assessor, teacher, parent.…)and their learning and growth about understanding dyslexia in multilingualism

Dynamic Assessment of language/literacy learning abilities

Appraising how we learn language in mediated interaction rather than assessing language we already know, or don’t know

focus is on Process of language learning

“ DA is concerned with the modifiability of a child by examining changes between baseline testing and re-testing and by carefully observing learning behaviours exhibited during mediation (teaching) sessions.”

(Peña and Gillam 2000; 543-544)

Ecological approach

To explore social and cultural influences on development of language knowledge

• Sampling communication in a variety of differing contexts and environments, including classroom, community and home

• Obtaining information concerning the communication expectations of adults who are part of a child’s natural environment, and

• Considering the contexts in which a student’s learning occurs before drawing conclusions about his/her literacy skills abilities

Socially systemic approaches

o Use Bronfenbrenner’s model of nested social systems: personal (child), micro (family), meso (school) and macro (LA, DfE)

• Identify implications of poverty and discrimination for CLD and migrant families on learner’s development

• Examine effects on psycho-social and language development of children in social contexts

Practitioners’ roles & collaboration

An important aspect of the ecological approach is the relationship between assessment, planning and intervention. In many cases the practitioners who assess are not the practitioners who implement educational management of the child with implications for the information obtained in the assessment process informing teaching and support (Cloud 1994).

RIOT

The main actions of the RIOT procedure are Review, Interview, Observe, Test

Review all pertinent documents & background info;

Interview teachers, peers, friends, family members and others;

Observe student in multiple contexts with a variety of people engaging in (all) student’s languages/literacies;

Test both school and home languages and literacy

Applicable for all students -amend & extend for bilingual learners’ difficulties and needs(Isaac 2002)

To conclude

Diversity and super-diversity is a very challenging context to work in and stretches the limits of existing frameworks for understanding and working with literacy learning/difficulties in multilingualism and language change

The particular spaces where difficulties in language/literacy/EAL grow in multilingual contexts is only beginning to be researched in critical ways to advance educational equity.

Think in rhizomes rather than trees

References

Artiles, A. (2014) Future Research on the Intersections of Ability, Race, and Language Differences: Re-framing the Roles of History and Poverty: Inaugural lecture at University of Birmingham, March 2014Blommaert, J. (2010) The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. CUPCloud, N. 1994 Special education needs of second language students. In F.Genesee (Ed) Educating Second Language Children, NY:CUP (pp243-277)Deleuze, G. and Guattari,F. (1980) Rhizome Trans., in revised form, in A Thousand Plateaus.Isaac, K. (2002) Speech Pathology in Cultural and Linguistic Diversity, London:WhurrMartin-Jones, M., Blackledge, A., Creese, A. (2012) The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism, Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics, RoutledgePeña, E. & Gillam, R. (2000)Dynamic assessment of children referred for speech and language evaluations, Dynamic Assessment: Prevailing Models and Applications 6, 543-575Vertoveç, S. (2007) Super-diversity and its implications, Ethnic and Racial Studies 30,6,1024-54