Multilingual Mania

I reject the entire concept of “language interference”. For those of you who might not have heard about “language interference”, it is a pervasive myth that continues to be perpetuated about how students’ primary language interferes with their acquisition of English. For example, if a Spanish speaker makes an error, pronouncing the “j” as an “h” sound in English, many people would say that this is “negative interference” or “negative transfer” caused by the student’s primary language as it is applied to English. [Note: the Spanish j makes the English h sound].

When native English speakers learn to read and write, they don’t automatically begin to spell, read and pronounce correctly. They don’t use spelling patterns correctly, they are unable to decode certain vowel patterns when they first start to read, and they begin to use invented spelling by spelling words out the way that they sound. Yet we never hear that their oral language development is negatively interfering with their written language or reading. The experts tell us that all of these supposed errors are developmentally appropriate for English speakers in the natural process of acquiring a first language.

On the other hand, the myth of language interference is constantly discussed as it applies to students who are learning English. When students make errors in pronunciation, reading, writing or spelling, many people automatically discuss the concept of language interference, stating that students make such errors in English as a result of the interference that is being caused by their primary language. Why is it that it is a natural and developmental process when native English speakers make errors as they are learning English, but it is “language interference” when second language learners make the very same mistakes as they are acquiring a second language??

I’ve heard so many of the following types of comments, “He can’t spell in English because he writes in English by using Spanish phonics. Spanish is causing interference”.

Or I’ve heard, “As a result of language interference, Spanish speaking children have difficulty with pronouncing and spelling the sh, th, and other sounds”.

Might I remind everyone that native English speakers don’t automatically start spelling accurately as soon as they come out of the womb? I’ve also encountered native English speakers who make many of the same errors in pronunciation when they are very young and are acquiring their first language.

I have yet to have heard someone attribute language interference to the errors a native English speaking child makes when acquiring Spanish as a second language. I sometimes hear, “Johnny makes errors in Spanish grammar because he is a beginning Spanish learner. When he says ‘yo no lo hiciste’ instead of the accurate ‘yo no lo hice’, it’s because he is at the beginning stage of learning Spanish and with time, exposure, and effective instruction he will begin to have more consistent use of grammar”. Why aren’t we blaming English for negatively interfering with Spanish?

Don’t you see a discrepancy and double standard here? It’s okay for native English speakers to make developmental mistakes, but not bilingual learners?

The entire concept of language interference is a pervasive myth that in my opinion is primarily directed towards Spanish speaking children who are learning English. Do we often hear that French is negatively interfering with students’ acquisition of English? Probably not. In fact, we are probably more likely to hear someone say, “Oh wow, he speaks with a beautiful french accent when he speaks English.” I’ve yet to have heard someone accuse the french language as negatively interfering with English acquisition. Perhaps this is because french often is perceived as a higher status by many people?

This myth continues to be perpetuated about students and you will find it everywhere, with some of the most prominent bilingual education advocates perpetuating the myth.

In my view, there is something much more behind this whole notion of language interference. In essence, it is a myth that was designed to put a negative spin on Spanish and other politically volatile minority languages, insinuating that Spanish is causing a deficit in the acquisition of English. This myth is a remnant of the days when people perceived bilingualism as a problem, causing mental retardation, confusion and difficulty. The language interference myth has been perpetuated for so many years and by so many people that many people believe it and have never examined the underlying assumptions behind it. The myth has seeped into college classes, as well as teacher training and testing for teaching authorizations as in the case of the California Teachers of English Learners (CTEL) test.

Please remember that most of the errors that second language learners make when they are learning a second language are similar to many of the same errors that native English speakers make when they are acquiring English. This is a developmental issue, not an interference issue. With effective instruction and practice of the language, many of the so-called errors that students make will begin to disappear. If students continue to make the same errors year after year, then it has nothing to do with their primary language and has more to do with the fact that they have had ineffective instruction.

The next time that you or someone else talks about language interference, think about what is covertly being insinuated: Spanish is a deficit and causes problems when learning English. I don’t know about you, but I refuse to perpetuate that message.

There’s something that I am really worried about and I just can’t get it out of my head. I keep asking myself the following questions: Should I return and get my doctorate? Or, should I stay in the school system and make a difference at a grass-roots level? I feel that I really want my cake, and I want to eat it, too.

There are times that I want to return back to the doctoral program and finish my studies. Today is one of those days, for example. When do I start feeling this sense of stress and conflict? Well, let me explain. I feel that some of the research that has been coming out over the past years has been so politically motivated against bilingual education and can cause serious harm to our children. In California, educators were subjected to forty hours of “Reading First” training and the “National Reading Panel” research was beat into their head. (I’ll save my comments about Reading First and the National Reading Panel  for another post. In a nutshell, the research was not on ELL students at all.) Teachers in bilingual education programs were basically taught to teach reading in writing in both languages through discreet, isolated, low-level texts. Years and years of research on bilingual education programs and effective bilingual pedagogy were completely suppressed because they did not meet the criteria for scientific-based research that “they” had established. 

Now teachers have to attend an additional forty hour English Learner Professional Development and I’ve literally been depressed over the state of the professional development modules that are approved by the state. To top it all off, there is only one state approved provider for bilingual education programs. The training for this curriculum is so low-level, with an overemphasis on decontextualized, isolated skill instruction for the English Language Development (ELD) section of the training. The training is very influenced by behavioralist psychology, isolated contrastive analysis, and what is termed the “transferability model’ of teaching English. Talk about going back in time-I’ll save my criticism for later on the overemphasis on contrastive analysis, transfer and the language “interference” that guides the entire training.

I’ve been so depressed that everyone is jumping on this bandwagon. Regarding second language acquisition, I most definitely do not subscribe to the behavioralist paradigm and it is really alarming to me that people can’t see how low-level this stuff is. I started digging around and low and behold…I found that it is not that difficult to submit a professional development module for review and approval of the state. The way that this political game works is that the state approves/”suggests” certain recommended reading that can be used for the training. As I was looking through the materials, I began to become depressed once again over the research that is highly guided by the behavioralist way of second language (L2) development.

I called one of the state providers because I became so perturbed over some of the language that was being used in the presentation. It really irks me when people talk about language being a “barrier”, or an interference. In fact, the training suggested reading the book “Learner English: A Teacher’s Guide to Interference and Other Problems”. Now, I haven’t actually read this book, but the title just makes my skin crawl in that it suggests that students’ primary language negatively interfere with English, that their primary language is a problem or deficit to their learning English. 

I asked the state provider, “When English-speaking children enter into kinder they typically begin to write with invented spelling in English. Do we ever say that their oral language skills in English are causing negative interference with their writing? No. We simply say that students are using invented spelling. When middle-class English-speaking children in Dual Immersion programs begin to learn Spanish and they possibly use English phonetics to spell something in Spanish, do we ever say that their English is interfering with their acquisition of Spanish? I’ve never heard that. Rather, someone would simply say that students are using the English sound-system to write in Spanish. Then, why do people not even think twice about stating that Spanish-speaking students’ primary language may be negatively interfering with English? Hmmm”.

I’ll let you answer that question for yourself. Do you get my point?? We’ve got to start looking at this research with a more critical eye.

So here I was, depressed, thinking that bilingual education teachers were going to be subjected to being taught all this interference and “problem” hogwash, as opposed to having intellectual conversations about how the primary language influences the second language, as opposed to “interferes” with acquisition of English. The state provider told me that she would change the articles and terminology if I could get her something to replace it with. Lo and behold-tonight I was floating around in the bathtub and reading one of the state approved articles by Genesee and company (sidenote: yes, I do read research while relaxing in the bathtub!) and I came upon the topic of language “influence”. I much prefer the way that they explain it:

English L2 literacy development is influenced by emergent literacy in the L1 and being read to in the L1 at home…; knowledge of L1-L2 cognate vocabulary…; knowledge of sound-letter relations in the L1…; and phonological awareness in the L1…In most cases, these cross-language influences are facilitative so that ELLs with emergent L1 literacy skills, prior experiences with L1 literacy in the home, knowledge of cognate vocabulary, and well-developed L1 phonological awareness acquire reading skills in English more readily thatn ELLS who lack these L1 skills. In other cases, there can be “negative” cross-language influences, as when Spanish-speaking ELL students erroneously apply Spanish L1 phonological and orthographic rules to English spelling. Even in these cases, however, it is important to keep in mind that these effects speak to an active and productive strategy on the part of ELLs in the initial stage of learning to read and write to draw on relevant, albeit inappropriate , knowledge about the L1 to bootstrap into English reading and writing. pg. 372

This makes me feel so much more comfortable, talking about how one language can influence  another language, as opposed to “interference” which has such a negative connotation. The authors even put “negative” in quotations, which somewhat even invalidates the phrase for me and let’s me know that they are using the term loosely because it is a commonly used term perhaps. I appreciate the last sentence that states that even though bilingual learners may be erroneously using their prior knowledge about their L1 sound-system to read in English, they are simply using their background knowledge to apply to English. The way this is stated doesn’t make it necessarily seem like it is such a bad thing.

Two years ago I was at La Cosecha dual language conference in New Mexico and a colleague of mine invited me out to drink some mojitos with Dr. Genesee and one of his students. At the time I had just gone on my leave of absence from the doctoral program and Dr. Genesee suggested that I return. “Who else is going to carry on the torch if you all don’t get your doctorates? You know that we will retire sooner than later and we need people to take our places”. 

So, tonight I’m asking myself if I should go back to get my PhD. What will happen when the experts on bilingual education research retire? Who will take their place? Do we have enough people to take their place? I feel that itch to return and finish so that I can carry on the legacy of so many people who have provided an alternative discourse to the English-only ideology.

But then again, sometimes I think I should stay fighting in the school systems. Like today-I was able to convince the state provider to make changes to the curriculum which will influence many teachers. I just might throw my hat in the ring and write my own curriculum for teachers in dual language programs, my own little way to provide an alternative discourse to the behavioralist mumbo jumbo that is being offered by the one provider for bilingual programs.

What to do, what to do??