Shifts in project focus - finding a ‘real exclusion issue’ in the primary setting
In the Autumn of 2002, I came upon what struck me as a very ‘real exclusion issue’ when undertaking some orientation fieldwork in primary schools. I discovered the classroom lives of ethnic minority children who, though fully conversant in their home language, had no or very limited experience of the English language on entering school. Indeed, a serendipitous encounter in an inner city nursery unit became a significant incident that resulted in a sharper focus for the research project. I was standing in the playground of an inner city nursery school when a ‘significant event’ occurred. The literature refers to significant events or critical incidents which shape ‘lived realities’ for researchers and subjects. Children aged between three and four were playing on a range of play equipment. The teacher was explaining to me that about 80% of her nursery pupils were from ethnic minority backgrounds when the following incident, captured within my field notes, occurred:
... th e t e a c h e r k een t o tell me ab o u t the children in her care, had m om en tarily taken her e y e s o f f th e children playing in front o f her. A loud pitiful wailing so u n d drew our attention towards a three year old boy - he w as crying inconsolab ly. ‘Oh dear, I w a s n ’t looking so I d o n ’t know w hat has h a p p e n e d and he c a n ’t tell m e .’ The teacher wiped away th e tears and tried t o co n v erse with th e pupil, but the te a c h e r ’s inability to s p e a k Sylheti and th e b o y ’s unfamiliarity with English m ea n t th a t th e tea rs k ept on flow ing. With help from s o m e o f the o th er children and a bit o f g u e s sw o r k , the teacher realised that th e little b o y ’s bike had b e e n s n a tc h e d from him and imm ediately righted th e situ ation . The boy returned to riding his bike, the tears s to p p e d and all th at could be heard w ere th e squeaky w heels and the occasional heavy-hearted s o b . ‘It’s s o hard when they d o n ’t understand our lan g u a g e- you have to have ey es in the back o f your
And that is how this current project began. The literature refers to significant events or critical incidents and how these ‘foreshadow problems’ which need researching (Malinowski, 1967). I started to try and imagine how it might feel to suddenly find yourself in a different world, where a different language is spoken, different rules apply and where after spending the first three years of life at your mother’s side, you are suddenly on your own - in ‘big school’. The first day at school for most monolingual English children who are already familiar with the sights and sounds of a nursery is often difficult (Fontana, 1995). For many of these ethnic minority pupils, it is quite traumatic. At Bluebank nursery, there were eight different languages spoken by the pupils and one bilingual assistant who spoke two of these. The middle-aged teacher was very experienced and appeared to be a very warm and caring person. Yet no additional steps were taken to try and accommodate pupils for whom English is an additional language. The responsibility appeared to be placed upon three year old children to ‘cross the language barrier’- as one nursery teacher told me;
‘It would be nice if they knew ‘mummy’s coming soon ’ in English so that I could comfort them when they are distressed. ’
I felt startled by the lack of support for these children’s transition into formal schooling. Surely there was more that could be done? Could, for example, nursery teachers themselves learn a few helpful phrases and expressions to reassure pupils in
Further fieldwork and opportunistic interviews in three primary schools made it apparent that the schools did not have the financial resources available to provide bilingual assistants to cater for each language present in a nursery class.
As one head teacher explained:
“In theory yes it would be great, but in practice i t ’s just not going to happen. I ’m having trouble finding enough money for basic stationery items as it is. We do try to encourage links with the community but i t ’s just too big a gap to f i l l ”.
An alternative solution to the ‘ideal’ of bilingual support, used within every school that I visited, was to have an English as an additional language ‘support teacher.’ The role of these EAL support staff was to move between classes, to help small groups of children. This help tended to take place in withdrawal groups, outside the mainstream classroom, usually in short sessions of around 20 to 30 minutes. The teachers were monolingual English speakers who considered their role to be to help children develop their English language skills. None of the EAL teachers interviewed used the home languages of the children at any time in their teaching. As one of them put it,
‘My jo b is to teach them English as quickly as possible... That’s what EAL support teachers do ’.
In fact, the inclusion or referencing of the home cultures of the children did not seem to rate highly within any of the lessons observed. For example, a discussion on the topic of ‘food’ involved an EAL teacher asking the pupils whether they liked tomato ketchup with their sausages and burgers! This can only be interpreted as naive ethnocentrism on her part. Within class, on another occasion, children were encouraged to write to Santa by their teacher, but as one EAL pupil remarked to me ‘Santa, he don’t come to Muslim children.’ The fieldwork in the late Autumn Term when UK primary schools are suffused with activities for traditional Christmas-
friezes, decorations, cards etc... threw into sharp relief the ways in which the National Curriculum can be anglo-centric. I was reminded of Coard’s (1971) research and the sociological analysis of the ‘hidden curriculum’ of schooling.
Whether intentionally or not, the message that seems to be sent to pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds is that English is the only language that counts at school. Yet experienced researchers within this field have consistently argued that by valuing the use of the home language within class, pupils are likely to experience higher self esteem and in addition, their English language development will be accelerated. To
not use the home language within the classroom then, would therefore appear short sighted, on the part of both teachers and LEA strategic planners.
However, a review of the literature highlights the constraints of cost and availability of bilingual support. The budget for language support can never adequately match the real needs of learners. As Martin-Jones and Saxena (2003, p. 108) note, bilingual classroom assistants often occupy low status positions ‘...that have become increasingly precarious as funding has been cut back’. Indeed, within the sampled LEA, budgetary cuts to the Ethnic Minority Achievement Service (EMAS) posed real concerns among key personnel that existing provision may have to be reduced, with existing services ‘spread more thinly’ as the number of pupils with English as an additional language continued to increase (Fieldwork notes, July 2004).
Though there was no ‘magic wand’ available to alleviate the situation, a possible option that eventually materialised was to utilise computer technology to introduce the home languages into the classroom. With both the central and Welsh governments’ determination to introduce computers into the classroom, it also seemed to be in line with current policy on ICT and learning (DfES, 2003b&c; National Assembly for Wales, 2001). I realised that a PhD project which not only designed, devised and implemented an ICT intervention and which evaluated its gains would be a worthwhile endeavour. I felt committed to researching something that might help EAL children be less ‘excluded’ within mainstream school.
Having undertaken forays within the nursery setting, I envisaged carrying out research which might benefit pupils such as the boy mentioned above. A key concern was to find a way of ‘measuring’ the effects of the introduction of the computer-based home language material. To make claims for effectiveness or to demonstrate enhanced competence or even pupil engagement, I would need a rigorous research design for the ‘ICT intervention’. A review of the literature revealed only one study which utilised computer-based home language material. The Fabula project (Edwards, Monaghan & Knight, 2000) had focused upon using English and Welsh translations of stories within class. The effects of this on Welsh language acquisition were quantified by means of classroom observations and interviews with pupils. Both of these research methods were considered to be useful tools for my research, though a more specific and carefully controlled measure was also considered appropriate.
Before devising specific measures and a research strategy it was necessary to read up on second language acquisition. This involved revisiting my undergraduate bibliographies and undertaking a review of the literature. Further reading re-alerted me to the fact that language development is highly dependent upon vocabulary acquisition (Meara, 1983; McWilliam, 1998). As Gass and Selinker (2001) acknowledge the lexicon may be the most important language component for learners. It therefore seemed pertinent to focus my ICT intervention on assisting young children to recognise the meaning of a specific number of English words. The choice of vocabulary was not a straightforward matter and involved discussions with teachers, bilingual assistants, support teachers, as well as scrutiny of prior research studies (Nagy, Anderson & Herman, 1987; Elley, 1989; Medwell, 1996).
Creating, trialling, talking books and a rigorous measure
Preliminary fieldwork was carried out in three inner city primary schools, namely Bluebank, Redbridge and Brownbrook. However, it was decided to concentrate on two schools; Redbridge and Brownbrook for Phase One and Phase Two of the research (details of phases are provided in Chapter 5). This decision was based upon the greater availability of EAL pupils from within these two schools to form the required sample. Following consultation with the two nursery teachers at Redbridge and Brownbrook schools it was decided to focus upon two topic areas, namely modes of transport and wild animals. Both topics played an important role within the nursery setting and were considered to be of interest to nursery-aged pupils. Eight target items for each topic were chosen and incorporated within two existing stories. The stories and their accompanying graphics were placed onto Authorware computer software (at this time I was not aware of Clicker 4 and was utilising a more challenging computer
programme obtained from the University) to form ‘talking books’ with both English and home language translations. Practical classroom activities were also planned to reinforce the topic areas. Pictorial grids featuring the target item and three similar items were devised to assess recognition of the target item. It was anticipated that the bilingual assistant would check pupils’ recognition of the target items at both pre-test and post-test stages, by asking the individual pupil to point to the specific item. The participants for the study were to be identified by the class teacher based on their perceived need for additional language support. Consequently, three main languages, namely Sylheti, Somali and Arabic, were chosen due to the number of children available and, crucially for this study, the availability of bilingual assistants to act as translators.
Naive notions o f ‘other ’ languages- the first false start ’
During the pilot/ pre-test visit to Brownbrook school it became apparent that I had acted rather naively. Following the design of the computer software, which was put onto CD-Rom, I visited the school to undertake a pre-test assessment of eight pupils in liaison with the EMAS coordinator and Arabic and Sylheti speaking bilingual assistants. The intention was to assess the children’s existing ability to identify the target words in both their home language and in English. At this stage, I also requested translations of each item into the home language by the bilingual assistants. I entered the school optimistically and rather proudly clutching my software and materials. Indeed on reflection, I was quite excited at the prospect of piloting my software and of collecting some real data. However, it immediately became obvious that the translations were not going to be as straightforward as I had originally