25.2317, Review: Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Arnau (2013)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-25-2317. Tue May 27 2014. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 25.2317, Review: Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Arnau (2013)

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Date: Tue, 27 May 2014 11:31:01
From: A. Lavender [jjlavender at albany.edu]
Subject: Reviving Catalan at School

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-3508.html

EDITOR: Joaquim  Arnau
TITLE: Reviving Catalan at School
SUBTITLE: Challenges and Instructional Approaches
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2013

REVIEWER: A. Jordan Lavender, State University of New York at Albany

SUMMARY

This book, a collection of articles edited by Joaquim Arnau, addresses
multilingualism in Catalonia and the various issues related to the
incorporation of Catalan, Spanish, and English into the schools of this region
in Spain. It contains a number of studies conducted in schools, mostly in or
near Barcelona. Catalan is the official language of Catalonia and functions in
unison with the national language, Spanish, and both must be learned by all
students. Adding to this multilingual environment, foreign immigration has
brought an additional layer of complexity to the situation.

In Chapter One, “Language-in-education policies in the Catalan Language Area,”
Joaquim Arnau and F. Xavier Vila address the current language-in-education
policies in the Catalan-speaking areas of Spain, Andorra, parts of France, and
the city of L’Alguer in Sardinia (Italy). The 1983 Linguistic Normalization
Act requires that students in Catalonia be bilingual in both Catalan and
Spanish and requires that Catalan be the medium of instruction, although this
does not eliminate Spanish from the classroom. Additionally, in 1983 an
immersion program was established in a Spanish-speaking area of Barcelona and
additional immigration has since prompted the creation of the “Plan for
Language, Interculturality and Social Cohesion,” designed to accommodate new
students. The vehicle of this program is the “reception classroom” that
teaches Catalan and provides additional help in mainstream courses. Language
policies in other Catalan-speaking areas are less rigid than in Catalonia,
such as in Valencia, where the use of Catalan is confined to its historical
region. Due to changing governments, language policies in the Balearic Islands
are characterized by instability, but with a trajectory towards multilingual
education. Outside of Spain, Andorra has adopted a plurilingual educational
model. While, in France and L’Alguer, Catalan instruction is only optional and
often only available through private lessons. The educational system of
Catalonia is effectively plurilingual, requiring mastery of both official
languages and one foreign language, usually English. Armau and Vila critique
the current system and offer suggestions for improvement. They suggest using
Catalan as a bridge to other Romance languages. Additionally, they think
schools could better adapt their sociolinguistic environments to address
students’ needs. Lastly, they believe that immigrants’ heritage should be
incorporated and utilized as a gateway to other cultural learning.

In Chapter Two, “The Acquisition of Catalan by Immigrant Children,” Àngel
Huguet, Jose-Luis Navarro, Silvia-Maria Chireac, and Clara Sansó study how
immigrant children adapt to a new sociocultural context, specifically in their
acquisition of Catalan. Spain receives the most immigrants in the European
Union and many students struggle to adapt to the multilingual environment in
Catalonia. Length of stay and family language are the factors considered in
this study. Previous research has determined that three to five years of
instruction are necessary for students to communicate effectively in Catalan
for their mainstream classes. Students who speak another Romance language have
an advantage over those who speak a non-Romance heritage language. The authors
analyze the linguistic attitudes and competence of a sample of students from
differing linguistic backgrounds. They use a questionnaire and language test
to gather results, which confirm that both length of stay and family language
are significant factors. Results indicate that six years are needed to score
test results comparable to those of native speakers. The L1 of the child is
only slightly significant in accelerating the acquisition of Catalan, as
Spanish, Romanian, and Arabic speakers progress at relatively the same pace,
whilst Chinese speakers lag in their acquisition of Catalan.

“Language Attitudes of Latin-American Newcomers in Three Secondary School
Reception Classes in Catalonia,” by Mireia Trenchs-Parera and Adriana
Patiño-Santos, describes the linguistic attitudes of Latin Americans, the
largest population of immigrants in Catalonia, towards the use of Catalan in
academic and non-academic environments, and their attitude towards the
reception process. The researchers study three secondary-level Reception
Classes (RCs), which are supplementary language classes provided for older
students to help them acquire Catalan and facilitate their social integration.
Additionally, the study investigates the effects of instructor ideology on the
attitude of the students. The researchers collect data on student attitudes
through participant observation and individual and group interviews. Three
RCs, operating under differing philosophical paradigms, distinguished by their
openness to multilingualism and multiculturalism, were analyzed. The study
suggests that instructor attitude and ideology effect students’ attitudes;
students in programs more open to multilingualism and multiculturalism held
positive attitudes towards the use of Catalan in both schooling and social
interactions, while those who were not exposed to the same openness did not
have such positive attitudes.

Chapter Four, “Training a Primary Education Teacher to Teach Expository Text
Comprehension Strategies,” by Nuria Castells, Isabel Solé, Cristina Luna, Eva
Lordán, Esther Nadal, Mariana Miras and Sandra Espino, describes and evaluates
the professional development of content reading comprehension training for
teachers. The study investigates student comprehension of expository texts.
The researchers compared results from two primary-level classes, one of which
formed an experimental group and the other a control group. They conducted
semi-formal interviews and observed the classes, which formed the basis for
their evaluation. The authors evaluated reading comprehension strategies from
the first year of primary education and assessed the ability of instructors to
incorporate these strategies, as well as their effectiveness. Results
indicated that the instructor of the experimental group was able to
successfully incorporate new strategies into the classroom, and that the
students were able to comprehend more than students in the control group after
utilizing the comprehension strategies.

In Chapter Five, “Teacher Training in Literacy Instruction and Academic
Achievement in a Multilingual Classroom,” Joaquim Armau, Haridian M. de Aysa,
and Sonia Jarque discuss instructor training for literacy instruction in a
multilingual classroom. The researchers compare two classrooms, one with
intervention and one without. Results show that students in the intervention
classroom were able to comprehend the literary texts better due to the
teacher’s more extensive training in literacy instruction. Additionally, the
students’ academic achievement, defined by the use of academic vocabulary and
quality of writing, improved in this environment. This research suggests that
teaching vocabulary, together with specific writing and reading strategies, is
beneficial to the overall academic improvement of the students.

In Chapter Six, “Production of Texts and Multimodal Resources by two Groups of
Primary Education Students,” Aneska Ortega, Júlia Coromina, and Ana Teberosky
evaluate the use of multimodal resources in the instruction of a science
course. The research investigates the effect of these multimodal resources on
the production of Catalan by non-native students. It responds to two key
interests: one regarding the learning process associated with the use of
multimodal resources, and another concerning the influence of lesser
competence in Catalan on the results. Documents produced by the students were
the basis of the analysis. The results show that the incorporation of
multimodal resources in the classroom helps immigrant student comprehension
more than that of native students. Additionally, the use of multimodal
resources helps students express themselves better, especially if they have
limited linguistic competence.

Chapter Seven, “Interlinguistic Reflection on Teaching and Learning
Languages,” by Oriel Guasch Boyé, looks at grammar instruction in a
secondary-level education environment as presented by an instructor of Catalan
and an instructor of English. It is part of an on-going collaborative research
project with the aim of understanding how students understand grammatical
constructions. The research analyzes both students’ interactions among
themselves and their interaction with course instructors. The research team is
interested in the different ways languages express similar grammatical
concepts. The study reveals the usefulness of were analyzed metalinguistic
interlinguistic reflection among students in their conceptualization of these
grammatical constructs.

In Chapter Eight, “Affording Students Opportunities for the Integrated
Learning of Content and Language,” (CLIL) Cristina Escobar Urmeneta and
Natalia Evnitskaya English language-learning courses in particular. They
compare the approaches of two CLIL teachers and evaluate the academic
discussion in those classrooms. The researchers observed a biology classroom
and one about renewable energies, both with bilingual students dominant in
either Catalan or Spanish. Teacher A was more individual-focused, while
Teacher B was more focused on group discussion. Teacher A allowed time for
group discussion, withheld feedback to promote it and focused on students’
elaboration of answers, while Teacher B provided instant feedback, which did
not accommodate student discussion. Additionally, Teacher B encouraged
students to guess the right answer instead of provide argumentation. Each of
these approaches provided strengths and weaknesses in both language production
and comprehension of the subject material.

Rosa María Ramírez and Teresa Serra’s “Integrated Languages Project,” in
Chapter Nine, is a study on the integrated language program at the Vila
Olímpica School in Barcelona. This primary education center, in a
predominantly middle-class neighborhood, has a mixture of Catalan-dominant,
Spanish-dominant students, as well as those dominant in a foreign language.
The school is modeled on three ideas: “open-mindedness to all languages and
cultures, languages as a means of communication for all subjects, and the
importance of the use of oral and written language” (183). Catalan is the
dominant language in the school, yet, from an early age, both Spanish and
English are introduced as languages of instruction. Sixth-year students at the
Vila Olímpica School outperform students outside their system of the same age
in all three languages. Additionally, test results for the content class
examined (mathematics) also showed that using additional languages in
instruction does not hinder students’ comprehension of the subject material.

EVALUATION

This book presents a collection of studies on language instruction in schools
in Catalonia, particularly in relation to the recovery of Catalan, as well as
the incorporation of English and Spanish, language-in-education policies in
the respective political jurisdictions in Catalan-speaking areas, and the
analysis of instructional approaches for students in language learning. This
collection includes the opinions of experts in the field and approaches the
issue of language-in-education from a number of angles. Much of this material
is newly available in English.

This book will be an excellent resource for scholars, educators, and
policy-makers involved in language planning and acquisition. The studies
contained in this volume address a number of the concerns associated with the
integration of multiple languages into an educational system. Although this
book is intended primarily for language policy-makers, second language
acquisition researchers will find interest in Chapter Eight, on the
implementation of content and language integrated learning, or Chapter Six, on
the integration of multimodal resources in the classroom. Additionally,
sociolinguists might be interested in Chapters One to Three, particularly
regarding the linguistic attitudes of Latin American immigrants toward the use
of Catalan in the public sphere as well as its use in the classroom. The book
could be useful in courses related to the above fields. The results of the
studies contained in this book can be extrapolated to similar contexts outside
of Catalonia and can aid in language planning in other multilingual
environments. The variety of studies in the collection provides a number of
departure points for a broader discussion on a wide range of topics.

Chapter Three, “Language Attitudes of Latin-American Newcomers in Three
Secondary School Reception Classes in Catalonia,” by Trenchs-Parera and
Patiño-Santos, was particularly interesting. This qualitative study noted the
tendency of Latin American students to utilize Spanish as the language of
social interaction, while limiting the use of Catalan to the classroom. The
correlation between promoting multilingualism and an early integration into
this environment, and a positive attitude towards Catalan in social
interactions was noteworthy, as was the documented use of code-switching as a
learning tool in one of the RCs (56). When the instructors encouraged social
integration early, the students responded more positively to the language and
to multilingualism. The complex sociolinguistic environment found in Catalonia
and experienced by these students, as well as the interaction of Catalan and
Spanish, is of particular interest to me as a sociolinguist and contact
linguist; particularly, the linguistic traits that could be studied in the
spoken Catalan of Latin American students.

Some of the studies could have benefited from more quantitative analyses. For
instance, Boyé’s study seemed to overly rely on the reflections of both
students and instructors. This study could have been enhanced with a more
objective form of analysis, as well as by using a control group and an
experimental group.

Apart from any minor weaknesses, the book will be an excellent resource for
those involved in applied linguistics research, particularly language
planning, multilingualism and multilingual education, as well as second
language pedagogy.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Jordan Lavender is a PhD student at the University at Albany, State University
of New York. He conducts research on the effects of language contact in the
Spanish spoken in Catalan-dominant areas. His primary research interests
include sociolinguistics, morphosyntactic variation, language contact, and
bilingualism.








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