Continua Of Biliteracy Research Articles

Multiliteracies and translanguaging pedagogy in the adult L2-classroom

In this article, we study space for multiliteracies in basic literacy education for adult second language learners of Swedish for Immigrants (SFI). The teaching observed was categorised as translanguaging pedagogy, and the study was part of an action research project with Linguistic Ethnography as the methodological framework. The material used comes from classroom observations in three schools and consists of fieldnotes, recordings of teaching, photographs, handouts and other artefacts. Hornberger’s (2003) continua of biliteracy was used for the analysis. Findings show there to be space for multiliteracies in these classrooms; however, since most students in these classes have limited literacy skills in their earlier languages, the written texts used in class are mainly in Swedish. Findings also show that teaching includes practices from all points on the continua, which Hornberger (1989) highlights as important for biliterate development, in this case to a lesser extent for written language. The shuttling between the ends of all continua is particularly important for students in SFI, Study Path One, who tend to have low status in, for example, the workforce and society. Findings also show that images tend to be used as tools rather than as objects for interpretation. Our conclusion is that space for multiliteracies varies depending on the earlier literacy skills of students, the number of students in a group who understood a particular language and the availability of study guidance assistants in the students’ mother tongues.

Exploring the waning interest in Nuosu Yi education in Liangshan, China

ABSTRACT Interest in formal Nuosu Yi language programmes has been waning in Liangshan, China, even though Nuosu Yi continues to be widely spoken among Yi residents. In this paper, we adopt Hornberger (2004. “The Continua of Biliteracy and the Bilingual Educator: Educational Linguistics in Practice.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 7 (3): 155–171.)’s continua of biliteracy and a translanguaging perspective to explore this phenomenon, and draw on a qualitative study of Yi students’ and their teachers’ language practices in three schools. Data include observations of Yi students’ and teachers’ spoken practices both in casual interactions and formal classroom instruction, and photos of their formal and informal written practices. Findings revealed a literacy-oracy divide in formal Nuosu Yi education: written Nuosu Yi was prioritised at school but was not found to be widely used in daily life. By contrast, spoken Nuosu Yi, which was drawn on frequently by students and teachers in informal interactions, was largely excluded at school due to a highly standardised and literacy-focused institutional setting. The continua of biliteracy and translanguaging allowed a nuanced investigation into different kinds of language practices at school, showing how the existing communicative repertoire of the students was not considered to be an asset in formal education.

Becoming an independent Swedish citizen: Critical literacy as a tool for multilingual literacies in Swedish for Immigrants

The aim of this article is to study the space for multilingualism and multiliteracy in the development of literacy skills through critical literacy in Swedish for Immigrants. The focus is on adult second language learners (L2 learners) with low education and Hornberger’s continua of biliteracy is used for the analysis of material from classroom observations. The observed teaching included space for multiliteracies and students were explicitly stimulated to bring their own experiences and express their own views. Thus, this linguistic ethnographic study supports earlier claims that all points on the continua are important in literacy education for adults. However, it also shows that conflicting perceptions may exist in class regarding what is happening and what should happen. Topics that are commonly used in critical literacy may further add to such risks. Developing literacy skills in an L2 means hard work, especially developing such skills from basic levels in adulthood. Thus, creating engagement is an important task for teachers, while teachers may hesitate in raising sensitive topics if they fear it may lead to conflict.

Biliteracy Metaphor Analysis: Examining Multilingual, Multicultural Pupils’ Interpretation of Canon Literature

ABSTRACT This article unfolds and argues for Biliteracy Metaphor Analysis (BMA), a methodology for examining the interpretation and use of metaphors in canon literature in a biliteracy context, in this case the canon of Danish literature read and interpreted by multilingual students in a ninth grade classroom. BMA combines Spradley’s ethnographic framework with conceptual blending theory, Bakhtin’s theory of the literary chronotope, and Hornberger’s continua of biliteracy. BMA seeks to guide researchers in examining the interpretive dialogue about Danish canon texts without favoring interpretations of familiar metaphors that only evoke literate trajectories matching the literacy experiences of Danish monolinguals. BMA invites researchers to also account for ways in which pupils critique, transform and expand the familiar Danish registers and already instantiated meaning potential by mapping and reframing metaphors differently and creatively. Applicability of the methodology will be analyzed, exemplified and discussed based on a contextual background consisting of monolingual, bilingual and multilingual pupils interpreting the inherent conceptual metaphors of chronotopes in texts by authors belonging to the canon of Danish literature. Examples from Kaasby’s previous Master’s thesis will be used to illustrate possible contributions of the methodology when analyzing literacy acquisition.

Researching and teaching (with) the continua of biliteracy

Abstract The continua of biliteracy model offers an ecological framework to situate research, teaching, and language policy in multilingual settings. Biliteracy is understood as “any and all instances in which communication occurs in two (or more) languages in or around writing” and the continua as complex, fluid, and interrelated dimensions of communicative repertoires; it is in the dynamic, rapidly changing and sometimes contested spaces along and across the continua that biliteracy use and learning occur. Formulated in the 1980s in the context of a multi-year, comparative ethnography of language policy in two Philadelphia public schools and communities, the model has served in the years since as heuristic in research, teaching, and program development locally, nationally, and internationally in Indigenous, immigrant, diaspora and decolonizing language education contexts. It has evolved and adapted to accommodate both a changing world and a changing scholarly terrain, foregrounding ethnographic monitoring, mapping, ideological and implementational spaces, voice, and translanguaging, antiracist and decolonial pedagogies in multilingual education policy and practice. I trace this trajectory, highlighting experiences in immigrant contexts of Philadelphia and Indigenous contexts of South Africa, Sweden, and Peru where the continua of biliteracy have informed bilingual program development and Indigenous and second language teaching.

Promoting biculturalism and biliteracy for Vietnamese American children through cultural performing arts

ABSTRACT Under the theoretical underpinnings of language socialization and continua of biliteracy, this ethnographic case study documents how cultural performing arts, as part of extracurricular activities, promote bicultural identity and biliteracy development among Vietnamese American children. The study was set in two transnational contexts: a community-based Vietnamese heritage language school and a Vietnamese dual-language two-way immersion program, both located in a southwestern U.S. city. Data was drawn from observation field notes, interviews, teachers’ testimony, and visual records. Findings show cultural events created by and for Vietnamese Americans create affordances for dialogic teaching on culture, language play, and cultural identity formation through collaborative efforts between home, school, and community. This paper implies a need for (1) purposeful integration of cultural events held by transnational communities into school curricula and (2) an in-depth focus on the sociocultural aspects of language programs, especially among the less-commonly-taught-language groups.

The Twisting and (Re)Connecting of Conducting Research During COVID-19

This presentation is driven from my on-going doctoral research on examining the use of children’s literature in English-Chinese bilingual education in the Canadian context. However, instead of demonstrating some potential findings and implications, it more focused on my experience of the twisting and (re)connecting in the process of conducting the research during the pandemic of COVID-19. Underpinned by sociocultural perspectives on literacy (Kress 2000; New London Group 1996; Perry 2012; Unrau and Alvermann 2013), and the continua of biliteracy (Hornberger and Skilton-Sylvester 2003), my research first examined what type of children’s literature that teachers and parents often or prefer to use with bilingual children. Secondly, it investigated what role children’s literature plays in bilingual children’s language and literacy development. Finally, it explored how teachers’ and parents’ experiences and perspectives with children’s literature may impact their pedagogical practices in bilingual education.

Heteroglossia in mother tongue instruction in Sweden and the development of plurilingual literacies

Abstract This article analyses how perceptions of and approaches to teaching linguistically heterogeneous groups in mother tongue instruction (MTI) in Sweden impact on the development of plurilingual literacies in that context. Linguistic ethnographic data collected over 12 months in classrooms and schools where MTI takes place were thematically categorized and data from the most prominent category, heterogeneity, were further coded into the heteroglossic categories of multidiscursivity and multivoicedness (Todorov 1984). The continua of biliteracy provides an additional interpretative framework. Results show that heteroglossic discursive practices involving diverse linguistic repertoires are commonly reported on and observed in MTI classrooms, and are viewed both as a resource for and an obstacle to learning. These results contribute to discussions on organizational and pedagogical approaches that work with rather than against heteroglossia, through resourceful use of languages to enhance learning in MTI and potentially other subjects as well.

Emergent literacy instruction: ‘continua of biliteracy’ among newly immigrated adolescents

This article focuses on the instruction of recently immigrated adolescents with limited educational backgrounds who are developing emergent literacy. It is based on an ethnographic study conducted in a public Swedish language introductory class in 2017/2018. Its purpose is to investigate how the students engaged in literacy practices during the instruction, and how they were supported by their teachers. Empirical data, which included field notes, audio recordings, and interviews with students, were analyzed with the help of two dimensions of Hornberger’s continua of biliteracy, namely, the content and development of biliteracy. Analysis of the content of biliteracy indicated that students’ previous knowledge, as well as class field trips and tangible examples, served as important foundations for their instruction. Analysis of the development of biliteracy showed that the teachers’ engagement with the students’ diverse linguistic and other semiotic resources contributed to the students’ participation in literacy practices. While the framework applied to the data includes several dimensions of literacy, indispensable for research in this complex context, the analysis also illuminates the need for the inclusion of additional dimensions in order to account for the role of interpersonal relations.

Mapeando la enseñanza de biliteracidad en contextos indígenas: Desde la timidez hacia la voz.

Drawing on an ethnographic monitoring engagement with Kichwa intercultural bilingual educators in the Peruvian Amazon, we argue for ethnographic monitoring as a method and the continua of biliteracy as a heuristic for mapping biliteracy teaching in Indigenous contexts of bilingualism. Through our mapping, we uncover tensions in the teaching of majoritized languages in Indigenous contexts of postcoloniality, challenge constructs of student shyness, and propose pedagogies to support the flourishing of student voice in bilingual education.

Performative functions of multilingual policy in second language education in Sweden

ABSTRACT This paper targets the aim of ‘strengthening the students’ multilingualism’ in a second language subject in Sweden, Swedish as a second language (SSL), which represents a relatively rare L2 design internationally. The study investigates how ideological space for multilingualism with regard to this aim opens implementational space at the classroom level [Hornberger. 2002. “Multilingual Language Policies and the Continua of Biliteracy: An Ecological Approach.” Language Policy 1 (1): 27–51]. We draw on ethnographic fieldwork in three linguistically diverse upper secondary schools in Sweden, where SSL is a parallel subject to Swedish, free of choice, and is taught by qualified teachers. Ideological and implementational space was found to be primarily for empowering students and valorizing their multilingualism and less for learning functions and pedagogical multilingual practices. Some students emphasized multilingual aspects as being empowering and as a reason for choosing SSL, indexing the performative function [Fairclough. 2014. “Semiotic Aspects of Social Transformation and Learning.” In The Discourse Studies Reader. Main Currents in Theory and Analysis, edited by Johannes Angermuller, Dominique Maingueneau, and Ruth Wodak, 378–387. Amsterdam: John Benjamins] of macro-level policy in combination with teacher agency. We argue that in spite of the brevity of the formulated multilingual macro policy and its restricted ‘potential space’ [Johnson 2011. “Implementational and Ideological Spaces in Bilingual Education Language Policy, Practice, and Research.” In Bilingual Education and Bilingualism: Educational Linguistics in Practice: Applying the Local Globally and the Global Locally, edited by Frances M. Hult and Kendall A. King, 126–139. Bristol, GBR: Multilingual Matters], it still had a significant bearing at the local level. This finding reinforces the importance of researching established macro-multilingual policies in situ in education.

Deprescriptivising folk theories: critical multilingual language awareness for educators in Pakistan

ABSTRACT This study examines the discourses of educators in Pakistan through the lens of Critical Multilingual Language Awareness (CMLA) to demonstrate how their lack of critical awareness reinforces and reproduces subtractive language policies and practices in a diverse multilingual setting. CMLA stands for the understanding of the social, political and economic struggles surrounding the use of languages (García, O. 2009, Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective, 302. Oxford: Wiley/Blackwell). Drawing on data collected through interviews and a questionnaire survey, the study analyses why most educators tend to manifest the following orientations/tendencies: monoglossic ideologies, devaluing native languages/cultures, normative assumptions about contemporary sociolinguistic order, English-medium fever, and fallacious folk theories about plurilingualism and multilingual education. The study suggests some policy measures that could foster CMLA, which could in turn help create ‘ideological and implementational spaces’ for multiple languages, literacies, and identities in classroom (Hornberger, N.H. 2003. Continua of Biliteracy: An Ecological Framework for Educational Policy, Research, and Practice in Multilingual Settings. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, Hornberger, N.H. 2016. Researching the continua of biliteracy. In Research Methods in Language and Education, ed. K. King, Y.-J. Lai and S. May, 1–18. Cham: Springer International Publishing). We propose that deprescriptivisation and conceptual reorientation of educators could be crucial in this direction. This entails deconstruction of socially constructed folk theories about languages and language use, developing an awareness that ‘language is socially created, and socially changeable to give voice and educate all students equitably’ (García, O. 2017, Critical multilingual language awareness and teacher education. In Language Awareness and Multilingualism, ed. J. Cenoz, D. Gorter and S. May, 263–280. Cham: Springer International Publishing). We propose that language activists and critical applied linguists could play their agentive role as public intellectuals to deconstruct negative views about the role and value of the native/indigenous languages as pedagogical resources, and create ideological and political openings for inclusive perspectives, policies and practices. This could be achieved through scholarly activism, advocacy campaigns, and public awareness programs.

Opening ideological and implementational spaces for multilingual/plurilingual policies and practices in education: a snapshot of scholarly activism in Pakistan

ABSTRACTThe study proposes that Critical Multilingual Language Awareness (CMLA) can be deployed as a productive theoretical construct for scholarly activism in a country such as Pakistan where multilingualism and linguistic diversity have historically been seen as problems than assets in education. We illustrate that such activism can transform orientations and deconstruct myths/misconceptions about bi/multilingual/plurilingual education as research suggests greater public glorification of the dominant languages such as English and Urdu vis-à-vis native languages. Given the subtractive linguistic ecology, this paper explores how prevailing orientations about native languages can be neutralized and positively transformed. The study suggests how scholars/researchers or activists can create 'ideological and implementational spaces' [Hornberger, N. H. (2003). Continua of biliteracy: An ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters; Hornberger, N. H. (2016). Researching the continua of biliteracy. In K. King, Y.-J. Lai, & S. May (Eds.), Research methods in language and education (pp. 1–18). Cham: Springer International] for multiple languages, literacies, and identities in classroom, community, and society. The participants were students of Bilingualism course enrolled for MPhil program in a public sector university in Pakistan. Data were analyzed through the constructs of critical applied linguistics and Critical Multilingual Language Awareness (CMLA) [García, O. (2017). Critical multilingual language awareness and teacher education. In J. Cenoz, D. Gorter, & S. May (Eds.), Language awareness and multilingualism (pp. 263–280). Cham: Springer International Publishing]. The study shows that lack of critical awareness and education primarily causes disinterest in bi/multilingual/plurilingual. Findings suggest that exposure to critical scholarship, and sensitization about the value of bi/multilingual/plurilingual education and linguistic/cultural diversity can create spaces, and impact significant theoretical, ideological/political and implementational transformations.

Asas da Florestania: languages and cultures at play in the forest-based citizenship literacy program in Brazil

This methodological article applies the Continua of Biliteracy (Hornberger, 1989; Hornberger & Skilton-Sylvester, 2000) onto the curriculum and human resources of Asas da Florestania Infantil, namely Asinhas, a preschool initiative with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognition for its startling approach to the Acre an multilingual setting in northwestern Brazil. Overseen, forest-dependent, Acre’s identity is a traditional and hybridculture melting pot with sustainable rubber tapping advocates, indigenous land claimers and Haitian refugees, where languages and literacy converge to legitimate the Brazilian linguistic and cultural diversity. Initially funded by national communication mogul Rede Globo and the World Bank, today, it also responds to municipal, state, and federal accountability. We concludedthat Asinhas’ recruitment of Educational Agents to promote meaningful forest-based content at an anthropological home visits approach is an outstanding decentralization and multilingual setting and curriculum acknowledgement, despite its population under representation and scaling-up limitations.

Carving out institutional space for multilingualism in the world’s most multilingual region: the role of Linguistics at the University of the South Pacific

ABSTRACTThe University of the South Pacific is a regional university catering for 12 countries. Its location situates it within unparalleled linguistic diversity, and its regional structure creates a highly multilingual body of staff and students interacting either face-to-face on the major campuses or remotely via e-learning and satellite communications. On the surface, it is an exciting place to be engaging with matters of language and linguistic diversity. However, in common with many universities that strive for academic excellence whilst operating on sound financial principles and catering equitably for a diverse student population, there are a number of institutional factors that unintentionally stifle the opportunities to study, learn and use multiple languages. This paper discusses language planning at the university with reference to Hornberger’s [(2002). Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: An ecological approach. Language Policy, 1, 27–51] metaphor of ideological and implementational space. It considers the mechanisms that serve to close down institutional space for languages other than English, and identifies opportunities to carve out new and different spaces. This paper argues for the need to work within, between and around the spaces left by shifts towards rationalisation and efficiency in ways that move with, rather than against, the tide. It is suggested that seeking space for languages other than English within tertiary institutions, and thus challenging the monolingualising tendencies of the shifts in the global landscape, requires a four-step framework of engagement, working sideways to engage with the macro and the micro simultaneously.

“Figuring” Bidirectional Home and School Connections Along the Biliteracy Continuum

This article centers on the significant practices identified by bilingual teachers who participated in Proyecto Bilingüe, a specialized master’s degree program. The notion of bidirectional theory of bilingual pedagogy and the theoretical construct of the continua of biliteracy are utilized to illustrate how the teachers centered home and school connections in their curriculum. Specific analysis is done on the ways the teachers create spaces of authoring for themselves, for students, and for their families and communities. These authoring spaces served to elevate the status of bilingual education, bilingual teachers, bilingual learners, and the Spanish language. Sustaining dynamic exchange flows through bidirectional intent between home and school can have profound impact in social and academic outcomes.

Pratiques de littératies multiples en atelier d’écriture plurielle : une fenêtre ouverte à l’expression d’identités plurilingues

In this article, I examine multilingual adult learners’ identity formation through their literacy practices in a writing workshop amidst a FSL course at university. I attempt this exploration by analyzing the discourses they hold on their practices as well as the texts they wrote in the workshop. I make the hypothesis that a context of acquisition open to literacy practices built on continua of biliteracy allows learners to (re) build their plurilingual identities.

Language, education and identities in plural Mauritius: a study of the Kreol, Hindi and Urdu Standard 1 textbooks

The present study was carried out in the context of the recent (2012) introduction of Kreol in the primary school curriculum in Mauritius. The time-tabling of Kreol as an optional subject offered at the same time as the other existing ancestral languages, institutionalised Kreol as an ancestral language, despite its status as a national language. The aim of the study was to investigate the ways in which the Standard 1 Kreol textbook reveals or reflects the ancestral identity that it has been institutionally assigned. In order to do so, a comparative perspective was adopted: the Standard 1 Kreol textbook was compared with the Standard 1 Hindi and Urdu textbooks, given that Hindi and Urdu are long established ancestral languages. A social semiotic analysis of the textbooks indicates that each textbook mediates ethno-religious discourses in varying ways and to varying degrees. It is argued that while changes in language policies and curricula open up ‘implementational and ideological spaces’ (Hornberger, N.H. 2002. “Multilingual Language Policies and the Continua of Biliteracy: An Ecological Approach.” Language Policy 1: 27–51), textbooks can be seen as one such space within which identities are maintained, (re)defined or resisted. As an ‘implementational and ideological space’, the textbook is historically, socio-culturally and politically embedded, shaped and constrained.

Mapping ecology of literacies in educational setting: the case of local mother tongues vis-à-vis Urdu and English languages in Pakistan

This study critically examines the literacy levels of undergraduate students in Pakistan to compare and contrast the proficiency levels, particularly reading and writing of their mother tongues versus Urdu and English, and to study real and perceived vitality of local/regional mother tongues vis-à-vis Urdu and English. The research investigated 162 undergraduate students using questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and participant observation. Drawing principally on Continua of Biliteracy, an ecological framework (“Revisiting the Continua of Biliteracy: International and Critical Perspectives.” Language and Education: An International Journal 14 (2): 96–122; Continua of Biliteracy: An Ecological Framework for Educational Policy, Research, and Practice in Multilingual Settings. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters), the data suggest that the respondents’ proficiency levels in academia-oriented skills like reading and writing are considerably lower in mother tongues than in Urdu and English languages. The respondents tend to attach greater value to academic literacy in Urdu and English over their mother tongues for they believe Urdu and English hold significant pragmatic and economistic value as languages of power and wealth. Local mother tongues are perceived to be good as identity carriers in a multilingual and multiethnic country, and their use could best be made in intra-ethnic interaction and family chitchat. As per Continua model, literacy situations across contexts, development and content indicate an explicit privileging of Urdu and English (traditionally more powerful end) of continuum over local mother tongues (traditionally less powerful end).

The literacy practices of transfronterizos in a multilingual world

This introduction provides the background for this special issue by first describing the US–Mexico border, a fascinating context in which to research issues related to Spanish–English biliteracy and multilingualism. We present main points in the prevailing discussion within the field of literacy studies about issues of multilingualism and local–global contexts of literacy. Drawing from literature on transnational literacy, we examine arguments about the recontextualization of texts and literacy practices. In this volume, authors demonstrate how texts, linguistic practices, and discourses are part of the fluid traffic across the US–Mexico border. In the course of analyzing transfronterizo literacy practices, the articles take into account local and global contexts of literacy from different perspectives, such as colonia studies, genre studies, disciplinary discourses and identity, notions of time and space, the continua of biliteracy, and the new literacy studies. Because we see ourselves as border educators and researchers, informing educational practice in sites where these issues emerge as everyday events is the broader intent of this special issue.