Child language brokering in schools: A discussion of selected findings from a survey of teachers and ex-students

Abstract

Because the children of immigrants often learn the host language much more quickly than their parents, increasing numbers of children and young people contribute to family life by acting as child language brokers (or interpreters) (CLBs) for their parents. There is well-founded professional resistance to the use of children in the LB role in sensitive or challenging meetings, but for some purposes many immigrant parents and grandparents prefer a language broker from within their own family to an external professional interpreter. In this paper we report selected findings from parallel online surveys of teachers in schools where there has been some use of students as CLBs and of young adults who have acted as CLBs while at school. Our aim is to explore what can be learned about the use of CLBs from analysing the views and experiences of these two groups who bring distinctive and complementary perspectives to the topic.

Children and teenagers acting as language brokers: The perception of teachers at secondary schools

“…Some of these findings seem to validate the results of other studies, for instance the frequency of CLB in schools is very similar with that found by Cline, Crafter & Prokopiou (2014), but other data seem to contradict them to some extent, e.g. regarding the emotional impact of CLB on children and teenagers.…”

“…Most of them (41 out of 60) were from the regions Baix Llobregat and Barcelonès, where 71 of the 116 maximum and high complexity centres are concentrated. This number of answers (60) seems consistent with other studies with similar scopes, such as the one by Cline, Crafter & Prokopiou (2014), who followed a similar survey approach in Englandincluding the London area and the metropolitan areas across all the English regions and counties in the East Midlands and the South East -and received 63 answers. However, we cannot compare the total percentage of answers received, since in the study by Cline, Crafter & Prokopiou (2014) there is no mention of the amount of total questionnaires sent, only of the ones answered.…”

Language Brokering in Immigrant Families

“…We have argued elsewhere (Cline et al 2014a) that the lack of official policy guidance reflects an ambivalent attitude to the practice of language brokering that permeates professional and academic commentary on the subject of secondlanguage use and bilingualism more generally. Even within increasingly 'super-diverse' locations within the UK (see Vertovec, 2005), monolingualism is still perceived as the prevailing practice, whilst multilingualism is only vaguely understood (Cline et al 2011), and in some cases, explicitly viewed as negative (Brutt-Griffler & Varghese, 2004).…”

Working with interpreters: Guidelines for psychologists

“…Child Language Brokers (CLB) assume a mediator role between their own family and other parties, most notably their school in order to gain access to information, resources and opportunities in a setting in which other members of the family do not speak the language fluently. The results of CLB are mixed and psychologists who have argued for their use often do so with specific provisos 38,39 . Overall this is a contested area and the employment of qualified interpreters is likely to offer a better, more professional, if more costly alternative.…”