Negotiating Multilingual Resources in English Writing Instruction for Recent Immigrants to Norway

Abstract

Recent studies have demonstrated how teachers can draw on students' multilingual resources in teaching English writing, even in monolingually oriented policy settings. However, limited research has been conducted outside of countries where English is the majority language or in classes where few students share a language background. This article reports on a linguistic ethnography of English writing instruction in two introductory classes for newly arrived students in Norway (Grades 8–10, N = 22), where students and teachers negotiated the role of students' diverse language backgrounds and emerging Norwegian. Data reflect 3 months of participant observation, including classroom video recording, recording of students' computer screens, text collection, and creation of language portraits, followed by stimulated recall interviews. The teachers and students drew on multilingual resources in various ways during writing instruction, most extensively in receptive and oral uses. However, Norwegian assumed a privileged position among the language resources of the class while students sidelined their less formal or prestigious literacy resources. The study demonstrates teachers' and students' ability to reshape English writing instruction as a multilingual space but also concludes that multilingual literacy must be promoted as more than an instrumental resource in the service of English writing development.

Language Use in the Classroom: Balancing Target Language Exposure With the Need for Other Languages

“…Conversely, students’ minoritised language backgrounds hold lower status in this context, which may limit how different linguistic resources are used. It is important for teachers to be aware of status and power differences among languages to avoid reproducing language hierarchies in the classroom (Beiler, 2019; De Costa et al, 2017; Dewilde, 2019). The status of English in some European countries, including Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, is not entirely clear (Education First, 2018); students are sometimes referred to as learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and sometimes as learners of English as a second language (ESL), indicating that the status of English is in transition (Rindal, 2014; Rindal & Brevik, 2019; Sylvén, 2019).…”

“…Scholars have viewed proficiency in any language as linguistic repertoires to be activated according to the communicative demands of different contexts (Canagarajah, 2013;Cenoz & Gorter, 2014). Some researchers have noted that multilinguals profit from drawing on their linguistic repertoires to aid language development (Beiler, 2019;Dahl & Krulatz, 2016;Dewilde, 2019). Although multilingual speakers are no longer expected to be ideal native speakers of several languages, researchers stress that the monolingual native speaker remains the ideal and a reference point for many language teachers in the monolingual ideology (Canagarajah, 2011;Cenoz & Gorter, 2017;Seltzer, 2019).…”

“…Despite the prominent status of English in Norway, the Norwegian school system only implicitly encourages multilingualism in the context of English teaching and the national English curriculum minimally addresses the use of students' L1s. Research has shown that English instruction draws on multilingual resources to a limited degree, and scholars have suggested more focus on students' linguistic repertoires (Beiler, 2019;Dahl & Krulatz, 2016;Dewilde, 2019). Although research has indicated that the use of L1 in target language instruction is sophisticated language behaviour and not plain laziness (Lipski, 2014), Krulatz et al (2016) found that teachers expressed feelings of guilt for using Norwegian instead of English despite perceiving the use of Norwegian in English lessons to be advantageous in certain situations.…”

Marked and unmarked translanguaging in accelerated, mainstream, and sheltered English classrooms

“…Nonetheless, most Norwegian studies have indicated that students' multilingual resources are used minimally if at all in English teaching in both mainstream and introductory classes (e.g., Brevik and Rindal 2020; Burner and Carlsen 2019; Flognfeldt 2018; Krulatz and Torgersen 2016; for exceptions, see Beiler 2020; Krulatz and Iversen 2019). In two introductory classes, Beiler (2020) found that translanguaging at the level of the whole class drew mostly on Norwegian and English, while students' multilingual repertoires were most fully used in individual writing practices and peer interactions. The current study builds on this finding by also focusing on writing practices and writing instruction, though not exclusively so.…”

Translation as Translingual Writing Practice in English as an Additional Language

“…Through a multi‐stage selection process, Beiler identified the participating classes as learning environments where the English teachers sought to draw on their students’ multilingual resources in writing instruction. Although the teachers do not constitute the focus of this article, they participated in a broader study through which the data for the current study were gathered (see Beiler, 2020). In the first class, 10 of the 13 students (Grades 8–10; ages 13–16) consented to participate in the study.…”