Sociopolitical Factors in Teaching a Second Language
The Council of Europe, of which Canada is a member, promotes plurilingualism, linguistic diversity, mutual understanding, democratic citizenship and social cohesion. It believes that over a lifetime every member of society has the right and need to learn several languages and varieties.
A plurilingual person has a repertoire of languages and language varieties with different levels of competencies within each. Plurilingual education promotes an awareness of why and how one has learned the languages one has chosen, an awareness of and ability to use transferable skills, a respect for the plurilingualism of others and the value of languages and their varieties irrespective of their perceived status in society, a respect for the cultures embodied in languages and the cultural identities of others, an ability to perceive and mediate the relationships which exist among languages and cultures, and a global integrated approach to language education in the curriculum. (Council of Europe, 2006, p.5)
Council of Europe (2006). Plurilingual Education in Europe. 50 years of international cooperation. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
Everyone can learn another language if they are given the right conditions – time, modelling, need, status or value, opportunity to use and safety to make mistakes, to name a few. In most countries of the world, students are given such opportunities. Learning at least one language in school is a compulsory part of the curriculum. Further, members of society expect and praise good performance in languages, and employment and advancement opportunities increase with knowledge of another language. Within several generations all members of a society are bi- or multi-lingual.
Although we know that every human being has the capability of learning multiple languages a variety of factors mitigate against learner success. Recent research suggests that primary among these are socio-political factors, namely social perceptions and attitudes that people hold toward specific languages increase or reduce desire to learn them. Positive attitudes or identity attract and promote prestige in a person, group and language; negative attitudes or public regard can force distance or disassociation with a language, people or place. Thus people may feel a compliment for knowing or learning one language and neutrality or even disregard for learning another. Only through honesty, acknowledgement, awareness and social justice movements can such attitudes be transformed so that all languages are given equal social status.
Despite Canada’s policy position as an officially bilingual society, only a small minority of the population can speak both of Canada’s official languages. In fact, many believe that the Official Languages Act forms the cornerstone of a Canadian 'hierarchy of languages', analogous to social hierarchies based on race, gender or immigration. Consequently, the Act is not simply a legal document; it is an intensely political document which projects a linguistic value system into Canadian society. This value system is exposed in that uniquely Canadian notion of 'official bilingualism': in Canada to be bilingual means to be able to communicate in English and French; no other combination is recognized. Consequently, only 17.4 % of Canadians are considered bilingual since they can speak both official languages and 82.6% are considered ‘unilingual’; although at least 35% of Canadians speak more than one language. Furthermore, a francophone is much more likely to speak English than an anglophone to speak French, which reveals the relative standing of the two official languages in Canada. Among Quebecois, 40.6% can speak English, while in the rest of the country only 7.5% can speak French. In all, 55% of officially bilingual Canadians are Quebecers, and a high percentage of the bilingual population in the rest of Canada resides in the “bilingual belt” which borders on Quebec. None of these statistics include Canadians who speak two or more languages that are neither French nor English. Sociocultural and critical theorists explain the desire and success in learning and using a language according to issues of power and influence.
The power of English as one of the world’s lingua francas may account for the attitudes that account for why immigrant mother tongues typically vanish by the second Canadian born generation (Kumar, Trofimovich, & Gatbonton, 2008), why the use of French outside of Quebec is declining (Clément, Noels, Gauthier, 1993; Clément, 1984; Clément & Kruidenier, 1985), why the pressures within Quebec continue to push francophones in the direction of using English (Gaudet & Clément, 2009), why aboriginal languages are vanishing, why in some families children grow up hearing many languages and aspire to be like their family members while in others they reject the languages and aspire to be like the unilingual mainstream. In a multicultural country, why is it that youth do not feel comfortable using languages other than English in public places?
While Canada struggles with the place of languages in its multicultural fabric, the majority of young people in the world follow a healthy regime of language learning beginning in elementary school and grow up with all of the cognitive, creative and linguistic advantages competence in another language offers. To learn more about the benefits of learning additional languages check out the websites below.
In some countries the majority of people speak multiple languages (e.g. Switzerland, India, Cameroon). Learning languages is a part of the public agenda and all members of the society learn them. Some countries have a policy of bilingualism (e.g. Canada) or multilingualism (e.g. South Africa) which enables citizens to develop a full range of language functions but not everyone in the country speaks more than one language. When asked about why, young people say that they do not feel comfortable using languages in public places. Such is the powerful influence of attitudes on learning.
As a result of such attitudes and with the influence of globalization and the false belief that everyone in the world speaks English, language teachers must advocate for their programs (Abbott, 2009). They must inform colleagues, administrators, parents and community members about the advantages of language learning. The following sources may help you to advocate for and build a strong second language program in your school – one in which students want to continue studying a language over three or more years. Successful language programs include special events such as exchanges, travel, guest speakers, cultural events in and out of school, on line penpals, social media projects, speech or poetry contests, student clubs where foreign films are viewed, etc.
References and Additional Resources
Access this PDF with additional resources on advocacy and the sociolpolitical factors involved in teaching a second or foreign language.
Why does it take so much energy for me to motivate my students?