Bilingualism among Teachers of English as a Second Language: A Study of Second Language Learning Experience as a Contributor to the Professional Knowledge and Beliefs of Teachers of ESL to Adults

This study is an investigation of the contribution of second language learning experience to the professional knowledge and beliefs of teachers of ESL to adults. The literature reveals that very little has been written about the language background of the ESL teacher who teaches English through English to adult immigrants. The thesis proposes an explanation for this based on the historical development of the profession, and argues that despite vast changes in second language acquisition theory and pedagogy in the last fifty years, an English-only classroom fronted by a teacher who is monolingual or who is encouraged to behave as if he or she is monolingual, has remained the dominant practice in Australia. The research study is not a consideration of the merits of bilingual teaching versus monolingual teaching in English-only. Instead, it seeks to understand whether teachers who do have another language draw on it in ways relevant to the teaching of English, and to suggest reasons why teachers' languages are disregarded in the profession. In doing so, the thesis draws on key bodies of literature in bilingualism, second language acquisition, teacher cognition and critical studies in an attempt to provide a framework for considering the research questions. The study employed a qualitative, interpretive research design involving semi-structured interviews and the taking of detailed language biographies from a total of thirty-one practising teachers of ESL. Language biographies were analysed and categorised along several parameters, and the major distinctions made were between circumstantial bilinguals, elective bilinguals and monolinguals. Three key themes emerged: teachers' beliefs about learning a second language, the contribution made by teachers' language learning experience to their reported beliefs and practices, and teachers' beliefs about the role of the first language in second language learning. Bilingual teachers, both circumstantial and elective, appeared to have more realistic and optimistic beliefs about the nature of language learning than did monolingual teachers. Bilingual teachers appeared to see language learning as challenging but achievable. They recognised the dynamic nature of learning as incorporating progress, stagnation, attrition and re-learning. Monolingual teachers tended to see second language learning as almost impossible, and fraught with the potential for loss of self-esteem. Both groups talked about their own language learning as a private undertaking unrelated in any public way to their professional lives. The contribution made by language learning background fell into two groupings: of insights about language and language use, and about language learning and language teaching. Four key aspects of the former were insights about language in general deriving from knowledge of more than one; insights from contrasting LOTE and English; insights about the language-using experiences of bilinguals and biculturals, and insights about the possibilities of LOTE as a pedagogical tool in the ESL class. The second grouping included insights into learning strategies; insights about the affective aspects of being a language learner; knowledge of different teaching approaches from experience, and insights from different teaching contexts made possible by bilingualism. Overall the broader and richer the language background, the more sophisticated and developed were the insights which appeared to be relevant to teaching ESL. The third data chapter analysed teachers' expressed beliefs about the role of learners' first language(s) (L1) in the ESL class. Here little difference was found between bilingual and monolingual teachers, but overall L1 was characterised as an undesirable element in the ESL class. Teachers' discourse regarding L1 was analysed and found to be heavily characterised by negative and pejorative terms. This finding, combined with the teachers' generally weakly-articulated rationales for the exclusion of L1, led to the conclusion that beliefs and practices regarding L1 are a consequence of the monolingual focus of the ESL profession. The findings of the study in general are that ESL teachers draw on any language learning experience as a resource in teaching, and 'experiential knowledge' seems to be readily available to them in the ways they represent their own knowledge and beliefs in talk. It appears to be important in informing and shaping their conceptions of their practice as language teachers. There are differences between bilingual and monolingual teachers in that the former have much richer resources on which to draw. There are added insights which come from circumstantial or elective bilingual experience, from being a non-native English speaker, and from formal and informal learning experience. In general, the more and varied the language learning experience, the deeper and more sophisticated the resource it is to draw on in teaching. It is argued that the teaching of ESL is constructed as "the teaching of English" rather than as "the teaching of a second language", meaning that the 'experiential knowledge' (Wallace 1991) of bilingual teachers is unvalued. It appears to be accepted and unquestioned that a monolingual teacher can teach a learner to be bilingual. These propositions are discussed in the light of the writings of critical theorists to give a wider perspective on the monolingual discourse of the ESL profession. Bourdieu's notion of 'habitus' as strategic practice which is structured by a sociocultural environment (Bourdieu 1977a) is the basis for Gogolin's (1994) idea of a 'monolingual habitus' in education. Their work, and that of Skutnabb-Kangas (2000a) who refers to 'monolingual reductionism', suggest a social, political and discursal explanation for the invisibility of teachers' languages in the ESL profession. It is suggested that teacher language learning background should become a legitimate topic for discussion and further research.

Topic: Multilingual Education and Policy
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences