Handout

Languages in the Australian curriculum: more of the same or different?

Association of French Teachers of Victoria Conference

Melbourne, 22 July 2011

Angela Scarino

Research Centre for Languages and Cultures

Outline

1.An opening question

2.Context and process of development

3.Making the curriculum

4.The changes

5.An example

6.A return to the opening question and implications

Example 3: Year 10/11 French: Multiculturalism

The context of this example is a class comprised of twenty-seven students which, in addition to local Australian students, also included six boys and two girls from Africa, one boy and three girls on exchange from Germany, a Laotian boy and four adult students. The language being learnt was French.

The unit of work explored the multicultural nature of French society and the difficulties experienced by those of African origins in particular. Much of the work focused on contemporary texts selected by the teacher, as he states, “on the theme of immigration, racism, the wearing of the head scarf versus laïcité in France”. The teacher describes his goals as (1) exploring students responses to “challenging multicultural situations with an awareness of their own cultural position at the same time, (2) examining students’ ability to express themselves articulately in French on the themes of immigration and multiculturalism, in particular through a reading and responding task and a culminating writing task in French.

The teacher describes the interactions and his rationale for including them, see below:

Interactions
The following are the steps I intend to take to elicit responses from the students:
  • Students answer a series of questions (posed in both English and French) around the question of the culture they most identify with. This is followed by a group sharing in which students from different backgrounds will be asked to share their answers and points of view.
Rationale: This will allow me to set the language and content within a purposeful context, and to clarify I am interested in their thinking and reflection as much as any written or oral outcomes. It will also allow the students to think specifically about aspects of their culture.
It will further allow me to see how students from different backgrounds interact before sharing some thoughts with the whole class. Students will be able to learn something of others in the class.
  • Students are asked to write journal entries in which they record their evaluations, responses and thoughts about the topics and discussions.
Rationale: This will allow me to see their line of thinking. I expect that for some students, this may be an interesting “intercultural” challenge in itself.
  • Students look at and use introductory vocabulary related to the topics and from a checklist of terms, complete an exercise in which terms are placed in a positive or negative category.
Rationale: This will allow students to familiarise themselves with the concepts and vocabulary and begin to express abstract ideas and values.
  • Students read a text in French outlining the history of immigration in France in the modern era, and a text in English providing statistics and a brief history related to Australia’s immigration. In groups, they are asked to compare these and report their conclusions. They are further asked to describe what connection they see themselves and their families fit into the pattern, what motivated their family or ancestor’s to immigrate. Students prepare a journal response.
Rationale: This will allow the students to discover the notion that immigration, refugee intake and patterns of settlement are mostly the same throughout the modern developed world. It will allow them to see a comparison of patterns: that proportionally more Australians than French are first, second or third generation migrants. They may re-position themselves as recent or generational migrants to this country and as people who had to reorientate their cultural position.
  • Students discuss two examples of cartoons produced by the EU as part of an anti-racist campaign in the late 90s: firstly “Racisme en chaîne” and then “Préjugés”.
Rationale: This will allow me to focus specifically on the question of racism and some people’s attitudes towards others. It will allow me to focus on the language used and why, and the purpose of the cartoons. Are they a reflection of reality and why, why not? Do they see themselves in the cartoons; if so why, if not why not? I will record some of the personal responses and discussion to these questions.
  • Students listen to, read and respond to a text about a girl, Aïsah, of Algerian descent who is caught between cultures and with an uncertain cultural identity.
The text is accompanied by a set of comprehension questions to be answered in French. This will allow me to record some responses (preferably in French) from the students to the girls’ dilemma and family circumstances, and contrast this to their own.
  • Students write a paragraph in French about what they would say to Aïsah concerning her dilemma.
Rationale: This activity will allow the students and me to see how students express their viewpoint on an issue discussed quite thoroughly before hand.
  • Students read a text about a ruling in France against wearing religious symbols in public schools. Comprehension questions in English follow for clarification. As with the previous text, students are asked to discuss the dilemmas posed by the ruling and articulate in French their stance.
Rationale: The conversation will allow me to asses if the students have been able to position themselves and identify with the multicultural situation from both a French and Australian perspective. “Laïcité” may have to be clarified and put into an historical context. The conversation will also allow me to see if students have been able to absorb the vocabulary and structures to express themselves.
  • Students are also asked to write a journal in French, expressing their appreciation, understanding and response to the lesson materials and discussions that have taken place so far.
Rationale: This will allow me to see what thought processes emerge from an intercultural point of view,. It will allow students an opportunity to use again the vocabulary and structures learnt so far.
  • As a summative task in class, students read a text about an adopted African born French citizen who leads a respectable life but who is harassed regularly by police. Students respond to comprehension questions and to questions that ask students to express a value judgement on what has occurred and a personal interactive response (like for Aïsah) in which they are asked to express what they would say to the young man from their perspective. Key questions include the language used (inferred from the text) to wield power.
Rationale: This will enable me to see what students think of what happened, whether this could happen in Australia, and if so, why and if not why not.
  • Students read a text about the “banlieue” riots. These are accompanied by comprehension questions on the text in English. Answers are discussed as a class and then the question of multiculturalism in both France and Australia are discussed in French. What do we mean by this term? Is Australia multicultural? This text will give the students a clearer understanding of concepts like multiculturalism, assimilation, integration, social justice, the causes for riots as well as an opportunity to compare and clarify personal values.
Rationale: This activity will also give me another chance to clarify what the “intercultural” means and that a personal response to this is so important here.
  • For a final assessment students are given two sets of photographs. They choose one set and write a personal response (in 150 - 250 words in French). The question, presented in both French and English, is:
“Describe the pictures you have chosen and explain what they mean to you. Explain the language used in the images and from your cultural perspective, what your personal reaction to these images is, and why you react the way that you do.”

Many of these interactions are focused on a range of contemporary texts in French and other information such as statistical data to stimulate discussion and reflection. Further resources, generated by the students themselves, become available for discussion. The texts that follow are journal entries and responses prepared by a Year 11 student from Africa.

Here the student begins to see the value of comparative perspectives, drawing on the diverse experiences of the student group.

Préjugés

Although the student did not provide a response to the fifth question, it shows that the teacher provided an opportunity for students to connect and reflect on the learning generated through group discussion.

The text that follows the response of one of the African students to the culminating task in the unit of work.

Reflecting on the unit, in a debriefing session, the teacher explains:

For me personally, the responses that I got from the variety of student who I have in the class, you know, from the African boy saying to … to this Nigerian girl in France: ‘You must obey your father. You must follow your traditions, that’s just the way it is.’ You know, without them also saying: well, perhaps that’s the sort of way I was brought up… Couldn’t get it out of them. So I really found overall, that the next bit, was the hardest for students to get to. Even though the students were very articulate… but no-one ever says: You know, I think this way because culturally that is how I was brought up.”

This text reflects the teacher’s desire to get his students to make the connection between their own enculturation and their expression of their own ideas and values and the challenge that this presents for him. It is through further experimentation that teachers will find ways of developing this deeper reflection on language use and language learning that an intercultural perspective requires.

References

Halliday, M.A.K. (1993). Towards a language-based theory of learning.Linguistics and Education.4, 93-116.

Gadamer, H-G.(1976) Philosophical hermeneutics. D. E. Linge (editor and translator). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kramsch, C. (2003). (Ed) Language acquisition and language socialization: Ecological perspectives. New York. Continuum.

Ortega, L. (2009). Understanding second language acquisition. London. Hodder Education.

Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy. Hidden agendas and new approaches. London & New York.Routledge.

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