Transcript Language and the economy: Challenges and opportunities for

Language and the economy:
Challenges and opportunities
for complementary schools
Vally Lytra
King’s College London
[email protected]
Antecedents
“The predominance of English and its importance for both our nation and
as an international lingua franca are not in doubt. But alongside English
other languages are becoming increasingly important to the UK as
globalisation, international communications and labour force mobility
transform economic and cultural life. Building on existing language skills
and expertise is of direct benefit to individuals, fosters greater social
cohesion, improves skills available to employers, contributes to our
national prosperity and makes us better prepared to contribute positively on
the global stage. As a nation seeking to play a key role in global trade and
diplomacy we need to be able to draw on a diverse range of languages to
further our strategic and economic aims: and these are already represented
among the languages spoken by our schoolchildren.”
[“Positively Plurilingual. The contribution of community languages to UK education
and society”, 2006:1]
Aims of presentation
Drawing on interviews, field notes and documentary data, the aims are:
•
To explore key aspects of the emergent institutional discourse around heritage
language learning as instrumentally beneficial articulated by key actors (school
administrators, parents, children) in two London Turkish complementary schools;
•
To inquire to what extent this emergent institutional discourse regarding the
instrumental value of Turkish linked to academic success in the mainstream, the
attainment of educational qualifications and access to HE and the professions is
being mobilised by key actors of the Turkish-speaking communities to address
widespread perceptions of academic failure in a significant segment of Turkishspeaking youth.
•
To discuss some of the challenges and opportunities this emergent institutional
discourse raises for complementary schooling in general and Turkish schools in
particular.
(1) Linking children’s language learning
with the instrumental value of Turkish
Vally:
Eşref Bey:
Vally:
Eşref Bey:
How important is it that children learn Turkish?
<…> London is quite a cosmopolitan city and I believe if
they learn Turkish they get their certificates, A level or
GCSE or whatever that is, they can they’ve got the chance to
get a job easily
Mmm
in some way because there is quite a big [Turkish speaking
community] in London. When they apply for any job it helps
them to speak a second language.
[interview with education coordinator and former teacher of
‘East London’ Turkish school]
(2) Linking children’s language learning with HE and
professional achievement
Vally:
Asim Bey
What do you think is your biggest reward as you’ve been involved
with this school for some years now?
I believe our school succeeded its target, its aims because we have
lots of students in University and some who have graduated already
and who like my daughter were in our school. They were here from
the first level up to A levels and the main aim I believe as Turkish
schools was to help these students get through to University level.
[interview with Asim Bey, head of “East London” Turkish school’s managing committee,
parent and current teacher at the school, teaching a GSCE level class]
(3) Linking children’s language learning
across educational contexts
Vally:
Ahmet Bey:
Vally:
Ahmet Bey:
What would you say are the aims of the school?
The aims of the school is supplementary education. Ensuring that the
children learn their mother tongue, Turkish language and culture. As you
know most of our students [in ‘West London’ Turkish school’] come from
mixed marriages. At home, most of them are exposed to English, at home
and at school, at mainstream school. So we provide a service really,
education for them to learn. Even if they already speak Turkish, they
improve it. It [attending Turkish classes] actually prepares them for later
education, you know to get their GCSE and A levels. It helps them in their
mainstream education to go to University.
So you feel that the school has a broader mission not exclusively related to
learning Turkish language and culture but a broader educational mission?
Oh definitely, I think our broader educational mission is to help them with
their mainstream education. Like this year, we haven’t started yet but from
September onwards if you do come we’ll have a number of things in place.
We’ll start a homework club we’ll help them you know in Maths, science
and English for the mainstream school. We’ll do some sports activities and
we’re going to start some drama and music lessons.
[interview with Ahmet Bey, head of “West London” Turkish school’s managing committee,
parent and Turkish language teacher]
The children’s voices
Dilek:
Baran:
Dilek:
Baran:
Dilek:
Baran:
Dilek:
Baran:
Why are you learning Turkish?
‘coz my mum and dad are Turkish and maybe in the future in my life it’ll
be good to have Turkish for a job.
Oh I see, what kind of job do you think you might do?
I wanna be a pilot
pilot, ok, a Turkish pilot for Turkish Airlines?
yeah
I see
that’s why I need Turkish
[interview with Baran, 10, “East London” Turkish school]
Dilek:
Would you like to carry out your studies in Turkish?
Ayten:
I don’t mind ‘coz no çünkü İngiltere de yaşarım. Daha çok
İngilizce böyle bilirım ve böyle ama isterim GCSE ve A
level yapayım <Because I live in England, I’m better at
English but I would like to do GCSE and A level>.
[Ayten, 10,“East London” Turkish school]
Mobilizing the emergent institutional discourse
regarding the instrumental value of Turkish
to address academic failure among Turkish-speaking youth
“a) tallies for a minimum of 5 GCSE passes at Grades A-C;
b) numbers in full-time education beyond 16;
c) entry rates to Higher Education and the professions”
[“Turkish Cypriot Children in London Schools”, 1999: 47]
Eşref Bey, the educational coordinator, emphasizes the need for the children to know what he
calls their “mother tongue” referring to Turkish. He points at us [the researchers sitting in the
audience] and references our work when he tells the audience that bilingual children can be
more successful in their studies [than monolingual children] provided they are equally
proficient in both languages. He then recounts his experience as a mainstream school teacher
where he observed that almost no Turkish children took part in extracurricular activities
organised by the school. He tells his audience that he investigated the reason behind this and
found that either the children could not cope with the level of English required or their parents
did not encourage them to take part. One mother takes the floor agreeing with Eşref Bey and
adding that Turkish parents only care about earning money and do not care about their
children. She further elaborates saying that when a child asks his mum to take him to
extracurricular activities his mum usually declines saying “I am working. I can’t take you”.
Eşref Bey expresses his disappointment and says: “There are about 30,000 Turkish children in
mainstream school. Why don’t we care about them? Why can’t we produce artists, musicians,
swimmers and sportsmen? Are we all going to be make and sell kebabs? Don’t get me wrong
I’m not putting down this profession but we need to encourage our children to take part in
sports, music and art activities”. Ertanç Bey, a member of the school’s managing committee
and the Turkish Language, Culture and Education Consortium takes the floor and says:
“There are very successful Turkish and Turkish-Cypriot men and women in the UK but sadly
they are not in touch with their community. We, as [the Turkish Language, Culture and
Education] Consortium will bring them here to this school and introduce them to you”.
[field notes 27/05/06, “East London” Turkish School]
Challenges and opportunities
for complementary schools




Limited resources;
On-going training of teachers;
Designing the necessary curriculum and teaching materials;
For Turkish complementary schools in particular, managing linguistic and
cultural diversity and combating discourses of “semilingualism” associated
with children’s use of regional and diasporic varieties of Turkish.
 Establishing closer links and partnerships with mainstream schools on an
equal footing;
 Disseminating some of the good learning and teaching classroom practices
and the valorisation of the children’s full linguistic and cultural repertoires.
Selected references
•
•
•
•
•
•
Creese, A., Baraç, T., Bhatt, A., Blackledge,. A., Hamid, S., Lytra, V., Martin, P., Li Wei, Wu, C.-J. and D.
Yağcıoğlu-Ali. Investigating Multilingualism in Complementary schools in Four Communities. University
of Birmingham, 2008.
Conteh, J., Martin, P. & L. Halvaara Robertson (eds.) Multilingual Learning Stories from Schools and
Communities in Britain. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham, 2007.
Francis, B., Archer, L. & A. Mau. Chinese complementary school pupils’ social and educational
subjectivities. In: Lytra, V. & P. Martin (eds), Sites of Multilingualism. Complementary Schools in Britain
Today. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham, forthcoming 2010.
Lytra, V. & T. Baraç with Creese, A., Bhatt, A., Blackledge,. A., Hamid, S., Martin, P., Li Wei, Wu, C.-J.
and D. Yağcıoğlu-Ali. Language practices, language ideologies and identity construction in London
Turkish Complementary schools. In: Multilingualism and Identities across Contexts: Cross-disciplinary
Perspectives on Turkish speaking Youth in Europe. In: Lytra, V. & J.N. JØrgensen. Copenhagen Studies in
Bilingualism, University of Copenhagen. Vol 45, 2008: 15-43.
Positively Plurilingual. The contribution of Community Languages to UK education and society. CILT,
2006.
Turkish Cypriot Children in London Schools. A report for the Turkish Cypriot Forum by the International
Centre for Intercultural Studies and the Culture, Communication and Societies Group, Institute of
Education, University of London, 1999.