Keywords

1 Introduction

One of the crucial facts, often ignored in TESOL theory and methodology programs, is that students in our ESL/EFL classrooms already speak at least one other language. This gap in our teacher training programs implies that teachers, especially those who share their students’ local languages, do not always know if, when, or how to use students’ local languages in their teaching. This gap also leads to confusion and varying positions about the purpose and use of local languages in the classroom. For example, as part of a recent survey of over 230 participants from diverse social, linguistic, and geographical backgrounds in the Philippines (Mahboob and Cruz 2013), participants were asked the following question: Should local languages be used in English language classes? The responses to this question were quite distributed. While 38.4 % of the participants said ‘no,’ 37.9 % said ‘sometimes,’ and 23.7 % said ‘yes.’ The explanations given by the participants to support their positions also varied. For example:

  • No. How do we improve our English if we speak different languages in English class?

  • No. Bilingualism? No way!

  • Sometimes. Not for the entire session, but only to demonstrate the nuances of different languages when applicable.

  • Sometimes. Basically some sort of code switching is necessary for better comprehension. Being purist in form seem not very feasible.

  • Yes. To add flavor to the class – such as in studying regional literary works… or if it is necessary.

  • Yes. The use of local languages (L1) helps develop the conceptual understanding and basic learning skills of students; thus, learning another language (L2) will be easier. This assumption conforms to Jim Cummins’ Iceberg Hypothesis.

The conflicting and diverse positions taken by the participants in this survey do not only reflect the perspectives of the Filipino participants, but also of how teachers (and others) often see the place and purpose of local languages in English language teaching. What are some of the reasons for these diverse positions? What do these opinions tell us about the politics of the English language? What are some of the implications of these positions? And, how can we develop more informed language teaching practices? These are some of the questions that will be discussed in this chapter. In responding to these questions, we will explore the positions that are taken, the politics behind these perspectives, and the possibilities that are available to us if we look beyond this debate.

2 Why is the Use of Local Languages Not Integrated into Mainstream TESOL Theory and Practice?

One of the most consistent findings in the NNEST (non-native English speakers in TESOL) literature is that both students and teachers find the NNESTs’ (and other teachers) proficiency in the students’ vernacular as a positive and useful resource (see, for example, Braine 2010; Mahboob et al. 2004; Moussu and Llurda 2008; Selvi 2014). If these findings are indeed valid, then one might ask: why is it that ELT teacher education programs and teacher educators do not train the teachers in judicious and pedagogically appropriate uses of local languages in the classrooms? Why is it that the administrators do not sanction or approve of the use of local languages in classrooms (and sometimes the whole school)? And, why is it that teachers often feel ashamed and guilty of using local languages as part of their lessons?

One key reason that has led to a development of negative attitudes towards the use of local languages in English language classes is related to the history of English language teaching and teacher education. English language teaching evolved from practices in foreign language teaching. In early days, the dominant approach to language teaching was the grammar translation approach. This approach gave primary position to a (dominant) local language 1 and used it extensively in building knowledge of and about the target language. Many of the teachers of languages in these contexts were non-native speakers of the target language and shared a local language with the students. The grammar-translation approach was used to teach not only English but also a range of other foreign languages.

The teaching approaches that developed in the twentieth century can be seen as a succession of methods that reacted to the (perceived) shortcomings of preceding ones. For example, the Direct Approach, which Howatt and Smith (2014) consider to be one of the Reform Methods developed in the early twentieth century, reacted against the focus on grammar in grammar translation method and emphasized oral communication skills. The Direct Approach, like the other major approaches to language teaching in the twentieth century was developed in inner-circle English speaking countries. Teachers trained for teaching English (and the teacher trainers/researchers) in inner circle countries mostly spoke English as a mother tongue; furthermore, the ESL student population in these countries came from a number of different language backgrounds. Given these contextual factors, the role of local languages was not really considered as a factor in the development of pedagogical material or training of teachers. The emphasis on oral skills and the weakening of the role of other languages in English language classrooms can, in this case, be seen as a result of the shift of theory development to ‘inner-circle’ countries, where the majority of teachers were native speakers of English (as opposed to the colonies where the majority of English teachers were non-native speakers of the language and shared some of the local languages with their students). Howatt and Smith (2014) also point out this negative impact of the Direct Approach:

However, translation into the language being learnt was, in general, firmly rejected within the Reform Movement as well as by Berlitz. With hindsight, it is a pity that this distinction between L2 to L1 and L1 to L2 translation did not survive the adoption of ‘Direct Method’ as a blanket term and that the many techniques and procedures developed by non-native speaker school teachers (‘Reform Methods’) have remained under-acknowledged. The Direct Method – in all its forms – was set, however, to strongly influence the subsequent era. (p. 84).

As pointed out by Howatt and Smith (2014), the Reform Methods (including the Direct Method) have had a continuing effect on language teaching approaches and one of these influences can be noted in a continual denial of the role of local languages in ELT methodology.

Table 1 below provides a summary of some of the key teaching approaches developed in the twentieth century, the context in which these methods were developed, and their position vis-à-vis the use of vernaculars. The table shows that other than the grammar-translation method, the dominant approaches do not have a systematic approach to using local languages in English language classrooms. It also shows that most of these approaches were developed in the USA and/or the UK, which partly explains why they did not have a clearly defined role for using local languages.

Table 1 Major teaching approaches and the role given to local languages
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In addition to being the context of development of some of the major approaches to language teaching in the twentieth century, academics and researchers in inner-circle countries also published key textbooks for preparing English language teachers. These textbooks, which excluded and/or critiqued the use of local languages in English language teaching, were not only used in the inner-circle countries, but also in outer and expanding circle countries. Thus, methods and approaches that were designed for particular contexts were marketed as being ‘global’ and used to train teachers around the world. Teachers who chose not to adopt these methods were (and are) considered traditional and backwards, whereas teachers who adopt(ed) West-influenced teaching techniques are considered progressive and modern. As larger groups of international teacher trainees came to the West for being trained as teachers and teacher educators, they continued to be trained in the methodologies developed for (and by) native-English speaking teachers teaching in inner-circle contexts. As a consequence of this, these teachers and other educators from non-English speaking backgrounds were not trained or instructed in the use of local languages in teaching English. In many cases, they were explicitly instructed not to use the vernaculars as it was seen as a potential threat to the development of the target language.

Over time, these Western trained educators, who were valued in their home countries as being ‘foreign’ trained, went back to their home countries, and further spread the belief that the use of local languages needs to be discouraged in ESL and other English-based education. One result of this has been a negative attitude towards the use of local languages in schooling. While the negative positioning of local languages was initially more a result of the context in which these methodologies were developed and used, it spread and gave support to a general perception that using local languages in English language classrooms was not pedagogically sound or supported by research. These positions developed as a consequence of theory building that occurred in inner-circle countries rather than by a careful consideration of the value and role of local languages in outer and expanding circle countries where teachers might share students’ local languages.

The above factors combined with a number of hegemonic ideologies to make use of local languages a taboo in western-originated language methodologies. Below is an explication of some of these hegemonic ideologies.

3 Hegemonic Ideologies About Language, Language Use, and Language Learning and Teaching

Phillipson (1992) pointed out five central fallacies in English language teaching: monolingualism, native-speakerism, the maximum exposure theory, the early-start hypothesis, and the subtractive principle. All of these form part of the normative knowledge base in the field of second and foreign language education, which can be said to have originated from paradigms shaped by a combination of monoglossia, purism, and recently also global capitalism and commodificationism. Building on the literature on this topic, below we summarize three major strands of these ideologies.

3.1 Language as Stable, Standardized, Monolithic, Discrete Entities Rather Than as Fluid Resources for Situated Social Practice

Language has traditionally been taught as a system of rules that are abstracted from native speaker intuitions about language. In doing this, language is seen as a discrete entity and separated from other languages and meaning making systems and modalities. Recent literature (Canagarajah 2007) has critiqued the essentialist views of language as discrete systems that are pervasive in the language policy and TESOL methodology discourses. The official discourses of language in education policy makers in many postcolonial societies, however, still tend to project and assert the view of languages as stable, monolithic (uniform), reified (concrete) entities with clear-cut boundaries. The job of the language planner is seen as lying in the prescription and standardization of linguistic systems culminating in the production of authoritative dictionaries, grammars, and teaching manuals of the national and official languages to be spread among the population. These standard languages are put forward as educational targets, and the state’s acquisition planning aiming at designing the most effective approaches for achieving these targets usually results in the recommendation of monolingual immersion approaches: total use of the target language is supposed to be the best way to achieve target language proficiency.

However, such thinking and theorisation of language has been questioned in recent times. Recent work on language has questioned the limitation of studies based on their focus on a single semiotic (meaning-making) mode and ignoring how meanings are construed and represented multimodally (using more than one mode, e.g., by using images and text together, as in children’s story books) (see ; Canagarajah 2005; Bezemer and Kress 2014) in different contexts. In responding to this gap, Mahboob (2014) presents a 3-dimensional model that attempts to explain how language variation can be understood in terms of three interrelated factors: relationship between participants (users of language), register (purpose/use of language), and mode (channel of communication); along with a fourth dimension, time. Similarly, work on language as a complex adaptive dynamic system points out: “(1) The system consists of multiple agents (the speakers in the speech community) interacting with one another; (2) The system is adaptive, that is, speakers’ behavior is based on their past interactions, and current and past interactions together feed forward into future behaviour; (3) A speaker’s behavior is the consequence of competing factors ranging from perceptual mechanics to social motivations; and (4) The structures of language emerge from interrelated patterns of experience, social interaction, and cognitive processes” (Beckner et al. 2009, p. 2) (see also, Hensley 2010; Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008).

3.2 Language Learning as a Zero-Sum Game

Closely associated with the above ideology is the belief that allowing diverse linguistic resources in the classroom will reduce the students’ exposure to the target language. Such a belief is derived from a zero-sum view or the subtractive view of language learning: the limited cognitive processing capacity of the individual will be thinly spread over too many linguistic systems if more than one language is allowed into the classroom (see critique of this view by Cummins 2007). Language learning under this belief seems to be conceptualized within a ‘banking’ model that Freire (1972) has long problematized. Students are metaphorically seen as limited-capacity ‘containers’ and if they are exposed to diverse languages, it will be too overwhelming to them. While intuitively this might sound right, the pitfall of this assumption lies in ignoring the enormous human capacity for translanguaging (Canagarajah 2011, 2014; Creese and Blackledge 2010; Garcia and Li 2014) – drawing on diverse linguistic resources to achieve their purposes in situated communicative practices.

The works identified above are also closely aligned with research on transculturalism (see Motha et al. 2012) that also questions the traditional static models of and boundaries between languages. These works have also led to the questioning of the notion of ‘language proficiency’ in recent years; for example, Mahboob and Dutcher (2014) argue that models of language proficiency need to respond to criticisms of the static nature of language and engage with dynamic models. Presenting their Dynamic Approach to Language Proficiency (DALP), they posit that “being proficient in a language implies that we are sensitive to the setting of the communicative event, and have the ability to select, adapt, negotiate, and use a range of linguistic resources that are appropriate in the context” (p. 117). This evolving body of research questions traditional static approaches to understanding language and have implications for teaching and use of local languages in the classroom. If language is a semiotic tool, if language is multimodal, and if language proficiency is context dependent, then teaching language does not need to exclude local languages, but use them as part of the rich set of semiotic resources that can help students develop their understanding and use of language.

The real challenge, therefore, does not lie in the limited capacity assumed in the zero-sum game metaphor, but in how to engage students in social practices that present language learning not as acquisition of discrete entities (such as rules, vocabulary items) but as opportunities to mobilize various semiotic (meaning-making) resources to achieve situated purposes as well as identities deemed meaningful to the students.

3.3 Language as a Commodified and Standardized Set of Knowledge Items and Skills That Can be Bought/Sold in Transactions Between Teachers and Students

The banking model (Freire 1972) of language learning and teaching also fits well into the recent trends of global capitalization and commodification of language (Heller 2003). Language teaching is increasingly packaged and delivered as standardized products—in chain-shops/institutes or factories (e.g., the global corporatization of English language teaching) selling standardized, marketable language products (e.g., ‘BBC English,’ ‘Wall Street English’). And the monolingual ‘native-speaker’ is often marketed as the best ‘provider’ of the best ‘language products.’ This commodifying ideology of language teaching and learning has gradually penetrated into school practices, turning teachers into ‘service providers’ of prestigious standardized language products (e.g., ‘BBC English’). The invisible consequence of this is that language learning/teaching has become a transaction—teachers passing on a marketable set of standardized knowledge items and skills to students. Instead of seeing language learning/teaching as having both teachers and students engaged in fluid co-creation of diverse language resources appropriate for situated social practices meaningful to both parties, this static, commodifying view of language and language teaching has in a way ‘killed’ language and turned it into a static, standardized, marketable commodity to be passed onto students in the ‘transaction’ of language teaching. The associated ideology is that the ‘native-speaker’ is the most qualified ‘provider’ of the ‘purest’ kind of standard language skills and knowledge.

The above ideology is also connected to the research on second language acquisition. For example, the notion of ‘acquisition’ itself suggests that something is being acquired which is different from what one already has (as opposed to the notion of ‘development’, where one is developing language by adding new ways of creating and representing meanings). This sense of acquisition is most salient in foundational work in SLA (second language acquisition) studies. For example, Selinker’s (1972) notions of fossilization and interlanguage highlight a belief that the goal of a learner is to move away from their mother tongue features and adopt the features of an ‘ideal’ ‘native’ speaker of the target language. In this context, there was little role for the use of mother tongue in English language learning/teaching – local languages were seen as a source of interference that needed to be overcome.

In another major theory of SLA, Krashen (1985) posited that the one necessary and essential requirement for SLA is access to comprehensible input in the target language. Once again, there was no real place for or role of local languages in Krashen’s model. While many researchers today question the validity of Krashen’s work; there is still a belief that the use of local languages has negative consequences in an ESL class. Some of the beliefs and myths that result from this work in SLA include: (a) use of vernaculars lead to language transfer or negative interference; (b) additional languages are best learnt by being immersed in target language, i.e., immersion in the target language is essential; and (c) the goal of additional language learning is to sound like native speakers.

The above ideologies underlie many knowledge claims in additional language learning (ALL) literature: e.g., immersion models, monolingual principle, maximum exposure hypothesis (with the exception of some recent cognitive approaches trying to prove the positive effect of using some local language(s) in ALL; e.g., Macaro 2009). These knowledge claims have great influence in the developing world, which still often ‘imports’ and ‘worships’ overseas experts and knowledge (Lin 2012). The symbolic domination (Bourdieu 1991) or hegemony (Gramsci, trans. by Hoare 1971) of these knowledge claims are often imposed on local situated classroom participants (e.g., the monolingual principle). Teacher preparation institutes in the developing and/or ‘post’-colonial societies often embrace these teaching methodologies as the most ‘advanced’ language education principles to be promoted in their countries (e.g., in China, see He and Lin 2013).

Recent research has been trying to dispel these myths and to ground research in teaching and learning of additional languages within more inclusive and context dependent models of language. In our context today, with a growing number of non inner-circle academics and researchers doing (critical) research in ELT, the role of local languages in teaching English is being reconsidered. In the latter part of this paper, we will discuss some of this work and consider ways in which we can use local languages productively.

4 Benefits of Integrating Local Languages in English Language Classes

Research on use of local languages in English language classes have yielded findings that can be summarized by drawing on the functional view of language from Halliday (1994). Under this view, local languages can be seen as communicative resources readily drawn upon by classroom participants (usually the teacher but sometimes also students) to achieve the following three kinds of purposes:

  1. 1.

    Ideational functions: Providing basic-TL 2 (target language)-proficiency students with access to the TL-mediated curriculum by switching to the students’ local languages (LL) to translate or annotate (e.g., key TL terms), explain, elaborate or exemplify TL academic content (e.g., drawing on students’ familiar life/world experiences as examples to explain a science concept in the TL textbook/curriculum). This is very important in mediating the meaning of academic texts which are written in an unfamiliar language—the TL of the students.

  2. 2.

    Textual functions: Highlighting (signalling) topic shifts, marking out transitions between different activity types or different focuses (e.g., focusing on technical definitions of terms vs. exemplifications of the terms in students’ everyday life).

  3. 3.

    Interpersonal functions: Signalling and negotiating shifts in frames and footings, role-relationships and identities, change in social distance/closeness (e.g., negotiating for in-group solidarity), and appealing to shared cultural values or institutional norms.

Below we shall illustrate the strategic use of local languages with an example provided in Lin’s seminal study in 1999, in which it was found that by skilfully intertwining the use of LL (Cantonese) for a story focus with the use of TL (English) for a language focus, a Grade 7 (Secondary 1) bilingual teacher in a Hong Kong English language classroom successfully got her students interested in learning English and gaining confidence in reading English storybooks, and thus transforming the habitus of these working class students for whom English had been an alien language irrelevant to their daily life. Drawing on Heap’s (1985) notion of discourse format, which was in turn built on Sinclair and Coulthard’s (1975) seminal analysis of the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) exchange structure, Lin (1999) offered a fine-grained analysis of how LL-TL code-switching was built into two kinds of IRF discourse formats to enable the teacher (Teacher D) to engage students in both enjoying the story and in learning English through this process:

  • Analysis of a reading lesson (Lin 1999):

  • The lesson excerpt below is taken from the beginning of the reading lesson. The teacher announces that she is going to ask them questions about the part of the English storybook, Sinbad the Sailor, which they had read in a previous lesson.

  • Note: The bolded utterances in square brackets < > were spoken in Cantonese but shown here in English translation for the ease of reading. The numerals are readings on the cassette tape recorder.

  • 469T: <Okay, let me ask you about the story, and see if you can still remember it! Last time we told the story to page 40, that is the last- the lesson before the last lesson, and then in the last lesson we told the story from page 40 to 42! Now let me see if you can still remember the story … Sinbad was sailing in a boat, remember? Those jewelleries, then he had given away half of the jewelleries to.. and he had bought a boat, and he had bought.. recruited many sailors, after that, he also bought four boats, one sailing towards the East, one towards the South, one towards the West, and one towards the North. Sinbad himself took a boat, sailing back to where? … sailing back to where>? {A girl raises her hand; T turns to her and says} Yes,

  • 478 Girl 1 {stands up and speaks}: <Brazil>!

  • 478.5T: <Go back to Brazil>?! No:::,

  • 478.8 Some Ss {speaking in their seats}: <Baghdad>!

  • 479T: No, not<Brazil>! {many students raise their hands now and T points to a boy}

  • 479.5 Boy 1 {stands up and speaks}: <Baghdad>!

  • 479.8T: <Baghdad>, how to spell.. <Baghdad>? English <that is>, in English .. <Baghdad>. {Girl 1 raises her hand again; T turns to her and gestures her to speak} Yes,

  • 481.5 Girl 1 {stands up and speaks}: b-a-g-h…-d-a-d {T writes it on the blackboard as the girl spells it}

  • 483T: Yes!<How to read this word>?

  • 483.8 Some Ss {speaking up in their seats}: <Baghdad>!<Baghdad>!

  • 484T: No, Baghdad, Baghdad, Baghdad <that is. Okay, as they were thinking of going back home, alas! on the way back, they ran into a GROUP OF>…

  • 487 Ss {speaking up in their seats}: <monkeys! monkeys! monkeys!>

  • 488T: Monkeys! Yes! {T writes the word “monkey” on the blackboard} <That group of monkey-men, that group.. monkey-men that is, monkey-men that is, they took them to an island>, what is the na::me of this island? Can you spell the word? {Another girl raises her hand} Yes,

  • 492 Girl 2 {stands up and speaks}: Z-u-g…

  • 492.5T: Z-u-g…

  • 492.8 Girl 2 {standing up}: (d)

  • 493T: No, b, b for boy. {T writes the word “Zugb” on the board}<How to read it? A very ugly place.>

  • 494.3 Some Ss {speaking in their seats}: Zugb!

  • 494.5T: Z::ugb::

  • 495 Ss {repeating in their seats}: ZUGB!!

  • 495.5T: <Alas>! Zugb!! An ugly place for the ugly men. <An ugly place for those ugly men to live in. Those monkeys brought them there for what>?

  • 498 Boy {speaking in his seat}: < (Dump him there)>! {Another boy raises his hand}

  • 498.3T: Yes,

  • 498.5 Boy 2: < (Giant ? ?) >

  • 498.8T: <Right! How to say giant in English>?

  • 499 Another boy {speaking in his seat}: <Giant>!

  • 499.5T: <Giant in English is .. Leuhng-Mahn-Yih>!

  • 500L {stands up and speaks}: Giant.

  • 500.5T: Giant! Very good! Yes! {T writes the word “giant” on board}

In the excerpt above, the teacher dramatizes, with intonations and gestures, the part of the story about Sinbad sailing in a boat. The teacher then asks the students where Sinbad is sailing back to (last three lines in turn [469]). Notice how the teacher uses a bilingual IRF discourse format to systematically lead students from expressing meanings in their familiar language (L1) to expressing them in the unfamiliar target language (L2).

To summarize, the teacher has used two different IRF formats in the following cycle in the reading lesson:

  1. (1)

    Story-Focus-IRF (focusing on interpersonal involvement):

    • Teacher-Initiation [LL]

    • Student-Response [LL]

    • Teacher-Feedback [LL]

  2. (2)

    Language-Focus-IRF (focusing on ideational and textual development):

    • Teacher-Initiation [LL/TL] 3

    • Student-Response [LL/TL]

    • Teacher-Feedback [TL], or use (2) again until Student-Response is in TL

  3. (3)

    Start (2) again to focus on another linguistic aspect of the TL response elicited in (2); or return to (1) to focus on the story again.

This kind of discourse practice allows the teacher to interlock a story focus with a language focus in the reading lesson. There can be enjoyment of the story, via the use of the story-focus IRF (i.e., social involvement strategy—the interpersonal functions of LL use), intertwined with a language-learning focus, via the use of the language-focus IRF (i.e., thematic development strategy—the ideational and textual functions of LL in helping students to unpack and repack TL content and language learning). We have noted above that Teacher D never started an initiation in TL. She always started in LL. This stands in sharp contrast with the discourse practices of Teacher C (another teacher in the study) who always started with TL texts or questions in her initiations. It appears that by always starting in LL, Teacher D always started from where the student is—from what the student can fully understand and is familiar with. On the other hand, by using the language-focus IRF format immediately after the story-focus IRF format, she can also push the students to move from what they are familiar with (e.g., LL expressions) to what they need to become more familiar with (e.g., TL counterparts of the LL expressions) (see Lin 1999).

5 How and When Should Local Languages be Used in English Language Classes?

Following up on the pioneering conceptualization work started by Laupenmuhlen (2012) in planning the systematic and functional use of LL and TL in the learning process, which might stretch across a number of lessons in a unit of work, we draw on the notion of ‘curriculum genre’ to propose that since there are different stages and phases in a curriculum genre, LL and TL can be strategically planned to fulfil the pedagogical functions specific to the different stages and phases of a curriculum genre. If the classroom lessons are seen as constituting a curriculum genre, then there are stages and phases in the curriculum genre where there are recurrent, typical functions to be achieved in these different stages and phases, just as in other spoken genres that occur in everyday life (e.g., a debate, a political speech, a television interview). One such curriculum genre that Lin (2010) has been conceptualizing is the Multimodalities/Entextualization Cycle (inspired by Rothery 1994; cited in Rose and Martin 2012). Below we shall delineate this cycle and the potential role of LL in this curriculum genre.

6 The Multimodalities/Entextualization Cycle (MEC)

A cluster of useful scaffolding strategies in TL content learning involves shunting between different kinds of textual and multimodal mediation of academic content/experience. The core processes behind the use of these strategies can be summarized in the following three stages of the MEC:

  • Stage 1: Create a rich experiential context to arouse students’ interest, and immerse the students in the topic field (e.g., festivals in the students’ country) using multimodalities such as visuals, images, Youtube videos, diagrams, demonstrations, actions, inquiry/discovery activities, etc.—for instance, on the Makha Bucha Day in Thailand: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284509/Thousands-Thai-monks-light-candles-walk-statue-Buddha-celebrations-moon-religious-festival-begin.html; this site hosts pictures and videos that can provide a rich experiential context for stimulating students to think, talk, discuss, inquire, read, and write descriptive texts about this important Buddhist day in joint activities with the teacher later on. In this stage, the familiar local languages of students (e.g., LL everyday language, TL everyday language) can be used to help the students to grasp the main gist of the experience.

  • Stage 2: Engage students in reading a coherent piece of TL text on the topic introduced in Stage 1 (e.g., a short descriptive text to inform the reader about this important Buddhist festival), and then engage students in note-making or mind-mapping tasks that require some systematic ‘sorting out’ or re-/presentation of the TL textual meaning using different kinds/combinations of everyday LL/TL spoken/written genres and multimodalities (e.g., bilingual notes, graphic organizers, mind maps, visuals, diagrams, pictures, oral description, story-boards, comics); these activities help students to unpack the TL academic text using LL/TL everyday language and multimodalities.

  • Stage 3: Engage students in entextualizing (putting experience in text) the experience using TL spoken/written genres (e.g., poems, short stories, descriptive reports) with language scaffolds provided (e.g., key vocab, sentence frames, writing/speaking prompts, etc.)

These three stages form a curriculum genre which Lin (2010) calls the Multimodalities/Entextualization Cycle (MEC). The MEC (see Fig. 1 below) can be reiterated until the target language learning goals have been achieved. The key principle is to use LL and TL everyday languages and genres together with multimodalities to scaffold students’ learning of specialized second/foreign languages and genres through the systematic scaffolding of both LL and multimodalities. To enhance the scaffolding effect, information technology (IT) can be used. For instance, some of the discussion and note-making activities in Stage 1 and 2 of the MEC can first start in the classroom but then continue using digital platforms such as Facebook and weblogs (Deng and Tavares 2013; Deng and Yuen 2011). As students are apprenticed into the different stages of the MEC, IT mediated discussion and exchange platforms can assist students to become avid learners in reading and writing about specific topics. For instance, with teachers’ encouragement and guidance, students can create their own blogs on specific topics and carry out the MEC Stage 1 and 2 activities on their blogs using both LL and TL as well as multimodalities. Then with the participation of the teacher in these IT mediated platforms, activities in Stage 3 can be carried out with online support from the teacher.

Fig. 1
figure 1

The Multimodalities/Entextualization Cycle (MEC) (Adapted from Lin (2010) (Key: Ss students))

Full size image

When we adopt a balanced and open-minded stance towards the potential role of LL in English language classrooms, there is a lot of systematic planning and research that we can do to try out different kinds of combinations of different LL and TL everyday resources (together with multimodal and IT resources) that can scaffold the development of TL.

7 Concluding Remarks

This chapter argued that non-recognition of local languages in dominant TESOL theories and practices is a consequence of the context in which these theories and practices developed rather than an outcome of well-researched investigations of the use and role of LL in TL learning. As much of the dominant theory building over the last century was done by native speakers of English in inner-circle countries (for teaching of English in inner circle countries), this work did not need to consider a role for local languages. The chapter illustrated how non-recognition of LL in TESOL relates to, is supported by, and contributes to other hegemonic practices that further limit the role of LL. In discussing the dominant work, we also referred to a growing body of research that questions axioms in theories of TESOL and Applied Linguistics. This emerging work, which questions static, monolingual, and mono-modal models of language, opens up space for us to reconsider and theorise the role of LL in TL learning/teaching. The chapter, then, broadly outlined a teaching-learning model that builds on a dynamic, situated, multimodal and semiotic understanding of language, which shows the possible roles that LL can play in TL education. In doing so, this chapter contributes to and encourages further research that extends our understanding of language (and language learning/teaching) in ways that enable and empower researchers and teachers to make a difference in their communities and in their students’ lives.

Notes

  1. 1.

    In this paper, we use the term (dominant) local language (LL) instead of first language (L1). By (dominant) local language, we mean a language that is considered a language of literacy in local contexts; this might or might not be the same as a learners’ mother tongue.

  2. 2.

    In this paper, we use the term ‘target language’ (TL) instead of L2 to recognize that English language (or another target language) learners may already speak two or more languages.

  3. 3.

    “LL/TL” denotes “LL or TL”.