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Nazma's story highlights the challenges facing early years practitioners striving to support young children who are new to English, children who bring a wealth of linguistic and cultural experiences into the setting. Her experiences raise important questions. It is only by responding to these challenges and seeking answers to these questions that we can provide the learning experiences Nazma deserves.
The following example of a young bilingual child as she enters child care arises from observations in the early years setting and interviews with childcare staff and her mother.
Nazma is nearly four years old and has attended child care for seven weeks. This example represents her visible learning in the context of an English 'nursery' class. But what can we understand about her invisible learning? How can we capture her silent voice as she begins the task of learning in school and at home? And how can we represent her many languages?
Nazma in the nursery
Nazma enters the nursery holding her sister Yasmin's hand. Yasmin (aged four and a half) moves over to the large carpet where the children sit with the nursery teacher at the beginning of every session. Nazma follows her, chewing her dress, staying close and watching everything. She stopped crying during the fifth week at nursery and she now comes every afternoon. The children listen to the teacher talking about caterpillars and many join in the discussion in English. Nazma is silent. Mussarat, the Bilingual Classroom Assistant, enters the nursery and gathers a small group of Pahari-speaking children together to share a book. This activity has been planned with the nursery teacher and is linked to the current topic. The children switch to Pahari (their mother tongue) for this activity. Nazma listens and points to a picture of a dog (kutha) and cat (billee) in an Urdu alphabet picture book, but does not speak. When they go outside to play Nazma watches the other children and holds Mussarat's hand. She has learned the climbing frame routine and repeats the climbing and sliding activity several times. The children go inside and choose from a range of play activities. Nazma stays at an activity for one minute and moves on. This is repeated several times. Then she wanders around the room sucking her fingers. At story time the children sit and listen to the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Nazma sits close to her sister and watches. Their mother appears at the door and they go home.
When interviewed, Nazma's teacher commented on her self-sufficient and stubborn personality:
'She is refusing to speak, knowing it is required of her... I expected her to verbalise more; language is taking a long time to come out.'
Nazma at home
At home, a different side of Nazma's personality emerged. Her mother said that she enjoyed dressing-up and role play activities with siblings, particularly Yasmin. She enjoyed sorting clothes and helping prepare and cook food. Nazma used her mother tongue, Pahari, with all members of her family. She understood the English used by school-age children, but did not use it to the same level. Nazma watched, helped and talked with her mother when preparing and cooking food. Both her grandmother and mother told her their stories from childhood, drawing on an oral tradition. Nazma heard her older siblings talking in English and saw the school reading books that they brought home. She watched them preparing for Qur'anic classes, reciting verses in Arabic after school and saw the Arabic primers and Holy Qur'an read by all the older members of the family. Nazma's mother had high aspirations for her daughter and wanted her to perform well in the education system. She had little understanding of how children learn by play at nursery and wholly believed that school would give Nazma all the educational skills she required. Her mother stated: 'I don't know about school, but the teachers know how to help my daughter.'
The difficulties Nazma experienced at nursery were explained away in terms of cultural and language barriers. However, had the nursery staff recognised the value of drawing on Nazma's prior knowledge – her 'invisible learning' – there would have been some aspects of her home experience that matched well with aspects of the nursery learning, for example, her participation in role play and dressing-up activities.
What can we learn from Nazma's story
What can we learn from these different perspectives on Nazma's learning? By reflecting on these questions, you may begin to respond to the challenges we face as practitioners working with young bilingual or multilingual learners.
How can we develop home–school understandings?
- By drawing on home experiences and interests through home visits and parents' involvement in the setting
- By making the rules and routines of the setting explicit
How can we support mother tongue development?
By encouraging the use of mother tongue with bilingual staff and children
By building on cognitive development in the home and extending the use of mother tongue
How can we support social interaction and language learning?
- By providing contexts which encourage children to participate according to their stage of English language development
- By encouraging all the children in the setting to interact and assist in developing social and language skills
How can we as practitioners provide opportunities for language learning?
- By using sensitive questioning, repetition and modelling language
- By providing opportunities for joining in choral responses and ensuring that children are made to feel part of the group even when the linguistic context is beyond full understanding
Rose Drury
Senior Lecturer in Early Years
Faculty of Education and Language Studies
The Open University
You can read more about Rose Drury's work in her book, Young Bilingual Learners at Home and School.
Young Bilingual learners at Home and School
Rose Drury
Staffordshire, UK: Trentham Books (2007)
RRP $15.99
Every Child magazine – vol. 15 no. 3, 2009, p. 16
Don't forget, Every Child is tax deductible for early childhood professionals
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