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Оглавление2The Position of First Language and Foreign Language Learning in Schools
As stated in Chapter 1, one of the key aims of this book is to provide insights into the phenomenon of cross-linguistic transfer of strategies and, in particular, to encourage more joined-up, cross-curricular thinking in schools by highlighting the potential contribution of FL teaching to the development of writing skills more generally. As such, it is important to begin by considering the ways in which L1 and FL learning are positioned in schools. As noted by Leonet et al. (2020: 42), ‘it is common to find school policies that follow a strict separation of languages’ at both the curricular and organisational levels. Such policies may, in turn, influence not only the potential for collaboration among language teachers, but also the extent to which students are able to make connections and transfer strategies between languages. This chapter, therefore, aims to set the backdrop by exploring the relative position of L1 and FLs from a range of perspectives: from decisions made at a national level concerning the position of languages in the curriculum, to the individual perspectives of teachers and students. While the primary focus of this book as a whole is on the UK context (and more specifically, England), comparisons will also be drawn in this chapter to the situation in a selection of other predominantly Anglophone nations such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. While this seeks, on the one hand, to broaden the relevance of the topics discussed, a key objective is also to shine a light on some of the fundamental issues facing language learning in Anglophone countries given the international status and ubiquity of English (Duff, 2017). To this end, this chapter explores the relative positioning of languages (both English and FLs) within the curriculum across a range of countries before considering in more depth how teachers and students conceptualise and approach language (and more specifically, writing) in both the L1 and FL classroom contexts.
An important first step is more closely to examine the decline in provision for and uptake of FL learning in schools. On the surface, such downward trends in recent years may seem to be indicative of a decline in interest on the part of the students. However, this may also be reflective of broader priorities at a national level (e.g. complacency due to the status of English as a global lingua franca) which will inevitably influence the relative position of subjects within school curricula. Those subjects that form a compulsory part of the curriculum are typically viewed as ‘higher status’ subjects and may consequently receive more resources (i.e. teaching hours). Such status, in turn, may influence students’ later decisions about what subjects to continue to study when they have more choice. This section, therefore, explores the status of language(s) in the curriculum across a range of Anglophone countries, namely the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The focus here is very deliberately on language(s) more broadly; given that much discussion and debate in this area tends to focus on either L1 or FL education, the driving force of this book is to encourage and facilitate connection making between these various language contexts. To this end, the following will focus particularly on the presence (or absence) of any cross-curricular links made between these subjects at the level of the curriculum.
It should also be noted that this book is primarily set within a context where the majority of learners (a) have English as their L1 and (b) attend a school where English is the medium of instruction and where FLs are offered as subjects within the curriculum. This is indeed the case for many students in Anglophone countries. In England, for example, over 80% of secondary school students are currently recorded as being L1 speakers of English (DfE, 2019). Similar patterns are reflected at a national level in the United States (Kids Count Data Center, 2018), Canada (Statistics Canada, 2016), Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016) and New Zealand (Edwards, 2012; McGee et al., 2015). Yet, it is also important to acknowledge and value the increasing linguistic diversity in schools around the world and the significant number of students in the above countries who have languages other than English as their L1 (Evans et al., 2020). Such multilingual students are considered in particular in Chapters 8 and 9 of this book and the key findings are no less relevant to them. Indeed, perhaps this makes it even more crucial for all teachers to reflect more explicitly on the linguistic skills and strategies that students bring with them to class.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom is an interesting and diverse national context where responsibility for education is devolved to the various constituent countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. While largely considered to be a ‘monolingual’ English speaking country, the presence of other indigenous languages influences language curricula in schools in various parts of the country. Scotland and Wales have adopted policies that are more in line with European recommendations that school students should have the opportunity to learn at least two other languages in addition to their L1 (Council of the European Union, 2002). The Scottish government, for example, promotes the ‘1+2’ (L1 plus two additional languages) model of language teaching and learning in schools (Scottish Government Languages Working Group, 2012), and has committed to encouraging the learning of indigenous Scottish languages and dialects alongside other FLs beginning from the first year of primary school. The Welsh government has similarly set out a series of strategic objectives to improve and promote language learning by adopting a ‘bilingual plus one’ model, where students learn English, Welsh and an additional FL from primary school (Welsh Government, 2015). In Northern Ireland there are a small number of Irish-medium schools (predominantly primary schools), and some schools also offer an Irish-as-a-second-language option (Department of Education, 2008).
On the other hand, however, such multilingual European models have not been as widely adopted in England where provision varies greatly from school to school. This may be due, in part, to the lack of an additional widespread indigenous language, such as Scottish Gaelic or Welsh, and to the predominance of English as a global language. Yet, even the study of a single FL is facing challenges. In secondary schools in England there is increasing concern about the declining number of students who choose to study a language beyond the compulsory phase, currently fewer than 50% (Tinsley & Doležal, 2019). Even where the study of languages is a curricular entitlement (between the ages of seven and 14), there is a growing trend in the number of schools that exclude or excuse students from FL lessons in favour of receiving extra literacy support in English or because they are not considered to be ‘successful’ language learners. This practice of disapplication from FL learning in the first few years of secondary school restricts the learners’ access to language study at a higher level.
English, conversely, has consistently enjoyed a higher status in schools as a ‘core’ or ‘foundation’ subject. A report by the schools’ inspectorate in England (OFSTED, 2012: 4) begins with the statement that: ‘there can be no more important subject than English in the school curriculum. English is a pre-eminent world language, it is at the heart of our culture and it is the language medium in which most of our students think and communicate.’ However, as suggested by Burley and Pomphrey (2003), the high status of the English language in the school as a whole may paradoxically interfere with the way in which it is presented as a subject:
Traditionally in the school curriculum in the UK, the English language maintains an unquestioned status as the medium of everyday communication and of the majority of teaching and learning activity in the school curriculum. This has made it difficult to study English as a language in a sufficiently objective way, particularly for those for whom it is a first language and a teaching subject. (Burley & Pomphrey, 2003: 247–248)
While the previous National Curriculum Programme of Study for students aged 11–14 made some effort to encourage FL teachers to make links to students’ literacy learning in English (QCA, 2007), this is conspicuous by its absence from the current curriculum in England which came into effect in September 2014 (DfE, 2014). It is also interesting to note that there are no similar guidelines encouraging English teachers to explore connections to students’ FL learning. The potential for such links has also been highlighted by the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED, 2013: 4) in their report on improving standards in literacy; this report recommends that the curriculum should offer the opportunity for students to ‘develop writing skills through work that makes cross-curricular links with other subjects’ and calls for long-term planning and more collaboration between teachers in different subject areas. It would seem that FL teachers, who are able to focus more explicitly on the development of language learning strategies, are in a unique position to contribute to the overall improvement in writing standards.
United States of America
In the United States, language instruction typically begins in middle school or high school, although provision for and uptake of FL learning in schools varies considerably across states. The share of elementary and secondary school students enrolled in language classes for the nation as a whole is 19.66%; however, this ranges from only 8.5% in New Mexico which does not have an FL requirement for graduation, to 51.2% in New Jersey which does (American Councils for International Education, 2017). There has also been a significant decline in FL instruction over the past decade (Commission on Language Learning, 2017; Pufahl & Rhodes, 2011), with fewer public schools offering classes in world languages.
The English language, however, is a key part of the curriculum and is considered to be ‘a resource to be cherished and should continue to be an educational priority’ (Commission on Language Learning, 2017: 1). A series of core academic standards have been established for the teaching of English language arts in schools (Schutz, 2011) which highlight the key role of language in developing critical thinking, problem-solving and analytical skills. They also provide ‘a vision of what it means to be a literate person who is prepared for success in the 21st century’ (Schutz, 2011: 3). Interestingly, the standards emphasise that there is a ‘shared responsibility for students’ literacy development’ (Schutz, 2011: 4) across multiple disciplines, and links are made to literacy in history/social sciences, science and technical subjects, yet there is no mention of the potential contribution of FL learning to the development of literacy or language skills more generally.
It is important to note, however, that the above comments apply to schools where English is the sole medium of instruction and other languages are offered as (optional) curriculum subjects. Yet, it is important to acknowledge the increasing number of bilingual (or dual language) education programmes in schools across the United States (Kim et al., 2015). While such programmes undoubtedly vary by structure and student populations, the two main models are: (a) one-way dual language programmes, where students predominantly come from one language group and receive instruction in both English and the partner language (which may be their native language); and (b) two-way dual language programmes, where there are roughly equal numbers of students from two language groups (i.e. English speakers and partner language speakers) who are integrated to receive instruction in both languages (Boyle et al., 2015). The most commonly reported partner language in such dual education programmes is Spanish, which represented over 90% of the dual language programmes reported by schools in a survey completed by McGraw-Hill Education (2017).
There is also a growing body of evidence from dual language programmes which shows that learning a second language not only helps students to develop problem-solving skills, but also helps them to tackle the ‘nuances and complexities’ of their first language (Commission on Language Learning, 2017: 15). Such benefits are similarly acknowledged by Steele et al. (2017) who found that students randomly assigned to dual language programmes outperformed their peers in English reading by around 7 months in Grade 5 and 9 months in Grade 8. This provides further evidence in support of the strong link between literacy-related skills across languages. Yet, while the number of dual language education programmes in the United States has been growing in recent years, they still serve only a small proportion of the population. While exact figures are not available due to the range of terminology used and the wide variation in policies and implementation across states, estimates suggest that as few as 3% of elementary school students are currently enrolled in bilingual programmes (Goldenberg & Wagner, 2015). The predominant model in the United States therefore remains similar to the UK context, where English is typically used as the medium of instruction, with foreign languages offered as discrete subjects within the curriculum.
Canada
In Canada, education is the responsibility of the provinces and territories and, as such, there is no overarching curriculum at a national level. As a bilingual country, English and/or French are taught as L1s depending on the region and the particular school and, similar to the United States, there is also a range of schooling models in operation such as French immersion and bilingual education programmes (Dressler, 2018; Gorter & Cenoz, 2017). Taking the predominantly English-speaking province of British Columbia as an example, there is a requirement that all students must take an additional language as part of the curriculum in Grades 5–8 (Ministry of Education, 2004). For the majority of students in schools where English is the medium of instruction this language is French, although curricula are also available for American Sign Language, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Punjabi and Spanish.
It is encouraging to see that the FL curricula in British Columbia make explicit links to students’ English language skills:
As students gain proficiency in [the foreign language], they develop many competences essential to their continued success in life, including critical thinking, creative thinking, and communication skills. For example, learning an additional language is known to enhance students’ learning and literacy in their first language, as well as contributing to their overall cognitive development. As they learn to communicate clearly and effectively in [the foreign language], students gain transferable skills and processes that contribute to their proficiency as communicators in English. (Ministry of Education, 2004)
Yet, interestingly, no such links are made to other languages within the English language arts curriculum. While it does refer to ‘transferability of learning’ as a goal, which includes helping students to ‘develop language and thinking strategies that can be applied to new contexts’, it does not specify which contexts.
Australia
Education in Australia is regulated by individual states and territories, but they are guided by an overarching national curriculum (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2018). This identifies eight learning areas which include English and Languages. Within the latter, there are language-specific curricula for a range of world languages (e.g. French, German, Hindi) and there is also a separate framework for Aboriginal languages and Torres Strait Islander languages. Most states have some form of compulsory FL education at specific year levels up to Year 8 (age 13–14); however, in recent years language education in Australia has been in serious decline (Bense, 2014) and there is a concern that ‘provision of languages in schools in Australia and uptake by students remain fragile at all phases of schooling’ (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2011, as cited in Bense, 2014: 487). This echoes similar concerns in other predominantly Anglophone countries.
As with the Canadian curriculum for FLs, references are also made in the Australian curriculum to the potential links between English and other languages (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2018). Students are expected to engage in a ‘reciprocal and dynamic process’ whereby they ‘move between the new language being learnt and their own existing language(s)’ and reflect on the ‘comparative dimensions’ between these languages. It is also highly encouraging to see explicit recognition that ‘learning languages develops overall literacy. It is in this sense “value added”, strengthening literacy-related capabilities that are transferable across languages, both the language being learnt and all other languages that are part of the learner’s repertoire.’ Yet, as with similar contexts explored above, the onus here seems to lie solely on the FL teachers to make such connections. While the English curriculum acknowledges that ‘Australia is a linguistically and culturally diverse country’, there is no reference to the potential ways in which English teachers could draw on students’ multilingual capabilities within the language classroom (whether these are students’ home languages or FLs learned in school).
New Zealand
In New Zealand, English is an official language along with Te Reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language. Even though FLs constitute a learning area in the New Zealand curriculum, it is one of the few countries where language learning is not compulsory at any stage of schooling. While many schools offer international languages as an option, such as Mandarin, French, German and Japanese, New Zealand has similarly experienced a decline in the proportion of students choosing to study a language. Over the past decade there has been a 14% decrease in the number of secondary students learning languages as a subject in school and for Asian language learning the decline has been 29% (New Zealand Association of Language Teachers, 2016: 1).
The curriculum as a whole highlights the importance of literacy and numeracy as key skills (Ministry of Education, 2017). In order to obtain the National Certificate of Educational Achievement at the end of secondary school, students must accumulate sufficient credits in each of these two areas which can be attained from a range of subjects. However, even though literacy credits are described as reflecting a student’s writing, speaking and listening skills, credits in languages (with the exception of Te Reo Māori and Latin) do not count towards literacy credits. Given that the FL curriculum states that ‘learning a language provides students with the cognitive tools and strategies to learn further languages and to increase their understanding of their own language(s)’ (Ministry of Education, 2017: 24, my emphasis), it is surprising and concerning that such skills are not valued as contributing towards overall literacy development. Furthermore, while the English curricula explored above make no reference to possible links with FL learning, the English curriculum in New Zealand explicitly rejects such a link: ‘Success in English is fundamental to success across the curriculum. All learning areas (with the possible exception of languages) require students to receive, process, and present ideas or information using the English language as a medium’ (Ministry of Education, 2017: 18).
Curricular priorities
Even though there is a lot of diversity both within and between the various national contexts explored above, there are indeed also commonalities in relation to the positioning of language(s) within their respective curricula. They can all be considered as predominantly Anglophone countries (even if there are several languages that hold an official status) and, as such, the English language quite rightly holds a dominant place in the school curriculum. The position of FL learning, however, is less certain. Statutory entitlement (where it exists) is usually limited to just a few years of education during late primary or early secondary school, and uptake in language learning after (and in some cases, even during) the compulsory phase has been in steady decline in recent years. In such a climate of decreasing interest in studying FLs, there is therefore a growing need to promote the FL classroom as a key context for developing not only valuable communicative skills in the FL itself, but also important transferable skills related to language more generally. As stated by Kecskes and Papp (2000):
Foreign language is not just another school subject. FL learning requires and develops a complexity of skills that can have very beneficial effects on the general development of every student. FLs should be taught not just for themselves but for the general educational enhancement and development of students. (Kecskes & Papp, 2000: 122)
Yet, this is not reflected in the curriculum documents examined above. What emerged is that, in each of these countries, English and FLs are conceptualised differently and presented very separately at the level of the curriculum. Where references to potential links between the two do exist (although they are few and far between), these are situated exclusively within the FL curricula where students may be encouraged to make links to their knowledge of English or other languages. There are no references in the English language curricula to the potential links that could be made by L1 teachers to the skills and strategies developed by students in other languages, even though, as stated by Grenfell and Harris (2017: 216), ‘insights gained from the study of a foreign language can be used to reflect on the structure of the mother tongue and vice versa’. This could include (but is by no means limited to) encouraging students to reflect on the spelling and grammatical structure of languages, consideration of approaches to structuring texts in different languages, and drawing attention to the particular skills and strategies used and developed across languages. It seems, therefore, as though opportunities have been lost to acknowledge the potential contribution of FL learning to the understanding and use of language in general.
L1 and FL Teachers’ Conceptualisations of and Approaches to Language Teaching
While curriculum documents provide valuable insights into provision for and the relative status of school subjects at a national level, it is also crucial to consider how the teachers enacting these curricula conceptualise the subject(s) they teach. Of particular interest here is the way in which English and FL teachers perceive themselves as teachers of language. There is a growing evidence base that suggests that there is indeed, ‘little common understanding between L1 and L2 teachers’ (Grenfell & Harris, 2017: 187) which leads to distinct approaches and priorities when it comes to the teaching of language. In terms of priorities, Grenfell and Harris (2017: 189) suggest that while the main aim for FL teachers is to develop students’ ability to communicate in the language (alongside developing their cultural awareness), English teachers, on the other hand, are not only concerned with language, ‘but also with sociolinguistics and language variation, literary analysis and linguistic effects in texts, media concepts and drama’. This gap inevitably widens as students progress through their schooling and as the focus of the English curriculum shifts beyond basic literacy. This is consequently reflected in a difference in approach to language pedagogy in the classroom, where L1 teachers, who can often assume a certain level of proficiency among learners, are more likely to take a subconscious, synthetic, top-down approach, whereas FL teachers tend to take a more conscious, analytical, bottom-up approach (Kecskes & Papp, 2000).
Such issues were brought to the fore in the UK context in the mid-1990s with a study conducted by Mitchell et al. (1994) into English and Modern Language teachers’ beliefs and practices with regard to knowledge about language (KAL). The researchers noted substantial levels of KAL-related activity among both L1 and FL teachers and found some evidence of its positive contribution to learning, particularly in relation to writing development. However, they also noted that such activity was often fragmented and episodic. They found that L1 and FL teachers seemed to be conveying divergent and ‘largely unrelated messages’ (Mitchell et al., 1994: 14) about language to their students and called for more consistent policies and shared perspectives between teachers in the two departments.
This work was further developed in England by Cathy Pomphrey and colleagues, who conducted a series of studies exploring language awareness among trainee teachers of English and Modern Languages and subsequently implemented shared training sessions to promote cross-subject dialogue (Burley & Pomphrey, 2003, 2015; Pomphrey, 2004; Pomphrey & Burley, 2009; Pomphrey & Moger, 1999). What emerged, in line with the literature above, was that the subjects of English and FLs were perceived by the teachers as very separate areas with their own curriculum, subject culture and pedagogical practices:
There seems to be a continued tension between English and Modern Languages teachers in terms of perceptions of their aims, roles, classroom activity, relationship with pupils and a whole gamut of other aspects which lead to different priorities in their teaching of language and thus prevent cross-subject dialogue from taking place. (Pomphrey & Moger, 1999: 224)
In terms of differing approaches to language teaching, the authors found that whereas FL teachers placed emphasis on working at word and then sentence level in a more linear way, English teachers viewed text-level work as the starting point and therefore took a more top-down approach. Perhaps as a result of this, the English student teachers expressed more anxiety over explicit knowledge about language than their FL counterparts, which the authors identified as a specific factor that may inhibit conversation and collaboration between the two groups. The subsequent shared training sessions, however, succeeded in providing a space for dialogue and intercomprehension among the trainee teachers. They reported gaining valuable insights into the perspectives and practices of their counterparts and some participants even reported a shift in their own view of language. According to one L1 teacher, for example, ‘it is all too often the case that English in schools is no longer treated as a language that is still being learned even by native speakers’ (Burley & Pomphrey, 2003: 253). Evidence, on the whole, suggests that these sessions strengthened participants’ understanding of language more broadly and was particularly beneficial with respect to literacy. Yet, when followed up after their training year, the participants reported difficulty in establishing such cross-curricular links in their respective schools due, in part, to a lack of time and a lack of structures to support such collaboration.
Similar issues emerged within the X-LiST study. While the primary focus of the study was on the students, preliminary conversations were also arranged with two English teachers and two teachers of FLs (French and German) in order to gather some initial insights into their priorities and approaches in relation to teaching language and, in particular, writing. While notes were made during these conversations, they were not intended to constitute a formal part of the data collection process. Nonetheless, the information gathered proved useful in developing the subsequent intervention (as outlined in Chapter 5). In line with the previous studies cited above, there had been no previous collaboration between the L1 and FL teachers and they revealed a lack of awareness about the way in which writing was taught or viewed outside their particular subject area. However, collaboration and shared practice was evident between the two FL teachers. This is perhaps due to the similarity of the curricula and the fact that learners were at a relatively similar stage of learning in both French and German. Such collaboration was also facilitated structurally by the fact that the FL teachers shared the same department, teaching rooms and office space. When asked about how they approached writing tasks, the responses of the L1 and FL teachers varied considerably. In line with Grenfell and Harris (2017) and Burley and Pomphrey (2015), the FL teachers reported taking a more bottom-up approach to the teaching of writing and prioritised issues such as ‘which tense they’re going to be using’, ‘vocabulary’ and ‘the use of connectives’. The English teachers, on the other hand, prioritised more holistic issues relating to originality, style and appropriateness for the audience.
The above UK-based findings surrounding the different conceptualisations of language teaching among L1 and FL teachers are echoed in similar studies internationally. In the Norwegian context, for example, Haukås (2016) explored L3 teachers’ beliefs about language and multilingualism. Although this study did not incorporate a focus on L1 teachers, what is of particular interest is that the L3 teachers of French, German and Spanish perceived themselves as very different from L2 teachers of English. This was attributed to a range of factors that resonate with the points raised above; for example, they believed that students’ higher proficiency in and wider exposure to English led L2 teachers to take a more implicit approach to language instruction compared to L3 teachers. Evidence from Haukås’ study similarly indicated a lack of existing collaboration between L1, L2 and L3 language teachers. A lack of collaboration between L1 and L2 teachers has also been documented by Gunning et al. (2016) in the context of Francophone Canada. They found that opportunities were limited by the isolation of L1 and L2 teachers and their lack of knowledge of each other’s curriculum.
The aim of this section is by no means to insinuate that L1 and FL teachers should approach their teaching in the same way – obviously there are fundamental differences here in terms of students’ proficiency levels and general expectations. However, the aim is rather to suggest that, in spite of these differences, both groups of teachers are ultimately working towards some shared goals, i.e. to enable their students to be able to use language, both written and spoken, to express themselves effectively. They are both, after all, teachers of language, and perhaps if they can learn from each other’s’ expertise and align some of their practices in a more cross-curricular way, this may also help students to make connections and transfer skills between their different languages. As suggested by Pomphrey and Moger (1999: 224), ‘pupils’ perceptions about language are unlikely to be very coherent if the underlying attitudes and perceptions of their teachers of English and Modern Languages differ so widely and the teachers are not engaged in dialogue about the differences’.
Student Conceptualisations of and Approaches to L1 and FL Writing
Having briefly considered how languages are positioned within the curriculum and the way in which L1 and FL teachers conceptualise language teaching, we now turn crucially to how such contextual and social factors may be reflected in (or indeed, shape) students’ views. While there are a number of studies that explore students’ beliefs about and attitudes towards FL learning in schools, few consider these in relation to L1 lessons. To this end, the X-LiST study started by exploring students’ conceptualisations of writing through interviews and questionnaires (see Appendix A, and for more detail see Chapter 4). Given the difference between the core aims of English and FL curricula and those of the teachers, as noted above, it was important to begin by considering whether the students perceived the two language contexts as being similar or different. It was also hypothesised that such views may, in turn, influence their ability and willingness to make cross-curricular links and to transfer strategies from one context to another. This section will first draw on data from the initial interviews conducted with 12 Year 9 (aged 13–14) students to explore their perceptions of writing in the L1 and an FL. Secondly, consideration will be given to what they viewed as the most important features of writing in each subject. A brief overview will then be given of students’ general approaches to writing in each language at the beginning of the study.
The distinct nature of L1 and FL writing
What emerged from the interviews is that students, unsurprisingly, perceived the nature of language and, more specifically, writing to be very different in their L1 and an FL. The key explanations for this related to the relative ease of writing in the L1 (what is referred to here as the ‘native-speaker’ factor), the diversity of task types and expectations between the L1 and FL classrooms and, perhaps most interestingly, the way in which the language of writing influenced their (meta)cognitive engagement with the task.
The ‘native-speaker’ factor
The general impression given by the students interviewed was that, regardless of the language, the nature of writing in one’s native language(s), or most proficient language(s), is very different from writing in a more recently acquired FL. Such differing views seemed to be inherently linked to how they defined themselves as either an L1 or FL speaker/writer. Interestingly, one L1 English speaking student said he felt that writing in different languages would be the same: ‘if you can speak the language, if I could speak say, Chinese and English, they would both be the same, the writing tasks and the speaking tasks would be exactly the same … [but now] it’s not the same, it’s because we’re not as advanced as I am in English in French’ (Ben). The use of the ‘if’ clause here suggests that he did not yet view himself as being a legitimate ‘speaker’ (or indeed ‘writer’) of German or French and for him such tasks consequently remained distinct from English.
However, it is also worth noting that the advanced bilingual students who were interviewed similarly distinguished between writing in English (their L2, so to speak) and writing in German or French (as additional FLs), even though none of these constituted their L1. As Mei, an L1 Mandarin speaker, explained: ‘cause I’ve been here for a long time I’ve adapted to like, English … it’s just like, natural for me’. This was echoed by a Polish speaker in the same class who stated that writing in each of the subjects is ‘different, because obviously I’ve studied English for longer … it just kind of flows in your head now that I’ve done it for such a long time’. However, he added the caveat that ‘if I was meant to compare my Polish to English I’d say my Polish is a lot better, because I speak it at home’ (Kacper). It seems as though their acquired proficiency in English has allowed these bilingual students to adopt the perspective of an ‘L1 writer’. It therefore seems as if the ‘native-speaker’ factor (and by extension, level of proficiency) is key to determining students’ overall conceptualisation of the nature of writing tasks.
Task type and expectations
Students’ prevailing view of FL writing tasks was that they were much more rigid and confining than the English tasks. While English was considered to be ‘more creative, they expect like, they expect you to use your imagination more’ (Aleksandra), FL writing tasks were viewed as more restrictive. One boy commented that ‘there’s not much variety of tasks that we do in French and German, so it’s just, writing’ (Owen), a sentiment echoed by several of his peers who similarly suggested that ‘with German you have to do what you have to do, like in the subjects they set you’ (Zoe) and ‘you know what you have to do and you just have to put it into a sentence’ (Aleksandra). FL writing was also considered to be a means to an end rather than an expression of creativity, and while one of the higher achieving students recognised that this was ‘good for learning more vocab’ (Tom), on the whole, the view of FL writing tasks was that they were more restrictive and formulaic: ‘it’s like, you’re never asked to write a story in German are you? You’re always asked to write about yourself and what you’ve done and where you’ve been on holiday, past tense and stuff like that’ (Annie). The FL tasks were therefore perceived as being more about the correct construction of individual sentences, rather than composition of a narrative text. This is very much in line with the views expressed by teachers outlined in the previous section and echoed by Grenfell and Harris (2017) and Burley and Pomphrey (2015).
Students reported enjoying writing in English more than in the FLs which also seems to be linked to the task types and expectations. In English, they overwhelmingly expressed a preference for creative writing tasks over essays or ‘set tasks’. Reasons given for this included being able to ‘use your imagination’ (Ben) or enjoying ‘thinking of a story and just writing it out’ (Aleksandra) and also a preference for tasks based on personal experiences or opinions because there is less chance of ‘getting it wrong’ (Zoe). However, while the ability to express creative ideas freely in English seemed to lead to enjoyment of writing, conversely students’ limited language ability in the FLs seemed to act as a barrier to enjoyment. They expressed frustration that ‘you haven’t got the ability to do, to write up your experiences cause you don’t know how to say everything’ (Chris) and that ‘you can’t describe as much and it gets a bit boring because you’re repeating over and over again’ (Aleksandra). Yet, even though some students did not enjoy writing in an FL due to a lack of proficiency, others reported feeling a sense of achievement when they completed a writing task, which they did not express in relation to English where they perhaps took it for granted. This was particularly evident among higher achieving learners who seemed to enjoy the challenge: ‘I like, when you’re writing in French or German, when you’ve written it all and seen how much you can actually do and like, that you are actually OK with this language’ (Carissa).
‘Thinking’ in L1 and FL writing
Perhaps the most interesting theme that emerged from the interviews in relation to writing in L1 and an FL was students’ awareness of the need to think more when writing in an FL. Table 2.1 provides an overview of some of the students’ comments in relation to both language contexts.
Table 2.1 Comments about ‘thinking’ in the FL and L1 classroom
| Foreign languages | English |
| ‘In French you normally have to keep thinking what you need to write and how to spell it and things’ | ‘I can just write more naturally’ |
| ‘I think like, when you’re doing French and German you’re thinking more about the, like, the words’ | ‘You don’t have to think about it as much, cause like, you already know it’ |
| ‘In German I concentrate and I make sure that it makes sense’ | ‘In English I don’t really have to think about it cause I’ve been doing it for like, 10 years’ |
| ‘In German like, I don’t know the whole language so I have to like … think about it more than I do in English’ | ‘That’s your born language so you know all the words’ |
| ‘I use more adjectives […] than I do in English … because I’m thinking more about it’ | ‘I don’t need to think about it as long as I do with French or German’ |
There is an obvious link to be made here to the ‘native-speaker’ factor discussed above; however, it is important to recognise that even though these students perceived themselves as thinking less when writing in English, this was not necessarily the case. It may be that, due to their experience and level of proficiency in English, their thought processes had become proceduralised to the extent that they were no longer consciously aware that they were taking place. Therefore, this does not mean that they were not thinking in English, but rather that they were more conscious and metacognitively aware of their thought processes in the FL classroom. Yet, such comments provide some evidence to support the hypothesis that the FL classroom, where students are undoubtedly more aware of being engaged in thinking, is perhaps more conducive to the development of language-related metacognitive strategies than the L1 classroom (Forbes, 2018).
Students’ views on what is important when writing in L1 and FL
Another useful indicator of students’ conceptualisations of writing across different languages is what they consider to be the most important features. Forty-five Year 9 students were asked to complete a questionnaire which aimed to establish and track their view of writing in each subject (English, German and French). Using a Likert scale, students were asked to rate the importance of a range of criteria; some of these related to general features of writing, such as thinking of creative and interesting ideas, organising and structuring a text and overall accuracy, while others related to aspects of the writing process such as planning your work and revising/editing your work. General trends were then further explored within the individual interviews.
The first notable finding to emerge from the questionnaire data was that there were no significant differences between any of the importance ratings in German and French (following a series of Wilcoxon signed rank tests), which highlights the similarity in the ways in which students conceptualised writing in the two FLs. When comparing the FLs with English, however, the mean importance ratings for almost all of the criteria were higher in English, and this difference was significant in relation to five items: thinking of creative and interesting ideas, developing ideas, punctuation, fluency and overall accuracy. The fact that criteria such as thinking of creative ideas and developing ideas were rated as considerably more important in English can perhaps be explained by the differing task types as outlined above; given that tasks in English were seen to require more creativity and imagination, it seems logical that the expression of ideas would be considered more important than in German or French. It is perhaps more surprising that students considered overall accuracy to be more important in English, especially considering that they seemed to view writing in German and French as more about correct sentence construction. All in all, such views expressed on the questionnaires align with those expressed by some students in the interviews that English, as one of the ‘core’ subjects, is ‘an important subject’ (Chris), and by implication, more important than FLs.
In terms of the writing process, it is also worth noting that planning and revising/editing generally had the lowest ratings across each of the languages, although both were considered as slightly more important in English than in the two FLs. This also emerged in the interviews, where several students commented that, although they may engage in some planning in English, they did not feel it was as important in German or French because ‘when it’s like, the [foreign] languages I’m more focused on like, the words and stuff rather than like, the plot’ (Carissa), or because ‘you just find like, the words you wanna write and you write it down, you just go, you just do it as you go along really’ (Annie). While some students expressed that they did not feel that planning was important in English because, for example, they were able to ‘just write it down without having to plan it’ (Katarina), on the whole they were more likely to feel that planning in English could be beneficial because of the longer length of tasks. However, one student, Mei, added the caveat that the importance of planning in English depended on what the task was and that it would be more important for something like an essay or newspaper report than for a creative story.
In relation to revising/editing, on the whole, students in the interviews agreed that this was generally quite important. Such comments, however, predominantly referred to correcting superficial errors rather than making any substantial revisions or editing content. One girl, for example, commented that she felt it was important to check her German writing for ‘silly mistakes’ (Katarina), while one of her peers similarly stated: ‘I don’t think like, there’s any point in really just keep going through it and looking for like, really big mistakes. I just look like, for the little correction, like spelling mistakes I need to correct and stuff like that’ (Claire). The views expressed here by the students very much align with the claims made above by Grenfell and Harris (2017) and Kecskes and Papp (2000) that the approach to writing in the FL classroom tends to be bottom-up, while in the English classroom the approach tends to be more top-down.
Students’ approaches to writing in L1 and FL
While the data presented above provide an insight into students’ views on writing, more objective data were also collected to explore their actual writing process and the strategies they use. While this will be discussed fully in Chapter 6, it is worth briefly summarising the key points from the analysis which suggest that they did indeed approach writing differently in English and the FLs at the beginning of the study:
•Students were much more likely to engage in any form of planning in English than in German or French, to produce much longer plans and to use a wider range of planning strategies. While a common approach in English was for students to draft all or part of their work during the planning phase, in German and French very little written planning was produced and where there was some, this was generally limited to a small number of bullet points or vocabulary items.
•Students were much more likely to engage in problem-solving strategies, such as asking for help or referring to notes or a dictionary, when writing in German and French, which is not surprising given their much lower proficiency in the FLs.
•Students identified a wider range of evaluation strategies in English, even though they were aware that they were much more likely to make mistakes when writing in German or French.
The aim of this chapter was to consider the relative position of L1 and FLs from a range of perspectives: at the national level an overview was provided of curricula documents from a range of Anglophone countries, and at the level of the individual the perspectives of teachers and students were considered. Similar themes emerged at each of these levels which suggest considerable disparities between the ways in which English and FLs are positioned in the curriculum, taught by teachers and perceived by learners. Such segregation between these language-related subjects in schools may hinder students from making connections between these contexts which might, in turn, inhibit them from using the skills and strategies they develop in one to help in another. As such, one of the key objectives at the heart of this book is to encourage more joined-up ways of thinking about language across the curriculum by developing students’ awareness and use of language learning strategies.
