Acts of transliteration:bridging scripts for learning in London

schools

Charmian Kenner, Mahera Ruby, Eve Gregory, Salman Al-Azami

Department of Educational Studies, Goldsmiths, University of

London

Developing bilingual learning strategies in mainstream and

community contexts(ESRC-funded study 2006-07)

Charmian Kenner, Salman Al-Azami, Eve Gregory, Mahera

RubyDepartment of Educational

Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London

The research setting Two primary schools in Tower Hamlets,

East London Second/third generation British

Bangladeshi children, mostly more fluent in English than Sylheti/Bengali (Bangla)

Children also attend community classes in Bengali and/or Arabic

Bangla spoken widely in the community, Standard Bengali on TV, in newspapers

Bangla little-used in school (for transitional purposes only)

Research questions

In what ways do children draw on linguistic and conceptual knowledge from each of their languages to accomplish bilingual learning?

How are children’s identities as learners affected by using their home language as well as English in the classroom?

How can bilingual and monolingual educators help children to develop bilingual learning strategies?

Methodology: action research Observe children in community class Plan bilingual tasks in literacy and

numeracy for each group, relevant to mainstream curriculum, linking with community class learning

Involve community and mainstream teachers in planning

Children do task, watch video and comment (stimulated recall)

Discuss data with teachers at end-of-term seminar

Repeat process in second term

‘The Lion and the Mouse’

Participants Four children, 7 years old Their primary school teacher

(monolingual) The Bengali class teacher

(after-school class held in primary school)

Bridging communication with parents

Children compose questions in Bangla about the ‘Lion and Mouse’ story to ask parents

Children write questions in transliteration

Enabling children to read in Bangla

and act as translators Children could read and

understand ‘Lion and Mouse’ written by an older sibling

They discussed and produced their own translation which they then explained to their primary school teacher

Enabling children to act as writers in Bangla

children collectively produced their own version of ‘Lion and Mouse’ in Bangla

using pictures from a ‘Big Book’ they had read at school in English

the story was thus a bridge between Bengali class and English school

Representing Bangla sounds

‘in Bangla, writing in English but Bangla words’

Children’s different versionsThey said ‘No!’

Jameela thara khoson “Na!”Junel Tara coisoin “NA!”Miqdad tara khoisoin “NA”!Amal tara koyson “Na”!

Through second order representation children can: Engage with concepts

Demonstrate and increase metalinguistic knowledge

Enriched conceptualisation

The lion caught the mouse The lion was caught in a net

Children knew dorse suitable for first meaning but not second

Making sense

Tow oondure shinghor loge mattseThen mouse lion’s with

talkingThen the mouse started talking to the lion

‘with’ or ‘to’?Why ‘started’? ‘it makes more sense’Why change the order? ‘it won’t make sense’

metalinguistic understanding and conceptual re-interpretation

Awareness of language features bondos friends netor of net inside (in the net)

‘giraffa’ or ‘giraffe ar’ ?

explicit awareness of suffixes expressed through written representation

Intralingual as well as interlingual

‘I’ll do it in Sylheti how we speak’ Saying ‘hara’ (Sylheti)

but writing ‘thara’ (Standard Bengali)

Learner identities

How do you feel about transliteration?Ju: It’s exciting – it’s something that I learnedM: Cool. Different. We never done it before.Chn: It’s easy – we just think and we know

how to write itDoes it help you to write Bangla like this?Chn: Because then we know what it says. If

we write in Bangla we don’t know what it says but if we write like this…..

Sharing knowledge with monolingual teacher

J: ‘the lion is sleeping in the cave’ (reading out the children’s translation)

T: where’s the word ‘the’? (matching up Bangla to English words and realising ‘the’ is missing)

M: no ‘the’!A: if a person was talking to another person

and the person was saying a word, and said it without ‘the’, erm the other person would know because….

Transliteration as a new linguistic practice

liberating and empowering? ‘diluting’ the learning of Bengali script?

Example of child writing words in transliteration and then working out how to represent the sounds in Bengali script

An essential bridge for second and third generation children

enabling children to maximise cognitive and linguistic benefits of bilingualism