Promoting Multilingualism in the
Classroom: A Case Study
of Elt Program
Muhammad NaiAnnury
naiannury@gmail.com, nai.annury@walisongo.ac.id English Education Department UIN Walisongo Semarang
Abstract
The article gives a brief analytical survey of multilingualism practices, its consequences, and its beneits in education and dis-cussions on the appropriate ways towards its achievement in edu-cation. Multilingualism refers to speaking more than one language competently. Generally there are both the oficial and unoficial multilingualism practices. This study was descriptive qualitative.The subjects of the study were eighty students and divided into two classes actually. Purposive samplingtechnique was applied in identi-fying students who tended topractice multilingualism in education in EFL class. The beneits of multilingualism practices in education wererealized by relying on text analysis of the written materialson education and psychology. Personal experience ineducational mat-ters especially the educational processes in EFL class is also includ-ed.Findings were descriptively presented in a continuous prose. stu-dents still had problems on the way they speak and write in English well. However, there were only 1.9% students who felt that they luenced in speaking and even writing English well. It is quite a chal-lenging issue towards students implementing multilingualism within the classroom. Eventhough, they are already learned English since they were from junior high school fortunately.
Introduction
Indonesian is societal multicultural marriages forms of cul-tural difference among difference languages. Besides the diversity in dialect which is owned by Indonesian as the national language, the needs for foreign language abolish proiciency especially English strengthen the status of Indonesians into social multilingual. Many languages in large cities, used various by various people, therefore, make contact their language and culture inevitable. The language use like this situation may of course has the potential to cause rival-ry or conlicts (in dialect, national, and foreign langauges) and then not observed and anticipated, however, can take socila disharmony for survival language especially for venacular, so that it would need a good planning as well.
Humans need an organized medium of communication inany given social set up. This medium is normally referred toas language. Though it appears dificult to clearly deine theterm language due to its social complexity, it is generallyagreed amongst linguistic intel-ligentsia that it is a system ofsymbols designed for the purposes of communication. Thissystem involves a collection of entities orga-nized into awhole and arranged in such a way that they work together toachieve a particular function (Lyon, 1981). Language as a medium ofcommunication amongst humans possesses numerousattributes such as being governed by rules, is a system andperforms such func-tions as giving information, expressingfeelings and emofunc-tions, estab-lishing rapport, exercisingauthority and an identity marker (Webb, 2000). As humans use morethan one language then terminologies such as bilingualism,trilingualism and multilingualism arise.
ofseveral languages within a society (Lyon, 1981). These severallan-guages can be oficial or unoficial, native or foreign andnational or international.
Sometimes multilingualism is used interchangeably withbilin-gualism (Lyon, 1981) that refers to the ability to speak twolanguag-es with native like proiciency. Multilingualism isconsidered in this article as an inclusive terminologycomprising bilingualism (ability to speak two languagesproiciently), trilingualism (ability to speak three languages)and there is also instances whereby one speaker has theability to speak even more than three languages. Since thepreix ‘multi’ refers to more than one, both bilingualism andtrilingualism will therefore technically refer to more than onelanguage. As we use several languages, we becomemultilingual.
Any given country or society is generally considered as atilingual one if its members or citizens are mulatilingual.The mul-tilingual citizens on many occasions tend to showidentiiable full range of communicative competence inseveral languages in place. However, there is a rare perfectmultilingualism in practice. The rare perfect practice occursbecause even if we acquire both or several languages in place,there is always a notable tendency that one lan-guage willalways dominate over the others which are consideredsub-ordinates.
In general, the functional differentiation of languages tendto give rise to other ways of classifying languages as mothertongue (irst language of a speaker), vernacular (languagespoken in a par-ticular area or speciic group of people but notgenerally an oficial), national, oficial and the global orinternational languages.
This research was conducted to answer the following ques-tions: (1) How is the students’ response about using multilingualism in the classroom?; (2) What problems are revealed in implementing multilingualism in the classroom?; (3) What is the beneit of imple-menting multilingualism in the classroom?
Bacground Literature 1. Language concept
The identity of any human society is a well developed lan-guage.The ideological stance of the sentences regarding the maintenance of heritage languageand culture is made explicit in two dialogues that relect a meta-discourse as well.
Greenberg (1971: 156) says:“Language is unique to man. No other species possesses a truly symbolic”.Means of commu-nication and no human society, however simple its material. In a multilingualsign for example the dominant or more prestigious language will often be in larger font.In a multilingualsign for example the dominant or more prestigious language will often be in larger font.
Noam Chomsky deines language, as a particular set of sentences that can begenerated from a particular set of rules. From above assertions, it is evident that language is an impor-tant feature thatdistinguishes man from other creatures. Also language and society goes hand in hand. Language can be seen as a medium of communication, among people of the same cul-turalbackground and beyond.
(1983)identiied transactional and interactional functions. Hyme (1992) identiied emotive, poeticfunctions crystal (1997) identi-ied 8 functions, including language as an instrument ofthought. The use of language in a society, has contributed immensely to the socializationprocess in human society.
2. Multilingualism and language contact
Multilingualism, is a societal phenomenon that deals with languages existing in asociety. When many languages exist in a society, such society is said to be multilingual innature. A person who is proicient in many languages, is refer to as a multilin-gual.Appel and Muysken (1987: 2-5), states the fact that varieties of the samelanguage, may be in used, in a given situation. The idea of language contact transcendsdialectal frontiers. It is an issue which concerns two or more district and independentlan-guages. It is evident that language contact, is a situation that concerns two or morelanguages, co-existing in a particular soci-ety. Language contact phenomena results intosome phenomena, such as code mixing, code switching, language shift, language loss,interference, transfer.
Methods
The paper relied on a survey design whereby classroom prac-ticing multilingualism in general communication and oreducational functions were surveyed in the second semester of English depart-ment of FITK UIN Walisongo Semarang in the academic year of 2015/2016. There were eighty students and divided into two classes actually.
presented in a continuous prose.
The data were collected with permission from lecturers and students in English classes. The questionnaireswere distributed to students enrolled in English courses. The researcher provided in-structionson how to complete the questionnaire. To obtain the reli-ability of the data, this group of participantswas informed that there was no right or wrong answer, and the questionnaire was only for the researchpurposes. The data obtained from the questionnaires were coded and statistically analyzed to establishfrequency distribu-tion in the form of descriptive statistics. Likert scale used to know students’ reponse of promoting multilingualism in the classroom.
Findings
1. Multilingualism in the Classroom
This section presents the results of the descriptive statis-tics. Generally, some of the responses receivedrendered signii-cant results, while some others did not.This section is structured into four broad thematic areas:irstly, the general survey of mul-tilingualism practices in the EFL classrooms. Secondly, explana-tionsof the general consequences of multilingualism practices. Thirdly, discussions on notable beneits of multilingualismprac-tices in the educational circles. Probably the most interesting results, at least for our purposes, are thoserelating to proicien-cy in English. Questions 6a and 6b of the questionnaireasked respondents to rate their own abilities in speaking and writingEnglish.
Table 1 1975 Survey Reports of Ability to Speak English
Questions 6 (a) and 6 (b): How well do you speak (and write) English?
Skill (Percentage Ratings) Response Speaking Writing
Enough to communicate
simple needs 22.5% 23.0% Enough to communicate
a wide range of ideas 8.3% 9.0% Almost like a native 1.9% 1.9%
From the above table 1 we can thus conclude that at least 32’.7% of the respondents reported an ability in speak-ing English that went beyond ‘only a little’ 1 thus respondspeak-ing positively to the three ‘higher’ categories: ‘Enoughto commu-nicate simple needs’, ‘Enough to commucommu-nicate a wide range oideas’, and’ Almost like a native’ 1 categories that broadly correspond to an’adequate’, ‘good’, and ‘excellent’ rating of one’s own ability in speaking· the language. Similarly, we can observe that 33.9% of the sample indicate asimilar level of proiciency in the written language. The survey report (Brit-ish Council 1979) then goes on to discuss language use at work 1language use for speciic purposes, English outside work, reasons forstudying English, and language attitudes.
Based on the table above it is seen that there 45.2% stu-dents still have problem on the way how to speak and how to write in English well. However, there are only 1.9% students who feel that they luence in speaking and even writing English well. It is quite a challenging issue towards students implement-ing multilimplement-ingualism within the classroom. Eventhough, they are already learned English since they were from junior high school fortuneately.
of the campus.
The consequences of multilingualism are numerousranging from linguistic and socio-political. Linguisticconsequences of multilingualism include among others thecreation and growth of lingua franca that normally developsbecause of the need for cross group communication (Webb, 2000).Multilingualism practice creates the development ofmixed languages mainly due to intense language contact. Asa result speakers therefore tend to involve a mixture olanguages during verbal communication. This contact mayalso result into the creation of slangs. These slangs aregenerally caused by urbanization, migrant labor and alsoindustrialization as was witnessed in Indonesia.
Multilingualism practice generally develops crosslinguistic communication strategies like code switching andcode mixing. When people switch from one language used athomes to the other outside the home environment then codeswitching oc-curs. This is witnessed in countries like Indiawhere switching is witnessed between English, Hindu/Urdu, Bengali and Tamil.
Multilingualism creates an aspect of diglossia wherebywhen there are two oficial languages, there is always onelanguage that tends to dominate the other which is generallyreferred to as sub-ordinate. This happens when viewed from afunctional point. A glimpse of the diglossia situation inAfrica indicates that English, French and Portuguese arecharacterized as the high languages (H) and the indigenous Ones as low languages (L).
2. The Beneits of Multilingualism
It is estimated that over a billion people in the world speak-more than one language luently (Barasa, 2005). However, with theincreased population of people in the world the number of-bilinguals may be currently twofold. This increased numberof speakers is probably attributed to the regionalism andinterna-tionalism principles that are now embraced by manycountries especially in the ield of trade and commerce,innovation and also the technological advancements. Theseprinciples call for the speakers to be proicient in the workinglanguages to effectu-ate communication.
The paper considers discussing the beneits of practicing-multilingualism in the education sector not only in the formal-education in learning institutions alone but also informalcircum-stances probably at homes. Therefore, some majorbeneits of multilingualism in education whether formal orinformal include the following:
Knowledge of more than two languages allows us tocom-municate with many people in both personal andprofession-al contexts. This is owing to the fact that the vastamount of knowledge that people possess is often onlyeffectively acces-sible through particular languages (Webb, 2000) whether ofi-cial or unofiofi-cial. However, the unofiofi-ciallanguages that in most African contexts are generallyregarded as native tend to be a viable medium for effectiveand clear presentation of knowledge that we possess. This isclearly manifested in proven situations whereby knowing anindigenous language is believed to provide an access to avast reservoir of wisdom, expertise, knowledge and skillscontained in the bodies of speakers of the languages
Other scholars like (Bolinger, 1981) argue that anybody who knowsonly one language is generally not different from an animalthat is restricted in communication. Thus a monolin-gual canbest be described as a restricted animal with a barrier incommunication referred to as ‘ixity of reference’ (Bolinger, 1981). Thismeans that animals have messages connected with just onething in the real world like a growl to an enemy, a par-ticularscent to an attraction to mate and a cluck to a summon toabroad of ducks (Bolinger, 1981). Speaking one language can also beequated to a holophrastic stage of language development (Lyons, 1981).This means that a monolingual can be regarded as one who isstill in the process of language acquisition and de-velopment and should learn other languages to effectuatemulti-communication. Thus multilingualism opens doors forquicker and easy communication. To remove the notion of‘ixity of ref-erence’, entrenching multilingualism ineducation will of course enable one to avoid restrictions incommunication thus enabling him to move to another stageof communication.
Multilingualism practices enhance intellectual lexi-bilityand creativity. Recent studies have indicated that children-who grow up in a supportive environment speaking morethan one language from an early age are more perceptive andintellec-tually lexible than those who speak one language(King, 2007)By using the ‘double irst language acquisition’ modelas indicated by (King, 2007), children with parents constantlyspeaking differ-ent languages grow up being equally ludiffer-entand comfortable with the two home languages and can evenlearn a third and fourth language. Though this researchfocused on the home contexts, this is also practical in theclassroom contexts whereby students who are exposed tomany languages will tend to be intellectually lexible.
Conclusion
and clear framework should be taken intoaccount because imposing languages to people is dangerousand may cause tensions amongst different ethnic and or speech communities (Bolinger, 1981). Fur-thermore as you impose alingua franca and or foreign languages to people withoutdeveloping also the indigenous languages then this may leadto language death. There are more than 3,000 languagess-poken in the world today that are at the point of dying andsome are already extinct (Opala, 2002).
Causes of language death may include among others the-following factors: imposition of languages on the others,language colonialism, foreign language dictatorship andassimilation of lan-guages (Ochieng, 2002).
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