After the ‘new migration’: re-examining perceptions and experiences of teaching English to...

LIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACTLIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACTLIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACTCopyright University of Reading

Wednesday, 11 June 2014

AFTER THE ‘NEW MIGRATION’:EXAMINING PERCEPTIONS AND EXPERIENCES OF TEACHING ENGLISH TO POLISH CHILDREN IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Naomi Flynn

University of Reading Institute of EducationEducation and Migration:

Language Foregrounded

Conference, Durham,

October 2016

LIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACT

POLISH MIGRATION AND THIS CONFERENCE THEME• The Polish community has been the fastest-growing migrant community in present-day Britain,

with Poles having become the single largest foreign national group resident in the UK (ONS,

2011).

• Not commonly associated with conflict or pressure, Polish migration is regarded as ‘successful

migration’; research is needed to confront stereotypes and generalised assumptions.

• It is important to take account of the fluid identity of Polish children born in Britain who navigate

lives between two countries and cultures which if itself brings pressure, tensions and

expectations.

• Families and their children experience migration differently and teachers are not always aware of

these differences and how they might play out for individuals.

• Uncovering the pressures on teachers with an existing migrant group can provide insights for

what is important in receiving migrant children from different regions and for different reasons.


POLISH MIGRATION TO THE UK

• The strongest ties are generally those of the nuclear family (White and Ryan, 2008)

• …….by 2009 (unlike a few years previously), there was a critical mass of Poles – it was simply

normal to be Polish in their new home town. (White, 2011)

• With volume comes diversity. In just a few years, numerous West European towns and cities

have acquired a Polish population which increasingly looks like a microcosm of Polish society in

Poland. (White, 2016)

• These (Polish secondary school aged) children ‘bridge the gap’ by assisting in their parents’

cultural integration. (Moskal, 2016)

• Many students face(d) an interwoven set of linguistic, social and emotional challenges.

(Bell Foundation, 2016)


POLICY CONTEXT

Pre 2010

• DfES, (2004). Aiming High: Guidance on Supporting the Education of Asylum Seeking and Refugee Children

• DfES, (2004). Aiming High: Understanding the Educational Needs of Minority Ethnic Pupils in Mainly White Schools

• DfES, (2005). Aiming High: Guidance on the assessment of pupils learning English as an additional language

• DfES, (2005). Aiming High: Meeting the needs of newly arrived learners of English as an additional language

• DfES, (2006). Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and teaching for bilingual children in the primary years

• DCSF. (2007). New Arrivals Excellence Programme

• DCSF, (2008). Rationale for planning for children learning English as an additional language

• DCSF, (2009). Ensuring the attainment of more advanced learners of English as an additional language

• TDA, (2009). Strategy for the development of the English as an additional language (EAL) workforce in schools

Post 2010• DfE (2011) Developing

Quality Tuition Effective

practice in schools:

English as an additional

language

• DfE (2016) School

census 2016 to 2017, pp

62 – 64 – introduction of

proficiency scales

NC (2000) included 8 pages of guidance on

inclusive practice.

NC (2014) has one page on inclusive

practice

National Curriculum references to EAL


RESEARCH CONTEXT

FIRST STUDY

• 2007 – 9

• Repeat interviews with 10 teachers in 5

primary schools, and Local Authority key

personnel, about their experiences of

teaching Polish children and its impact on

their pedagogy for teaching English

• Key outcomes:

• Constraints of a monolingual

curriculum (Flynn, 2012)

• Construction of a ‘model minority’ myth

(Flynn, 2013 b)

CURRENT STUDY

• 2016

• Interviews with teachers, children and

parents in 4 schools and two Local Authority

key personnel to explore whether earlier

findings are maintained.

Researchers tracking Polish migration

acknowledge that follow-up research

has been unplanned and this brings

challenges in revisiting initial

interpretations (Ryan et al, 2016)

Hampshire Local Authority: central

southern, large county; 40 languages

spoken in 2004 rising to 150 language

spoken in 2016.


0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 prov

Basingstoke & Deane Total

East Hants Total

Eastleigh Total

Fareham Total

Gosport Total

Hart Total

Havant Total

New Forest Total

Rushmoor Total

Test Valley Total

Winchester Total

Overall Total

Graph showing numbers of Polish children in schools in Hampshire 2007 – 2016 by region and overall


RESEARCH QUESTIONS

2007 - 9

What are the experiences of primary

school teachers managing the English

language acquisition of Polish

children in low-density EAL settings?

2016

Has the English teaching experience

of primary school teachers of Polish

children changed in response to

demographic and curriculum

changes?

What is Polish children’s experience

of English language acquisition and

literacy development in primary

school?


SETTING School type

and pupil roll

Number

of Polish

pupils

TEACHERS CHILDREN Children’s

place of

birth

School A RC Primary

urban (408)

(30%EAL)

59 Angela, Year 2

teacher

Anne, Year 5

teacher

Aron,10 year

old boy

England

Agnieszka, 9

year old girl

England

School C RC Primary

coastal town

(188) (26 EAL)

11 Charlotte, Year

R teacher

Carmella, Year 6

teacher

Celina 10 year

old girl

Poland

Irena and

Izabella, 5

year old twin

girls

England

School A has accepted Polish children on roll for over seven years.

School C has experienced a recent rise in numbers of Polish children.


DATA ANALYSIS

GROUNDED THEORY (Charmaz,

2014)

BOURDIEU (1990,1991)

FIELD

CAPITAL

HABITUS

LIN

GU

IST

IC

Flynn, 2015


THEMES OF IDENTITY AND CAPITAL • Linguistic capital (Bourdieu, 1991): for teachers this means the ways in which they perceive

children’s and family’s use of English or Polish; for children this means their own sense of

success with either English or Polish

• Linguistic Field (Bourdieu, 1990) – the way in which teachers’ and children’s lives in school are

framed by expectations of the curriculum for English in England which is designed to teach and

assess monolingual/ native speakers of English

• Professional capital – the way in which teachers demonstrate their understanding of how to

support their English Language Learners (ELLs)

• Model Minority (Flynn, 2012; Ng et al, 2007) – children and teachers have ‘elective affinities’

(Grenfell and James, 1998) which feed good, mutual relations

• Fluid identity – children’s expression of their Polishness and Englishness

• Language brokering – children’s reference to either being supported or supporting

understanding in English


LINGUISTIC CAPITAL: TEACHERS AND CHILDREN

• Teachers all acknowledged the

importance of celebrating use of

Polish in school, and the value of

having Polish as a language for

thinking to access curriculum content

(Lucas et al, 2008).

• However this came with some

tensions among teachers of younger

children.

• Year 5 Polish children spoke fluent

English and were attaining at least

age-expected levels in school in

literacy.

• But they did not feel biliterate; their

literacy in English is better and this

gives rise to a sense of conflict for

them.


I have to admit I felt a bit bad

at the beginning of the year

I did say quite a lot in English

because they were twins.

I felt really, really mean

but I thought you’re going to

remain on the outside if you

don’t, this isn’t going to open

up for you. (Charlotte, year R

teacher, school C)

I try my hardest, but now I am in

England it’s hard to keep it (Polish)

up. I get kind of lost with my words

sometimes. (Celina, age 10, school C)

I mostly just read in

English because the

Polish books I’ve got are

quite hard. (Agnieszka,

age 9, school A)Polish grammar is

difficult but we

persevere because we

have family in Poland

and it’s important.

(Cecylia, Celina’s

mother)


LINGUISTIC FIELD FOR TEACHERS

AND CHILDREN

Language

acquisition

needs

Prescribed

curriculum and

assessment for

English

Polish

proficiency

English

proficiency


PROFESSIONAL CAPITAL • Teachers’ discourse is much more likely to demonstrate secure subject

knowledge for teaching children acquiring English as an additional language

(Lucas et al, 2008)

• Understanding the need for continued use of L1

• Celebration of cultural/national identity and home language

• Use of visual cues and concrete props

• Focussed additional attention to phonics

• Providing a curriculum that is cognitively engaging

• Nuanced understanding of the difficulties children face in developing

academic content-related vocabulary

• Understanding the need to make the grammar of English explicit

• Understanding the importance of vocabulary development

• Railing against culturally specific examples used in national testing papers


MODEL MINORITY ?

..we now we have so many,

they are as well-behaved or

as mischievous as any other

child really

(Angela, Y2 teacher, school A)

.. but the thing that

distinguishes them from some

of the other children is that

attitude. They are driven and

I’ve noticed that before with

Polish children

(Anne, Y5 teacher, school A)

I wouldn’t say that Celina’s

attitude to learning is any more

positive than anyone else’s but it

is positive and you get an awful

lot of support from their parents.

The twins were a bit of a shock

after Celina, because she is so

good!

(Carmella, Y6 teacher, school C)


FLUID IDENTITY AND LANGUAGE BROKER

I usually get told off for

speaking English, I have to

speak Polish most of the

time… because it’s like the

house language.

(Aron, age 10, school A)

Yeah, we need to speak Polish

as well because my dad goes

to English school right now

and my mum is going to start

it next year, so they don’t

really know good English so I

need to speak Polish.

(Agnieszka, age 9, school A)Sometimes I feel a bit

different, maybe like I don’t

belong……In school I am fully

English and the moment I step

out of the school I switch to

Polish.

(Celina, age 10, school C)

I didn’t appreciate that they

did speak Polish at home

because her English is so,

you know, she is an able child.

She doesn’t appear to have

any language problems at all.

(Carmella, Celina’s teacher)


CONCLUSIONS

• (There is) limited use of a student’s first language in schools. Remedying this situation requires,

in part at least, a move in EAL development activities away from general encouragement to use

L1, to providing teachers with strategies, activities, and exemplars of good practice that will allow

them to make effective use of L1. (Anderson et al, 2016)

• FLinC - L1 curriculum development from Hampshire EMTAS

• Longer established migrant communities are not necessarily well-understood by schools.

Discourse that conflates migrants with refugees may over-shadow the need for on-going detailed

understanding of children from ‘established/successful’ migrations whose identities are fluid.

• Teachers have perhaps managed to develop a better and more nuanced understanding of

effective pedagogy for EAL despite cuts to support and limited mention in policy. This is

something to celebrate but it cannot be a reason for policy-makers to continue abrogating

responsibility for supporting multilingual pedagogy development.


REFERENCES• Anderson., C, Foley, Y., Sangster, P., Edwards, V. & Rassool, N. (2016) Policy, Pedagogy and Pupil Perceptions: EAL in

Scotland and England, Cambridge: The Bell Foundation

• Flynn, N. (2012) Linguistic capital and the linguistic field for teachers unaccustomed to linguistic difference. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 34(2), 225 - 242

• Flynn, N. (2013) Encountering migration: English primary school teachers’ responsesto Polish children. Pedagogies: An Journal, 8(4), 336 - 351International

• Flynn, N (2015), “Disambiguating with Bourdieu: unravelling policy from practice in the teaching of children with English as an additional language”, Literacy (Methodology Matters Special Edition), 49 (1), 20 – 27

• Lucas, T., Villegas, A. M. & Freedson-Gonzalez, M (2008) “Linguistically Responsive Teacher Education: Preparing Classroom Teachers to Teach English Language Learners”, Journal of Teacher Education, 59 (4), 361 - 373

• Moskal (2016) ‘Language and cultural capital in school: experience of Polish children in Scotland, Race Ethnicity and Education, 19 (1) , 141-160

• Ryan, L., Lopez, R, Magdalena & Trevena, P. (2016). ‘Opportunities and Challenges of Unplanned Follow-up Interviews: Experiences with Polish Migrants in London’, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 17(2), Art.26

• White, A., & Ryan, L. (2008) (2008) @Polish ‘Temporary’ Migration: TheFormation and Significance of Social Networks’, Europe-Asia Studies, 60:9, 1467-1502

• White, A. (2011) ‘The mobility of Polish families in the West of England: translocalism and attitudes toReturn’, StudiaMigracyjne – Przegląd Polonijny, Spring 2011

• White, A.(2016) ‘Polish migration to the UK compared with migration elsewhere in Europe: a review of the literature’, Social Identities, 22:1, 10-25

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