THE AUTHOR Joshua A Fishman is a sociolinguistic researcher, teacher, lecturer, and author In addition to his many well-known journal and book publications, he is the recipient of an honorary DHL from the Free University of Brussels, the Premi Institut Linguapax (Barcelona), and a multivolume festschrift presented by colleagues and students in honor of his 80th birthday An annual prize in his name has just been announced by the National Association for Heritage Languages of the USA and will be awarded for the first time in 2009 REFERENCE Fishman, J A (1966) Language loyalty in the United States: The maintenance and perpetuation of non-English mother tongues by American ethnic and religious groups The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton Multilingualism in the English-language Classroom: Pedagogical Considerations JIM CUMMINS University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada Ⅲ This article addresses the issue of whether TESOL should clearly articulate a set of pedagogical principles that challenge the assumption that English language teaching (ELT) should be conducted monolingually through English This monolingual principle (Howatt, 1984) emphasizes instructional use of the target language (TL) to the exclusion of students’ home language (L1), with the goal of enabling learners to think in the TL with minimal interference from the L1 The monolingual principle initially gained widespread acceptance more than 100 years ago in the context of the direct method and has continued to exert a strong influence on various language teaching approaches since that time (Yu, 2000) There are strong empirical and theoretical reasons to challenge the monolingual principle and articulate a set of bilingual instructional strategies that more adequately address the challenges of English language and academic development The focus is on school contexts rather than on the teaching of English to adults, but similar arguments are equally relevant in many adult learning contexts (e.g., Auerbach, 1993) SYMPOSIUM: IMAGINING MULTILINGUAL TESOL 317 TESOL AND THE MONOLINGUAL PRINCIPLE Throughout the 40-year controversy in relation to bilingual education in the United States, TESOL has consistently articulated its support for bilingual education as a legitimate policy option for the education of bilingual and language-minority students TESOL has joined proponents of bilingual education in refuting the argument that there is any opposition between ESL and bilingual education For both groups of advocates, ESL represents an essential component of an effective bilingual education program TESOL, however, has not elaborated a position in relation to an equally important, albeit less volatile, issue, namely, the extent to which the teaching of English and other academic content in English-medium classes should be conducted entirely through English This is not a critique of TESOL; although the issue surfaced in the TESOL Quarterly and other publications in the 1990s (Auerbach, 1993; Lucas & Katz, 1994; Phillipson, 1992), it has gained momentum as an urgent equity issue in United States and international classrooms only in recent years (e.g., Cummins, 2007; García, 2008; Manyak, 2004) Thus, the goal of this article is to highlight the issue as an appropriate focus of policy consideration and articulation by TESOL Failure to articulate a position on the issue of the use of monolingual versus bilingual instructional strategies risks linking TESOL with the normalized assumption that monolingual instructional strategies are selfevidently desirable when teaching English to children and adults Currently, most ELT professionals and policy makers associate themselves explicitly or implicitly with some form of communicative or task-based language teaching As Cook (2001) has pointed out, these approaches perpetuate the monolingual principle by consigning students’ L1 to invisibility within the classroom: Recent methods not so much forbid the L1 as ignore its existence altogether Communicative language teaching and task-based learning methods have no necessary relationship with the L1, yet the only times the L1 is mentioned is when advice is given on how to minimize its use The main theoretical treatments of task-based learning not, for example, have any locatable mentions of the classroom use of the L1 Most descriptions of methods portray the ideal classroom as having as little of the L1 as possible, essentially by omitting reference to it (p 404) Cook (2001) argues for judicious use of the L1 in the teaching of second and foreign languages but cautions that despite the legitimacy of using the L1 under certain conditions, “it is clearly useful to employ large quantities of the L2, everything else being equal” (p 413) 318 TESOL QUARTERLY EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL RATIONALE FOR BILINGUAL INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH-MEDIUM CLASSROOMS Some of the major points articulated by various researchers to argue for bilingual instructional strategies or translanguaging (García, 2008) are outlined below: • • • • A fundamental principle of learning states that learners’ preexisting knowledge is the foundation for all future learning (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000) Because English Language learners’ (ELL) prior knowledge is encoded in their L1, particularly in the early stages of English language learning, activation and building on prior knowledge requires the linking of English concepts and knowledge with the learner’s L1 cognitive schemata (Cummins, 2001, 2007; García, 2008; Lucas & Katz, 1994) This linking cannot be done effectively if students’ L1 is banished from the classroom Translation skill is widely found among bilingual children by late elementary school (Malakoff & Hakuta, 1991; Orellana, Reynolds, Dorner, & Meza, 2003) Malakoff and Hakuta highlight potential pedagogical applications, noting that “translation provides an easy avenue to enhance linguistic awareness and pride in bilingualism, particularly for minority bilingual children whose home language is not valued by the majority culture” (p 163) For languages such as English and Spanish that have many cognate connections, a focus on cognates can enhance students’ knowledge of TL vocabulary (Nagy, García, Durgunoglu, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993) This practice is an example of teaching for transfer, which draws on the general principle of conceptual interdependence across languages (Cummins, 2007) Encouraging newcomer students to write in their L1 and, working with peer, community, or instructional resource people to translate L1 writing into English, scaffolds students’ output in English and enables them to use higher order and critical thinking skills much sooner than if English is the only legitimate language of intellectual expression in the classroom (Cummins, 2007; Reyes, 2001) Students’ dual language books can be published in hard-copy form (and checked out by other students from the school or classroom library) or made available to a wider audience through web publication (see, e.g., Baron [2001], and The Multiliteracy Project [n.d.]) SYMPOSIUM: IMAGINING MULTILINGUAL TESOL 319 • • Research has consistently supported the efficacy of bilingual dictionary use for vocabulary learning as compared with monolingual dictionary use or simply learning from context alone (Laufer & Kimmel, 1997; Luppescu & Day, 1993; Prince, 1996) Legitimating students’ L1 as a cognitive tool within the classroom challenges the subordinate status of many minority groups and affirms students’ identities, thereby promoting what Manyak (2004) has called identities of competence (Cummins, 2001; García, 2008) CONCLUSION The perpetuation of the monolingual principle as “common-sense knowledge” in countries around the world is associated with multiple forms of injustice to both teachers and learners of English It reinforces the empirically unsupported and socially problematic assumption that native speakers are superior English language teachers as compared with nonnative teachers This assumption is also implicated in the discourse, very audible in countries such as Germany and the United States, that students’ home languages are a major cause of underachievement and should thus be undermined as early as possible through immersion in English (Esser, 2006; Porter, 1990) Not least, it consigns newcomer students to a nonparticipatory role in the regular (and sometimes ESL) classroom until they are capable of expressing themselves without embarrassment in English, a process that can take several years for many students Bilingual instructional strategies have demonstrated in multiple research studies that they are capable of addressing these policy and pedagogical concerns, and they thus warrant serious consideration by policy makers and practitioners An endorsement by TESOL of these approaches would challenge the educational and social injustices associated with the monolingual principle It would also reposition TESOL as a strong advocate for empirically supported and equity-oriented approaches to English language teaching THE AUTHOR Jim Cummins is a Canada Research Chair in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada His research focuses on literacy development in multilingual school contexts as well as on the potential roles of technology in promoting language and literacy development In recent years, he has been working actively with teachers to identify ways of increasing the literacy engagement of learners in multilingual school contexts 320 TESOL QUARTERLY REFERENCES Auerbach, E (1993) Reexamining ESL only in the ESL classroom TESOL Quarterly, 27, 9–32 Baron, N., Chow, P., Dale, V., Kelly, A., Solomon, B., Wong, B., et al (2001) The dual language showcase Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Thornwood Public School Retrieved May 30, 2009, from http://thornwood.peelschools.org/Dual/ Bransford, J D., Brown, A L., & Cocking, R R (2000) How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school Washington, DC: National Academy Press Cook, V (2001) Using the first language in the classroom Canadian Modern Language Review, 57, 402–423 Cummins, J (2001) Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society (2nd Ed.) Los Angeles: California Association for Bilingual Education Cummins, J (2007) Rethinking monolingual instructional strategies in multilingual classrooms Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 10, 221–240 Esser, H (2006) Migration, language, and integration (AKI Research Review 4) Berlin: Social Science Research Center, Programme on Intercultural Conflicts and Societal Integration (AKI) Retrieved December 21, 2007, from http://www.wzb.eu/ zkd/aki/files/aki_research_review_4 García, O (2008) Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective Boston: Blackwell Howatt, A (1984) A history of English language teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press Laufer, B., & Kimmel, M (1997) Bilingual dictionaries: How learners really use them System, 19, 217–224 Lucas, T., & Katz, A (1994) Reframing the debate: The roles of native languages in English-only programs for language minority students TESOL Quarterly, 28, 537–562 Luppescu, S., & Day, R R (1993) Reading, dictionaries, and vocabulary learning Language Learning, 43, 263–287 Malakoff, M., & Hakuta, K (1991) Translation skills and metalinguistic awareness in bilinguals In E Bialystok (Ed.), Language processing in bilingual children (pp 141– 166) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Manyak, P C (2004) “What did she say?”: Translation in a primary-grade English immersion class Multicultural Perspectives, 6(1), 12–18 The Multiliteracy Project (n.d.) Retrieved May 31, 2009, from http://www multiliteracies.ca/index.php Nagy, W E., García, G E., Durgunoglu, A., & Hancin-Bhatt, B (1993) Spanish– English bilingual students’ use of cognates in English reading Journal of Reading Behavior, 25, 241–259 Orellana, M F., Reynolds, J., Dorner, L., & Meza, M (2003) In other words: Translating or “para-phrasing” as a family literacy practice in immigrant households Reading Research Quarterly, 38, 12–34 Phillipson, R (1992) Linguistic imperialism Oxford: Oxford University Press Porter, R P (1990) Forked tongue: The politics of bilingual education New York: Basic Books Prince, P (1996) Second language vocabulary learning: The role of context versus translations as a function of proficiency Modern Language Journal, 80, 478–493 Reyes, M de la Luz (2001) Unleashing possibilities: Biliteracy in the primary grades In M de la Luz Reyes & J Halcón (Eds.), The best for our children: Critical perspectives on literacy for Latino students (pp 96–121) New York: Teachers College Press Yu, W (2000) Direct method In M Byram (Ed.), Routledge encyclopedia of language teaching and learning (pp 176–178) New York: Routledge SYMPOSIUM: IMAGINING MULTILINGUAL TESOL 321