View Content #24900

By Julie Sykes, CASLS Director

As students engage in everyday life, they, undoubtedly, encounter a large variety of multilingual influences. Whether it be in their neighborhood or in more digital contexts, the reality is that monolingualism is not a reality in most parts of the world. That being said, in many cases, learners pay minimal attention to these encounters. Often relegating them to names of restaurants they know or online personas they are familiar with, many language students perceive their environment to lack multilingual encounters relevant to their language learning experiences.  However, when learners start to have a purpose for engaging with the everyday, we see a significant impact on their multilingual interactions. Take, for example, Thorne’s (2008) account of a learner engaging in a trilingual environment while playing World of Warcraft or adolescents’ learning of English vocabulary as they play video games in their free time. The impact is salient and meaningful.

As we consider learner-directedness, the theme of this month’s InterCom, exploration of language in everyday encounters is warranted. Language instructors have a unique opportunity to give learners the skills to make meaning from, or at a minimum notice, multilingual encounters without the constraints of a formal classroom context. Caution should be exercised to avoid drawing the outside encounters into the classroom through the requirement of a grade or credit associated with these experiences. Instead, calling attention to the multilingual encounters should complement classroom experiences and make connections with out-of-class experiences. For example, as a warm-up or wrap up in class the instructor might show pictures of 3-4 signs in the local neighborhood that call attention to multilingualism. A brief reflection adds saliency to the experience so that, when learners see the sign outside of the classroom, they start to consider its meaning. Learners could also be asked to pay attention to their own experiences by taking note of what they see and then sharing one or two things that they found in their out-of-class context. Adding depth to the experience, the instructor can ask learners to share one domain they are particularly interested in and then provide additional resources where they might encounter multilingual resources related to their hobbies. Finally, the instructor can stay out of the scenario entirely, and instead, give students the opportunity to share their everyday encounters with one another. In doing so, they learn what each other are doing and also make find out about things they didn’t even know existed. Regardless of the approach one takes, placing value on the everyday multilingual experiences of learners can extend their learning experience. Sometimes just noticing the world around them can have a major impact.

Reference:

Thorne, S. L. (2008). Transcultural communication in open Internet environments and massively multiplayer online games. In S. Magnan, ed., Mediating Discourse Online. 305–327. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.