Sean Cousins,M.A., M.Ed., OCT

Over the span of my teaching career, I have had several ELL students whose ethnicity is that of being Lebanese Sunni Muslim. I have noticed that families of my Lebanese Sunni Muslim ELL students enjoy a high degree of education, with both female and male parents possessing at least a graduate degree. This echoes the international data on educational attainment among Lebanese population, where the overall adult literacy rate exceeds 99.7 percent (UNESCO, 2020). 

A type of teaching and learning methodology I often leverage in my practice is Project-based learning (PBL).

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PBL: Underlying assumptions, commitments, and pedagogical beliefs

Project-based learning is rooted in a constructivist, student-centered theoretical framework (Almaguer, Diaz, & Esquierdo, 2015). Learning is actively constructed according to experiences from engagement with the environment, with peers, and with reality. This philosophy views learning as a social activity and is fostered through self-directed and student-initiated interactive engagement. As such, students learn problem solving as a lifelong skill, collaborate, and engage in discussions with peers as they navigate through their experiences with content and investigate the problems they are learning about.

PBL is a broad instructional model adjustable to all areas of knowledge and different types of learners (S. Bell, 2010; Habók & Nagy, 2016). Although there is a fair amount of publication on the use of PBL in many areas of knowledge such as science, social studies, and math, published research on its implementation in English as a Second Language (ESL) education is still scarce (Beckett, 2005; 2006), as is the case with Lebanese ELL students. 

 

According to Tamin and Grant (2013), when using PBL in any school subject, several challenges need to be overcome: First, the classroom is no longer dominated by a teacher-centered approach. Thus, in the case of the ESL classroom, the teacher cannot totally control the production of language forms/functions in a sequential and orderly fashion. Language rather stems from the communication needs and the topics addressed during the development of the projects. Learning is constructed from a student-centered pedagogy in which learners’ needs to negotiate meaning are more authentic but less predictable. Second, the teacher needs to be tolerant and flexible as to the dynamics of the classroom. Third, classes are based on content or subject matter that might not be familiar to teachers’ area of knowledge or expertise (Grant, 2011; Tamin & Grant, 2013).

 

Educational theory and practice in Lebanon:

For students in Lebanon, the nature of the curriculum and its teachings is said to be “traditional.” According to one source:

Teachers spend a great deal of time lecturing, giving homework and reading assignments to students, and correcting exercises completed in the classroom. Students play a generally passive role in the instruction process. They listen quietly to their teacher, rarely question what is presented, and copy material dictated by the teacher, who uses textbooks as major sources of instruction (StateUniversity, 2020).

 

A complex encounter: Challenges for ELL students of Lebanese heritage in learning with and through PBL

From my vantage point as a teacher-researcher and formal background in hermeneutics, educational research, coupled with practical knowledge obtained from elementary mainstream classroom teaching in Ontario, I have noted that the population of ELL students of Lebanese Sunni Muslim heritage tend to demonstrate a “passive” demeanour when in communication, where attentive listening is emphasized. Yet when called upon to pursue learning through an inquiry mindset, these same students can readily adjust to a more active orientation, an embodied frame of reference where interests to discover and learn in a way that addresses a challenge, issue, or problem is materialized. 

 

The key for me is extending the timeline and domain of formative assessment practice, where instruction emerges out of a careful effort to elicit, collect, and review emergent data in the classroom.  This is where I understand and gain further sensitivities to students’ schemas, that is, there store of accumulated knowledge about a subject, topic, or context of learning. In taking teaching practices designed to reveal students’ schemas, I am being a careful observer of each child’s zone of proximal development and where, what, and how I may responsively scaffold.

 

It is when students demonstrate a movement towards further independence and at that space and time when a project can lift off into an orbit of discovery mobilized by student engagement that I transition my teaching practices to assessment-as learning.  In this space, I nudge students away from my immediate sphere of assistance to that of cultivating a self-sustaining dynamic of collaborative learning where students join together in efforts to build their own goals, crystalize their steps to achieve, and to pursue a path of growth to reach a solution to a perceived problem. 

 

The transition from assessment-for and assessment-as learning in the context of PBL can at times be prolonged in the case of working with ELL students of Lebanese Sunni Muslim heritage. This is where explicit instruction, modelled procedures, and developing Big Ideas generated through an inductive approach are facilitated before students can enter into the path of more independence, self-regulation, and collaborative relationships among each other. 

 

Some of these same ELL learners perceive being “right” key to their realization of knowledge.  In this sense, risk-avoidance, waiting until someone else commits an overt choice, and narrowing a focus down to the minutiae of details on a topic can be awakened.  It is in these instances, I use a method of redirection, assurance, and further explicit instruction to guide the process of PBL along. 

 

I have yet to use PBL in a grade higher than Grade 2 at this point, so the practice of plagiarism is not as evident on paper.  However, I do see evidence of these ELL learners and other students take credit for information and not acknowledge when speaking orally and when attempting to summarize a point.  I think it is important to practice crediting sources in both print and oral language, so that we minimize the trajectory of print-based plagiarism earlier in the school career of learners in general.  For example, “The local firefighter said that it is important to check your fire alarm regularly, so that you can reduce the risk of a fire in your home.”  Crediting where we have obtained knowledge is key, and we can teach this in oral language development, too. 

 

Sean

Theoharis and O’Toole (2011) report on two case studies exploring how school leadership operates to build more socially just learning environments for ELLs. I enjoyed reading this article and being able to relate my experience as an elementary mainstream classroom teacher to the leadership choices described in each case study, and how these choices underpinned efforts to redraft programmatic, curricular, and institutional policies in the direction of supporting a more inclusive, equitable, and socially just vision of schooling for ELLs. 

 

The idea that strong school leadership affords opportunities for staff, students, and families to collaborate in creative ways is not a novel observation, according to my experience. I have seen and been instrumental in steering efforts in a school to engage, promote, and further the ideals of inclusivity, equity, and social justice among marginalized populations. For example, a few years ago I taught at a school that accompanied a high incidence of FNMI students, so much so that our school programming offered Native as a Second Language courses (e.g., Ojibwa language), daily morning Smudging ceremonies, caretaking for a Medicinal Garden (e.g., Sage, Sweetgrass, Tobacco, and Cedar), and monthly traditional food ceremonies (e.g., Three Sisters Soup, Strawberry salads, and so on). Each morning, I would meet students in the ESL programming room, where we would share leading the Smudging Ceremony. The Medicinal Garden was established midway through the school year, and our FNMI school committee invited an Elder from the community to help our school launch our caretaking duties, teachings, and ongoing relations with educational stakeholders.

 

A teacher was at that time pursuing her Principal’s Qualification Program Part 2, where she needed to complete a 60-hour practicum to obtain her license to pursue school administration. She conceived of inviting families of our school to monthly after-school FNMI cultural teachings events, where for 1 hour a member of the FNMI community would visit, conduct a read-aloud, offer programming activities, and celebrate with some cultural dishes and conversations.  I helped co-organize these events by drafting event posters and distributing leaflets to visiting families.  A key focus on these events was to honour First Languages – Ojibwa, Oneida, Chippewa – in Treaty 9 Territory.  Most of the visiting families could speak a First Language at home, so correspondence in English was overwhelmingly viewed as a second language act. 

 

Another thread to effective leadership discussed in the article is that of the principalship encouraging staff to partake in relevant professional learning opportunities. The principal at the aforementioned school encouraged all staff to participate in professional learning that advanced their professional goals. I recall there being many daily occasional teachers in that year, as many staff took advantage of the principal’s enthusiasm for professional learning. I took a few professional learning sessions but most of these were apart of New Teacher Induction Program (NTIP) as it was my first LTO of 97 days or more. I was assigned a teacher mentor and participated in several workshops.  I didn’t learn much through this mentorship model other than feeling reassured about my pedagogical choices and the feedback of being an inclusive, equity-based curriculum practitioner.  I did not recall much professional learning dedicated to social justice work, equity, or inclusivity for FNMI students.  Knowledge that has been Gifted to me has come from reaching out to the community on a personal level, meeting with Elders, and spending time on the Reserve.

 

In reviewing the article several times, I have come to formulate a couple of questions that seek knowledge in a few areas:

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• How might educational stakeholders work collaboratively in various Ontario municipalities to bolster the movement away from pull-out, segregated methods of second-language teachings, and towards an inclusive, holistic method of bilingual education?

 

• How might the concepts of inclusivity, equity, and social justice take on more critical and anti-oppressive meanings for mainstream classroom teachers who have ELL students on their classroom roster?

My interest in making spaces where diversity flourishes in its linguistic, cultural, and social domains has brought me to explore the practice of translanguaging pedagogy and associated linguistic practices. In this vision of diversity, I seek to cultivate multilingualism that fosters historically-rooted identity formations and continuations, cultural enactments and values in everyday contexts (thus curbing tokenistic performativity), and an embrace for open-ended, courageous pursuits of knowledge, epistemic holism, and student-centred praxis. My orientation to teaching and learning in this space is deliberately vulnerable to change, embracing movement and dynamism, and inviting shifting power relationships assumed and executed by the student population but held accountable to each and every actor in context.  In order for this learning environment to awaken and evolve, trust, respect, integrity, and care among myself and between each student must be cultivated, sustained, and nurtured over time. 

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Buttressed with this researcher-teacher positionality, I came across the work of Eric Ku (2019). Ku reports on a study focusing on an annual play performed by the graduating class of a university English department in Taiwan. Ku reported that this annual play traditionally has been performed English-only, but students in this study deviated from the norm and collectively decided to enact bilingual, translanguaging practices in their endeavours. Through a case study informed by ethnographic perspectives, Ku analyzed the students’ script, script notes, and rehearsals for translingual practices (e.g.., Mandarin Chinese and English) and interviewed the scriptwriters and faculty supervisors for their perceptions of the play. The findings show that students’ enacted translingual practices through bilingual and multimodal resources to most appropriately achieve the performative and communicative goals for each situated context. Furthermore, students invent ways of justifying the decision to include Chinese and creating a “translanguaging space” through the performance.

 

Ku interpreted the translanguaging space as a situated context in which multilinguals freely choose to use different languages; more importantly, it is a space with its own transformative power that embraces the creativity and criticality of multilinguals. Fostering a translanguaging space is about enabling multilinguals an ability to explore creative expression and freedom of speech, along with co-constructing an identity of empowerment and celebration of intellectual, social, and linguistic powers. 

 

The performative and multimodal nature of plays creates the opportunity for students to incorporate multimodal modes of communication, such as movement, voice, and space, along with linguistic modes with a specific rhetorical goal that their communicative practices would be situated in. This form of learning might advance a transformational (e.g., Freirean) pedagogy or further cultivate a broader and more systemic decolonizing agenda in educational settings. Despite these possibilities, translanguaging practices embedded within dramatic performance can range from simply performing short, simple, pre-written plays to writing and performing a full-length play from scratch for a live audience.

 

Some questions I might pose to Eric Ku based on his research in this article include:

 

• How might you consider situating translanguaging practices for a dramatic context in an elementary classroom composed of various multilinguals?

 

• To what extent do you believe that translanguaging practices are a viable method of ushering a decolonizing pedagogy that is capable of making diversity (i.e., intellectually, culturally, and socially) flourish in elementary educational settings?