Listening to EAL voices: approaches and practices Dr Andy Hancock University of Edinburgh

1. Listening to EAL voices: approaches and practices Dr Andy Hancock University of Edinburgh andy.hancock@ed.ac.uk

2. Carlina Rinaldi, 1998 If we believe that children possess their own theories, interpretations and questions, and that they are co-protagonists in the knowledge building processes, then the most important verb in educational practice is no longer to talk, to explain, or to transmit, but to listen.

3. The pedagogy of listening • Need to listen with all our senses, not just with our ears • Recognise the many languages (and texts) children use to in order to express themselves and communicate • Listening is emotion. It is generated by the emotions of others; and it stimulates emotions. • Listening is not easy. It requires a suspension of our beliefs and prejudices. • Listening produces questions, rather than answers. • Listening gives the child visibility. • Listening is the basis for any learning relationship. Rinaldi, C. (2001) The pedagogy of listening: the listening perspective from Reggio Emilia. Innovations in Early Education, 8(4)

4. Listening as Rights

5. Multimodel texts (written, spoken, Visual, musical) produced by Children and young people as a result of having invested their Identities in them Sharing identity texts with multiple audiences to receive positive feedback and affirmation of self

6. Identity texts Texts and literacy practices hold a mirror up to the child in which their identity is reflected back in a positive light

7. Insights into Chinese morphology Compound characters kiss吻, shout喊, sing唱, drink喝

8. The Dictionary game Can we do the dictionary game Ma Lo Sze ? Y calls out. T replies ‘ok’ and divides the class intothree groups. Children congregate around three desks. T writes the character [好 ] on chalkboard. The children with heads down excitedly trace their fingers down pages of the Chinese dictionary rapidly turning pages. One child calls out ‘yur wrang’ another jumps up and down ‘hurry hurry’. ‘page two three five’ The T observes the class smiling and goes to support one group who are experiencing difficulty locating the character in the dictionary. The children’s involvement and enjoyment is evident.

9. Children’s narratives you have to find that bit (covers the right part of the character with her finger leaving the radical exposed) now count how many strokes… one two three so you then look in the three stroke section (turns pages) see (indicates女) then how many strokes that half (points to the remaining strokes in 子) …three…now find the three stroke section…look down (scans the list and locates the character 好) and …VOILA! Ca Mei, age 9

10. Transferrable literacy related strategies and skills • Locating and identifying characters in a Chinese dictionary • Skimming and scanning an index • Analyse component parts of characters and their relationship to radicals • Pronunciation and meaning of new characters • Distinguish between character visual configurations and the number of strokes Hancock, A. (2015) Unpacking mundane practices: children’s experiences of learning literacy at a Chinese complementary school in Scotland. Language and Education, 26(1), 1-17.

11. Dialogic space for listening: reading conferences Three way dialogue (child, teacher and researcher) and co-construction of knowledge Miscue analysis of reading in Chinese and English Think-aloud protocols Compare and contrast reading strategies Hancock, A. (2015) Creating a dialogic space for research: a reading conference in a Chinese complementary school, Language and Education, 126-124.

12. Listening to metacognitive processes

13. Reading Chinese texts: memorisation and repeated practice .

14. Flexible bilingualism

15. Flexible bilingualism Transliterations act as a bridge to learning: listening sensitivity, phonological awareness and sound-symbol correspondence 蛙 frog wa式 style sick I have to think carefully how it is pronounced in English. (Alice, aged 9) I just listen to the teacher and write it as it sounds in English. It helps me remember how to say it. (Lok Hang, age 8) There is no right or wrong way to do it, it is how you say it. (Ca Mai, age 9

16. The Blind Man and the Elephant Image result for blind m#442078

17. Blind man and the elephant Visual similarities[名] (ming4) “name” instead of the visually similar [各] (gok3) “each”. ‘It looks like this one Visually complex [繩] (sing4)“rope” Semantic substitutions [傘] (saan3) “umbrella” with the response of the second blind man [扇] (sin3) “fan”. Semantic radical [腳] (goek3) “foot” instead of [腿] (teoi2) “leg”. Both characters contain the same radical [月] (jyut5) “moon” contained in body parts

18. Problem solving narratives [呇] “star” That like in the sky something shining if you put them together its like a star in the sky [草] (cou2) “grass” The top bit looks like grass so I am thinking of something like grass...like flower…I might guess the meaning and the sound.

19. Listening to children: learning outside of school • expansion of knowledge through reading a variety of genre • reading aloud and teacher-child interactions around texts • developing listening, memorization and visual perception skills • revision exercises and handwriting practice Is this learning acknowledged in mainstream schools and viewed as part of the 1+2 language strategy?

20. Anderson, C.,Foley, Y., Sangster, P., Edwards, V. & Rassool, N. (2016) Policy, Pedagogy and Pupil Perceptions: EAL in Scotland and England. Bell Foundation. Interviews and focus groups in one secondary school in Scotland (11-13 and 14-16 year olds) Perceptions of learning experiences: • migration, languages and prior schooling • social and emotional challenges of transition • the use of L1 • identity and fitting in Do these perceptions differ from learners’ teachers?

21. Listening to Muslim school children and young people P5 - S6

22. Islamophobia in Edinburgh SchoolsConcluding remarks by Samena Dean “It was heartbreaking to listen to some of the testimonies, especially the stories of the physical abuse” I came across Muslim children wanting to change their identity, accepting the label of ‘terrorist’, and fearing carrying out their religious obligations publicly. The stories shared by the children really highlighted to me the psychological pressures Muslim children face whilst carrying out normal day to day activities such as going to school. It was also particularly worrying to hear of accounts from the children where schools did not respond to incidents of Islamophobia, or where the children did not feel that the school’s response was appropriate.

23. The Reflexive Teacher ‘taking a listening stance implies entering the classroom with questions as well as answers, knowledge as well as a clear sense of the limitations of that knowledge’. Schultz et al (2008,155)