Sylvie Roy

Assessing Bilingual and Multilingual Learners in Mainstream Classrooms

This chapter looks at how we should not assess bilingual and multilingual learners the same way as we assess students with one language. By providing a view that bilinguals and multilinguals have specific linguistics systems of their own, and by showing that some assessments are not equitable for some students and cause them fail, this chapter presents ideas for leaders and teachers on how to assess bilingual and multilingual learners in classrooms. We recommend accommodation as a useful strategy but employing alternative assessments might also be preferable to meet the needs of this diverse clientele.

Reading as a skill or as a social practice in French immersion

This paper looks at reading in French immersion and how learning French is seen more as a skill rather than a social practice that could be examined through a more critical lens. Most of the teachers often teach students how to read but rarely will they discuss the role of French in Canadian society and how this is manifested in the texts they read and the world around them. This critical knowledge of how French and bilingualism are regarded in French immersion schools is lacking and brings several challenges to students inside and outside of the program. They learn how to read but can be quickly discouraged from using their French outside of school due to ideological assumptions that fail to recognize these students as bilingual, instead requiring cultural and native-like demonstrations of competence in the language in order to be accepted and allowed to speak.

The new sociolinguistics reader

or ‘more accumulation of knowledge . . . may lead to solutions, as they did in the northern part of the globe’ (p. 142) and which appear to contradict the overall thrust of the book. What about conflicts in the ‘northern’ parts of the world, one is tempted to ask? Here, I am not only referring to the well-known catalogue of cases such as Northern Ireland and the Basque country, but also to the violence directed against immigrants, Muslims in particular. Should we assume, based on the author’s latter observation, that the ‘non-northern’ parts of the world lack the necessary knowledge (and other factors that Harris enumerates) to deal with ethnic violence? These are minor quibbles, however, and do not detract from Harris’s well-structured, accessible and compelling discussion. Her book makes an important contribution to the evergrowing field of nationalism studies.

C. Paulin (ed.), Multiculturalisme, multilinguisme et milieu urbain

C. Paulin (ed.), Multiculturalisme, multilinguisme et milieu urbain . Besancon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comte, Universite de Franche-Comte, 2005. Pp. 3, 286. Hb €32. This edited book, written in French, brings together the contributions of 15 researchers from a number of research centers in France. Their studies are situated in various regions of France and around the world. The book provides an understanding of languages and cultures in contact in urban settings and includes work on language variation, language policies, the construction of identity, and linguistic minorities. Most of the chapters focus on a linguistic analysis of languages and cultures in contact, and some address the sociological and political aspects of these languages. Some of the data come from quantitative analysis of languages in different settings, including variation and ethnicity in England (S. Dalban), the preposition qu in Chiac, Canada (P. D. Giancarli), and Anglo-American lexis (A. Paulin).

Aneta Pavlenko & Adrian Blackledge (eds.), Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts

Aneta Pavlenko & Adrian Blackledge (eds.), Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts . Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2004. Pp. 312. Hb

Community and commodity in French Ontario

44.95. This is one of the best books I have read this year. The topic is up to date and relevant for many contexts. Each author contributes to the originality of this edited book. The editors, Pavlenko & Blackledge, have done a wonderful job in putting together a series of texts that demonstrate how negotiation of identities is embedded within larger socioeconomic, sociohistoric and sociopolitical contexts. In order to situate their own framework, the editors start by examining different approaches to the negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts. The sociopsychological approach examines the negotiation of identities in second language learning and language use. However, this approach treats learning trajectories as linear and unidirectional, with little acknowledgment of the fact that learning language and identity building are more complex. Interactional sociolinguistics focuses on the negotiation of identities via code-switching and language choice. This approach sees social identities as more fluid and constructed through linguistic and social interaction. However, even though much sociolinguistic research examines the negotiation of languages choices and identities in multilingual contexts, Pavlenko & Blackledge claim that few have tried to theorize it. In this book, they propose a poststructuralist and critical theory approach to negotiation of identities. Based on the work of Gal 1989 , Heller 1988 , 1992 , 1995a , 1995b , and Woolard 1985 , 1989 , 1998 , the editors argue that language choice in multilingual contexts is embedded in larger social, political, economic, and cultural systems. Their interest is in how languages are used to legitimize, challenge and negotiate specific identities, and to open new identity options for groups and individuals who are subjugated. Their framework combines aspects of the social constructionist approach, which focuses on discursive construction of identities, and the poststructuralist emphasis on power relations. The editors explain in detail what they mean by identities embedded within power relations with the work of Bourdieu. They also focus on identity narratives that reconstruct the links among past, present, and future, and they impose coherence where it was missing.