Sambolín Morales, Astrid N.

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         Texas Education Review   Review of Jean Conteh and Gabriela Meier (Eds). (2014), The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 328 pages.  Astrid N. Sambolín Morales, MA University of Colorado Boulder  Volume 5, Issue 2, pp. 112-115 (2017) Available online at www.txedrev.org                         Review of The Multilingual Turn  112 Review of Jean Conteh and Gabriela Meier (Eds). (2014), The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 328 pages.  Astrid N. Sambolín Morales, MA University of Colorado Boulder  Despite the increasing social, cultural, and linguistic diversity in schools and communities throughout the world, languages are still positioned as belonging to particular territories or nation-states rather than belonging to its speakers (García, 2009).  As microcosms of the communities they serve, schools are influenced by the social, political, and historical contexts in which they operate.  Schools promoting monolingual, monoglossic perspectives of language treat bilingual students’ languages as separate (García, 2009), often excluding students’ home languages from the curriculum in favor of the majority language.  Such perspectives not only limit the linguistic resources students can access, but they also demand that bilingual students function according to monolingual standards.   In The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges (2014), Conteh and Meier shift away from the monolingual paradigm through a collection of 18 snapshots of the multilingual turn in language education around the world.  The aim of the edited volume is to equip teachers, teacher educators, and researchers with a theoretical framework and set of teaching practices that encourage the integration of multilingualism in the curriculum.  By situating social justice and social practice as the main principles undergirding language education, the authors argue in favor of multilingual conceptualizations and practices that both acknowledge and build on emergent bilingual students’ funds of knowledge.  Furthermore, an underlying approach to social constructivism in language and learning offers both a foundation for meaningful, relevant classroom interaction and a directive towards more equitable education for all.  Several recently-published books have addressed the multilingual turn in education, a point Conteh and Meir present as evidence of this phenomenon.  More recently, Ortega et al.’s (2016) work focuses on the process of multilingual language education, presenting a wide array of research exploring language acquisition through authentic, meaningful communication.  May’s (2013) text, on the other hand, emphasizes bi/multilingualism as a resource for language teaching and learning in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), TESOL, and bilingual education contexts.  The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education builds on the contributions of these related titles, positioning bilingual education from both language-as-resource and language-as-right orientations, and centering equity, social justice, and diversity as fundamental to education in a democratic society.  The book’s editors bring to the volume different perspectives and expertise regarding multilingualism: Jean Conteh grew up in a monolingual environment in England, worked as a volunteer teacher in West Africa, and later developed an interest in multilingualism.  Gabriela Meier, on the other hand, grew up as a diglossic German speaker who lived and worked in several language regions in Europe.  Her work currently centers on students’ plurilingual repertoires and how pluralinguism affects students’ identities, as well as their influence on social cohesion and social capital.  In short, both authors bring different positionalities regarding language acquisition and use their expertise to seamlessly weave multilingual theory (including an ecological perspective of language and ties between language and identity) and practice Morales 113 throughout the book.  Furthermore, the volume shows collective strength in the diversity of experiences represented by the chapter authors.  The book is organized into three sections.  Section one comprises the first four chapters and details multilingualism more broadly.  Critical perspectives linking language ideologies and power differentials are explored across individual identities and societal language orientations. Section two consists of the next four chapters and showcases how multilingualism is incorporated in different educational settings throughout Europe (e.g., Switzerland, Luxemburg, Cyprus, England, and Germany) to demonstrate the ways in which the local and global work together to shape participants’ experiences in schools and communities.   The last section, comprised of the book’s final four chapters (not including the conclusion), is a departure from previous sections by shifting attention to teacher practices that encourage students’ multilingualism and treat it as an asset rather than a problem.  Since there is much overlap between the content of the first two sections of the book, it might have been more helpful for readers had the book been divided into two sections overall that made the distinction between chapters that are theoretically-driven and those that are more practice-oriented.  The volume promotes multilingualism as a concept to be valued in schools and society for its ability to instill in bilingual students a sense of inclusion and to promote social justice; this stance is supported through the vignettes depicting inclusive and equity-oriented teacher practices and student interactions.  For example, in Chapter eight, Meier offers data showing positive associations between participation in two-way immersion (TWI) programs in Berlin and increased social cohesion; she compared students in TWI programs to “main stream” (i.e., general education) students and found that different subgroups within this program were influenced in different ways.  Specifically, students in the TWI program (regardless of home language affiliation) reported perceiving more inclusion or less group fragmentation than their “main stream” peers; students in the TWI program who spoke the non-dominant language (Portuguese) reported perceiving less threats of violence or less instances of physical violence in their school than their “main stream” counterparts; and students in the TWI program whose home language is the dominant one (German) demonstrated more open attitudes toward the rights of immigrants than their “main stream” peers.  As a result, the authors’ arguments specifically target teachers by making connections between multilingualism, education, and social cohesion to demonstrate how the multilingual turn promotes inclusivity and social justice in education.  The book’s global perspective of multilingualism and education is one of its highlights. Chapters are written by teachers and researchers living and working in diverse contexts such as Europe, Australia, China, UK, Mauritius, and the USA.  This global perspective could be especially useful for readers who are familiar with the historical background of their local context but are interested in learning more about the predominant language orientations in other contexts.  Furthermore, multilingualism is touted as a necessity given the effect globalization has had in terms of immigration and language practices.  The concept of a “super-diverse society” surfaces frequently across multiple chapters, describing the social, cultural, and linguistic diversity reflected in students’ increasingly varied linguistic practices (Conteh & Meier, 2014). In short, globalization and its effect on speakers’ linguistic repertoires, which reflect an individual’s multiple and shifting language contexts and use, position multilingualism as not only a resource and a goal for both bilingual and monolingual students, but as a concept that reflects the reality of learners living in a 21st century, globalized context.     Review of The Multilingual Turn  114 An important theme weaved throughout the book is the power imbalance between majority and minoritized languages – and speakers of those languages – in bilingual education. The impact of monolingual language ideologies on students’ identities and experiences in schools is reiterated both explicitly and implicitly.  Moreover, a decidedly heteroglossic ideology promoting multiple language practices in interrelationship is promoted both in the book’s theoretical framework as well as the vignettes portraying teachers’ classroom practices.  Other important threads include the importance of interaction, relationships, collaboration, and authentic language use to nurture multilingualism in classrooms.   The editors and authors seem to ground their ideas in social constructivism by highlighting the role of interaction and dialogue in an individual’s development.  That is, “every memory, as personal as it may be, exists through its relation with what has been shared with others: language, idioms, events, and everything that shapes the society in which individuals are a part” (Gergen, 2009, p. 103).  This emphasis on interaction and the relationship between society and individual development are closely tied with the book’s emphasis on “languaging,” i.e., language as a verb.  This concept has an emphasis on the language users, their interaction, and their intentions, rather than the product or output.  Moreover, collaboration and authentic language use that caters to students’ actual language practices, interests, and funds of knowledge are highlighted throughout the book and speak to the idea of Gergen’s (2009) collaborative classrooms, “where students can speak to their own needs and interests, helping them ‘own the material’” (p. 131).  Finally, an ecological perspective of classrooms is a common thread throughout the book, exploring the relationship between languages and the contexts in which they are situated.  In short, social justice and social practice appear as the two pillars of bilingual education in Conteh and Meier’s work. One of the book’s greatest strengths is that chapter authors are in conversation with one another, constantly referring to information and concepts presented in the other chapters.  This ongoing dialogue allows readers to effortlessly move throughout the text.  Furthermore, the inclusion of monolingual students as a population benefitting from the multilingual turn provides a clearer idea of what multilingualism really encompasses; in other words, varied language practices do not solely belong to bilinguals, but instead, are embedded within every individual’s linguistic repertoire. While there is troubling evidence that monolingual students from majority groups benefit from participation in bilingual education, sometimes at the expense of bilingual students from minoritized communities (see Valdes, 1997), Conteh and Meier position the multilingual turn as benefiting and meeting the needs of every student, irrespective of their home language practices and whether they identify as speaking one named language or more.  In addition, chapter seven provides a significant contribution to the field by offering thoughtful counterarguments for skeptics wondering how the implementation of multiple language practices in a lesson could benefit students who do not share those languages.  By including these counterarguments, this chapter is responsive to the needs of teachers and researchers who either still have doubts as to the effectiveness and implementation of the multilingual turn or who need to regularly address these concerns from fellow teachers/researchers.  Moreover, each chapter provides questions encouraging reflexivity about teacher practices and ideologies.  Finally, the chapters focusing on teacher practices are especially relevant, since they provide a necessary bridge between theory and implementation for pre-service teachers or teachers who wish to experiment with new practices.  However, readers with a preference for practice-oriented content might find themselves wishing for more chapters with this particular emphasis.    Morales 115 Conteh and Meier’s edited volume, The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges serves, is a useful introductory text for teachers, teacher educators, and researchers interested in learning about the benefits of adopting a multilingual perspective both at the institutional and classroom level.  Although the book’s organization leads to some overlap between the different sections, its non-US-centric perspective will give readers a glimpse into the different ways a more equitable approach to language and learning have been implemented outside of the US. __________   Astrid N. Sambolín Morales is a doctoral student in the Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity program at the University of Colorado Boulder’s School of Education. Her research interests include translanguaging, culturally relevant/sustaining pedagogy, and ties between emergent bilinguals’ language and identity. She can be reached at a.sambolin@gmail.com.   References García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Gergen, K.J. (2009). An invitation to social construction. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.  May, S. (2013). The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and bilingual education. New York: Routledge. Ortega, L., Tyler, A. E., Park, H. I., & Uno, M. (2016). The usage-based study of language learning and multilingualism. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Valdés, G. (1997). Dual-language immersion programs: A cautionary note concerning the education of language minority students. Harvard Educational Review, 67(3), 391-429.       

Review of Jean Conteh and Gabriela Meier (Eds). (2014), The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 328 pages.

https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/2152/47340/2/10.%20Final_Book%20Review_6.22.2017_115.pdf

Review of Jean Conteh and Gabriela Meier (Eds). (2014), The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 328 pages.

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