ShiftED Podcast #100 Every Language Belongs: Erin Quirk on Plurilingual Kids and Quebec Classrooms

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Shifted Podcast. I have uh n Aaron Corrector today with me, um a researcher, linguist, a professor at University Chabuk, um, who I met at Questgrin's research symposium. Um, and I was just taken aback with her research on linguists uh linguistics here in Quebec and how our beautiful province with its multilanguage um and laws and and and requirements and constraints a little bit and how we navigate all this. And and Erin's research is just was quite enlightening, so I reached out to her and said, please come and join me um so that the rest of you out there can also start to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Um, Erin, thanks so much for taking some time to join me today. And I I kind of wanted to start off with your um background in advertising in public relations. How did you come into linguistic research through that um, you know, uh advertising public relations? Like did that early training help you with the work that you were later gonna do with linguistic studies and research?

Well, first of all, let me say thanks for having me, Chris. It's a pleasure to be here. It was great to meet you at Questgren. I had a wonderful time in Quest Grun. And yeah, I'm happy to talk about these things that are really close to my research and to my my heart. So, but uh that question, wow, I have not actually I've never been asked that question. So I'm gonna think about it. Um, my so I have to be completely honest that my have actually very limited experience in advertising and public relations. That was what my bachelor's degree was in, but I was actually more interested in like communication more generally. So writing. I've always been a language person, I've always been a person who likes words and writing kind of came naturally to me. So that's how I ended up with a degree in advertising and public relations. But um eventually, as you know, I kind of started the way that I got interested in language acquisition was because I like to travel. And so I was living abroad, I was living in Spain, and I was teaching English and I became an English teacher, not through training, but really through just life experience. I started working in Spain and I loved it. And I also started learning Spanish myself and you know, uh comparing English and Spanish and starting to find uh bilingualism fascinating. And then when I returned to the United States, I realized that I worked in a bilingual daycare center actually for a while. And I was so all of my colleagues were bilingual, code switching a lot, and um, and I got really interested in that. And so I applied to a program in linguistics at the City University of New York. And yeah, the rest is history. I mean, then I kind of moved my way through. I studied different aspects of linguistics, but ultimately, again, through life experience, I was living in France and raising children with three languages and teaching in an English school in France. And so, again, you know, my life experiences and my research interests kind of connected to lead me to to what I do now, which is to study how kids grow up with multiple languages.

Yeah, totally. Great, like great foundational kind of your trajectory, really fascinating. Um, and I guess France also kind of like those experiences really helped inform a little bit what's happening here in our province of Quebec. Um maybe just to kind of clarify things a bit too, um, Erin, like purilingual and multilingual, bilingual, can you kind of just set the stage for us of like what what are all these terms and linguistic kind of can you define them a little bit for us as to what their orientation is?

Sure. And yeah, I'll say that, you know, everyone has a different approach, perhaps, but there are some unifying kind of we we agree on certain ways to use these terms. So generally, bilingual is used to refer to acquisition of two languages in childhood. And it can be simultaneous or it can be sequential. And in the research, we tend to distinguish around the age of three or four. If children are learning two languages before that age, we call them simultaneous bilinguals, or after that age, we call them sequential. Or another way to say sequential bilingual is a child's second language learner. Some parents, some people use that term. And the reason why we kind of distinguish that from second language acquisition is because there are differences and in like the way that children uh develop their languages when they develop them at that age and when they develop them later at school, for example. Um, the term multilingual, bilingual, plurilingual, there it's a it gets a little bit more kind of nuanced and maybe there are differences there. But for me, multilingual is a term that I use when I talk about a group of kids who some might be bilingual, some might be trilingual, some might be quadrilingual, so kind of an all-encompassing term. But other people actually only use it to refer to settings and places. And then they use plurilingual to talk about the individual. And I'm I'm kind of between the two. I do I use them both, but plurilingualism is this idea that an as an individual who has multiple languages in my repertoire, I kind of call on them at different moments, I use them in different ways, but that I have them at my disposal in my repertoire. And instead of kind of seeing them as separate and countable distinct systems, the way that we do, like, you know, bilingual, trilingual, quadrilingual, we just use a term plurilingual to talk about people who have multiple systems that interact with one another and that they use in kind of interconnected ways. It kind of emphasizes the interconnected nature of people's language competence in multiple languages.

Right, right. So that would a common thing would be if somebody was both English and French and they would swap in between those two languages during a conversation with someone else that also understands English and French or whatever other language, right?

Yes, we see that a lot in in Quebec because there are so many bilingual people in Quebec that people tend to, you know, they tend to with those people interweave and and use both of their language systems because they know they can, and people can kind of pick and choose the term that comes to them most easily or that is most kind of, you know, well suited to the context. And yes, that kind of communication is is what we kind of refer to as plurilingual communication or plurilingual competence.

Yeah.

Interesting. Interesting. So um what happens before students enter the classroom, right? We uh your research looks a little bit at this of findings of the language environment of a community and how it influences the language maybe that's spoken at home that later finds its way into schools. Can you talk to us a little bit about those findings of that research of even before kids enter into school, things are starting to, you know, fit into place. What what what were your findings around understanding the roles of families and communities play in shaping, you know, students' language experiences?

Sure. So I think the the there are a few findings that are kind of relevant here. So the the project that you saw presented at Questren, we were interested in knowing what are the things, the factors that shape how families with more than one language use those languages with children, and then how that relates to the children's own use of those languages. And um, we were specifically interested in like the community support for the two languages. And we looked at it in different ways, but one way we looked at it was the presence of bilingualism in the child's immediate kind of community. And we used uh Statistics Canada information to figure out, you know, what was the level of bilingualism in a given community. And we found a couple of relationships that were interesting and not at all, you know, surprising perhaps, but also kind of nice to see this actually comes out in the numbers. Um, that children who live in more bilingual communities have better access to books, for example, in the non-dominant language, which in this context would be English, and that they tend to themselves hear and use the that language more in those contexts. And what's interesting there is that that that relationship even stays significant when you control for the parent's proficiency in English, because um one of the things that we found and we've found over and over again is that parents tend to use the language that they feel most comfortable in with their children. They talk about it as being a kind of natural way of speaking to their children that allows them to fully express themselves and be kind of nuanced and use rich language with their child. And they're right about that, because the research shows that actually the, you know, the quality of the input that children get is important and fluent speakers can provide richer, more kind of diverse language to children. So, but the that that being something that really shapes language practices, we wanted to see if above and beyond that, is there also just an impact of like where the parent lives and and that they see the two languages used around them at a certain level. And we did find that. We found that, yeah, parents are sensitive to the local kind of context, whether there are lots of bilinguals around them or not. And then in turn, children are as well, and the way that they use their languages. So yeah. So good news for people living in bilingual environments, and maybe kind of points to the need to support those children who are growing up in less bilingual environments in the the other language, whatever that other language is.

Right, right. Um and this is can be seen as a strength when these kids finally find their way into, you know, organized school. And can you talk to us a little bit about the the power that those kids are bringing in and the richness that they're bringing in through through what you found?

Sure. Yeah, I think there's a few advantages. And I think we all kind of have a sense that multilingualism and bilingualism brings advantages, but from like the research perspective, what do we know about? What are the really concrete things that that bilingual kids have as assets when they enter school? I guess the first thing to say is that when they enter school, they have bilingual competence. And we know that that's different than monolingual competence. And that can be a source of actually anxiety and some difficulty sometimes because they won't perhaps be in the same place for in one of their languages as a monolingual child. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. So that hence the, you know, the advantages that I'm about to talk about. But I know that from our research, we know that parents have a bit of anxiety around that, that fact that when they enter school, they actually have something that's a bit different from their monolingual peers. They have a like a language competence that is distributed over two languages, meaning they have, you know, a rich vocabulary in both languages put together, but maybe one of their languages, their vocabulary is a little smaller than their monolingual peers. So that can be a source of concern for parents, and it should be something that teachers recognize as a completely natural and normal part of being a bilingual. Um, but at the same time, having those two linguistic systems, so for example, English and French, which have so many cognate words, for example, that children can then leverage. And we have research that shows that they are really able to, even at young ages, kind of use that knowledge they have in one of their languages to boost their learning in the other language. So I would say teachers recognizing that that's possible, that they they really can leverage their knowledge in the other language and that they should be encouraged to do so is important. And also maybe I'm given some instruction of how to do so. So, in in some of the research others and have done and that I have done, you notice that children get better at kind of connecting their two languages as they spend time in school. And that's probably because they're getting exposure to written language, which helps them to see connections between the languages, but maybe also from the help of teachers who are pointing out these connections. And I think that can be even because at young ages, not all children do make those connections naturally. Some children do it more than others. So at very young ages, teachers can play a role there and kind of helping children be able to spot and kind of connect those correspondences between their languages to boost their learning. Um, and then the the last thing I'll say about an advantage that these children bring, which is important to call out, is their metalinguistic awareness. And so we know that, you know, there's there's some kind of debate over what kind of effect on cognition bilingualism has. There's mixed results, but it's a pretty, it's a pretty robust, I think, conclusion or or or claim that there is a positive impact on metalinguistic awareness, which basically means being able to look at language like an object and analyze it and kind of use it and manipulate it in a way with some awareness about it, about how it works. And I think bilingual kids, you know, from a very young age, they're like, oh, okay, there's two words for everything. Ah, okay. And oh, they kind of sound the same. And they can have these realizations through their experience that help them to be able to be aware and learn better how languages work.

Right, right. So it doesn't necessarily cause a confusion between when the kids are, you know, have two or three languages that they're playing between, even though adults might be like, oh, they're gonna get confused. And like, like there's no the research shows that that is a benefit when they're playing around with more than one language.

Absolutely. And even if they are code switching, you know, I have I have children who code switch, and I I know that for parents it can sometimes be a little worrying, like, oh, do they really know the difference? But all research indicates that from a very young age, children are distinguishing their languages. They're able to separate them and keep them, even if it is at on an implicit level, you know, they're not going to be able to talk about it, but that they are aware that they are two separate systems that they're using. And just the fact that they, that those two systems interact with one another and that they use them kind of in a kind of more kind of close, interwoven way doesn't mean that they're confusing them. Yeah. So, no, there's no no evidence to show that there is a confus a period of confusion or fusion of the two languages. Really, all evidence points to their ability to keep them separate. And if they're not separate, it's because they're kind of they're using them in a way that, like we said before, bilingual competence is different. Yes, you do, you do see some influence back and forth, but it's not confusion. It's just the natural process of using all that you know when you express yourself, you know, which means you use two languages to express yourself.

I love that. So, how do we bridge this? So you have what the research says, and then you have what happens in classrooms. You are helping to build this community of practice to to create that bridge so that the research can actually become can inform the practice that we're seeing in the class. Can you tell us a little bit about what those challenges are from what what what we found out through the research to what we're seeing in the classrooms? And can we make those dance a little bit nicer together?

Yeah, absolutely. Yes, I think there's there's a lot of movement on this front, and I'm really happy about that because I think for a long time there was this idea that in order for kids to be able to advance in their language development, they needed to keep them separate at school. And so, you know, English language time was English language time, French was French time, and should not interfere, you know, and bring in the other language. But more and more teachers and people who train teachers are really uh emphasizing that actually we really do need to leverage the other language in our teaching of, let's say, a second language, and that that's a benefit and actually can make things work better. But it's true that teachers generally do have some reservations. You know, in our experience with this community of practice, we know we've heard from teachers that there are challenges. It's not, it's not super easy and straightforward, but there are some things that are easier to kind of like, okay, these concerns we can we can very easily kind of take care of. And like, for example, some teachers have concerns about, well, I like this idea of plurilingual pedagogical approaches about talking about other languages, but I myself don't speak those languages. So, how do I in the classroom like introduce information about these languages that I don't know? And the beauty is the a lot of work has been done. There are networks like um, which is a kind of program developed at the University of Montreal by Francoise Armand and colleagues, which has provided a huge number of resources that are already there for people to use. For example, I the other day I was looking through it and I saw there's an example, there's an example of an activity to introduce ways to say hello in multiple languages, like Tagalog and to, you know, these languages that the teachers are not expected to speak, but that um can elicit a discussion, like, oh wow, there are these different languages. Where do they speak them? And oh, this one sounds like that one, and that one sounds very different from that one. So parents, parents, teachers don't need to be proficient in the languages in order for them to kind of introduce them in class in a kind of language awareness way. But also there's the fear that, you know, especially in language education, that that if we introduce, you know, comparisons with the the first language or the dominant language, that that kind of opens the floodgates. And and I remember when when I was a teacher, I was often instructed to never use the other language in the classroom because if I do that, then forget it. You're never gonna get students to speak English. And and I think that had a lasting impact on a lot of people. This is kind of like a belief that like I can't possibly show that I actually do speak the other language, because then it opens up, you know, a kind of uh irreversible change. But again, same same thing. The evidence doesn't really support that. And so at this conference that we had in the fall, where a lot of teachers from the area who are already doing this, these kind of plurilingual pedagogical approaches, they came in to present their experiences. There was nobody who said that, you know, this kind of changed the dynamic such that they had to really push for the the students to use the target language. No, it, you know, it really, if it's done in uh an intentional, well-thought-out way, where it's like, you know, it's showing that like this language can be used as a tool to figure out and to maybe kind of bridge any kind of gaps when you're trying to express yourself, but that ultimately the goal is that we're we're here all to learn, let's say, English or French, you know, depending on the school. It it works, it really does. And it can be a tool that just basically builds the person's, the, the student's ability to express themselves and to learn rather than kind of a crutch that the students rely on that doesn't help them progress. So um, yeah, so I would say, and then I think really resources are key. And that's why we are starting this community of practice because um it takes a lot of time and effort to incorporate these new approaches. And I know that teachers have anything but time, right? So the the more we can do to provide these resources that are ready to go, that can be easily implemented and and like have a space for teachers to ask questions and kind of exchange, I think the more likely we're gonna get adoption of these kind of pro approaches across across the region. So that's the that's the main objective of this community of practice is to facilitate that.

Right. And based on your research, uh here's the final it's a big question, but I'm gonna go for it. So based on your research that you've done so far, if you were to look down the road, you know, five to ten years, what piece of research would you most like to see happening that that we could start to kind of get going now with, as you mentioned, you know, support, resources, community of practices are amazing because they help inform like based on that research that you've been doing in your in your studies, what what would one of the big ones be that you would like to see five, ten years down the road?

Okay. Yes. Big question. Okay, let's see. I want to make sure, because yeah, there's so much that I could like to choose from at least uh I have like four or five things going around in my head. But I would say, I mean, a lot of my research in the recent years has focused on families and um specifically on like how parents feel and think about their child's multilingualism and then like their experiences related to school have come up quite a lot. And so I think with respect to school, if I have to, yeah, if I want to make the link with between my research and school experiences, I would love for there to be more connections between, for example, heritage language speaking parents and the school, but also English-speaking parents in the French school and French-speaking parents in the English school. I feel like language barriers need to be overcome. There needs to be more of a kind of better communication between school and families that will help children to see connections between their home languages and school, which I think will help them to see the value of having both and bringing parents into the school as experts. So, for example, a lot of our research points to the ability of parents to come in and talk about heritage languages, and that really validates the child's kind of view of the heritage language. And so, and it's so simple, you know, it's something that can be done. I think it's really feasible within five years. You know, that could be something that's kind of introduced as a practice in uh early, you know, early elementary, for example. So yeah, I'd say building more connections between multilingual families and their schools so that they feel understood and heard and that there is a sense that those languages have a presence at school, even if it's not the school language. So yeah, I think that would be my top pick.

That's huge too. And it really has nothing to do with the kids per se. It's it's the community and and schools connecting, right? Like that sense of like we all belong, regardless of what language we speak. It's it's our community.

Yes, exactly. And I think a lot of parents want that. They want to feel they live in a kind of a bilingual, plurilingual society and that they have a place and that they have a richness to share. And I think that would be important to to value and honor. Yeah.

Amazing. Well, we'll leave it on that really positive, proactive, easy thing that can be done, people. It's not that hard. Um, and research points to the positiveness of it. Um, so Aaron, thanks for all of your um insights and stories uh and your research as well. That hopefully we'll start seeing influences down the road and maybe even tomorrow as we uh navigate uh languages here in Quebec.

Thank you, Chris. It was a real pleasure to talk with you. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.