Fostering a love for languages at York St John University Community Language School

An interview with Drs Indu Vibha Meddegama and Maja Skender-Lizatovic, founders of the Community Language School at York St John University in England

By Aga Pędrak

When thinking about community-based heritage language schools (supplementary or complementary schools), what we usually imagine is a school that operates outside the mainstream school hours, for example during the weekends or afternoons, and provides mother tongue classes to young migrant generations. In addition to heritage language classes, complementary schools often offer cultural events, extra-curricular classes, seasonal celebrations, history, and geography lessons, and sometimes they also introduce religious education – all of these through the means of the heritage language. According to the National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education (NRCSE), there are approximately 3,000-5,000 supplementary schools operating in England. As they exist outside the formal educational system, these schools usually work tightly with specific ethnic or national communities and rely on these communities’ engagement and resources.

The Community Language School at York St John University, established in 2022, brings a new model to supplementary schooling. Based on translanguaging pedagogies, activity-based classes, knowledge exchange, and volunteering, this school currently runs four language classes to children and adolescents from a variety of backgrounds. In this way, the school serves as a linguistic and cultural hub for more than one community at a time, allowing for networking and integration between numerous migrant communities who live in York. In addition, the principles underpinning the school enable the School Leads, Drs Indu Vibha Meddegama and Maja Skender-Lizatovic, to conduct research on heritage language teaching and learning, as well as to gain a deep insight into language policies and practices that migrant families use at home.

 

     Image source: The Community Language School at York St John University

Aga: Could you introduce yourselves and explain how did you produce the idea of creating the Community Language School?

Maja: I come from a linguistic background. My research, my MA and PhD weren't in heritage language, it was more discourse analysis and Japanese language education. I was studying in Japan; the university had a multilingual approach and a translanguaging approach. Different types of research were done there, for example there is research on home and heritage language and on teaching Japanese as a second language in Japan, to migrant children. I've done language teaching practice there. Also, there is a volunteering group called LAMP - language acquisition and maintenance project. It is about migrant children, when they come to Japan, they need to learn Japanese, and this project wants them to maintain not just their first language, but any languages that they have in their repertoire. I got involved there as a volunteer, and I was volunteering for 10 years, I think. I was teaching English and Japanese. The classes are designed that you do first half of the class in the child's stronger language. It was mainly middle school aged children, but we did classes for primary school children as well. We did school class content, where you draw on their knowledge in their stronger language about the content. And then we do the same thing in Japanese. So, it was content based, not actually language teaching. That was my experience in teaching languages and volunteering. And then I came to York St John University three years ago and talked to Indu, and we realized that we have a common interest. So, I was first a volunteer, but I wanted to do more of that and maybe make it into my own research.

Indu: Since you asked us to introduce ourselves, I'm thinking that one way in which I could look at this is in relation to my linguistic repertoire which has been shaped by childhood experiences. When I was quite young, I had the opportunity to go to the States and attend school there. Up until that point, I only spoke one of the local languages of Sri Lanka. But when I came back to Sri Lanka from the States, after about two years, I was fluent in English as well. So, I think that really was a significant point in my journey because that's when I became bilingual, depending on how we define the word. And then, of course, professional training and experiences have further shaped my linguistic repertoire. I did my Diploma in French at an Alliance Française in Sri Lanka and was asked if I would be interested in teaching French to young and adult learners. So that was my first language teaching job, I taught for about three years, while doing my undergraduate studies at a local university. And then there were extracurricular interests of mine like Indian classical dance, because of which I was introduced to classical languages like Sanskrit. And then, when I started my PhD at the University of Leeds, because of my involvement in classical dance, I came across this wonderful South Indian community based in Yorkshire. And I started helping at a school and observing their language practices and the language practices of the children as they were all multilingual. I eventually became very interested in what happened in the home domain, a very private domain, so my PhD was on the home language policies and practices within this community. This PhD experience gave me an insight into the struggles that the older generations face on moving to a different country, especially to a different country where English is the official language. Since then, I’ve felt that publishing in this area isn't enough, there's something more we can perhaps do as academics today. I am very grateful to have been made aware of, because of the higher education system in the UK, that becoming an academic is not just about teaching in the classroom or doing research and publishing it, it should go beyond that. Doing this kind of community language program with Maja made me finally feel like we are taking that step. We are drawing on our professional experience, our research expertise to learn even more about how we can help all communities, not just one community who identify as belonging to one language or cultural background, but all communities in York.

 

Aga: That's interesting to see how your education, professional experience and then your research, all led you to supporting the multicultural communities and families in your current location. When you first came up with the idea of setting up a community school, did you think of a multilingual one?

Indu: Yes, absolutely. Through the work we do at York St John University, we advocate social justice, and we are immensely proud of that. Even when it comes to our student cohorts on undergraduate and postgraduate courses, we value the fact that they are truly diverse. And we wanted that to be reflected in the Community Language School that we set up. The word ‘language’ in the label encapsulates that diversity. Traditionally, when a complementary school is set up, it typically caters to one language community. Our case is different, because we have the support of the University which is more than willing to support us with materials and classrooms, so we can open our school to everyone.

Maja: Yes, I think the needs analysis questionnaire, we conducted last summer, showed us there is a big need for supporting a variety of community languages. And we didn't know that York is this diverse as it doesn't always seem like this, it's more hidden. So, we said 'Let's just pick up everyone. Let's try'. Later, we realized that although we knew it from the start, sometimes it's difficult to put a person into one ‘box’ with one language. This is what I experienced in Japan as well. I said I was teaching English and Japanese, but my students were from many countries. For instance, they were Nepali, who used English in school. They spoke Nepali but they also spoke Hindi. I speak a bit of Hindi as well, so we had that connection. Everything came out in the classroom. We also had students from Philippines, speaking Tagalog and other local languages. So, there was not one box to fit all. We were aware of that, so we just listened to the needs of the community, and the community is very much multilingual.

Indu: I agree with Maja, we can't compartmentalize individuals anymore. As mentioned by many scholars in the field of Multilingualism, multilingualism is very much the norm in today’s world. Although some may still say 'Where I come from everybody speaks English', multilingualism is very much there, but like Maja said, it's hidden.

 

Aga: It looks like your school helps to bring forward multilingualism that is already there in families, homes, communities, and the society. What I know from my experience in Polish supplementary schools in Ireland, is that Polish migrant parents are happy to meet other Polish parents and very often it is the Polish community school that brings opportunities for networking and friendships between children, teachers, or even entire Polish families. Have you seen opportunities for such connections between different language groups in your school community?

Indu: Absolutely. When setting up the community language school, we also wanted to create a supportive network for multilingual parents. In our school, in the corridors, we can already see parents, who bring their children for Japanese classes, starting to chat with parents bringing their children for Mandarin Chinese. It will take time, but we are hoping that this kind of network building between migrant parents from different countries will also materialise over the coming months.

Maja: Some of the parents came already as a group, so they already had their community. Especially the Japanese parents, as the news about our school spreads through their community. Some parents, and children, know each other well, they already came connected. Then we've managed to connect a couple of groups like these, and we see further connections being made. It is visible when parents come to collect the children, and they never want to leave the classroom, so parents of different linguistic backgrounds interact with one another. I think with time, it will be more visible, those kinds of inter-language groups and connections.

 

Aga: How many languages do you teach now and what a typical day looks like in your school?

Indu: Currently, we offer four different languages: Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. We've seen a need for 14 or 15 different languages, but I don't think we will ever be able to run that many language classes, because there are only two of us and our volunteers.

Preparatory work for Saturday classes starts mid-week with helping volunteers plan their classes. On Saturdays, we follow safeguarding policies and practices in place, as this outreach program involves children. For example, we do drop off and collection sign sheet for parents. We also help the volunteers who run the classes. Maja does a lot in the Japanese classes; I pop into all the classes from time to time to check in and help when needed. Sometimes it's helping in the way of taking the child to the toilet, as simple as that. We also try and speak to all the parents who are always positive, happy about the program. It’s a lovely way to build rapport with the community.

In terms of approaches to language introduction which you refer to as ‘teaching’, one point I would like to mention is that our volunteers don't have professional teaching qualifications. Therefore, we try and avoid using words like 'teachers' and 'teaching'. Instead, even on the school website, we use clauses like 'introducing languages other than English'. Having said this, as school leads and as researchers we are trying to figure out, with the help of our volunteers, what it is that we are doing in the classroom, how do we conceptualize this thing that's happening in the classroom when it comes to language input? So, if not teaching, what are the other possible ways to make sense of the processes we observe in the classrooms? What options do we have? That's a big and exciting challenge for us to think about. So that's an open question for us to maybe talk to you about in about two, three years’ time.

 

Aga: I remember when we met in Nottingham, you said that some of your pupils are so happy to attend your school because it doesn't look so much like 'teaching' at school. Maybe if you could tell me a little bit more about that and the pedagogical approaches that you use in the classroom?

Maja: The classroom is activity-based, content-based. We use translanguaging, so we're not strict like 'you must speak this language' to avoid additional stress in children. We always think of a concept for a class and prepare activities in advance. Mainly younger children are coming, so we do concept-based activities, games, crafts, and some activities that are quite familiar in a language classroom. But yes, we always try to DO things, so we don't focus on the language 'teaching'. All languages are some mixed languages, but if we understand each other, everything is allowed. For example, we have weekly meetings just to discuss what are we going to do in the class and it's not just what resources are needed, but we try to conceptualize the class together. So recently, we did a bit of a cultural thing, because it was a Children's Day in Japan. We organised activities that are done usually on that day in Japan, like crafting, drawing activities, origami, and games. We also talk about children's experience, we ask a lot of questions to the children, like what do they know about this day and how it's celebrated, do they know any other events that happen in Japan? We try to draw on the children's experience and let them talk to us about it. We use lots of different concepts. We did. Yes. Yes.

Indu: Regarding our approach to translanguaging, it's a complicated process or practice to define, isn't it? Experts in the field say it's a fluid movement across the so called 'named' languages like English, French, and Japanese. So, how does this manifest itself in our classes? When it comes to our volunteers, we encourage them to explain a task in Spanish, but also explain it or introduce it in English. This is even more important because we have families where the language that we are introducing to the children is not a home language. So, such children can decide if they prefer to use English first, and then present the final piece of work in Spanish or in Japanese. It's going to take some time for everybody to become comfortable with this notion of translanguaging, simply because our prior experiences of learning languages may differ greatly. For example, some have been schooled in a system where the target language was the only allowed language in the classroom. So, I think tiny steps is our approach. I think having Maja in one of the classes for the full duration of that class is brilliant, because she can show this approach to other volunteers who can then learn through observing.

Maja: Some of the children do go to other complementary schools, for example, Japanese, where they go through a lot of content, curriculum that is decided by the Japanese government. But they still like what we bring to the table in our Community Language School. I think that they enjoy what we do, enjoy using their languages, the activities in the classroom. I also think they like that it's all about them. Because we have a focus on children, we ask a lot of questions, so they talk. And they're all very, very talkative, you think they're quiet, but they're all very talkative, they have so much to say.

 

Aga: Very often in school, a child’s role as a student or learner is only to respond precisely to the teacher’s questions or follow instructions which may limit the opportunities for some individuals to open and talk more freely, while using the languages of their choice. Your school creates this brilliant opportunity for them to take a voice during the classes and fully use their linguistic repertoires. Does it help building a positive attitude towards heritage languages and participation in supplementary education?

Maja: Yes, I think even on our website, we did write somewhere 'fostering a love of languages'. This is something that we're trying to do. We say to the children 'no quizzes, no grammar', just to take off the pressure. So, we really want to keep a low-pressure atmosphere in our school. And we do get to know the children and their families as they talk loads. And children do like being creative. And this is why they don't want to go home because they are intent on finishing their creative tasks. Through creativity and translanguaging they can express themselves.

Indu: We think so. One more thing about translanguaging that’s just come to mind, is how Professor Suresh Canagarajah says that translanguaging is everywhere, you know, children do translanguaging at home. So, this is why some of these advocates of translanguaging are saying, that children already know how to do it. Maybe formal education systems need to create more opportunities for them to bring that into their mainstream schools as well. I think this is what we are trying to do at our Community Language School, to provide them with another space to continue to draw on all their languages.

 

Aga: You’ve talked about the volunteers and how you also highlight to them different approaches for introducing languages in your school. It brings me to my next question. How do you find the volunteers? And whether there was a case that you would find volunteers among the parents at your school or among the university students at York St John University?

Indu: Yes, we already have a parent volunteer. Our Korean classes are run by a parent whose three children attend the classes. We open the vacancies to members of the public, as well as our university students and parents of our children. We advertise through social media, then word of mouth. We are also incredibly lucky because we work in Linguistics and Languages, so we have Home and Exchange students who are multilingual. As academics, we believe we have a responsibility in terms of helping students develop transferable skills and preparing them for graduate level work.

 

Aga: How do they find it to run a classroom?

Maja: I think our parent volunteer is doing an excellent job. She's giving us and everyone ideas. She embraced the role and understood what we were aiming at, which is creating a time and place for the children to use their languages. I think the volunteers may be, at first, because they have no teaching experience, a bit apprehensive, like worried. But once they start doing it, they feel much more comfortable, and find it easier to prepare. We also don't want it to feel like a burden to them. I do feel that they feel the joy and kind of a civic duty to contribute. These are really the two strong motivators. It's difficult to find volunteers, but we're lucky with our little community. I always think a word of mouth works well, and slowly, slowly we are growing. Kind of naturally growing. And we want to grow because we feel there's a need in the community, not because of profit as no one is profiting from this.

Aga: There is no financial profit, but great benefit for the community, for research, for the children attending, their parents, students involved, and volunteers as well. It looks like there are many groups and individuals that can benefit from being engaged at various levels and within different roles in your school. As you said, you are growing, and you've mentioned that you were going to conduct research based on the Community Language School, what are your plans and goals for the future of your school?

Indu: For now, it's all organic. I think many people would agree that this type of a Saturday school is uncommon. A language school that is organised, run, and managed by academics, and hosted through a university. We are quite unique in that respect, and we are learning as we go along. In terms of research, we have a couple of research ideas in mind. Our first is to look at potential impact of professional training on volunteers’ classroom practices.

We are also hoping to secure some funding so we can have support and assistance with the everyday admin side of things. So maybe a school coordinator who could help us. If that support is available, and volunteers are available, we would like to run maybe at least two more language classes.

Maja: I think there's a lot of aspects and what we're doing with the volunteers, with the children, with the parents with the whole community. So, we really want do research on all these aspects and see what is working, how can we help, how can we improve. That’s what our research will follow on. And maybe, we want to become a very sustainable project, sustainable school, and that's maybe a kind of a bigger aim that in the future, we make something that is replicable to other communities. Maybe other universities will notice this idea. Maybe in the future, we will share what we did, how we did it, and with support of research showing what worked. So that's kind of a big plan. Hopefully, everything works to make it sustainable.

Aga: Thank you very much and best of luck with all your plans.

 

To learn more about the Community Language School and/or to contact Drs Indu Vibha Meddegama and Maja Skender-Lizatovic, please visit the website: The Community Language School at York St John University.