Language education policy and multilingual ...

Language and Education

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Language education policy and multilingual assessment Durk Gorter & Jasone Cenoz To cite this article: Durk Gorter & Jasone Cenoz (2016): Language education policy and multilingual assessment, Language and Education To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2016.1261892

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Date: 06 December 2016, At: 15:26

LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2016.1261892

Language education policy and multilingual assessment Durk Gorter

a,c

and Jasone Cenoz

b

a Department of Theory and History of Education, Faculty of Education, Philosophy and Anthropology, University of the Basque Country, Gipuzkoa, Spain; bDepartment of Research Methods in Education, Faculty of Education, Philosophy and Anthropology, University of the Basque Country, Gipuzkoa, Spain; c Ikerbasque – Basque Foundation for Science, Research Methods in Education, Faculty of Education, Philosophy and Anthropology, University of the Basque Country, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain

ABSTRACT

ARTICLE HISTORY

In this article, we establish direct links between language policy on the one hand and assessment in multilingual contexts on the other hand. We illustrate the bi-directional relationship with the examples of the USA, Canada, and the Basque Country. That comparison is placed in the context of the changing views about the use of languages in education where a shift can be observed away from an emphasis on separating languages to approaches that more closely suit daily practices of multilinguals. This concerns a shift from language isolation policies in language teaching and assessment towards more holistic approaches that consider language-asresource and promote the use of the whole linguistic repertoire. However, the implementation of programs based on holistic approaches is limited and application in language assessment modest. Traditions and monolingual ideologies do not give way easily. We show some examples of creative new ways to develop multilingual competence and cross-lingual skills. The assessment of interventions with a multilingual focus point to a potential increase in learning outcomes. Multilingualism is a point of departure because in today’s schools, students who speak different languages share the same class, while at the same time learning English (and other languages). We conclude that holistic approaches in language education policy and multilingual assessment need to substitute more traditional approaches.

Received 1 November 2016 Accepted 14 November 2016 KEYWORDS

Multilingual assessment; language policy and planning; bilingual education; multilingual education; minority language; multilingualism

Introduction In recent years, multilingualism has spread in education for different reasons. It is increasingly common to find pupils whose home languages are not the same as the majority language in their class. School classes are more linguistically diverse than in the past due to the mobility of the population. The spread of multilingualism is also related to the need to learn English as a second or foreign language in non-English speaking countries and to the revival of minority languages in some educational contexts. In some cases, language education policies tend to be developed to solve emergent problems related to multilingualism, while in others there are proactive policies to CONTACT Durk Gorter

[email protected]

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

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D. GORTER AND J. CENOZ

enhance the learning of specific languages. The assessment of language proficiency and of achievement in academic content is usually closely related to language education policies. The first aim of this article is to explore the intersection of the two themes of language education policy and assessment of multilingualism in education. The second aim is to explain the shift from traditional to holistic views in language teaching and assessment.

Language education policy and assessment Language policy in general An all-important decision of language education policy concerns the choice of medium of instruction (Tollefson 2008, 3) which determines the language(s) to be learnt, for how much time, etc. Since the 1950s, there have been some important developments in the field of language policy and language planning studies. It began from a rather technical approach to solving language planning problems in predominantly newly independent states where the emphasis was on developing the corpus and status of a new official standard language to be taught in schools. However, since then the field has widened to include almost any issue related to language. Johnson (2013, 9) points to the risk that language policy definitions may be stretched so far ‘that all sociolinguistic research that examines language attitudes and practices will be considered language policy research.’ Johnson (2013, 9) therefore suggests the following definition: ‘A language policy is a policy mechanism that impacts the structure, function, use, or acquisition of language.’ Hornberger and Johnson (2007, 509) propose a policy model of layers, like an onion, of ‘language policy processes across national, institutional and interpersonal layers.’ In this article we will focus on the institutional level of education. In the context of bilingual education in the USA, Ruiz (1984) introduces the wellknown distinction of three orientations of language planning, which are labeled as follows: language-as-problem, language-as-right, and language-as-resource. Language diversity and minority languages are often conceived of as a social problem and solving theproblemof such languages is then seen as requiring a technical approach. An emphasis on the legal rights of language speakers is also often related to planning for minority languages and entails, for example, the right to receive education in the home language (May 2001). Ruiz saw the orientation of language-as-resource as the least divisive and as a possible solution for an integration of bilingual education into language policy in the USA. The languageas-resource approach is ever more present in studies about multilingualism and multilingual education, as we will see below. Choosing the medium of instruction is a crucial decision that touches on all the main issues of language education policy or acquisition planning. These issues, according to Kaplan and Baldauf (1997), are the targeted students, the teachers and their training, the syllabus and curriculum, the methods and materials, the economic resources and last but not least, assessment and evaluation (see Kaplan and Baldauf 1997, 113–117 for an elaborated discussion). In this article, assessment and evaluation stand out among these policy issues as having special significance. The aims relating to student achievement are a decisive factor in the development of a language education policy, and the outcomes of a policy can be determined in terms of language competence, whether monolingualism, bilingualism or competence in several

LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION

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languages (Cenoz 2009). Internationally, the realization of these policy aims commonly occurs at the end of secondary education through university entrance exams or through state-wide secondary school exams, although there may often be intermediary goals (and exams or testing) at earlier stages. Language goals are in most cases not explicitly targeted for the end of university, unless they are part of a foreign language course or teacher preparation. After students finish secondary school their language competence is, of course, not a fixed and stable entity because language development continues as a lifelong process for any person. Language policy influences the implementation of the curriculum and the assessment aims put in place to measure the achievements of that implementation. At the same time, the results of assessment can influence changes in language policy and so a new cycle starts. Language policy in different countries is usually reflected in the curriculum time devoted to the teaching of different languages as a subject and the teaching of other subjects through those languages, as well as in their importance for assessment. Some programs may be defined as weak forms of bilingualism because they aim at a transition from bilingualism in primary school towards monolingualism in secondary school and university entrance exams (see also Baker 2011). Other programs may be defined as strong forms of bilingualism or multilingualism when the goal is to achieve bi/multilingual competence for the students and two or more languages are an important part of secondary school exams or university entrance exams. Three examples of bi/multilingual educational contexts will be described in order to see differences in the relationship between language policy and assessment of language skills. These contexts are bi/multilingual education programs in the USA, Canada and the Basque Country. Bilingual education in the USA The USA has a long history of different forms of bilingual education (Crawford 1989; Ramsey 2012) and the teaching of languages other than English has received support but also strong opposition. The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 gave an important push to bilingual education programs and policies. However, during the 1980s and 1990s resistance to such programs began to grow under the influence of theEnglish Onlymovement, among others. Gradually, the political climate changed as accountability and assessment gained in importance. Legal changes in 1994 made the English language part of the assessment of studentsprogress. The debates centered on the one hand on arguments that more time for English exposure leads to better results, and on the other hand, the view that teaching both the home language and English has better outcomes (see Valentino and Reardon 2014 on this debate in research). In 2001, the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act (NCLB) made it mandatory that students designated as having ‘Limited English Proficiency’ must attain the same English proficiency as the English-speaking students and also meet the same academic standards in all content areas. Annual progress had to be measured and state-wide standardized tests were required (Menken 2008). As a consequence, the number of bilingual programs decreased strongly and most bilingual ‘English Language Learners’ had to follow monolingual programs with monolingualism in English as a goal. Since education policies in the USA are primarily the responsibility of the state and local authorities, a variety of bilingual programs remained possible and many teachers and researchers still see bilingual education as a better path to fluency in English. For

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example, Hornberger and Johnson (2007) present the case of the School District of Philadelphia, where several programs of Dual Language or Two Way education continue to be successful, with 50 percent teaching time for each language (mainly Spanish and English) and equal numbers of minority and majority students in the classroom. The latest update of the basic education law, the ‘Every Student Succeeds Act’ (ESSA 2015) came into effect in 2016. The new act seems to improve upon some problematic aspects for ‘English learners’ (EL) of the NCLB act because it provides for more flexibility and returns responsibility for assessment to the states and local authorities, although it lacks explicit provisions for dual language programs, bilingual education, or multilingual enrichment programs (TESOL 2015). A characteristic of bilingual programs in the USA is that even if they aim at bilingualism and use two languages as the languages of instruction, there is a clear hierarchy of languages and literacy in English is valued more than literacy in other languages. The focus of the language policy is on English and if other languages are used, this is often transitional. It is a unidirectional process about how to best get to proficiency in English. It can be useful to acquire literacy in other languages but a high level of literacy in English is indispensable for external examinations and for access to higher education. There are no universities teaching through the medium of Spanish in the USA, with the exception of Puerto Rico, which has a special legal status. Bilingual education in Canada Bilingual education in Canada has a different history from the USA. English and French are the official languages and French is the majority language in Quebec. French immersion programs developed in Canada in the 1960s are quite well known internationally. In these programs, at least 50 percent of academic instruction is delivered through French (or other non-native languages of the participating students) during some part of elementary and/or secondary school for majority language English-speaking students. Immersion programs are aimed at students with English as a first language and students acquire high levels of competence in French mainly in receptive skills (Genesee and Lindholm-Leary 2013). There are also French-medium schools aimed mainly at French L1 speakers where English is just a school subject. Language education policies for indigenous people are largely lacking (Sarkar and Lavoie 2014). French, along with English, is an official language in Canada and thus has a different status when compared to Spanish and other languages in the USA. Although the regulations are not the same in each province, in the cases in which external examinations are administered, they can be both in English and French. There are English-medium and French-medium Canadian colleges and universities. Most French-medium institutions of higher education are located in Quebec but there are also some universities and colleges in other provinces. In general terms, it can be said that language policy in Canada is more bilingual than the language policy of the USA. In fact, in Canada there are provisions for speakers of the two languages both in assessment and in access for higher education. Multilingual education in the Basque Country In the Basque Country, an autonomous region in the North of Spain, great efforts have been made to revive and restore the local minority language, Basque, in the last 40 years.


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The official aim of the language policy is the equivalence of Basque and Spanish and the policy is basically bilingual, but at the same time there is the underlying idea that citizens should be given the opportunity to use Basque in their everyday life. Therefore, the aim for the minority language is to become a normal language of everyday communication. The number of speakers has increased in the last 20 years by about 185,000 people, and this makes Basque an exception among minority languages where a decrease in speakers can be observed in most other European regions. Language education policy has played a pivotal role in this relative success. Nowadays, Basque is the main language of instruction for Basque L1 and Spanish L1 speakers and an increasing number of speakers of other languages are also being taught through the medium of Basque. English is learned as a third language and its role is becoming more important in recent years (Cenoz 2009; Gorter et al. 2014). The latest policy plan of the regional Basque government, born out of a desire to sidestep a new Spanish centralizing educational law, outlines a profile of students at the end of secondary education who are balanced bilinguals in Basque and Spanish and have an adequate knowledge of English (or another foreign language). The plan proposes an integrated language curriculum, in which the teaching of languages is coordinated and content and language are united as a whole. Moreover, while the transferability of linguistic knowledge from one language to another is seen as important, the focus remains on a communicative approach through ‘significant situations for each language’ (Basque Government 2015, 33–34). There are external evaluations in the 4th year of primary education, the 2nd year of secondary education and a university entrance examination at the end of higher secondary school. These assessments can be taken in either Basque or Spanish. Basque is also used in higher education and it is possible for Basque to be the language of instruction in most courses at the University of the Basque Country. It is important to emphasize that language education policy in the Basque Country has different aims from language policy in the USA and Canada. Its main aim is the revitalization and promotion of Basque, a minority language that has been categorized as vulnerable (Moseley 2010). Basque and Spanish have the same official status and Basquemedium instruction is available at all educational levels, however, Spanish is the language of the majority of speakers and dominant in most societal spheres. Language policy is also different in the Basque Country because there is a third language involved: English.

Traditional and dominant versus innovative and emergent views Traditional views, ideal native speaker, language separation Traditionally, languages have been kept separate from each other in school settings. When two or more languages are used at school, each language is usually assigned a specific time in the school timetable and it is often thought as desirable that only the target language is used in class. It is also common to have specific classrooms for different languages and different teachers for each language, particularly in secondary school. According to Cook (2001, 403–404), the exclusion of the L1 in the L2 class is one of the assumptions that has ‘affected many generations of students and teachers, they are rarely discussed or presented to new teachers but are taken for granted as the foundation-stones of language teaching.’ This assumption is well rooted and associated with the direct method which uses only the

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target language and avoids translation (see also Cummins 2007). However, in the muchcriticized grammar-translation approach this was not the case. Cook (2001) explains the possible reasons to justify the principle of excluding the use of the L1 in the L2 class. One reason is that the acquisition of the L2 has to be as close as possible to the way the L1 is acquired, in particular in predominantly monolingual societies. Moreover, it is assumed that the L1 and the L2 have to be kept separate in the mind so as to avoid interference, even though there is no research to support that assumption. A third reason is that if the L2 is not used all the time, students are deprived of opportunities for language learning. These ideas of language separation have affected bilingual pedagogies since the 1970s and were reinforced in other teaching approaches such as Audiolingualism or the Communicative Approach. In some approaches, such as Suggestopedia, it is even recommended that students use target language names so as to develop new identities (Larsen Freeman 2000). The notion of language separation is also strong in Canadian immersion programs. The idea is to use the second language without allowing the use of the first language, as can be seen in the following quotation: No bilingual skills are required of the teacher who plays the role of a monolingual in the target language, never switching languages, reviewing materials in their other language, or otherwise using the second language. Instead, two-language competence is developed through two separate monolingual instructional routes. (Lambert, 1990, 340)

Cummins and Swain (1986) defined this principle of Canadian immersion as the principle of ‘bilingualism through monolingualism’ and considered that ‘it is pedagogically more sound to use languages separately in an instructional unit than to use them concurrently’ (Cummins and Swain 1986, 108). They gave four reasons to support this pedagogical principle. First, students will be more motivated and less bored if they are only exposed to one language at a time. Second, students have to make more effort to understand the teacher and the teacher has to work harder to make himself/herself understood. Third, the teacher does not need to translate and fourth, the use of the minority language will counteract the influence of the dominant culture. The ideas of language separation are also strongly rooted in other bilingual contexts where reasons such as the ones explained by Cook (2001) and the pedagogical reasons given to justify the bilingualism proposed by Cummins and Swain (1986) are often mentioned. In some contexts involving minority languages like the Basque Country, there are additional ideas to support language separation, such as the need to protect the minority language and the fear of code-switching. The idea of communicating though the medium of Basque is only strong in Basque-medium schools and other institutions. At the same time, there is also the idea of separating the three languages in the curriculum, so that Basque, Spanish and English are learned correctly, as can be seen in the words of a school teacher: Ikasleengan code-switching-erako joera nagusituko balitz, hiru hizkuntza ikasi ordez, hiruen arteko aldaera nahasi batean mintzatuko lirateke. Hau da, ez lukete ez euskara, ez gaztelania, ezta ingelesa ere ondo menperatuko. (Translation: ‘If the idea of code-switching were generalized among students, instead of learning three languages, they would speak a mixture of three languages. They would not learn Basque, Spanish or English properly’)


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In multilingual contexts, language education policies at the institutional level do not always match language practices inside the classroom. Li Wei and Wu (2009) discuss the tensions between the tradition of separating languages and multilingual practices in the context of Chinese complementary schools in the UK, where British Chinese children learn literacy in Chinese. Even if these schools impose an official language policy of ‘One Language Only (OLON)’ or ‘One Language at a Time (OLAT).’ Li Wei and Wu (2009) show how such a policy is contested, with both teachers and students code-switching frequently between English and Chinese. Similar observations were also made by Akinnaso (1991) in Nigeria, Agnihotri (2007) in India and Lin (2013) in Hong Kong; see also Heugh (this special issue). Traditionally, language assessment has also isolated the languages to be tested. Languages are evaluated separately and language proficiency is usually compared to that of a monolingual native speaker without taking into account the student’s knowledge of other languages and penalizing the influence and use of other languages. Holistic views of multilingualism The traditional view of separating languages has been contested in a variety of ways. Looking at how languages are processed and learned, Cook (1991) introduced the term multicompetence. He uses the concept of multicompetence to study second language acquisition from a holistic perspective, viewing the L2 user as a whole person and not as an incomplete speaker of the L2. Cook (2013, 447) defines multicompetence as ‘the knowledge of more than one language in the same mind or the same community.’ According to Cook (2013), a holistic approach to competence is justified because of the spread of multilingualism in the world and the need to protect the rights of individuals. The idea is that multilinguals cannot be judged by the standards of monolinguals and cannot be seen as deficient compared to monolinguals. Grosjean (2010, 20) refers to the myth of ‘equal and perfect knowledge’ of two languages. The separation of languages is also contested when looking at the way multilinguals communicate. A multilingual person does not use all the languages s/he speaks to the same extent in all communication situations and can use resources from different languages when communicating with other multilinguals (see also Valdes, 2005). Grosjean (2008, 2010) observed the important differences between monolinguals and multilinguals (or bilinguals) by looking at language use, reporting that bilinguals communicate differently when they are with monolinguals or when they are with other multilinguals who share the same languages. They avoid using other languages when speaking one language to a monolingual person but they can bring elements from other languages when they are speaking to multilinguals. Li Wei and Wu (2009, 193) observed pointedly that ‘codeswitching is the most distinctive behavior of the bilingual speaker.’ Towards a paradigm change In recent years there have been theoretical proposals and pedagogical practices that not only go against the tradition of language separation but also propose alternative ways to look at language and language learning. Languages are not necessarily seen as fixed codes and the traditional concept of distinct languages composed of phonetics, grammar and

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vocabulary has been challenged (Blommaert and Rampton 2012). According to this perspective, languages can be seen as ideological artifacts that are socially and politically constructed (see also Makoni and Pennycook 2007). This innovative perspective about languages has been influential in the development of, for example, the concepts of translanguaging (Garcıa 2009), translingual practices (Canagarajah 2013), polylingualism (Jørgensen 2008), or metrolingualism (Otsuji and Pennycook 2009), although each of these terms itself has a narrower reach than does multilingualism. Within the educational context, those proposals tend to soften the boundaries between languages. Cenoz and Gorter (2011) consider the need to ‘Focus on Multilingualism’ in both language learning and assessment as an alternative to traditional perspectives that emphasize the separation of languages. They highlight the need to look at the way languages are used by multilingual speakers in social contexts when teaching languages or conducting research on multilingual education. Multilingual speakers use semiotic resources, which include their linguistic resources, in creative ways both in face-to-face interaction and when they use online social networks. This idea is completely different from the use of the idealized monolingual speaker of the target language as a reference. Cenoz and Gorter (2011, 2015) look at the whole linguistic repertoire of the speakers so that their linguistic resources can be activated and they become more efficient language learners than when the languages are learned separately. Kramsch (2012) discusses these new trends and considers that the multilingual perspective has important theoretical and practical implications for the field of applied linguistics. She considers that it is revolutionary because ‘it puts into question the whole monolingual foundation of theoretical and applied linguistics” and, “It puts into question the traditional national underpinnings of foreign language (FL) teaching’ (Kramsch 2012,109). In the context of students with diverse linguistic backgrounds in Canada, Cummins and Persad (2014) highlight the importance of integrating new input into existing cognitive structures because previous knowledge is the foundation for interpreting new information. They consider that ‘students should be encouraged to use their L1 to activate and extend their conceptual knowledge’ (Cummins and Persad 2014, 189). According to Cummins (2007), using a multilingual approach can provide students with different resources, such as the activation of the cognate relationships between languages. Cummins (2014) explains that there is no empirical evidence to support the separation of languages in immersion programs. Nowadays, the trend to teach through a multilingual lens is becoming more widespread. For example, Swain and Lapkin (2013) nowadays also acknowledge that the use of the L1 can help to process new and complex material in classes taught though the medium of the L2. They identified three main functions of the L1 when French immersion students were carrying out a collaborative task. The first function was managerial and was useful to understand what they had to do. The second function was for focusing attention of form (lexical gaps, etc.) and the third was for interpersonal use. Swain and Lapkin (2013) consider that the L1 can support the students when proficiency is relatively low but that the L1 should not be used as much when they get to a more advanced level in the L2. The need to use resources from the L1 is also emphasized by Lin (2015, 84) who highlights the need to ‘draw on multiple resources in the communicative repertoire of the students to provide language and semiotic support to them when they are learning content


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using a second or foreign language (an L2).’ The idea of using linguistic resources from other languages has also been linked to the development of metalinguistic awareness in Duibhir and Cummins 2012). In fact, cross-lingual connections and language learning (O curricula that integrate different languages can potentially be a more effective policy than isolating languages in separate compartments. These alternative ways to approach language learning and assessment are the outcome of gradual developments that have been taking place all over the world in terms of our growing understanding of the dynamics of bilingual and multilingual education. They take into account language-as-resource or more accurately, the whole linguistic repertoire as a resource.

The implementation of a multilingual focus Holistic views of multilingualism in education are gaining currency in different contexts but their implementation is not yet widespread. The ideas are being discussed in the literature but they do not easily reach their implementation through language education policies. This can be illustrated by the example of the Common European Framework of Reference, CEFR (Council of Europe 2001).). The aim of the CEFR is to give a basis for language syllabuses and curriculum guidelines, the development of teaching and learning materials, and the assessment of language proficiency. The CEFR endorses a multilingual focus as can be seen in the following quote: It is no longer seen as simply to achieve ‘mastery’ of one or two, or even three languages, each taken in isolation, with the ‘ideal native speaker’ as the ultimate model. Instead, the aim is to develop a linguistic repertory, in which all linguistic abilities have a place. (Council of Europe 2001, 5)

The CEFR is widely used in many education systems as a tool for language policy and language assessment. Today, the CEFR is not only used in Europe but in countries around the world and versions of the CEFR are available in some 40 languages. However, in most cases its use remains limited to the definition of goals and the assessment of competences for separate languages that are treated as isolated entities. The implementation of a holistic multilingual pedagogy seems to imply almost insurmountable challenges because of the strength of language separation ideologies. Nevertheless, there are some interesting examples of projects that bring together the resources multilingual speakers possess. It is important to consider that the implementation of holistic pedagogies takes different forms because it is necessarily linked to the sociolinguistic and educational context where each is developed. One way of working across languages in education can be seen in Welsh translanguaging (Lewis, Jones and Baker 2012a, 2012b). In this context Welsh and English alternate for different parts of the same pedagogical activity. One of the languages is used for input and the other for output; it is bi-directional. For example, students watch a video in English and discuss its content and write a summary in Welsh. According to Baker (2011), translanguaging has many advantages because it can promote understanding of the subject matter and it may help the development of the weaker language. Taking into account the situation of Welsh as a minority language, Jones and Lewis (2014) consider

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that it is necessary to systematically control the use of translanguaging so that it does not trigger the use of English as the majority language. Another example of a multilingual approach is explained by Lin (2015). She proposes the ‘Multimodalities/Entextualization Cycle’ to use the L1 as a scaffold when teaching content through the medium of the second language. When teaching science in English in Hong Kong to students with Cantonese as the first language, she identified three stages of the process: Stage 1: A rich experiential context is created by using multimodal resources (videos, images, etc) so that students can think, discuss, read, and write explanatory texts in the L1 or the L2 using everyday language and academic language. Stage 2: Students are asked to read an academic text in the L2 on the topic introduced in stage 1 and to represent the L2 textual meaning by using notes or mapping tasks. The idea is to unpack the L2 academic text by using L1/L2 everyday language and multimodalities. Stage 3: Students use L1/L2 to ‘entextualize’ academic genres after being provided with language scaffolds such as key vocabulary or sentence frames. Arteagoitia and Howard (2015) reported a cross-linguistic intervention aimed at the development of academic vocabulary and reading skills in the USA. In the cross-linguistic intervention there is a focus on English-Spanish cognates such as implement-implementar, conform-conformar, incentive-incentivo or compensation-compensacion. By analysing cognates, the comparison between English and Spanish is also useful to identify morphemes (prefixes, suffixes) such as formal-formal versus formality-formalidad (see www.cal.org/ vias/subproject4/wmc/index.html). Arteagoitia and Howard (2015) found that the crosslinguistic intervention resulted in improved vocabulary and reading comprehension in English when they tested 230 middle school students. Garcıa and Li (2014, 95) also give examples of how both English and Spanish can be used for pedagogical purposes in US bilingual classrooms. One of the examples looks at a math class where students read in English but also translate what they read into Spanish and identify new words using their metalinguistic skills. The teacher uses both languages. Another example is a class on the history of the USA which includes a writing activity where students can choose to write either in English or Spanish. Lyster, Quiroga and Ballinger (2013) report a pedagogical intervention in the context of Canadian French immersion. The intervention is based on the collaboration of English and French language teachers and uses the same stories in English and French. The focus is on derivational morphology so that students develop their awareness about the relationship between different words: poison-poisonous, danger-dangerous or in French acceptable-accepter, aimable-aimer. The target language is used for communication most of the time but some teachers alternate reading the English and French texts and both languages are also used for the completion of tasks. The results of the evaluation of this intervention indicate that there can be some advantages in promoting literacy skills across languages. Another project is a pedagogical intervention based on ‘Focus on Multilingualism’ (Cenoz and Gorter 2011) which emphasizes the development of language awareness and metalinguistic awareness in a trilingual school in the Basque Country. It concerns an intervention in the Basque, Spanish and English language classes and combines several of


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the strategies used in previous studies. The emphasis is on the awareness of cognates, prefixes, suffixes and compounds in the three languages. It also looks at language awareness in regard to multilingualism and about Basque as a minority language. Another focus of the project is teaching writing skills in the three languages so as to reinforce the commonalities in many aspects of content and organization (Cenoz and Gorter forthcoming; Duibhir and Cummins 2012). Leonet, Cenoz and Gorter forthcoming; see also O These examples and others not included here, show that the multilingual focus is providing education that aims at developing multilingual competence with creative new ways of acquiring cross-lingual skills. The following step is to use a multilingual approach in assessment, as we will see in the next section.

Towards multilingual assessment The holistic perspectives on multilingualism in education are becoming quite widespread at the theoretical level but as we have already seen in the previous section, they are less widespread in their implementation. With a few exceptions, such as the Heziberri policy plan of the Basque government (2015), language education policy looks at one language at a time. This can be understood because of the difficulties in breaking the boundaries between different school subjects and in coordinating and integrating curricula. Assessment is even more complex because it often depends on external agencies that with a few exceptions follow the tradition of language separation. Furthermore, the washback effect of testing implies that teaching is guided by the tests, the principle of ‘teaching the test’ (Shohamy 2001, 2006). This is a further hindrance to a holistic approach in assessment. Research that looks at multilingual proficiency also tends to focus on one language at a time (see for example Tedick and Wesely 2015). In spite of these difficulties, there are some trends that point in the direction of a multilingual focus and a holistic approach. These trends can be divided into three categories that we can refer to as a multilingualism approach towards comprehension, a multilingualism approach towards multilingual scoring and a translanguaging approach in assessment.

A multilingual approach towards comprehension in assessment This approach is based on the idea that in some cases multilingual speakers may have problems when they are assessed through the dominant language, which may be their weaker language. This idea has a long tradition. In fact, up to the 1960s it was believed that bilingualism had detrimental effects on cognition because monolinguals scored higher than bilinguals on IQ tests, particularly on verbal IQ tests (see Baker 2011, chapter 7). One of the methodological problems in many of these early studies was that participants were tested in the dominant language and not in the bilingual participants’ first language. Many years later, a large number of multilingual students continue taking tests in a language that is not their strongest. De Backer, Van Avermaet and Slembrouck (this special issue) highlight the problems of assessing content with tests that have been designed for native speakers in a language that migrants are learning (see also Menken and Shohamy 2015).

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Shohamy (2011) reports a study in which she compared the results of a mathematics test in an experimental and control group. Participants were students from the former USSR who had immigrated to Israel. Students in the control group received monolingual instructions in Hebrew and students in the experimental group bilingual instructions in Russian and Hebrew. Shohamy found significant differences between the two groups showing the students who had had bilingual instructions obtained higher scores in mathematics. When participants in the experimental group were asked about the use of the Russian and Hebrew versions they reported they had used both versions. These results have important implications for many contexts. The importance of using the mother tongue for assessment was also confirmed in a study conducted in the Basque Country, The Basque Institute for Research and Evaluation in Education, ISEI-IVEI (2012) examined results in different types of tests including PISA tests, when tested through the medium of their first or second language. In this case the languages involved were Basque and Spanish, and Spanish L1 students were taking part in a total immersion program in Basque. Therefore, Spanish L1 students were taught all their school subjects, except their Spanish and English language classes, through the medium of Basque. The results of the study confirm that when students took the mathematics, reading and science tests in their L1, their results were higher than when they took the tests in the language of instruction. A multilingualism approach towards multilingual scoring Another way to advance in a multilingual direction in terms of assessment is to view the learners who are taking a test as multilingual learners when computing their test scores. This has been carried out with language tests and takes into consideration the idea that multilinguals are not the sum of two or more monolinguals. One such approach is reported by Gathercole et al. (2013). They tested knowledge of vocabulary in English and Welsh in Wales, taking into account the level of exposure to each language at home and at school when norming the tests. Gathercole et al. (2013) grouped children into three categories according to their home language: mostly Welshspeaking, mostly English-speaking and those with both Welsh and English at home. Each pupil gets two scores for vocabulary in each of the two languages. One is a normed score as compared to the performance of his/her age group and the other is a normed score as compared to the children who belong to the same category for family language. In this study, the languages are kept separate and there is no intention of looking at the whole linguistic repertoire from a holistic perspective as a child’s abilities in one language have no necessary relationship with his/her abilities in the other language, and, therefore, that one cannot examine children’s performance in one language to gain insight into their performance in the other, nor into their overall linguistic abilities. (Gathercole et al. 2013, 51)

Even if there is this separation of languages and not a multilingual focus, the importance of this study lies in the fact that participants are assessed differently according to their linguistic background and not as deficient speakers of their second languages. One example that goes further in applying/employing/exploring the multilingual focus is the study reported by Cenoz, Arocena and Gorter (2013). In this study, writing skills in


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Basque, Spanish and English are assessed separately using a rubric based on Jacobs et al (1981) which measures content, organization, use of the language, vocabulary and the mechanics of writing. After scoring the three languages, they created two indexes, one for bilingualism and another for multilingualism. The bilingualism index was the result of adding up the global scores of Basque and Spanish, while the multilingualism index was the sum of the Basque, Spanish and English scores. The idea is to go beyond looking at the level of individual languages by combining the scores of two or three languages. The results indicated that there were no significant differences in the bilingualism and multilingualism global scores between Basque L1 and Spanish L1 speakers even if there were significant differences in some of the languages when scored separately. This means that we can obtain a different outcome when assessment looks at one language at a time instead of the whole linguistic repertoire. One type of assessment that takes different languages into consideration is the Language Passport that forms part of European Language Portfolio. This is a tool developed by the Council of Europe for citizens to self-assess their own language skills (Council of Europe 2011). The assessment is based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) skills: Listening, Reading, Spoken Interaction, Spoken Production and Writing and the related common reference levels (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2). The Language Passport also records diplomas of different languages and intercultural learning experiences. Even though the languages are self-assessed individually, the passport provides an overview of the individual’s proficiency in different languages in one document. It is a tool that includes all the languages in the multilingual speaker’s linguistic repertoire rather than individual languages as is the case with diplomas for separate languages. A translanguaging approach in assessment A translanguaging approach goes further than allowing for the use of the first language or using a multilingual approach when scoring separate competences. A translanguaging approach in assessment mirrors the multilingual focus of looking at the learner as a multilingual person who uses resources from their whole multilingual repertoire. Shohamy (2011) proposes multilingual tasks in language assessment. The idea is that learners’ use of their multilingual resources is accepted and ‘mixing languages is a legitimate act that does not result in penalties but rather is an effective means of expressing and communicating ideas that cannot be transmitted in one language’ (Shohamy 2011, 427). Heugh et al (2016) also included this in their assessment of English courses at the University of Southern Australia. It is important to note that there are two main ideas involved in this proposal. The first is that of the legitimization of translanguaging by including the possibility to go across languages in language tests. The other idea is that tests should match actual language practices and that multilinguals use resources from their whole linguistic repertoire (see also Shohamy and Menken 2015). If teaching is going in the direction of a multilingual focus, assessment should also follow the same path. Sierens and Van Avermaet (2014) advocate for ‘functional multilingual learning’ and propose using multilingual students’ repertoires as a resource. In this way, metalinguistic awareness can be enhanced and immigrant students have a better opportunity to learn both the majority language and academic content. They demonstrated this with examples

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of how Turkish-speaking pupils could reinforce their Turkish and Dutch when they were encouraged to use both languages. Sierens and Van Avermaet (2014) consider that assessment should also be multilingual and allow for interaction between students rather than teacher-directed assessment. Another example that leads to a translanguaging approach in assessment is the bilingual rubric developed by Escamilla et al. (2013). Their ‘Literacy Squared Writing Rubric’ assesses writing skills in English and Spanish. The approach used is holistic and implies a side-by-side examination of writing skills in the two languages. The assessment tool proposed has a quantitative and a qualitative component. The quantitative analysis looks at content, structural elements and spelling in the two languages. The qualitative analysis looks at bilingual strategies and distinguishes patterns that go across languages and language-specific approximations. The rubric proposed by Escamilla et al. (2013) is an important step in the direction of a translanguaging approach in assessment because it looks at students’ writings side by side when assessing their skills. Further developments in this direction are evident in the project currently being conducted in the Basque Country, where three languages are involved. As we have already seen above, the project aims to developing language awareness and metalinguistic awareness by integrating and relating Basque, Spanish and English. The assessment, which is based on ‘Focus on Multilingualism’, is still a work in progress and examines writing skills in Basque, Spanish and English from a holistic perspective by looking at patterns across languages and at learners’ metalinguistic awareness. The latter is needed so as to see to what extent learners are aware of the way they use their whole linguistic repertoire. For example, when students write an essay in each of the three languages, they are assessed across the languages as multilinguals. This section demonstrates that researchers are beginning to explore alternative ways (to) assessing multilingual competence and academic content from a holistic view that focuses on multilingualism. These steps are still modest but have the potential to influence language education policy.

Conclusion In this article we have looked into the relationship between language policy and assessment in the contexts of multilingualism in education. This relationship is strong and bi-directional. In some cases, language policies are developed mainly to manage situations involving speakers with other home languages, as can be seen in the case of the USA. In other cases, specific policies can be developed to enhance the learning of other official languages in the country or the region, as can be seen in the examples of Canada or the Basque Country. Language policies can be assessed by obtaining results from evaluations after their implementation and these results can have an important influence on the management of future policies (Spolsky 2012). In spite of this, it is common to focus on multilingualism without paying attention to assessment (see, for example, Martin-Jones et al. 2012), or look at language testing and not even mention multilingualism (Fulcher and Davidson 2012). The different contexts briefly described in this article show the strength of this relationship and how languages can have stronger or weaker roles in the curriculum as well as in external assessment and university entrance requirements. The importance of language policy and assessment can be independent from the dominance of the language. Spanish,


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which is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, has a weak role compared to English in the USA. In contrast, the language policy to promote Basque is strong in spite of its size and the Basque language can be used to assess content at all levels, including university studies. This article has looked into the shift from language isolation policy in language teaching and assessment to holistic approaches that consider language-as-resource and promote the use of the whole linguistic repertoire (Cenoz and Gorter 2015). The implementation of programs based on these holistic approaches is still limited and their application in language assessment modest. However, there are good reasons to set a future agenda in this direction. One reason is pointed out by Shohamy (2011) who discusses the legitimacy of comparing monolingual to multilingual speakers. Using the whole linguistic repertoire as a resource is certainly more equitable for multilingual speakers who should not be considered as the sum of several monolingual speakers. Another reason is that the assessment of educational interventions that advocate for a multilingual focus, point in the direction of a potential increase in learning. Traditional approaches that separate languages might have been useful when school populations were more homogeneous in the past. Multilingualism is a point of departure because in today’s schools, students who speak different languages share the same class, while at the same time learning English (and other languages) is a goal to be achieved by all, regardless of their native tongue. New holistic approaches in language policy and assessment need to replace old traditions in a globalized world.

Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding This work was supported by the MINECO/FEDER [grant number EDU2015-63967-R] and the Basque Government [grant number DREAM IT-714-13; UFI 11/54].

ORCID Durk Gorter Jasone Cenoz

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8379-558X http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9000-7510

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