Equity for Whom? The Consequences of Two Definitions of English Proficiency

• In Event: Turning Languages Into Curriculum: Studies of Curricularization Across Contexts

Abstract

Purpose

Two definitions of English language proficiency currently exist for students in the United States (Author, 2017). Students from homes where English is the only language spoken do not need to prove their English proficiency. Students who are identified as coming from a home where a language other than English is spoken exclusively or in addition to English, must demonstrate their English proficiency through a series of assessments. Ostensibly, the differences in these requirements as to how a student demonstrates English proficiency are to ensure that they receive the appropriate linguistic support services for academic and linguistic success. In this paper, I argue that the differential conception of English proficiency is harmful for bilingual adolescents who use English in their everyday lives and yet experience difficulty with specific school-based literacies.

Theoretical and Methodological Approaches

Valdés (2015) concept of curricularizing language provides an interpretive framework for understanding how two definitions of English proficiency can coexist in U.S. schools. Valdés writes that the process of curricularizing language for pedagogical purposes transforms the nature of language. Curricularizing language requires “organizing and selecting elements from a particular dialect/variety of a language . . . for instructional purposes as if they could be arranged into a finite, agreed-upon set of structures, skills, tasks, or functions.” Specifically, she notes how this curricularization process is informed by particular conceptions of language, language ideologies, and other governing structures (e.g., textbooks, language policies, etc.). Valdés and colleagues have analyzed the way in which curricularization impacts two-way immersion contexts (Valdés, 2017), heritage language contexts (Valdés, 2018), and conceptualizations of learners (Kibler &; Valdés, 2016). In this paper, I analyze federal and state policy-documents as well as journal articles as data sources.

Findings

U.S. policy’s curricularization of English includes reading and writing as a part of language proficiency. This is evidenced in federal policy (e.g., ESSA), in the operationalization of language assessment (Boals et al., 2015), and the various policies that districts have implemented on a local level (Mavrogordato & White, 2019). Within this conceptualization of English, literacy has been naturalized as a part of language proficiency. One of the glaring consequences of this conceptualization of language is that difficulties with literacy are without further investigation attributed to students’ English language proficiency. Notably, the way in which language has been curricularized reinforces a mythological conception of monolingualism which entails the automatic development of a specific literacy practices. The resulting positioning of monolingualism and bilingualism renders invisible the connection between monolingual and bilingual individuals who use English on a daily basis but experience difficulty with school-based literacy.

Scholarly Significance

This paper extends existing work on curricularization by examining its impact on bilingual adolescents who use English in their everyday lives and yet experience difficulties with school-based literacies. It is important for pedagogy because it identifies the impact of curricularization on how the English language abilities of young people are understood. It creates a space where educators can push back to imagine new ways of engage student in language and literacy learning.

Author

• Maneka Deanna Brooks, Texas State University