ranslanguaging in Immersion: Cognitive Support or Social Prestige?

Roy Lyster

The Canadian Modern Language Review / La revue canadienne des langues vivantes, Volume 75, Number 4, November / novembre 2019, pp. 340-352 (Article)

Published by University of Toronto Press

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Translanguaging in Immersion: Cognitive Support or Social Prestige? Roy Lyster1

1 Faculty of Education, McGill University

Correspondence should be addressed to Roy Lyster, Faculty of Education, McGill University, 3700 McTavish Street, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A 1Y2; email: roy.lyster@mcgill.ca.

Article

Résumé  :  Les pratiques de translinguisme interviennent dans les interactions sociales de personnes bilingues qui font usage de toutes les ressources linguistiques qu’elles partagent et passent naturellement d’une langue à l’autre. Ces pratiques ont engendré la pédagogie du translinguisme, destinée à faire en sorte que les élèves des programmes scolaires bilingues additifs puissent bénéficier de la mise à contribution de tout leur répertoire linguistique. Bien que la pédagogie du translinguisme s’applique particulièrement bien aux contextes dans lesquels l’apprentissage des élèves de langue minoritaire s’effectue en partie ou en totalité dans la langue majoritaire qui n’est pas la leur, l’auteur s’interroge sur la pertinence de la pédagogie du translinguisme dans tous les contextes d’enseignement bilingue. Il remet plus précisément en question l’utilisation accrue de l’anglais L1 dans les programmes d’immersion, au Canada et aux États-Unis, en enseignement de langues minoritaires comme le français ou l’espagnol, compte tenu de la prépondérance de l’anglais faisant obstacle à l’usage de langues autres que l’anglais. Il évoque un exemple, issu de la recherche, pour illustrer en quoi la pédagogie du translinguisme va à l’encontre des propositions actuelles de pédagogie d’immersion visant le développement systématique de la littératie scolaire des élèves en langue minoritaire. Les arguments avancés par l’auteur vont dans le sens d’un usage plus soutenu de la langue minoritaire, étayé par de précédentes études sur les avantages de la réservation d’espaces distincts pour les langues d’enseignement et par des notions cognitives comme la profondeur de traitement et l’acquisition de compétences. Une formation équilibrée intégrant langue et contenu, en parallèle avec des stratégies d’étayage de la compréhension et de la production, sont proposées comme solution de rechange à la pédagogie du translinguisme.

Mots clés  :  acquisition de compétences, anglais L1, enseignement immersif, français L2, pédagogie du translinguisme

Abstract: Translanguaging practices come into play in social interactions between bilinguals when they are making use of all their shared linguistic resources and blending their languages in natural ways. Stemming from these practices is translanguaging pedagogy, which is designed so that students in school-based addi- tive bilingual programs can benefit from drawing on their entire linguistic repertoire. Whereas translan- guaging pedagogy applies especially well to contexts where minority-language students are learning some or all of their school subjects through a majority language that is not their home language, this paper questions the relevance of translanguaging pedagogy across all contexts of bilingual education. Specifically, an argument is made against more use of English L1 in Canadian and US immersion programs featuring

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minority languages such as French or Spanish, given the high status of English that militates against the use of non-English languages. A research-based example of translanguaging pedagogy is presented to illustrate how it goes against current proposals for immersion pedagogy designed to systematically develop students’ academic literacy in the minority language. Arguments are put forth for more sustained use of the minority language, drawing support from previous research on the benefits of separate spaces for instructional lan- guages and from cognitive notions such as depth of processing and skill acquisition. Counterbalanced instruction integrating language and content along with strategies for scaffolding comprehension and pro- duction are presented as alternatives to translanguaging pedagogy.

Keywords: English L1, French L2, immersion education, skill acquisition, translanguaging pedagogy

In school-based additive bilingual programs, such as French immersion in Canada, compe- tition between target languages for time and status inevitably leads to the habitual use of one language over the other – with the language of prestige being the categorical winner. In spite of this, there have been calls for immersion students to draw more freely on the language they know best for cognitive support (e.g., Cummins, 2007, 2014; Swain & Lapkin, 2000, 2013).

In the Canadian context, discussions about the extent to which “judicious use of the L1” (Swain & Lapkin, 2000, p. 268) might serve as a useful cognitive resource in L2 learning (e.g., Swain & Lapkin, 2013; Turnbull, 2001) have now morphed into broader discussions about the key role of translanguaging pedagogy in all contexts of bilingual education (e.g., García, 2009; García & Tupas, 2019). Translanguaging goes well beyond the “judicious” use of stu- dents’ L1 and is instead defined as “the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named languages” (Otheguy, García, & Reid, 2015, p. 283). As a pedagogical practice, translanguaging aims to “use the entire linguistic repertoire of bilingual students” (García, 2013, p. 2), which is based on the premise that bilinguals and multilinguals have a single and unified language system in which their languages interact through multiple dynamic interrelationships. This premise is not without its critics, however, most notably MacSwan (2017), who argues cogently that multilinguals have both shared and discrete grammatical resources in what he calls an “integrated multilingual model.”

To circumvent a long literature review on the current appeal of translanguaging, I will simply quote Jaspers (2018, p. 1), who states that translanguaging “is now a household name in international conferences, symposia and summer schools, and the central topic of highly cited publications.” In my own experience, this academic enthusiasm has not yet trickled down to schools where French immersion teachers still work hard at creating meaningful spaces for using French while avoiding even more use of English than already occurs, argu- ably reflecting the reality that the benefits of translanguaging do not apply equally to all contexts of bilingual education. Whereas they apply especially well to minority-language students, English L1 students are unlikely to benefit as much from use of their L1, given its high status, which militates against the use of minority languages. Using English instead of the minority language to process and engage with increasingly complex subject matter may be detrimental to the development of the minority language. Sustained use of the minority language by English L1 students is arguably more beneficial for pushing its development forward than recourse to English – given appropriate instruction and sufficient scaffolding to sustain use of the minority language.

The arguments herein against implementing translanguaging pedagogy across all immersion settings regardless of context should not be construed as signalling the

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prohibition of English L1 use – an impossible and unproductive endeavour. The implemen- tation of cross-linguistic pedagogy is a valuable option in immersion as a means “to teach for two-way cross-lingual transfer” (Cummins, 2007, p. 11) and to foster biliteracy devel- opment (Ballinger, Lyster, Sterzuk, & Genesee, 2017; Tedick & Lyster, 2020). For example, the bilingual read-aloud projects that my colleagues and I have undertaken in immersion classrooms (Lyster, Collins, & Ballinger, 2009; Lyster, Quiroga, & Ballinger, 2013) served to support the development of students’ cross-linguistic awareness while maintaining separate spaces for instructional languages. While these initiatives helped to create coherence across the immersion curriculum, they also served to generate considerable enthusiasm among students who enjoyed engaging with stories in both of their languages. A special issue of the CMLR devoted to the topic of cross-linguistic pedagogy in Canadian contexts is forthcom- ing, guest edited by Susan Ballinger, Claude Quevillon Lacasse, and Sunny Lau.

Translanguaging at odds with immersion pedagogy The interactional data published in a recent study of a Grade 4 one-way dual-language (developmental bilingual) science class (Garza & Arreguín-Anderson, 2018) cast doubts on the effectiveness of translanguaging pedagogy in that particular context. The teacher was a speaker of Spanish L1 with 25 years of teaching elementary and a Masters degree in bilingual education. Of the 16 Latino student participants, 3 had been classified upon entering the program in kindergarten as English dominant, 3 as emergent bilingual, and 10 as Spanish dominant. By Grade 4, however, all students preferred to communicate mainly in English and engage in code-mixing. A brief look at their limited use of Spanish during interaction in science class reflects their shift toward English dominance. In this excerpt, the teacher is guiding students in Spanish as they identify similarities and differences among a set of rocks they are observing (uses of English by students are underscored once and Spanish twice):

T: Se va formando, pero está pulida con una máquina especial y ésta todavía no. Ahora vamos a buscar otra. Búscame una roca de la que están pulidas que sea del mismo tipo. [It forms gradually, but this one is polished with a special machine and this other one is not polished yet. Now find me another polished rock of the same type.]

S1: Yeah! Esa [this] . . . No! This one. T: No. Try to find another one. Busque otra que sea el mismo tipo a ver. [Find an-

other one of the same type.] S1: This one. T: ¿Cómo ves que es similar? Obsérvalas con cuidado. ¿Tú crees que sea esa? Podría

ser ¿verdad? [How do you think that it’s similar? Observe them carefully. Do you believe that one is? It could be, right?]

S1: Yeah. S2: Ms. Zárate! Ms. Zárate! T: ¿Tú crees que están hechas de los mismos minerales? [You think they are made

of the same minerals?] S2: Look at this part and this part. T: ¿Tú crees que están hechas de los mismos minerales? [You think they are made

of the same minerals?]

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S2: Look! [Pointing and confirming]. T: ¿Sabes cómo se llaman? Ésta se llama roca de encaje [agata de encaje azul]. [Do

you know their name? This one is called blue lace agate.] S3: This one matches. Look! Ooh! Mira! ¿Verdad? T: ¡Mira! Sí es cierto. ¿Ya viste de afuera cómo es? [That is true. Did you notice its

exterior?] S2: This one. T: Muy interesante . . . bueno fíjense lo que vamos hacer. Tenemos toda una selec-

ción de rocas e ibamos a pesar algunas. [Very interesting . . . Well, look at what we are going to do. We have a selection of rocks, and we were going to weigh some.]

S1: I want to pesar ésta y ésta. [I want to weigh this one and this one.] . . . S1: This one is like a candy. S2: Some look like a snake. T: Si, bueno, los diseños son diferentes . . . [Yes, the designs are different . . .] (Garza & Arreguín-Anderson, 2018, pp. 107, 111)

Presumably, this exchange was selected by the authors to illustrate translanguaging because the teacher uses mainly Spanish while the students use mainly English. The authors claim that the students’ engagement in the activity “defies traditional and historical dynamics of learn- ing and teaching as processes that adhere to language separation or compartmentalization” (Garza & Arreguín-Anderson, 2018, p. 108). They suggest that, by reverting to the language they felt most comfortable with to demonstrate their understanding, students “illustrated Cummins’ (2000) notion of a common underlying proficiency or the idea that knowledge is not language bound” (p. 112). However, while the students demonstrate good comprehen- sion of the teacher’s use of Spanish, their own productive abilities to engage with the topic indeed seem rather language bound – specifically bound to English rather than Spanish.

As for the study’s implications, Garza and Arreguín-Anderson (2018, p. 113) suggest that teachers need to “value students’ contributions and engage in conversations that focus on ideas rather than language.” However, an exclusive focus on meaning (“conversations that focus on ideas”) without a focus on language is not supported by instructed SLA research. The notion of expressing ideas without concern for language is an old one that has been identified as one of the causes of lower-than-expected language outcomes in immersion (Allen, Swain, Harley, & Cummins, 1990). For years, both research and practice in immer- sion contexts have stressed the need to systematically develop students’ academic literacy in the minority language in order to enable them to engage with increasingly complex sub- ject matter taught through the minority language. Thanks to early research in immersion, it became clear that processing language only for meaning enabled students to skip over grammatical information as they focused mainly on key vocabulary items and drew on their contextual knowledge to understand the meaning (Harley, 1993; Skehan, 1998; Swain, 1985, 1988). This same research showed that it was rare for teachers to refer to language during subject-matter lessons or to refer to subject-matter content during language lessons (Allen et al., 1990). Yet separating content and language does not help students to establish

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important form–function mappings and is thought to “deprive students of opportunities to focus on specific features of language at the very moment when their motivation to learn them may be at its highest” (Lightbown, 2014, p. 30).

Theoretical support for sustained use of the minority language The fact that immersion students need to engage with both language and content just ahead of their current level of ability – rather than only with language and content they already know – is arguably one of the reasons for the success of immersion. That is, the dual focus on language and content requires greater depth of processing as students engage with new subject matter in a language they are still learning. The cognitive effort necessitated by this dual focus has the potential to strengthen (rather than weaken) both content and language learning.

Depth of processing refers to the extent to which a learner reflects on new information and links it to other relevant information (Craik & Lockhart, 1972). The greater the depth of processing, the greater the likelihood that information will be stored in long-term memory and become more readily accessible. In contrast, shallow levels of processing require less elaboration and less analysis, which engender processing in short-term memory and thus reduce the likelihood of retention. If deep levels of processing occur mainly in English rather than in French, then English will be more readily available than French. However, if students have the kind of instructional support that they need in order to process complex subject matter through French, the deeper level of processing in French will challenge them both linguistically and cognitively in ways that move their French language development forward, while also serving as a potential source of gratification and motivation. As DiCamilla and Antón (2012, p. 184) cautiously suggest, “it is possible for one’s L2 to attain the psychological status of one’s L1, that is, for L2 to become the mediational tool for one’s cognitive system.” I say “cautiously” because they are referring to adult learners, whom they qualify as needing “a long period of immersion in the L2” (p. 184) – a qualification that applies aptly to immer- sion students and can therefore be considered a reasonable expectation.

If French immersion students were expected to rely on English “in order to mediate their understanding and generation of complex ideas” (Swain & Lapkin, 2013, pp. 122–123) and “to work through complex problems more efficiently than they might be able to do when confined to using their weaker language” (Cummins, 2014, pp. 16–17), then this would be cause for concern and would require further research, as it would put into ques- tion the feasibility of immersion at higher grade levels. My view is that when the “going gets tough” in the sense of the subject matter being difficult to process for comprehension in French, this is the opportune moment for language to grow and for students to develop the confidence they need to support continued language growth. If English is required to pro- cess complex subject matter, then French language development will atrophy, as recourse to English will naturally and increasingly become the most efficient means for comprehen- sion, thus jeopardizing the depth of processing activated through French.

In addition to the cognitive notion of depth of processing, Swain’s (e.g., 1993) output hypothesis and DeKeyser’s (e.g., 1998) rendering of skill acquisition theory both support extended use of the minority language. Proponents of skill acquisition theory propose that L2 development entails a gradual transition from effortful use to more automatic use of the target language brought about through practice and feedback in meaningful contexts. Language practice is simply defined as “engaging in an activity with the goal of becom- ing better at it” (DeKeyser, 1998, p. 50), and the benefits of corrective feedback have been

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expounded upon and evidenced specifically in immersion classrooms (e.g., Lyster, 2004; Lyster & Ranta, 1997). For its part, the output hypothesis posits simply that, “through producing language, either spoken or written, language acquisition/learning may occur” (Swain, 1993, p. 159). The output hypothesis in fact stems from early observations of immersion classrooms which brought to light the need for more student production in the minority language and teacher feedback in these contexts.

What underlies both skill acquisition theory and the output hypothesis is the rather self-evident assumption that concurrent use of the majority language and the minority language is less to likely to contribute to minority-language development than sustained use of the minority language. The upshot of skill acquisition theory is that repeated retrieval and use of the minority language solidify associations in memory in a way that makes it easier to access during spontaneous production later (de Bot, 1996; Lyster & Sato, 2013). Conversely, repeated retrieval and use of the majority language will strengthen connections in memory to that language, thereby making the majority language more readily accessible. Given the competition between majority and minority languages in schools, instruction needs to favour the minority language by facilitating ongoing access to that language and ensuring opportunities for its sustained use.

Research in support of separate spaces Since their inception, the design of most immersion programs has maintained sepa- rate spaces for each language of instruction. Proponents of translanguaging are quick to dismiss such an approach for fostering a “monolingual ethos” (García & Tupas, 2019, p.  390). Similarly, Cummins (2014) argues in favour of “bilingual instructional strate- gies” and against the “monolingual instructional strategies” that have characterized French immersion and other bilingual programs considered by translanguaging propo- nents to reinforce schools’ “monolingual ‘academic standard’ practices” (García & Wei, 2014, p. 47). My view, however, is that characterizing bilingual programs that maintain separate spaces for instructional languages (to counteract the prevalence of the majority language) as promoting parallel monolingualisms is a kind of doublespeak, because a program cannot be designed to promote bilingualism and monolingualism at the same time. Bilinguals whose use of each language is reserved for specific contexts should be considered no less bilingual that those who mix their languages at will regardless of con- text (Grosjean, 2015).

In their recent overview paper questioning the applicability of translanguaging across the board in immersion programs, Fortune and Tedick (2019) review early research com- paring classrooms in which both instructional languages were used concurrently by the teacher and classrooms in which each language was allocated for sustained use to a specific time, place, person, or subject. The outcomes of four of the studies reviewed by Fortune and Tedick are presented below.

First, Cohen (1974) found that English-speaking (majority-language) students in a program with concurrent use of both languages were not functionally proficient in Spanish after three years, whereas those in a program with language separation were acquiring proficiency in Spanish with stronger receptive skills. Second, Legarreta (1977) observed more equitable distribution of languages (53% English/47% Spanish) when there were separate spaces allocated to each language, whereas teachers using the languages concur- rently used English nearly 80% of the time. Third, Legarreta (1979) found that Spanish L1

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kindergartners in a “language separation” class showed greater gains in oral comprehension of English L2 and communicative competence in both Spanish L1 and English L2 than their counterparts experiencing the concurrent approach. Finally, Wong Fillmore (1982, p. 294) observed that, when teachers mixed languages concurrently, students were “alter- nately attentive and inattentive as the teacher switched between languages in their lessons.”

These studies thus provided early support for maintaining separate spaces for instruc- tional languages. Legarreta-Marcaida (1981, p. 105) summed up the results of her research as follows: “Instead of producing bilingual pupils, a language environment so heavily English-dominated discriminates against Spanish-speaking pupils and discourages Anglo pupils from learning Spanish as well” (cited in Fortune & Tedick, 2019, p. 30).

Indeed, studies have consistently shown that immersion students develop a tendency to use English (the majority language) during instructional time intended for minority-language use, increasingly so as they advance in grade level, and that this is the case regardless of whether they are in one-way programs designed for majority-language students learning a minority language or in two-way programs designed to include both majority- and minority-language students (Ballinger & Lyster, 2011; Harley, 1992; Hernández, 2015; Hickey, 2007; Potowski, 2004). For example, in her recent study of a two- way (Spanish/English) Grade 2 immersion classroom, Hamman (2017, p. 37) showed “how the practice of engaging in translanguaging was not equally distributed across students or across languages” and “generated a more English-centered classroom.”

It has also been noted that an increased preference for English co-occurs with a plateau effect in minority-language development (Fortune & Tedick, 2015), suggesting a link between increased English use and slowed rates of minority-language develop- ment. Accordingly, sustained use of the minority language during its instructional time is arguably more beneficial for pushing its development forward than recourse to English – given sufficient scaffolding to sustain minority language use.

Alternatives to translanguaging Because immersion students are known to use increasingly more English as they progress through the program, prohibiting them from doing so is not a productive option and exam- ining ways of capitalizing on its use as a tool for learning is one avenue to explore. Another avenue worth exploring is the question of how to better motivate immersion students to use the minority language and how to effectively scaffold them so they can do so. Some research has revealed that immersion students feel dissatisfied with their proficiency in French and are thus hesitant to use it, not seeing themselves as legitimate speakers of the language (Auger, 2002; Roy, 2010). This suggests that supporting students in improving their pro- ficiency has the potential to increase their willingness to use French, but this may appear to be a rather circular dilemma for teachers to resolve: that is, improving students’ profi- ciency requires their extended use of the target language, whereas its extended use is con- tingent upon higher levels of proficiency. However, teachers have at their disposal various instructional options designed to foster sustained use of French while fine-tuning students’ proficiency in French. Two described below are scaffolding and counterbalanced instruc- tion, both of which are open topics for further research. Both are intended to improve immersion students’ abilities in the minority language, but not for the unrealistic goal of attaining native-like levels of proficiency. Instead, they aim to enhance students’ ability to engage with the type of complex language that is key to school success and characteristic of academic literacy in the minority language.

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Scaffolding Scaffolding was initially invoked as a means to characterize parent–child interaction and was qualified as that which “enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts” (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976, p. 90). It is often associated with Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development, which is the difference between what children can achieve on their own and what they might achieve when assisted by another. The notion of scaffolding has since been aptly applied to teacher– student interaction and is considered to encapsulate effective teaching. Scaffolding is what makes immersion work, because it enables students to engage with content in a language they know only partially as they draw on the contextual clues provided in the scaffolding while also drawing on prior knowledge (see Tedick and Lyster, 2020, for detailed accounts of verbal, procedural, or instructional scaffolding for both comprehension and production).

As they scaffold for comprehension, immersion teachers can use English only mini- mally as needed or, ideally, avoid it altogether. Instead, they can build linguistic redundancy into their French as they express more or less the same message but in different ways by using self-repetition, paraphrases, synonyms, and multiple examples. To further enhance this type of “teacher talk” (e.g., Lyster, 2012) so that it becomes a rich source of “input for acquisition” (VanPatten, 2017, p. 167), teachers can modify their rate of speech, articu- lation, and intonation in ways that are appropriate for their students’ ages and abilities. Scaffolding for comprehension also includes non-linguistic support such as gestures and facial expressions, graphic organizers, visual aids, and multimedia resources.

Scaffolding for production is equally important and requires immersion teachers to structure classroom discourse in ways that make oral interaction a key source of learn- ing. Admittedly, this is no small undertaking, given the attested predisposition of immer- sion students to use increasingly more English as they advance through the program. Scaffolding for production entails a variety of corrective feedback types as well as a balance of display and referential questions, including strategically planned follow-up questions that push students to clarify and elaborate their ideas in ways that require higher-order thinking and more complex language. Scaffolding for production also requires teachers to ensure regular opportunities for students to use the minority language independently through presentational modes of communication such as role plays, simulations, debates, speeches, and demonstrations, as well as through a variety of interactive configurations such as dyads, think-pair-share, cooperative learning groups, and learning centres. Such groupings need to be well structured and scaffolded by teachers to elicit extended use of the minority language, and ideally preceded by explicit training in the interpersonal strategies required for successful collaboration. To ensure that students are both able and motivated to use the minority language when working together, teachers need to plan ways for them to access the language they will need to accomplish the tasks, first and foremost by modelling for students and also by providing various sentence starters, sentence frames, key vocabu- lary, and useful language chunks.

Counterbalanced instruction Counterbalanced instruction is designed to shift students’ attention between language and content, an interplay achieved by attributing complementary status to both language and content objectives in the immersion curriculum (Lyster, 2007, 2016; Tedick & Lyster, 2020). One way for immersion teachers to highlight connections between subject-matter content and the language needed to engage with that content is by emphasizing the ways in

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which linguistic features of discipline-specific language construe particular kinds of mean- ings. To do so, teachers need to intentionally draw students’ attention to (a) the academic language functions they need to understand and communicate in a specific content area (Dalton-Puffer, 2013, calls these cognitive discourse functions), and (b) the conventional text structures or genres that are characteristic of particular disciplines, such as science reports, historical accounts, math problems, and essays (e.g., Llinares, Morton, & Whittaker, 2012). Yet another way to integrate a focus on language in immersion is by creating opportuni- ties for students, in the context of content-based or meaning-oriented tasks, to notice and use various features of the minority language that might otherwise be misused, unused, or unnoticed in classroom discourse (Lyster, 2016).

The notion of counterbalance diffuses dichotomous views of instruction as being only about language or only about content. In contrast to such a rigid separation, language and content can be conceptualized as complementary options in a dynamic relation that optimizes L2 learning. One way to implement a counterbalanced approach is through an instructional sequence comprising four phases – contextualization, awareness, practice, and autonomy – and therefore called the CAPA model (Lyster, 2019; Tedick & Lyster, 2020). Instructional sequences based on the CAPA model serve to help students link form with meaning in contexts related to content, while honing their metalinguistic awareness and engaging them in purposeful use of the target language, ranging from contextualized prac- tice to more autonomous use.

A series of intervention studies designed more or less along the lines of the CAPA model were undertaken in French immersion classrooms to enhance students’ awareness of target features while providing opportunities for their use in meaningful contexts with a content or thematic focus (Day & Shapson, 1991; Harley, 1989, 1998; Lyster, 1994, 2004; Lyster et al., 2013; Wright, 1996). Taken together, the results of these studies showed that, in more than 75% of the 40 tests given either as immediate or delayed post-tests to assess both knowledge and productive use of the target features, students participating in the language-focused interventions improved more than students left to their own devices to pick up the target forms from the regular curriculum (Lyster, 2016). These results are consistent with Lightbown’s (2014, p. 129) assertion that, “after decades of research on language acquisition in content-based language teaching in a variety of educational and social contexts, it is clear that language acquisition does not ‘take care of itself.’” This means that translanguaging pedagogies “that focus on ideas rather than language” (Garza & Arreguín-Anderson, 2018, p. 113) will not ensure continued growth in the minority language.

Conclusion Arguments in favour of crafting more support for extended use of the minority language in immersion programs and fewer opportunities to fall back on English are justified in regard to immersion programs in Canada and the United States because they already provide sub- stantial support for English in the curriculum – increasingly so throughout the program. For this reason, Ballinger et al. (2017) questioned the role of translanguaging specifically in Canadian French immersion programs, arguing that the socio-political context of school settings needs to be taken into account in order to distinguish between (a) L1 use as a cognitive support for learning content through the L2, and (b) L1 use as a manifestation of a societal language imbalance that favours majority-language use. That is, use of English by immersion students in the United States and Canada may reflect not so much a lack of proficiency in the minority language as a sense of entitlement associated with the social

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prestige of English. The higher status of a majority language often militates against using and maintaining a minority language, unless measures are taken to level the playing field, which is a promising possibility in immersion programs that target both languages.

Although this is unintended, translanguaging pedagogies have the potential to jeopardize the use of the minority language in certain contexts of bilingual education. This is because, when there is competition in schools between majority and minority languages, the majority language always prevails. Moreover, English enjoys not only majority-language status but also status as a global lingua franca, which may further weaken immersion students’ motivation to use languages other than English. As stated by Hall and Cook (2012, p. 272), “As English continues to grow and consolidate its position as the dominant international language, its use raises very specific issues of power and identity.” It is those issues of power and identity that can make use of the home language by English L1 speakers in contexts of minority-language instruction a matter of social prestige more so than cognitive support.

Roy Lyster is professor emeritus of second language education at McGill University. His research examines content-based second language instruction and the effects of in- structional interventions designed to counterbalance form-focused and content-based approaches.

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