Social Justice Challenges of - 麻省理工学院人工智能研究专业

Social Justice Challenges of
“Teaching” Languages

Guadalupe Valdés

This essay explores the challenges to linguistic justice resulting from widely held neg-
ative perspectives on the English of young Latinx bi/multilinguals and from com-
mon misunderstandings of individuals who use resources from two communicative
systems in their everyday lives. I highlight the effects of these misunderstandings on
Long-Term English Learners as they engage with the formal teaching of English. 我
specifically problematize language instruction as it takes place in classrooms and the
impact of the curricularization of language as it is experienced by minoritized stu-
dents who “study” language qua language in instructed settings.

L ong-Term English Learner (LTEL) is a legal category for students in the

State of California. It is used to describe immigrant-origin students who
were initially categorized as English Language Learners (ELLs) upon enter-
ing school and whose test scores, after six years, suggest that they are not making
sufficient progress in learning English. The legal LTEL category is the product of a
well-meaning political campaign launched by sympathetic supporters of Mexican-
origin students in California (例如, Californians Together) who claim that
more attention needed to be given to the teaching of English in schools and to re-
classifying ELLs as Fluent English Proficient (FEP).1 Advocates of the legislation
argued that, because of lack of attention by schools to the teaching of English,
many Latinx ELLs in California were not passing the state English Language Pro-
ficiency examination required to reclassify them. As a result, they were denied
access to challenging subject matter instruction, to college-preparation courses,
and to other important educational opportunities. The new legislation requir-
ing schools to identify and monitor students was envisioned as a way of bring-
ing attention to the unintended consequences of existing policies and of forcing
schools to implement quality English language development programs designed
to meet the needs of young ELLs.

A Google search for “LTEL” yields 594,000 results to education-related sites
that include school district policy documents relating to the challenges of edu-
cating such students, guides for administrators and educators, ads for curricular
aids and materials, and lists of characteristics of LTEL students. A Google Schol-

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ar search produces over seven hundred fifty articles, some of which prescribe ap-
proaches for remediating the assumed language limitations of LTEL-designated
students and others that question the validity and usefulness of the category itself.
The LTEL label has created a category widely used around the country that po-
sitions students “new to English” as out of step, as failing to move at the “right”
pace in their additional-language acquisition trajectories. In using the term and
establishing the category of LTEL, the educational community is formally making
the case that a specific group of students is not making academic progress. The cat-
egory, 而且, is based on widely shared expectations underlying established
educational policies that make the assumption that students initially labeled ELLs
可 1) accurately identified in early childhood and 2) supported with adequate
educational “services” leading to successful performance on state mandated En-
glish language proficiency examinations. Unfortunately for Latinx students, 这
path to reclassification as FEP is much more challenging than originally expected.
Policies and procedures established to “teach” English, to support subject mat-
ter learning, and to assess students’ levels of English proficiency leading to their
timely reclassification have, 随着时间的推移, led to unforeseen consequences. Sadly, 作为
determined by varying state and district classification criteria in different parts of
美国, many students who have been bureaucratically categorized as
ELLs since kindergarten are now currently identified by state assessment systems
as “failing to acquire English.”

For Latinx youngsters, the extensive use of the LTEL label along with frequent
criticisms of their spoken Spanish on social media suggest that these young peo-
ple are being seen (and perhaps are also seeing themselves) as languageless.2 Taken
一起, both labels imply that these young individuals speak neither English nor
Spanish well or possibly at all. In the case of LTELs, the description of language-
lessness is clearly impacting Latinx students’ educational lives and futures more
直接地. In the ongoing analysis and prescription of remedies for perceived lin-
guistic limitations, formal language study is invariably identified as the principal
解决方案. LTELs need more ESL (English as a second language) 类.

在这篇文章中, I explore the challenges to linguistic justice resulting from wide-
ly held negative perspectives on bi/multilingualism and from common and con-
tinuing misunderstandings of individuals who use resources from two commu-
nicative systems in their everyday lives. My goal is to highlight the effect of these
misunderstandings on the direct teaching of English. I specifically problematize
language instruction as it takes place in classroom settings and the impact of what
I term the curricularization of language as it is experienced by Latinx students who
“study” language qua language in instructed situations. I analyze the activity of
language teaching itself and argue that, while existing work in critical applied lin-
语言学 (例如, Alastair Pennycook’s study on the teaching of English as an
additional language across the world) is an important first step, it has not yet pen-

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152 (3) Summer 2023Guadalupe Valdés

etrated the various levels of the powerful language industry teaching English to
immigrant-origin students.3

I n the American educational system, Latinx children and particularly Mexican-

origin children are considered “disadvantaged.” They are part of a class of
students whose family, 社会的, or economic circumstances have been found
to impact negatively on their ability to learn at school. These young people are
both minoritized and racialized, and their educational experiences are impact-
ed strongly by well-meaning educational policies–focusing on language–that
directly contribute to both exclusion and inequality.

The category of English Language Learner was established in federal policy
as part of the Civil Rights initiatives of the 1960s, the passage of Title VII of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) 在 1967, and the Lau v. Nichols
Supreme Court decision of 1974.4 Following the Lau decision (which established
that students could not be educated in a language that they did not understand),
the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 required states to take appro-
priate action to overcome language barriers and provide equal opportunities for
孩子们. This legislation led to extensive debates and court challenges during the
1970s and 1980s that focused on the types of remedies (例如, ESL pullout
programs and bilingual education programs) that would be required in order to
provide opportunities for children who were in the process of acquiring English.
Over time, there has been strong opposition to bilingual education, numerous
lawsuits seeking to compel school districts to serve the needs of Latinx students,
and shifting federal and state regulations and guidelines.

在 2001, the shift to standards-based educational reform in the country (dereg-
ulation at the federal level in exchange for demonstrated educational outcomes)
led to the No Child Left Behind Act, to strong accountability provisions, to the es-
tablishment of detailed English Language Learner classifications, and to increas-
ing opposition to bilingual education.5 In 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act
(ESSA) reauthorized the fifty-year-old ESEA, the national education law seen as
a long-standing commitment to equal opportunity for all students. ESSA estab-
lished reporting requirements for all states and Local Education Agencies (LEAs)
on ELLs’ progress in attainment of English language proficiency, on academic
achievement, and on high school graduation rates.

现在, the use of any non-English language at home has direct conse-
quences for all children who enter the American educational system. Upon enroll-
ing children in school, parents are required to complete a home-language survey
and specifically to identify the language spoken at home. The assumption is that
children raised in homes where a non-English language is spoken may themselves
be non-English-speaking or ELLs. 理论上, screening for home language allows
schools to appropriately serve the needs of all children entering schools by clas-

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代达罗斯, 美国艺术学院学报 & SciencesSocial Justice Challenges of “Teaching” Languages

sifying them as English Only (EO), Initially English Proficient (IEP), or ELLs. 在
the case of Latinx families, even when children may already speak and understand
英语, reporting the use of Spanish in the home almost always results in their
being categorized as ELLs, an identification that directly affects their education-
al trajectories and opportunities to learn. 重要的, schools receive additional
funds for ELL-classified students.

E nglish is currently taught as an additional language to students who are cat-

egorized as English Language Learners. By law, all students so categorized
must be provided with “language assistance” and assessed every year un-
til they are reclassified as Fluent English Proficient. Language assistance, 然而-
是, has been variously defined. Over the last fifty years, different states have rec-
ognized a variety of approaches for delivery of this assistance to children rang-
ing from 1) providing subject matter instruction in students’ home language and
gradually transitioning to instruction in English; 2) requiring periods of designat-
ed English language development (那是, direct teaching of ESL using pedagogies
adapted from the teaching of ESL to adults); 和 3) implementing instruction de-
scribed as integrating both English and subject-matter content.

Each of these approaches involves the direct teaching of an additional lan-
guage to young children. In the case of the first approach (known as bilingual edu-
阳离子), English is used gradually as a medium of instruction complementing the
use of children’s home language to teach academic content. In many programs,
然而, explicit teaching of English vocabulary and/or forms is also included.

The second approach, referred to as Structured English Immersion (SEI), 在-
volves the adaptation of explicit language-teaching methodologies used tradi-
tionally for the teaching of English as an international language to adults. 这样的
instruction often takes place in pullout ESL programs that group children by lan-
guage levels (开始, intermediate, 先进的) for segments held separately
from monolingual English coursework. Known as “leveled” English Language
发展 (ELD), this approach limits ELLs’ access to fluent English speakers
and opportunities for imitating or interacting with such speakers.

The third approach directs the teacher to structure subject matter teaching (为了
例子, math, 科学, initial reading) to include mini lessons on grammatical
structures and forms, such as phrasal verbs. Popular in many parts of the country,
这种方法, often marketed to school districts as SIOP (Sheltered Instructional
Observation Protocol), requires that teachers develop both content and language
teaching objectives for each lesson. 很遗憾, even if teaching structures and
forms to children were effective–a point numerous experts have questioned (为了
例子, Michael Long and H. D. Adamson)–very few elementary or second-
ary content teachers have the background to do so without sacrificing either the
teaching of English or the teaching of subject matter content.6

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152 (3) Summer 2023Guadalupe Valdés

In many districts, there are specialized newcomer programs–particularly at
the secondary level–in which students new to the country and to English are pro-
vided intensive, traditional language instruction for a period of time in lieu of en-
rollment in regular subject matter classes. In Arizona, this same segregationist
approach was implemented with elementary school children. ELLs were assigned
to a prescriptive English language development program and grouped only with
other English learners at the same level for four hours a day. They were separated
from English-speaking peers and, 更重要, from subject matter instruc-
的 (math, 科学, social studies). The goal was to accelerate the “learning” of
English so that children could pass the required state English Language Proficien-
cy examination after a single year of leveled ESL instruction. According to educa-
tional psychologist Patricia Gándara and political scientist Gary Orfield, Arizona
was following a model designed by an “obscure educational consultant” whose
program focused on “five ELD components within the four hour daily time block:
phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, and semantics.”7

The extensive analyses that have been conducted on the Arizona program reveal
that the three-part test established by the Fifth Circuit Court in 1981 by Castañeda
v. Pickard for determining whether a school district program is “appropriate”
led to the establishment of the SEI program that deprived ELLs of access to sub-
ject matter instruction and resulted in their linguistic isolation.8 These analyses
clearly uncover the challenges of providing children English language assistance
while at the same time giving them access to the curriculum. They make evident,
而且, the impact of political contexts at particular points in time when, 如
这个案例, opposition to bilingual education led to Propositions 203 in Arizona and
227 in California, measures that required Latinx ELLs to be taught exclusively in
English.9

T he establishment of language classifications in K–12 schools in the United

States and the accompanying practices and mechanisms are relatively re-
cent examples of the ways in which such categories operate and the chal-
lenges encountered in their implementation. As useful as classifications are in doing
the work of schooling, it is also the case that such classifications can serve as rigid
demarcations that exclude particular groups of students, denying them entry and
access to educational opportunities and to challenging instruction.

如上所述, the category of LTEL is the result of the implementation of
such policies and of the well-intended concern expressed by educators, 研究-
呃, and other members of the public. 然而, recent and ongoing research on
the impact of this new classification on the lives of already marginalized students
(例如, by Maneka Deanna Brooks) provides strong evidence of the nega-
tive consequences of academic “sentencing” and “carcerality” of the largest group
of ELLs in the country: speakers of Spanish.10 This research points specifically to

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代达罗斯, 美国艺术学院学报 & SciencesSocial Justice Challenges of “Teaching” Languages

the “ineffective” teaching of English, the exclusion from opportunities to learn,
and the consequences of language assessment practices that determine progress
toward students’ reclassification as Fluent English Proficient.11

The “teaching” of languages in instructed settings involves bringing togeth-
er in a classroom setting a group of learners to “study” and “learn” a language
that is new to them. The learners, 而且, outnumber the teacher, the single
competent user/speaker of the “target” language. Whether the target language is
seen as a social practice or primarily as structure and form, if the goal of instruc-
tion is viewed as the development of interactive competence in the language be-
ing studied (例如, for immigrant-origin students, the ability to understand
teacher explanations, to respond to questions, and to interact with fellow stu-
凹痕), the fluent-speaker-to-learner ratio is a particularly serious problem and,
迄今为止, an underexamined challenge, resulting in what some have described as
adverse and detrimental conditions for the acquisition/development of addition-
al languages.12

The activity of language teaching in classroom settings, 而且, takes place
as part of a complex system that is, 大部分情况下, invisible to its participants.
All instructional arrangements that have additional language acquisition as their
goal–for example, English as a second language, English as a foreign language,
foreign/world language instruction, bilingual education, and content and lan-
guage integrated learning–are engaged in an activity that has been described as
curricularizing language.13 When language is curricularized, it is treated not as a
communicative system acquired naturally in the process of primary socialization,
but as a subject or sets of skills, the elements of which can be developed through
specific types of curricula and controlled experiences. While the activity of “lan-
guage teaching” itself varies depending on the specific goals and purposes of in-
structional programs (例如, foreign/world language, heritage language
instruction, content-based language instruction), the process of curricularizing
language involves a series of levels of interacting mechanisms and elements as il-
lustrated in Figure 1.

T he specific activities that count as language instruction take place at the

classroom level. Drawing from twenty-five centuries of pedagogical prac-
tice in combination with notions of “proficiency” as established by na-
的, 状态, and local “standards” and listings of learning progressions, 这
teaching of language in classroom settings inevitably requires a curriculum, 那
是, an instructional plan that guides the presentation, 学习, and assessment
of the elements to be “learned.”14 These elements are often presented in a time-
honored, accepted order, following either an obvious or more disguised gram-
matical syllabus usually packaged in published materials, including workbooks
and possibly multimedia activities. Whatever the “essentials” are thought to be,

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152 (3) Summer 2023Guadalupe Valdés

Social Justice Challenges of “Teaching” Languages

数字 1
The Curricularization of a Language: Mechanisms and Practices in
Education and Beyond

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来源: Author’s data; infographic created by Dozandri Mendoza.

instructors “teach” specifi c elements (such as vocabulary, sentence frames, lan-
guage forms) that students are expected to “learn” using approaches, 材料,
and activities that are sanctioned by the schools in which they teach, by the dis-
tricts in which the schools are located, and by broader state mandates within the
larger national system of which they are a part. Instructors carry out the activity
of teaching as it is understood by state and national policies and established tra-
版本, bringing to it their own strengths and limitations as well as their own un-
derstanding of what teaching language entails. To facilitate their work, 教师

代达罗斯, 美国艺术学院学报 & 科学

generally categorize students as beginners, intermediate, or advanced learners,
但, as many practitioners have found, all categories lead to exceptions.

最后, assessment practices, which are an essential part of classroom instruc-
的, include grades based on the completion of tasks and assignments, as well
as student performance on both classroom and officially prescribed student eval-
uation instruments. Both types of student evaluations are informed by the pro-
gram’s design as well as by understandings of language development progressions
and theoretical perspectives on what needs to be acquired by students when “learn-
ing” an additional language.

M acropolicies at the national and state levels, mesopolicies at the school

district level, and micropolicies at the school level constrain what
teachers do and how they view student progress. 例如, current-
莱, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 requires all states to develop or adopt
“English language proficiency standards”: 那是, state-consensus documents
that put forward the expected language-learning progressions for beginning, 在-
termediate, and advanced English language learners of immigrant background.15
Even though they are the products of consensus activities and not empirically
基于, these standards documents specify the content of language assessments
and directly influence the language teaching enterprise.16

T he mechanisms that frame language instruction (那是, the often unex-

amined ideas that shape the practice of teaching additional languages)
包括:

•
•
•
•

conceptualizations of language;
ideologies of language, 种族, 班级, and identity;
theories of second-language acquisition/development; 和
theories of bilingualism/multilingualism.

Conceptualizations of language are views and ideas about language as well as
definitions of language that are informed by the study of or exposure to established
bodies of knowledge. There are many ways that ordinary people as well as linguists
define language. Different perspectives on language, 而且, give rise to dramat-
ically different expectations about teaching, 学习, and assessing languages. 作为
sociolinguist Paul Seedhouse contends, researchers and practitioners involved in
the area of language teaching may not be aware they are starting with vastly dif-
ferent conceptualizations of language and that these differences in conceptualiza-
tion have led to existing debates in the field.17 The conceptualizations that have in-
formed and continue to inform institutionalized language teaching include notions
that various researchers have commented on, including linguists Vivian Cook; 狮子座
van Lier; and Hannele Dufva, Minna Suni, Mari Aro, and Olli-Pekka Salo.18 Many

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152 (3) Summer 2023Guadalupe Valdés

of these notions can be seen as “common sense” (例如, language is a medi-
um of communication), while others are more closely informed by specific theo-
retical positions (例如, language is a rule-governed system).

Ideologies of language, 种族, 班级, and identity inform the entire process of
language curricularization and directly influence language education. They in-
form constructions and conceptualizations of language itself and established and
emerging theories of what it means to “acquire” both a first and a second language.
Language ideologies intersect in important ways with perspectives on bilingualism
and multilingualism, as well as with theories of bi/multilingual acquisition and
使用. These ideologies–often multiple and conflicting–help compose the institu-
tional and social fabric of a culture, and include “notions of what is ‘true,’ ‘morally
好的,’ or ‘aesthetically pleasing’ about language, including who speaks and does
not speak ‘correctly.’”19 Defined variously as feelings, ideas, conceptions, and cul-
tural models of language, language ideologies may appear to be common sense, 但
are in fact constructed from specific political economic perspectives and frequent-
ly result in evaluative views about speakers and their language use.20

Theories of second-language acquisition/development (SLA) are also important
in framing the teaching of additional languages. What is now referred to as main-
stream SLA (as contrasted with alternative approaches to SLA) is informed primar-
ily by componential and formalist conceptualizations of language as well as by the
disciplines of linguistics and psychology. Until the last two decades, mainstream
second-language acquisition has viewed the end-state of additional language
learning to be the acquisition of the full monolingual norm said to be characteristic
of educated “native speakers.” It has also regarded the process of second-language
acquisition as a cognitive phenomenon that takes place in the mind of individual
learners. The primary focus of language study has been considered to involve the
internalization of the linguistic system (那是, the forms and structures) of the ad-
ditional language. These theories and perspectives have played an important role
in framing the practice of institutionalized language teaching.

最后, theories of bilingualism/multilingualism are central to both the teach-
ing of additional languages and the assessment systems developed to measure
learning/development. 直到最近, the field of applied linguistics, and with-
in it the subdiscipline of SLA, had given little attention to bilingualism or multi-
lingualism. The end-state of the acquisition process was seen as the development
of the language characteristics of the educated native speaker of the additional
语言. This native speaker, 而且, was constructed as a monolingual, 每-
haps the ideal speaker-listener of Chomskyan theory.21 When bilinguals entered
the discussion, they were viewed from a monolingualist perspective that over-
whelmed the second and foreign-language teaching field, and that constructed
“ideal” or “full” bilinguals as two monolinguals in one who are capable of keeping
their two internalized language systems (or their two sets of social practices or lin-

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guistic resources) completely apart.22 As Dufva, Suni, Aro, and Salo point out, 和-
til quite recently, monological thinking dominated the field of applied linguistics
and the practice of language teaching.23 Controlled by both established theoretical
linguistic perspectives as well as by a written language bias, languages were seen
as singular, enclosed systems.24 As a result, involuntary, momentary transfers in
language learners that drew from the “other” national language(s) were frowned
之上, corrected, and labeled linguistic interference. The use of borrowings and
other elements categorized as belonging to another language system were labeled
language mixtures (such as Spanglish, Chinglish, and Franglais), and language
learners were urged to keep their new language “pure.” They were expected to re-
frain from “mixing” languages and from engaging in practices typical of compe-
tent multilinguals that involve the alternation of (what have been considered to
是) two separate and distinct systems.

Much has changed. Monolingualist perspectives have been problematized. 这
expansion of and increasing epistemological diversity in the field of SLA have led to
what some refer to as the “multilingual turn” in applied linguistics and describe as a
direct consequence of a growing dissatisfaction with and concern about the tenden-
cy to view individuals acquiring a second language as failed native speakers.25 Be-
ginning in the early 1990s, numerous scholars criticized monolingual assumptions
and the narrow views of language experience that these perspectives implied.26
尽管如此, writing many years later, applied linguist Lourdes Ortega contends
that mainstream SLA has not yet fully turned away from the comparative fallacy:
那是, the concern about deviations from the idealized norm of the additional lan-
guage produced by language learners.27 She argues, 而且, that in spite of the
extensive work carried out on this topic,28 many applied linguists and language ed-
ucators do not fully understand the ideological or empirical consequences of the
native-speaker norms and assumptions they rely upon in their work.

Others are more optimistic. 例如, the Douglas Fir Group, a group of
distinguished applied linguists and second-language acquisition theorists of var-
ious persuasions, contends that a wider range of intellectual traditions and disci-
plines are now contributing to the field of SLA, leading to a greater focus on the
social-local worlds of additional language learners.29 They argue that SLA must
be “particularly responsive to the pressing needs of people who learn to live–and
in fact do live–with more than one language at various points in their lives, 和
regard to their education, their multilingual and multiliterate development, 社会的
一体化, and performance across diverse contexts.”30

While not yet widely represented systematically in the actual practice of lan-
guage instruction, there has been an extensive expansion and problematization,
at the theoretical level, of positions that were previously unquestioned. 考试用-
普莱, that language programs teach and students learn specific “national” (named)
语言, and that national languages are unitary, autonomous, abstract systems

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formally represented by rules and items. There is also increasing rejection of the
position that, although national languages have different social and regional va-
rieties, the goal of language teaching is to help learners to acquire the norms of
the “standard” language as codified by pedagogical grammars and dictionaries.
重要的, the field of applied linguistics itself is being closely examined and in
the current context in which there is increasing awareness of the impact of sys-
tems of oppression on minoritized peoples, the question is whether there can be
a race-neutral applied linguistics: 那是, “impervious to the effects of racism,
xenophobia, and concerns about language rights.”31

I n both current and past discussions about educational policies and practices

focusing on the education of students who do not speak a societal language,
very little attention has been given to conceptualizations of language itself. 在
美国, it has been taken for granted that there is a common, 同意-
upon understanding of what languages are, how they work, and why English, 作为
societal language, needs to be “learned” by students in order to succeed in Ameri-
can schools. Underlying existing classification and assessment policies for students
who are categorized as English Language Learners, 而且, are folk perspectives
about “good” language or more recently “academic” language that emphasize vo-
cabulary, correct grammar, near-native pronunciation, standardness, and other
markers of complexity, 准确性, and fluency understood as “good” usage. 阿迪-
理论上, it has been generally assumed by both educators and policy-makers that
for English Language Learners, second-language acquisition follows predictable
trajectories that can be accurately measured by standardized tests.

同时, for almost five decades, there has been a fundamental par-
adigm shift in the ways that scholarship in a number of disciplines (such as ap-
plied linguistics, 心理学, sociolinguistics, 人类学, 社会学, 社区-
nication, cognitive science, usage-based linguistics) now problematize “what is
casually called a language.”32 In the second decade of the twenty-first century,
cutting-edge scholarship on language in disciplines that directly inform educa-
tion has undergone a paradigm shift from the tenets of behaviorist psychology
and structural linguistics to a more contextualized, meaning-based, social view
语言的. This shift takes for granted a rethinking of language as object.33 Per-
spectives on bi/multilingualism, 而且, have shifted from views of “real” or
“true” bi/multilinguals as speakers of two named languages (always kept sepa-
速度) to views of communicative and interactional multicompetence in which in-
dividuals deploy resources from their entire repertoire.34

High school students labeled LTELs, who entered the American educational
system as young children, have been found to be multicompetent, skilled users
of English capable of expressing themselves effectively for a variety of purposes
in both spoken and written English.35 Recent research, 而且, has determined

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that these young people see themselves as fluent and capable speakers of English.
They dismiss attempts to “assess” their English on yearly English Language Profi-
ciency examinations and thus rarely make an effort to obtain high scores.

For the field of applied linguistics and for the practice of language education/
language teaching, the identification of students as LTELs, 然而, presents
挑战. In theory, applied linguists can provide a race- and class-neutral
theoretical framework that can inform the practice of teaching English to LTELs.
但是, as pointed out above, 研究人员, 政策制定者, and practitioners are
part of a complex system that constrains their perceptions of both groups of stu-
凹痕. 教师, 而且, are embedded in the same system and deeply influ-
enced by their commitment to doing the “best” for their students. ESL teachers
want their students to pass the required state English Language Proficiency ex-
amination and to be reclassified as early as possible. 而且, they want to help
LTELs develop the variously described “academic language” that many educators
and researchers claim that they do not have and that they believe is essential to
their educational futures, 社会正义, and life success.

F or minoritized students and especially for LTELs, every aspect of the educa-

tional system that involves them implicates language. Content and language
标准, curriculum, pedagogies, and assessments in particular can poten-
tially contribute to or undermine these students’ opportunities to develop their sub-
ject matter knowledge and their talents and to maximize their futures. For that rea-
儿子, when linguistic justice is a goal, it is of vital importance that researchers and
practitioners scrutinize the sets of standards (learning progressions) and expecta-
tions underlying the language assessment systems currently in use to measure the
development and/or the quality of both English and Spanish. Minimally, 这些
standards need to be examined to determine whether they are informed by current
scholarship and research about both ontologies and ideologies of language as well
as about bi/multilingualism. Standards are important because they establish:

•
•
•

•

the ways ELL students are assumed to grow in their use of English over time;
the language abilities expected at different levels of development;
the aspects of language that need to be measured in determining progress;
和
the types of support that will be required in order to provide these learners
with access to instruction in key subject-matter areas (available exclusively
in English).

For such standards to serve the purpose of appropriately supporting and mon-
itoring the growth of English or Spanish language proficiency in minoritized
青年, they must be constructed to describe the trajectories that linguistical-
ly multicompetent K–12 learners follow in the development of English/Spanish

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152 (3) Summer 2023Guadalupe Valdés

in school settings. 此外, they must be informed by a clear theoretical po-
sition on the ways that instruction can impact (or not) the complex, nonlinear
process of language development/acquisition, and they must take into account
the fact that there are currently few longitudinal studies of the second-language
acquisition process.36 Researchers working from the tradition of corpus linguis-
抽动症, 而且, argue for authentic collections of learner language as the primary
data and the most reliable information about learner’s evolving systems. 绘画
from the study of learner corpora, applied linguist Victoria Hasko summarizes the
state of the field on the “pace and patterns of changes in global and individual de-
velopmental trajectories” as follows:

The amassed body of SLA investigations reveals one fact with absolute clarity: A “typ-
ical” L2 developmental profile is an elusive target to portray, as L2 development is not
linear or evenly paced and is characterized by complex dynamics of inter- and intra-
learner variability, fluctuation, plateaus, and breakthroughs.37

总共, the state of knowledge about stages of acquisition in second-language
(L2) learning does not support precise expectations about the sequence of devel-
opment of additional languages by a group of students whose proficiency must be
assessed and determined by mandated language assessments. 因此, constructing
developmental sequences and progressions is very much a minefield.

Assessing language proficiency, 而且, is a complicated endeavor. As ap-
plied linguists Glenn Fulcher and Fred Davidson contend, the practice of language
testing “makes an assumption that knowledge, 技能, and abilities are stable and
can be ‘measured’ or ‘assessed.’ It does it in full knowledge that there is error and
uncertainty, and wishes to make the extent of the error and uncertainty transpar-
ent.”38 And there has been increasing concern within the language testing pro-
fession about the degree to which that uncertainty is actually made transparent
to test users at all levels as well as the general public. Linguist Elana Shohamy, 为了
例子, has raised a number of important issues about the ethics and fairness of
language testing with reference to language policy.39 Attention has been given, 在
特别的, to the impact of high-stakes tests, to the uses of language tests for the
management of language-related issues in many national settings, and to the spe-
cial challenges of standards-based testing.40 Applied linguist Alister Cumming
makes the following powerful statement about the conceptual foundations of lan-
guage assessments:

A major dilemma for comprehensive assessments of oracy and literacy are the concep-
tual foundations on which to base such assessments. 一方面, each language
assessment asserts, 至少隐含地, a certain conceptualization of language and of
language acquisition by stipulating a normative sequence in which people are expect-
ed to gain language proficiency with respect to the content and methods of the test.

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另一方面, there is no universally agreed upon theory of language or of language acquisi-
tion nor any systematic means of accounting for the great variation in which people need, 使用, 和
acquire oral and literate language abilities.41

Accepting the results of current assessments as accurate measures of the lan-
guage proficiencies of bi/multicompetent students is simply unjust and unaccept-
有能力的. Tests are not thermometers; they are instruments that allocate educational
opportunities and that, as sociolinguists Matthew Knoester and Assaf Meshulam
contend, impair the cultural, educational, and personal development of the coun-
try’s most vulnerable students.42

关于作者

Guadalupe Valdés, 自此成为美国科学院院士 2020, is the Bonnie
Katz Tenenbaum Professor of Education, Emerita, in the Graduate School of Edu-
cation at Stanford University. She is also the Founder and Executive Director of the
English coaching organization English Together. Her books Con Respeto: Bridging the
Distances Between Culturally Diverse Families and Schools: An Ethnographic Portrait (1996)
and Learning and Not Learning English: Latino Students in American Schools (2001) 有
been used in teacher preparation programs for many years. She has recently pub-
lished in such journals as Journal of Language, 身份, and Education; Bilingual Research
杂志; and Language and Education.

尾注

1 Laurie Olsen, Reparable Harm: Fulfilling the Unkept Promise of Educational Opportunity for Cali-

fornia’s Long-Term English Learners (Long Beach: Californians Together, 2010).

2 例如, the term no sabo kid is currently being used on social media to refer to Latinx
young people who don’t know or barely speak Spanish. TikTok videos present them as
第二- and third-generation Latinx young people who, when asked if they speak Span-
什, respond by saying no sabo. Jonathan Daniel Rosa, “Standardization, Racialization,
Languagelessness: Raciolinguistic Ideologies across Communicative Contexts,“ 杂志
of Linguistic Anthropology 26 (2) (2016): 162–183, https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12116.

3 Alastair Pennycook, Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction (Abingdon-on-

泰晤士河, England: 劳特利奇, 2001).

4 Lau v. Nichols, 414 我们. 563 (1974); and The Bilingual Education Act (Title VII of the Ele-
mentary and Secondary Education Act) 的 1967, Pub. L. 90-247, §701, Stat. 81 (1967).
5 The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. 不. 107-110, §101, Stat. 1425 (2002). 看
also Guadalupe Valdés, “Entry Visa Denied: The Construction of Symbolic Language
Borders in Educational Settings,” in The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society, 编辑.

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152 (3) Summer 2023Guadalupe Valdés

Ofelia García, Nelson Flores, and Massimiliano Spotti (牛津: 牛津大学出版社,
2017), 321–348.

6 Michael H. Long and H. D. Adamson, “SLA Research and Arizona’s Structured English
Immersion Policies,” in M. Beatriz Arias and Christian Faltis, 编辑。, Implementing Edu-
cational Language Policy in Arizona: Legal, Historical and Current Practices in SEI (Tonawanda,
纽约: Multilingual Matters, 2012), 39–58.

7 Patricia Gándara and Gary Orfield, “Segregating Arizona’s English Learners: A Return
to the ‘Mexican Room’?” Teachers College Record 114 (9) (2012): 9, https://doi.org
/10.1177/016146811211400905.

8 Arias and Faltis, 编辑。, Implementing Educational Language Policy in Arizona.
9 同上. See also English for Children, 2000 Ariz. Stat. 15-7-3.1 (codified as Ariz. 牧师. Stat.,
§ 15-751-755 [2002]); and English Language in Public Schools, 1998 Calif. Stat. 1-1-3.1
(codified as Calif. 牧师. Stat., § 3-300-340-1 [1998]).

10 Maneka Deanna Brooks, “Pushing Past Myths: Designing Instruction for Long-Term
English Learners,” TESOL Quarterly 52 (1) (2018): 221–233, https://doi.org/10.1002
/tesq.435; and Brian Cabral, “Linguistic Confinement: Rethinking the Racialized Inter-
play between Educational Language Learning and Carcerality,” Race Ethnicity and Educa-
的 26 (3) (2022): 277–297, https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2022.2069742.

11 Joseph P. Robinson-Cimpian and Karen D. 汤普森, “The Effects of Changing Test-
Based Policies for Reclassifying English Learners,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Manage-
蒙特 35 (2) (2016): 279–305, https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21882.

12 Lily Wong Fillmore, “Language Minority Students and School Participation: What Kind
of English is Needed?” Journal of Education 164 (2) (1982): 143–156, https://doi.org
/10.1177/002205748216400204.

13 Guadalupe Valdés, “Sandwiching, Polylanguaging, Translanguaging, and Code-Switch-
英: Challenging Monolingual Dogma in Institutionalized Language Teaching,” in
Codeswitching in the Classroom: Critical Perspectives on Teaching, 学习, 政策, and Ideology,
编辑. Jeff MacSwan and Christian J. Faltis (Abingdon-on-Thames, England: 劳特利奇,
2019), 114–147.

14 L. G. 凯莉, Twenty-Five Centuries of Language Teaching: An Inquiry into the Science, Art, 和
Development of Language Teaching Methodology 500 B.C.–1969 (Rowley, 大量的。: Newbury
House Publishers, 1969).

15 The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, Pub. L. 不. 114-95, §129, Stat. 1802 (2015).
16 Glenn Fulcher, “The Reification of the Common European Framework of Reference
(CEFR) and Effect-Driven Testing,” in Advances in Research on Language Acquisition and
Teaching: Selected Papers from the 14th International Conference of Applied Linguistics (Thessa-
loniki, 希腊: Greek Applied Linguistics Association, 2010), 15–26.

17 Paul Seedhouse, “A Framework for Conceptualising Learning and Applied Linguistics,”
in Conceptualising ‘Learning’ in Applied Linguistics, 编辑. Paul Seedhouse, Steve Walsh, 和
Chris Jenks (伦敦: 帕尔格雷夫·麦克米伦, 2010), 240–256.

18 Vivian Cook, “Prolegomena to Second Language Learning,” in Conceptualising ‘Learning’ in
Applied Linguistics, 编辑. Seedhouse, Walsh, and Jenks, 6–22; Hannele Dufva, Minna Suni,
Mari Aro, and Olli-Pekka Salo, “Languages as Objects of Learning: Language Learning
as a Case of Multilingualism,” Apples: Journal of Applied Language Studies 5 (1) (2011): 109–

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代达罗斯, 美国艺术学院学报 & SciencesSocial Justice Challenges of “Teaching” Languages

124, https://apples.journal.fi/article/view/97818; and Leo van Lier, The Ecology and Se-
miotics of Language Learning: A Sociocultural Perspective (纽约: Kluwer Academic Pub-
lishers, 2004).

19 Paul V. Kroskrity, “Language Ideologies,” in A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, 编辑.
Alessandro Duranti (Malden, 大量的。: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 501. See also Kath-
ryn A. Woolard and Bambi B. Schieffelin, “Language Ideology,” Annual Review of Anthro-
道歉 23 (1) (1994): 55–82, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.23.100194.000415.
20 Paul V. Kroskrity, “Language Ideologies–Evolving Perspectives,” in Society and Language
Use, 编辑. Jürgen Jaspers, Jan-Ola Östman, and Jef Verschueren (阿姆斯特丹: John Benja-
mins Publishing Company, 2010), 192–211.

21 Noam Chomsky, Reflections on Language (纽约: 万神殿书籍, 1975).
22 François Grosjean, “Neurolinguists, Beware! The Bilingual Is Not Two Monolin-
guals in One Person,” Brain and Language 36 (1) (1989): 3–15, https://doi.org/10.1016
/0093-934X(89)90048-5.

23 Dufva, Suni, Aro, and Salo, “Languages as Objects of Learning.”
24 Per Linell, The Written Language Bias in Linguistics: Its Nature, Origins and Transformations

(Abingdon-on-Thames, England: 劳特利奇, 2004).

25 Stephen May, “Disciplinary Divides, Knowledge Construction, and the Multilingual
Turn,” in The Multilingual Turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and Bilingual Education (阿宾登-
on-Thames, England: 劳特利奇, 2013), 7–31.

26 Alan Davies, The Native Speaker in Applied Linguistics (爱丁堡: Edinburgh University

按, 1991).

27 Lourdes Ortega, “Ways Forward for a Bi/Multilingual Turn in SLA,” in The Multilingual
Turn, 编辑. 可能, 32–53; and Robert Bley-Vroman, “The Comparative Fallacy in Interlan-
guage Studies: The Case of Systematicity,” Language Learning: A Journal of Research in Lan-
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28 Constant Leung, Roxy Harris, and Ben Rampton, “The Idealised Native Speaker, Reified
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29 Dwight Atkinson, Heidi Byrnes, Meredith Doran, 等人。, “A Transdisciplinary Frame-
work for SLA in a Multilingual World,” Modern Language Journal 100 (S1) (2016): 19–47,
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30 同上。, 20.
31 Suhanthie Motha, “Is an Antiracist and Decolonizing Applied Linguistics Possible?”
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 40 (2020): 128–133, https://doi.org/10.1017/S026719
0520000100.

32 罗伯特·J. C. Young and Emmanuel Bruno Jean-François, “That Which Is Casually
Called a Language,” PMLA 131 (5) (2016): 1207–1221, https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla
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33 Elana Shohamy, The Power of Tests: A Critical Perspective on the Uses of Language Tests (波士顿:

Pearson Education, 2001).

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34 Ricardo Otheguy, Ofelia García, and Wallis Reid, “Clarifying Translanguaging and De-
constructing Named Languages: A Perspective from Linguistics,” Applied Linguistics Re-
看法 6 (3) (2015): 281–307, https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2015-0014.

35 布鲁克斯, “Pushing Past Myths.”
36 Diane Larsen-Freeman, “An ESL Index of Development,” TESOL Quarterly 12 (4) (1978):
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/S0267190505000024.

37 Victoria Hasko, “Capturing the Dynamics of Second Language Development via Learner
Corpus Research: A Very Long Engagement,” The Modern Language Journal 97 (S1) (2013):
2, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2012.01425.x.

38 Glenn Fulcher and Fred Davidson, Language Testing and Assessment: An Advanced Resource

书 (Abingdon-on-Thames, England: 劳特利奇, 2007), 2.

39 Shohamy, The Power of Tests.
40 Alister Cumming, “Assessing Oral and Literate Abilities,” in Encyclopedia of Language and
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41 同上。, 10, 添加了强调.
42 Bernard R. Gifford, “The Allocation of Opportunities and the Politics of Testing: A Pol-
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