Double Talk: Deconstructing Monolingualism in Classroom Second Language Learning (review)

As Virginia Scott laments in the introduction of Double Talk, US foreign language classrooms tend to operate according to a monolingual standard. By this, Scott means that foreign language education generally establishes a native-like monolingual norm as the learning goal and seeks to reduce or eliminate the use of English in the classroom. Scott argues that this approach does not provide realistic models of the type of multilingual language use that students are increasingly likely to experience outside of the classroom and it fails to recognize that most students never reach the stated goal of achieving native-like proficiency. Scott draws from Vivian Cook's notion of the multi-competent language user in her call for a rethinking of the goals and practices of foreign language teaching.

Double Talk consists of an introduction and six chapters, each of which contains eight sections: an overview of the topic, a real-life anecdotal 'snapshot' related to the chapter's topic, a synthesis of theoretical and empirical research (primarily but not only from the fields of language acquisition and teaching), a consideration of the practical implications of promoting multi-competence among language learners, critical reflection exercises, concluding propositions, suggested readings, and research suggestions.

In the first chapter, Scott argues that the establishment of native-speaker proficiency as the learning goal frustrates and disempowers teachers and students alike, and she outlines three central principles for re-conceptualizing second language education: (1) models of successful second-language users should replace the native-speaker model; (2) foreign language education should promote learners' critical language awareness of their own and others' attitudes and beliefs about language; and, (3) students should be allowed to use their first language in the classroom to better reflect the multilingual reality of contemporary society and allow for more complex class discussions.

The second chapter examines bilingual language use and code-switching with an emphasis on markedness and social networks, rather than the social and communicative functions of bilingual interaction. Chapter 3 focuses on language loss, an innovative approach to the discussion of theories of first and second language acquisition. Building on the claim that the lexicon is more resistant to loss than grammar, the fourth chapter emphasizes the importance of the lexicon in first and second language development, while chapter 5 examines the role of grammar instruction in second language teaching. The last chapter picks up from the first, going deeper into a consideration of theories of multilingual language use and providing some specific guidelines for ways to reshape the foreign language curriculum.

Scott's claim that foreign language education in the US is grounded in monolingual ideology and her call for the inclusion of language awareness within the curricular goals are well-founded, and they resonate with recent critiques and proposals for the critical examination of the assumptions and values embodied in language teaching materials and practices. While not the first researcher to raise these issues or to call for a re-conceptualization of the goals of foreign language education, her adoption of this approach within an accessible text designed for current and future teachers - one that includes many of the 'basic' topics of a language acquisition course - means that these ideas might reach a broader audience. Moreover, Scott goes further by including issues such as the role of memory in language maintenance and the relative communicative utility of words and grammar in her discussion.

The organization of the chapters offers readers an engaging mix of style and content, from the more informal narrative style of the anecdotes to the somewhat denser research summaries, and the overview sections do a good job not only of introducing and contextualizing the chapter topic but also highlighting its importance to language learning and use. Another strength of Double Talk is the inclusion of exercises for critical reflection; although they vary in the amount of effort they require to complete, they are consistently thoughtful and conceptually well-integrated throughout the chapters. The research...