Oaxaca is among the most linguistically and culturally diverse areas in Mexico. There are 16 different indigenous communities (López-Gopar, Núñez-Méndez, Sughrua, & Clemente, 2013) who generally experience limited access to EFL in secondary education (Enciso, 2013). Yet, Oaxaca is also home to return migrants who grew up in English-speaking environments (Kleyn, 2017). In the Facultad de Idiomas at the Universidad Autónoma “Benito Juárez” de Oaxaca, students in EFL classrooms represent multiple points on these continua of multilingualism.

We have sought to support students’ English learning with multilingual assessment approaches that are adapted from heteroglossic theories of language (Bakhtin, 1981; Blackledge & Creese, 2010) and funds of knowledge theories of learning (González, Moll, & Amanti 2006). Our heteroglossic orientation was reflected in the types of multilingual materials used to construct assessments (e.g., Spanish audio with English subtitles, audio in Spanish and English, print sources in Spanish and English); funds of knowledge orientations were reflected in the contextually connected topics (e.g., rosca de reyes traditions and teacher work stoppages). For this article, we illustrate the potential of multilingual assessment practices to better understand students’ English learning.

We used participatory action research (Borda, 2001; McIntyre, 2008) and critical ethnographic (Ibrahim, 1999; Madison, 2005) methodological approaches for our study. The research methodologies, in turn, have meant that we are striving to understand the social implications of our work and how ideological and historical perspectives shape our efforts. We found the analysis of this first assessment—presented in this article—necessary to determine the feasibility of extending our project on multilingual assessments throughout the academic year. Our studyoccurred during the 2017–2018 academic year with 28 students in their fifth and sixth semesters of an eight-semester EFL program. In the assessments, we chose to focus on Spanish and English because these languages were shared among the students. Yet we were also attuned to the indigenous backgrounds of students. Six students self-identified as speakers of one of the indigenous languages: Amuzgo, Chatino, Mixe, Triqui, and Zapotec. They were encouraged to use those languages if or when they could, and two students frequently used different varieties of Chatino in class.

In this article, we present excerpts from the multilingual writing produced by the students on the first of six assessments, interviews, and reflections from the classroom teacher and other researchers involved in the project. To analyze the data sources, we used collaborative coding (Erickson, 2004). We also asked an additional English instructor in the Facultad de Idiomas to independently verify our coding and interpretations. Following these analyses, we conducted member checks with students to confirm interpretations.

The first assessment addressed learning objectives from the syllabus centered on three grammar points: reported speech, present perfect, passive voice, and gerunds. For our investigation, we designed a multilingual task that asked students to use reported speech in a letter to a friend to summarize news articles about a recent earthquake that occurred in September 2017 in Oaxaca, Mexico. We used two audio recordings of news reports, one in Spanish and one in English. In administering this assessment, we did not provide explicit instructions to write multilingually or in English only. Thus, we viewed these data as presenting the existing, rather than elicited, multilingual practices of students. On the assessment, we identified 15 instances of students using Spanish and English in 10 responses. Following are illustrative examples of writing in English that included Spanish from five students (All names are pseudonyms), with the Spanish in bold:

1. “reconstruction form de buildings” [Isabella] and “the authorities por them” [Carlota]

2. Right now, there are 345 dieds by earthquake in Mexico City and Oaxaca. 37 mdp are Mexico City and Oaxaca by earthquake. [Manuela]

3. With all this the president of México and tax officer saids that will do (reporte financiero) and economic ajust. [Sergio]

4. The goberment he said that he wanted responsible of dristribuir products for families that he earthquake affected. Now for reparated the falling Mexico City need 2 houndred millions of dollars. She said that this situation medidas of prevention are that the repartisiones for reparated the houses, streets, places etc. wanted all with transparent. The major earthquakes was in setembro 7th and 19th in Mexico. [Emilia]

The excerpts in Example 1 show the use of Spanish prepositions de and por rather than English prepositions of and for. These small instances of multilingual integration in writing seemed to represent less intentional use of Spanish, as these students also used of and for in other parts of their English writing. In Example 2, the student writes mdp or millones de pesos [millions of pesos]. This abbreviation is common in Spanish and does not have an equivalent abbreviation in English. In using mdp, the student’s writing remained accessible to audiences in Mexico, but less so for those unfamiliar with this abbreviation. We claim that the third and fourth examples offer insights into the identities of these multilingual writers learning English. Both students indicated that they used Spanish in their writing of English to communicate what they understood in terms of the content of the task. In Example 3, the inclusion of the term reporte financiero [financial report] in parentheses signifies how the student marked these words as being written in Spanish.

The final example is from the student who integrated more Spanish in her English writing than other students. In looking over the ways in which she used Spanish, the use of the letter b in the word goberment is similar to examples of writing multilingually we see in Example 1. The majority of her use of Spanish is at the word level. In her writing, only medidas [measurements] uses the standardized Spanish spelling of the word. The other words dristribuir (distribuir or distribute), repartisiones (reparaciones or compensation), reparated (reparado or repaired), and setembro (septiembre or September) approximate standardized Spanish spellings. The exception is the use of reparated. With this use of Spanish and English, she has used the past tense marker –ed, which illustrated how writing multilingually can also be reflected with morphemes.

In our member check interview with Sergio and Emilia, the students who wrote the responses in Examples 3 and 4, Emilia reported that using Spanish allowed her to continue uninterrupted in constructing her response. Both students expressed an intention to ask for the English equivalents of the Spanish terms and the usefulness of using Spanish in writing their ideas. We position their reflections and the evidence of student writings in this article as illustrative of different ways that students can integrate multilingual writing practices to enhance their learning—and the demonstration of their learning in assessments—of English. By including Spanish, these students were able to continue writing and commentating their ideas predominately in English. In looking at Emilia’s writing, for example, the “multilingual” writing wrring in the ressponse suggests that Emilia’s multilingualism enabled her to express her meanings in a way that reflected her communicative repertoire. We note that the expressed meanigns were clear to the teacher of the course with these features of both English and Spanish. For writing assessments such as this, we argue that the multilingual writing in these responses provided the teacher information about students’ English learning that aided in subsequent lesson planning.

Our initial interview data, however, surfaces some differing perspectives about the utility of multilingual practices in teaching and assessment. In reflecting on students’ views with respect to multilingual approaches for English learning, we look to two excerpts from interviews. When asked ¿Cómo se sienten cuando Julio usa español en la clase de inglés? [How do you feel when your teacher uses Spanish to teach English?], Julia responded: Seguro. Seguro de entender lo que el trata de decir. [More certain/secure. I’m more sure that I understand what he (Julio) is trying to say]. Yet, when asked ¿Cómo se sintieran ustedes si hubiera partes del examen en español? [How would you all feel if parts of an exam would be in Spanish?], Sergio responded: Se supone que estamos aprendiendo inglés, ¿Por qué tuviera que venir el examen en español? [We are supposed to be learning English. Why would the assessment be in Spanish?] (authors’ translation). Because students were open to using multilingual practices in teaching and also used multilingual writing in this first assessment, we saw the continuation of this study as being well-placed to illustrate how multilingual approaches to assessment could be leveraged to enhance the understanding of students’ English learning.

With this class, we started a project with students who were comfortable using Spanish during English instruction, but who expressed reservations about using Spanish in assessments despite the fact that they used Spanish in their assessment task wihtout prompting. In reflecting over the course of the academic year, we noted that acceptance of multilingualism in the EFL classroom and positioning of students’ multilingual identities as an asset for English learning served to boost students’ confidence and encourage participation, including writing longer passages in class and on assessments. We posit that validating these multilingual practices in assessments was key in supporting students by positively evaluating multilingual practices; such practices support English learning in ways that also discouraged students self-censoring because of English-only restrictions. The increased participation was particularly helpful to provide sensitive diagnostic assessment information about individual students’ English that English-only assessments may not capture. Based on this work, we feel these data present an important case for teachers and students to identify EFL classrooms that are open to integrating multilingual approaches to assessment.

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Jamie Schissel is Assistant professor of TESOL in Teacher Education and Higher Education Department at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, USA. Her research interests center on equity issues connected with assessments and policies affecting linguistically and culturally diverse individuals. She is on the editorial advisory board for Language Assessment Quarterly and is the co-founder and faculty editor of UNCG Working Papers in Education. Her book The Social Consequences of Testing for Language-minoritized Bilinguals in the United States was published in 2019.

Julio Morales, English teacher, Facultad de Idiomas, C.U. , Universidad Autónoma “Benito Juárez” de Oaxaca (UABJO), Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca, México.

José Julio Morales Chávez holds a B.A. degree in Language Teaching from Universidad Autónoma “Benito Juárez” de Oaxaca (UABJO). Julio has been teaching English and Linguistics at UABJO for 5 years. He is currently studying a M.A. degree on Critic Education of Languages and is doing some research for improving English oral production in the classroom. He presented at AAAL in Chicago and did some research in Germany as part of a scholarship. He’s currently writing some papers for international journals.

Constant Leung is Professor of Educational Linguistics in the School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London. His research interests include additional/second language teaching and assessment, language policy, and teacher professional development. He is joint-editor of Language Assessment Quarterly, Editor of Research Issues of TESOL Quarterly, and serves as a member of the Editorial Boards of Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, Language and Education, and the Modern Language Journal. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK).

Mario López-Gopar (Ph. D., OISE/University of Toronto) is professor at Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca. Mario’s main research interest is intercultural and multilingual education of Indigenous peoples in Mexico. He has published numerous articles and book chapters in Mexico, USA, Canada, Argentina, Brazil and Europe. His latest books are Decolonizing Primary English Language Teaching (Multilingual Matters, 2016) and International Perspectives on Critical Pedagogies in ELT (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019).