Supporting a multilingual classroom

Purpose
Research within the last 20 years indicates that there are social, cultural, linguistic and intellectual benefits in growing up bilingual. Bilingual children have demonstrated a more refined alertness towards language processing, and a sensitivity to language form and function. As a result, their overall literacy learning appears to be enhanced. However, many students lose their proficiency in their home language when they reach school. They are highly motivated to learn English, perceiving not only that it is the dominant language, but that their survival in the playground and the classroom depends upon it. In order to encourage the benefits that bilingualism can bring, teachers need to be inclusive of other languages in the classroom.

Teaching points

  • Encourage parents / carers to continue to use the home language at home, through conversation, and reading and discussing books.
  • Encourage students who speak the same language to work together using the language in the classroom.
  • Allow time for extended interaction in the home language. This encourages engagement and depth of investigations and concepts.
  • Connect families to other families from the same language or cultural group.
  • Maintain up-to-date information on ethnic schools and community-language programs, bookshops and libraries.
  • Hold regular parent meetings in the language, using a trained interpreter.
  • Connect students’ experiences to curriculum areas through regular discussion of family, community and cultural activities.
  • Represent print and script from students’ home languages in the classroom.
  • Facilitate all students’ understanding of the linguistic diversity within their class.
  • Openly discuss students’ experiences of talking their home language. Point out the advantages of being bilingual.
  • Encourage students to use their home language in the classroom and the school community.

More information

PEN 130: Diaz, C. Multilingual literacies in the primary classroom: Making the connections. e:lit - the Primary English Teaching Association, Newtown