Centering the Marginalized Identities of Immigrant Students of Color in the Literacy Classroom

The widespread degradation of immigrant communities of color in the Unites States has made the correlation between racial and linguistic discrimination increasingly clear. This paper describes some of the ways that the co-construction of race and language, or raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015), further marginalize children of immigrant communities in schools. Attention is particularly drawn to literacy classrooms of all grades, where students’ linguistic identities are pushed aside as monolingual middle-class White language practices set the standards for reading, listening, speaking, and writing instruction. The author calls for educators to embrace translanguaging (García, 2009) as a way to dismantle raciolinguistic hierarchies at the classroom level. Concrete examples of how a translanguaging approach can be implemented to center the identities of immigrant children and children of immigrant families in literacy classrooms are provided.Educatio

Open educational resources in Europe: A triptych of actions to support participation in higher education

In contrast to the face-to-face learning of campus based universities and the focus on traditional students, distance teaching universities focus on a mix of distance learning, e-learning, open learning, virtual mobility, learning communities, and the integration of earning and learning. In doing so, they are taking a leading role in helping to increase and widen participation in lifelong open and flexible learning in higher education by non-traditional groups. This paper discusses three leading-edge European Open Educational Resource initiatives. The initiatives are special in nature and differ from the offers of traditional universities in the sense that they: consist of pedagogically-rich learning materials, specifically designed and developed for distance learning and intended for independent self-study; are compiled in the national languages, with the EADTU initiative being multilingual, reflecting the European dimension; and, support and are supported by the policies of the national governments and the European Commission

MORMED: towards a multilingual social networking platform facilitating medicine 2.0

The broad adoption of Web 2.0 tools has signalled a new era of "Medicine 2.0" in the field of medical informatics. The support for collaboration within online communities and the sharing of information in social networks offers the opportunity for new communication channels among patients, medical experts, and researchers. This paper introduces MORMED, a novel multilingual social networking and content management platform that exemplifies the Medicine 2.0 paradigm, and aims to achieve knowledge commonality by promoting sociality, while also transcending language barriers through automated translation. The MORMED platform will be piloted in a community interested in the treatment of rare diseases (Lupus or Antiphospholipid Syndrome)

The role of translanguaging in the multilingual turn: Driving philosophical and conceptual renewal in language education

EN The multilingual turn refers to a recent series of shifts in the core philosophical underpinnings in traditional foreign and second language classroom practice. These changes promote the normalization of processes and practices characteristic of bi/multilingual speakers. This, in turn, has stimulated new ways of teaching and learning in the classroom. The goal of this article is twofold: first to chart the central developments that have led to the emergence of the multilingual turn thus far, and second to provide an account of how classroom translanguaging is fundamental to present and future developments. We present the conceptual framework undergirding the multilingual turn, before providing an overview of traditional tenets of foreign and second language education. We then examine translanguaging and its implications for language education, and end with a presentation of strategies that may facilitate the implementation of the multilingual turn in the additional language classroom

Leveraging Languages for Learning: Incorporating Plurilingual Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education and Care

Abstract: Children are members of families and communities, and the languages learnt within these contexts contribute to a child’s sense of “belonging, being and becoming” throughout life (Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009). Encouraging children to bring their home languages into early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings exposes all children to additional languages and supports key outcomes of the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF; DEEWR, 2009). This article looks at the relationship between key tenets of the EYLF and conditions that support a plurilingual approach within ECEC settings, arguing that multilingualism can be encouraged and effectively supported within these environments. The authors outline Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of development which continues to be influential in Australian ECEC, emphasizing the importance of proximal processes in child development. Examples are provided of educator behaviours set out in the EYLF that encourage linguistic diversity and promote language learning. The influence of three key variables on the valuing of languages is discussed, namely language ideologies, teacher beliefs and attitudes, and plurilingual pedagogies. Recommendations relating to the positive positioning of languages and the integration of plurilingual pedagogies into Australian ECEC contexts are provided

“Estoy Explorando Science”: Emerging Bilingual Students Problematizing Electrical Phenomena Through Translanguaging

As science education continues to embrace science-as-practice, equitable science learning environments must value and leverage emergent bilingual students’ ways of communicating. This study investigates the translanguaging practices of a group of elementary-aged emergent bilingual students while they problematized electrical phenomena. Building on asset-oriented theories for supporting student learning, I utilize translanguaging as a theoretical and pedagogical lens for understanding how emergent bilingual students leverage their full semiotic repertoires for productive disciplinary engagement. The study took place in an out-of-school program focused on creating opportunities for students to problematize electrical phenomena, specifically electrical resistance. I present a close analysis of students constructing models of electric flow through a circuit and how electrical resistance regulates that flow. The findings also include evidence that students engaged in different kinds of translanguaging practices when problematizing electrical phenomena and co-constructing knowledge with each other and the instructor. Specifically, students drew from and used multiple linguistic and non-linguistic semiotic resources for communicating their models. Finally, the findings suggest that the instructor\u27s pedagogical moves and own translanguaging practices implicitly signaled to students when and how to participate in translanguaging practices themselves. The findings emphasize the importance of desettling what counts as productive forms of communication in science for elementary-aged emergent bilingual students by eschewing pedagogical models that police discursive boundaries. Therefore, equitable science learning environments must create opportunities for emergent bilingual students to leverage their full semiotic repertoires for meaning-making, by inviting and valuing multiple languages and gestures

Examining the Value of Online Intercultural Exchange (OIE) in Cultivating Agency-focused, (Inter)Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy: A Story of One Collaborative International Project for English Learners

This article makes two contributions to culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy for English learners (ELs). First, we argue for the value of expanding cultural responsiveness to include an intercultural framing that not only cultivates ELs’ pride in their multicultural heritage, but also fosters their identities and capacities as global citizens. Second, we make a case for foregrounding student agency as a necessary prerequisite for what has been conceptualized as the ultimate goal of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy: to be able to maintain one’s cultural practices, while simultaneously learning how to critique dominant power structures (Paris & Alim, 2017). We illustrate how such agency-focused, (inter)culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy can be enacted in an online intercultural exchange (OIE) program that brought together elementary school ELs in Michigan and Slovak English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners

Fostering Asset-Based Approaches to ELA and Multilingualism in an English-Medium International School

This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) aims to address the Problem of Practice (PoP) of the marginalization of English Language Learners (ELLs) in an English-medium International School (EMIS) by leveraging teacher-leaders as advocates for cultural and linguistic equity via asset-based approaches starting in the classroom. Underpinned by colonial modes of thought disguised as neoliberal internationalism, EMISs often perpetuate the elevation of English as the language of academia while neglecting their normative aspirational mission commitments to equity, diversity, and social justice by failing to provide pathways to foster multilingual development. Deficit-based language programs illustrate this by approaching ELLs as academically deficient based on their English abilities while neglecting to leverage their capabilities in their first language to accelerate the development of their second language using constructivist, asset-based approaches. Transformative leadership in conjunction with critical and postcolonial theory constitutes the critically-oriented dimensions of this OIP, while transformational leadership linked to constructivist learning theory represents the plan’s commitment to improving organizational effectiveness while affirming current practices that are already in alignment. From the positionality of a middle leader, a critical organizational analysis is conducted using Bolman and Deal’s (2017) multi-frame approach, and Nadler and Tushman’s (1989) congruence model. The process of implementing, monitoring, and evaluating the solution to leverage data to institutionalize an equitable English Language Acquisition program structure is then framed using Deszca et al.’s (2020) change path model and Deming’s (1993) plan, do, study, act model

Stories From Islita Libre: Digital Spatial Storytelling as an Expression of Transnational and Immigrant Identities

In this essay, we examine the relationship between students’ spatial literacies of their neighborhoods and communities and their transnational identities, the latter which have complex, broad spatial and temporal dimensions. Over four months, we, a team of university researchers, led a series of instructional activities with a class of racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse first- and second-generation immigrant students in an 11th grade introduction to research course. Here, we document the ways in which students learned about various data sources for inquiry to create digital, layered map-based stories about the factors that shape their (and others’) immigrant experiences in their local community. We offer two illustrations that respectively speak to how students\u27 spatial literacies of their neighborhoods included their self-positioning within the local sociopolitical landscape and at the same time, the signs and symbols they chose in their story maps reflected broader sociopolitical forces. We raise considerations and questions for educators who want to engage transnational and immigrant adolescent youth in multimodal, digital spatial storytelling