Abstract
In response to Canada’s growing ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity, educators in French immersion classrooms are increasingly responding with enhanced cross-linguistic initiatives, and dual language books are promising resources in the promotion of multilingualism (Zaidi, 2020; Zaidi & Dooley, 2021). This paper details a research project we completed in a 2019 classroom-based qualitative case study in a French immersion school experiencing an increasing enrollment of linguistically diverse students. The researchers sought to determine if Storybooks Canada, a free digital platform with 40 dual language books in multiple languages, could help promote literacy engagement and strengthen home-school connections. Five teacher participants identified a range of features that make the platform a useful resource for promoting literacy engagement, text comprehension, learner autonomy, meaning-making, and instructional differentiation. These included (i) the multilingual features, (ii) the ability to project stories on a large screen, (iii) the audio component, (iv) the illustrations, and (v) the different levels of text difficulty. While teachers made almost exclusive use of the French language features of the site, for classroom purposes, they supported cross-linguistic uses of the platform in the home context, with a view of strengthening home-school connections.
Highlights
In response to Canada’s growing ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity, educators in French immersion classrooms are increasingly responding with enhanced cross-linguistic initiatives, and dual language books are promising resources in the promotion of multilingualism (Zaidi, 2020; Zaidi & Dooley, 2021)
In addressing our two research questions, we were interested in which design features of Storybooks Canada held the most appeal for French immersion pedagogy, and how the platform might serve the dual function of supporting literacy engagement while validating and leveraging the diverse home languages of children in French immersion programs
Our first research question was “What features of the Storybooks Canada digital platform can help promote literacy engagement in early French immersion programs?” Drawing on the qualitative data, the researchers identified five features of Storybooks Canada that were appealing for teachers in this context: (i) The multilingual features, (ii) the ability to project a story on a large screen, (iii) the audio component, (iv) the illustrations, and (v) the different levels of text difficulty
Summary
In response to Canada’s growing ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity, educators in French immersion classrooms are increasingly responding with enhanced cross-linguistic initiatives, and dual language books are promising resources in the promotion of multilingualism (Zaidi, 2020; Zaidi & Dooley, 2021). The researchers sought to determine if Storybooks Canada, a free digital platform with 40 dual language books in multiple languages, could help promote literacy engagement and strengthen home-school connections. This study sought to determine whether a new, freely available digital platform, called Storybooks Canada, might serve as a useful pedagogical tool in French immersion classrooms and whether teachers thought it had potential for strengthening connections between linguistically diverse homes and schools. The toggle feature enables users to switch between French or English and one of 28 home languages, providing immediate access to 40 digital dual language books, most with audio This feature enables Storybooks Canada to respond to Canada’s changing demographics and the needs of an increasing number of linguistically diverse students who require support with language, literacy, and academic content. Helping these students meet their needs is a growing priority for school districts, and gives schools the opportunity to leverage the cultural and linguistic potential of diverse students in Canadian classrooms
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