Multilingual Literacy Research Articles

Socioecological and psycholinguistic approaches to multilingual health literacy.

Socioecological and psycholinguistic approaches to multilingual health literacy.

‘Localizing English in town’: a linguistic landscape project for a Critical Linguistics Education on multilingualism

ABSTRACT This article presents the outcomes of a 2-year pilot study of a teaching innovation project in an English-medium instruction course on sociolinguistics, in a languages degree at a Catalan university. Following the tenets of Critical Linguistics Education, our proposal aimed at promoting the students’ development of metalinguistic awareness of linguistic diversity; particularly, of Englishization phenomena in their socialization spaces. Firstly, we detail the project, based on the students’ interpretive analysis of the social meanings of a series of Linguistic Landscapes involving local and global languages that they gathered ethnographically. This required the use of two technologies of citizenship participation, employed as Foreign Language learning/teaching instruments: A geolocating map and a 2.0 web. We then analyze the students’ productions, and their marks, course ratings and project-assessment reports. We show that the required disciplinary content and advanced English level were attained. Students became knowledge generators of sociolinguistics phenomena and developed an intercultural, plurilingual competence in ‘localized Englishes’. We conclude that the use of Linguistic Landscaping is an effective means to develop the multilingual literacy, technoliteracy and learning-to-learn competences required by the European Council. This contributes to the design of pedagogical strategies fostering the students’ commitment to an ethics of respect towards multilingualism.

Re/construing Our World: An Ecolinguistic Perspective on Tagalog Nominal Group Resources

This paper focuses on Tagalog nominal groups and the way they are used in a children's picture book narrative. Its purpose is two-fold. On the one hand it presents an analysis of Tagalog nominal group structures, proposing Function Marking, Focus, Specifier, Numerative, Epithet, Deictic, Thing and Qualifier functions. On the other hand it is concerned with the way Tagalog nominal groups are used to construe an environmentalist perspective that could be used to inform critical pedagogic practices in Philippines’ primary schools. Models of teacher/student interaction addressing this challenge are provided and adapted for bilingual/multilingual classrooms – drawing on the evolving teaching/learning cycles of the so-called ‘Sydney School’ of educational linguistics (its development as Reading to Learn pedagogy and curriculum in particular). 1 1 The authors are indebted to David Rose for his advice on our modelling of ecolinguistically oriented multilingual literacy pedagogy.

Transnational identities, being and belonging: the diverse home literacies of multilingual immigrant families

Abstract This paper uses a transnational lens to discuss findings from a longitudinal study of the home literacy practices of linguistically diverse immigrant families. The paper draws on the experiences of three families to show how literacy events and practices index and mediate immigrants’ identities as they settle into the host community. Observations, interviews, and family members’ own documentation of their home literacies revealed the richness and complexity of the families’ linguistic repertoires. Using Levitt and Schiller’s distinction between ways of being and ways of belonging, the paper focuses on the role of everyday literacies in the families’ lives and on how critical events at home and abroad shaped family members’ identities as they navigated their new lives. The paper offers insights into the role of multilingual literacies in the settlement process and draws attention to the significance of literacy practices in shaping immigrants’ transnationalism.

Co‐Creating Multilingual Books with Children to Foster Their Literacies

AbstractThis article describes how young children and their families and community members came together with researchers to co‐create books in children's languages about their worlds in Fiji, to foster children's multilingual literacies. The co‐creation of these books in children's and families’ Fijian homes and community settings connected with their voices, languages, and literacies, to ensure both the books and the processes for co‐creating them would be culturally sustaining and effective for children's multilingual literacy growth. Among the research team here, two were based in Fiji and the rest were based in Australia. We learned many lessons in our journey from preschools and classrooms in Australia to children's homes and communities in Fiji, which we bring back to share with teachers internationally through The Reading Teacher.

Teaching multilingual literacy in Ugandan classrooms: The promise of the African Storybook

Abstract For over a decade, the authors have worked collaboratively to better understand and address the challenges and possibilities of promoting multilingual literacy in Uganda, a country of over 44 million people where over 40 African languages are spoken and English is the official language. This article focuses on the diverse ways that teachers promote early literacy in large multilingual classrooms, and how the innovative African Storybook digital initiative might support primary school teachers in both rural and urban areas. We begin the article with a description of our collaborative work on the African Storybook (http://www.africanstorybook.org/) and one of its derivatives, Storybooks Uganda (https://global-asp.github.io/storybooks-uganda/). Then, drawing on a collaborative study of primary school classrooms in eastern Uganda, we analyze four common strategies that Ugandan teachers use to promote multilingual literacy in their classrooms: the use of the mother tongue as a resource; songs and multimodality; translanguaging; and linguistic strategies for classroom management. We follow this with a discussion of a 2015 teacher education workshop in eastern Uganda, which illustrates how the African Storybook can help support Ugandan teachers as they navigate the challenges of large classrooms. We conclude that the African Storybook has much promise for addressing the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Towards a Definition of Multilingual Information Literacy (MLIL): An Essential Skill for the 21st Century

This article reports on an exploratory study that examined bilingual/multilingual university students’ perspectives on how language affects their information searching and use. The study also examined instruction librarians’ perspectives on information literacy instruction in general and their approaches in providing information literacy instruction to international students and English as a Second Language (ESL) students. A qualitative research approach using focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews was used in the study. Nineteen (19) international and ESL students participated in the discussions while 8 instruction librarians were interviewed. Fifty-six (56%) of the students were aware of information literacy instruction as a service that was offered by the University library but only 37% had used this service. Only one of the librarians had had a significant encounter where language issues closely intersected with information literacy instruction. This study makes a connection between language and information literacy and reports on perspectives from both librarians and students’ point of view. While proposing a possible working definition of Multilingual Information Literacy (MLIL), the study makes the case for MLIL as a necessary skill for the twenty-first century. The study also proposes ways in which Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals could be involved in promoting and enhancing multilingual information literacy and further suggests Specialized Information Literacy Instruction (SILI) and Personalized Information Literacy Instruction (PILI) as suitable models for providing instruction to Limited English Proficient (LEP) users.

Children’s multilingual literacy: Fostering childhood literacy in home and community settings

Children’s multilingual literacy: Fostering childhood literacy in home and community settings

Centering Language and Student Voice in Multilingual Literacy Instruction

AbstractThe authors describe a 3‐year project to design and test a multilingual literacy curriculum that centers language and student voice in the service of literacy development for multilingual learners. In the first 2 years, researchers, teachers, and students worked together to develop the curriculum using design‐based, case study methods. In the third year, teachers participated in a quasi‐experimental implementation of the curriculum that showed positive effects on students’ language, reading, and writing outcomes. This longitudinal work reflects four broad principles for multilingual literacy instruction: (1) focus on language and metalinguistic awareness; (2) enact dialogic approaches to engage students; (3) use multimodal texts and scaffolds to support comprehension and expression; and (4) take a multilingual perspective. The authors provide an overview of the curriculum design process and the quasi‐experimental field trial. Then, each principle is theoretically and empirically unpacked, and instructionally described using qualitative data collected over the full 3 years.

The Three Robbers in Three Languages: Exploring a Multilingual Picturebook with Bilingual Student Teachers

This study investigates translingual and multimodal teaching strategies in the context of multilingual literacy acquisition within a bilingual education program in France. It is based on a research project carried out at the Graduate School of Education of the University of Strasbourg, during the academic year 2017-2018. The purpose of our research is to analyze the student teachers’ representations and attitudes towards multilingual picturebooks, and to lead them to explore the pedagogical affordances of interlingual and intersemiotic mediation in the context of a multilingual reading project, built around the trilingual edition of Tomi Ungerer’s The Three Robbers. The qualitative analysis of the student teachers’ discourses allows us to discuss how translingual and multimodal activities give rise to a new pedagogical approach to literacy with young readers, specifically in a bilingual education context, and explain how picturebooks can foster integrated, multimodal, and translingual learning, as well as the development of biliteracy and metalinguistic awareness.

Challenges Faced by Teachers and Leaners with Translanguaging in First Grade Multilingual Literacy Classrooms

Challenges Faced by Teachers and Leaners with Translanguaging in First Grade Multilingual Literacy Classrooms

Multiliteracies and Multilingual Literacies of Young Children: A Study of Linguistic and Social Identities

Pakistan is a multilingual community where individuals communicate in more than one language for everyday communication. Literacy practices of young children in schools reflect the literacy practices of the broader social community. Same is the case with the use of literacy practices at homes. The data is collected by answering questions in questionnaires that are answered by the parents. The collected data is from three different social strata of society. The current study analyzes the literacy practices of young children at homes and the way they are associated with the broader social and cultural context. This includes the linguistic and literacy practices of young children during their playtime, their interaction with the members of the family and their exposure to the media and technology. These multilingual literacy practices that are practised at the homes constitute the social and linguistic identity of the individuals in the long run.

The English Language Arts Classroom as a Multilingual Literacy Community

Literacy educators have long understood the importance of designing multicultural instruction for students. However, in an educational context that is both increasingly multilingual, literacy educators are not realizing that multiculturalism isn’t enough. This article focuses on practitioner friendly recommendations for understanding linguistic diversity in the middle grades, designing physical spaces that support multilingual literacy communities, and designing affective spaces that support multilingual literacy communities. The recommendations in this article rely on data from a qualitative multiple case study to describe the approaches that middle schools recognized as Texas Schools to Watch were used to meet the needs language and literacy needs of their specific English Learner (EL) populations.

Introduction. Multilingual literacy practices - global perspectives on visuality, materiality, and creativity

ABSTRACT In this special issue introduction, we briefly discuss the history of multilingual writing research before we examine the research presented in the issue in light of three cross-cutting themes: visuality, materiality, and creativity. We conclude with a summary of the papers and the insights they add to our understanding of shifting multilingual literacy practices in the twenty-first century.

Contributors

Contributors

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies in the Current Moment: A Conversation With Django Paris and H. Samy Alim

AbstractThis department explores how teachers can sustain students’ multilingual literacies and reimagine literacy learning across multiple contexts in conversation with researchers, practitioners, and communities.

Feeling Not Asian Enough: Issues of Heritage‐Language Loss, Development, and Identity

AbstractThis department explores how teachers can sustain students’ multilingual literacies and reimagine literacy learning across multiple contexts in conversation with researchers, practitioners, and communities.

Trends

Trends

Translanguaging and Multilingual Academic Literacies: How Do We Translate That into French? Should We? Pour en faire quoi ? (et pourquoi s'en faire?)

Translanguaging has become an inescapable notion in the anglophone literature on multilingual education. Questions thus arise as to whether and how it should be imported into francophone educational discourse, which has developed parallel vocabularies and orientations. The stakes are not only terminological — how to import a notion with ill-defined contours from one discursive universe to another — but pedagogical and political: what value could be added by the notion of translanguaging, either translated or borrowed as is, not only in addressing the needs of plurilingual writers who, like francophone educators, must reconceptualize English disciplinary discourses in another language, but also in creating more equitable conditions for the circulation of ideas across linguistic and national lines? To tackle these questions, this paper draws on two sources of insight: strategies for cross-lingual mediation developed in translationand terminology studies, and lessons from the import of literacy into francophone discourse in the 1990s and 2000s. Existing uses and translations of translanguaging are then reviewed, and new translation equivalents proposed to render and clarify the multiple meanings of translanguaging and operationalize the notion in French. In keeping with a translanguaging approach, the paper translanguages about translanguaging, deepening our understanding of it through more than one linguistic lens.
 Keywords: Translanguaging, translation and writing pedagogy, multilingual terminology, multilingual academic literacies, crosslingual reading and composing, international circulation of ideas
 

Noticing for Equity to Sustain Multilingual Literacies

AbstractThis department explores how teachers can sustain students’ multilingual literacies and reimagine literacy learning across multiple contexts in conversation with researchers, practitioners, and communities.