What Does a Language-Inclusive Classroom Actually Look Like?
Imagine walking into a classroom of 24 students. There are six languages represented in the room. The teacher speaks English, and perhaps a little French. Most of the instructional materials are in English, and English is the primary language of instruction. So what would make this a language-inclusive classroom? Would we expect to see welcome […]
UDL for Multilingual Learners: Linguistic Variability Is Learner Variability
Universal Design for Learning asks us to anticipate learner variability rather than wait for students to struggle and then add support. But in multilingual schools, one form of variability is still often treated differently: language. We may design proactively for differences in attention, processing, background knowledge, access, and expression, while still assuming that learning should […]
Translanguaging Strategies for the Classroom: Using Students’ Full Linguistic Repertoires Purposefully
Translanguaging Strategies for the Classroom: Using Students’ Full Linguistic Repertoires Purposefully If you search for translanguaging strategies, you’ll find plenty of suggestions: Let students discuss in their home language. Use bilingual glossaries. Compare vocabulary across languages. Have students brainstorm in one language before writing in another. Those can all be useful strategies. But there is […]
How to Use Translanguaging When You Don’t Speak Your Students’ Languages
One of the most common reactions I hear when I talk about translanguaging is: “That sounds great, but I don’t speak my students’ languages.” Fair. If you have Arabic, Korean, Spanish, Mandarin, French, Ukrainian, and three other languages represented in one classroom, nobody is expecting you to spend your weekend becoming conversational in all of […]
Translanguaging Examples: 3 Practical Classroom Ideas
.A lot of people think that translanguaging in the classroom must be complicated. It isn’t. At least, not necessarily. A lot of the time, it looks like making one small shift in a lesson so students can use the languages they already know to understand something better. … And that’s it! No twelve-language worksheet or […]