Engaging With Languages and Multiple Identities: Portraits of Young French Immersion Chinese Children in Canada

• In Event: Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Identity Formation

Abstract

This ethnographic inquiry examines how five young (ages 6 – 8) French Immersion Chinese children construct their identities through multilingual and multiliteracy practices in Canada. Observation was spread over the days of the week over a 10-month period which was designed to represent an aggregated week of language activities and literacy practices for each child. The findings from interviews and drawings produced by children were analyzed within the context of sociolinguistic views of language and identities. The data offer a perspective on children’s multilingual and multiliteracy practices at home, in school, and in the local community which will be of interest to teachers and school policy-makers who tend to have minimal knowledge of the outside school lives of their multilingual students.

Authors

• Paul Yeung, Vancouver Community College

• Maureen J. Hoskyn, University of California - Riverside