Reimaging Newcomer Instruction Through Multilingual Possibilities: Secondary Teachers Provide Home Language Invitations

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Reimagining Multilingual Education Through an Asset-Based Orientation (Table 40)

Abstract

With the purpose of creating multilingual spaces in secondary newcomer classrooms, this study follows two newcomer teachers over the course of one school year. The researchers, which include the teachers themselves, adopted a multilingual view of translanguaging to develop practices to encourage newcomers from various language backgrounds to use their home languages in agentive ways. Findings suggest that home language invitations through writing, reading, and oral language are practical ways teachers who do not speak their students’ languages can create multilingual spaces. Even within challenging contexts, these teachers curated a multilingual curriculum and classroom to develop students’ L2 and biliteracy. This, in turn, built relationships and offered teachers a concrete way to counter racial injustice within the traditionally English-centric space.

Authors

• Mandy Stewart, Texas Woman's University

• Angeles Munoz, University of North Texas / Texas Woman’s University

• Esmeralda Cartagena Collazo, Texas Woman's University

• Douha Abbasher, Texas Woman's University

• Victoria Michelle Bohannon, Texas Woman's University

• Joni Beatrice, Texas Woman's University