Language Brokering in Diverse Contexts: Implications for Schools

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium explores language brokering–when multilingual individuals mediate between people of different languages and cultural backgrounds. The five papers address language brokering from different angles, with different populations, using different methods, and on different aspects of the practice. However, they are united in addressing language brokering’s implications for schooling, where language brokering has had little recognition. Together, the papers investigate how schools can support and acknowledge students’ language brokering work. They also propose the role that language brokering can play within the classroom through curriculum and student-led storytelling. Imagining a future of education where multilingual, multicultural, and immigrant students feel safe and respected, presenters envision how schools can tap into the language brokering skills that many students already possess.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Language and Social Processes

Chair

• Lisa M. Dorner, University of Missouri

Papers

• Language Brokering at the Doctor During COVID-19: An Asian American College Student’s Autoethnography - Gloria Choi

• The Relationship Between Language Brokering and Citizenship Becoming: Implications for K-12 Education - Lisa M. Dorner, University of Missouri; Sujin Kim, George Mason University

• From Family Helper to Business Facilitator: Reconceptualizing Child Language Brokering Through Communication Accommodation Theory - Krissia Martinez, University of Texas at Austin

• Co-Constructing Narratives of Language Brokering and Learning through Digital Discourse - Flora Zempleni, University of California - Los Angeles

• Leveraging Language Brokering: A Researcher-Teacher Partnership for Designing Language Brokering-Based Classroom Learning - Jackson Gzehoviak, University of California - Los Angeles; Sarah Perez, University of California - Los Angeles

Session Organizer

• Gloria Choi

Discussant

• Marjorie E. Faulstich Orellana, University of California - Los Angeles