Language matters
Unleashing the creative potential of home languages in the classroom Students from different backgrounds bring great opportunities, writes Simon Johnson
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learn languages other than English, shouldn’t we also value and welcome all the languages that already exist in our school communities? Think of the wealth of knowledge and intercultural exchange, as well as language learning opportunities, that students from different backgrounds bring to the classroom. Also, when charged with the education of children whose primary home language is not English, we need to consider how we can facilitate and encourage our students’ development in their home language too. Multiple longitudinal studies by UNESCO have consistently revealed that a student’s academic proficiency in their home language plays a significant role in their success in additional language learning and across the whole curriculum. Summer |
Winter
Many international school students are already multilingual, but our classrooms often don’t reflect this. In our action research project, we were amazed by the transformation that occurred when we invited students to use their home languages in class. Imagine walking into any science or humanities-based lesson in a national or even international school in which all students are engaged in the same task yet using different languages. For most of us that would probably be an unusual sight. Yet we have to ask ourselves why. Why does this seem such an unlikely scenario when so many schools serve a multicultural and multilingual student body with home languages that are not English? If we are to promote multilingualism and encourage students to
| 2020
