Storytelling in multilingual contexts

A webinar looking at how to introduce multilingualism in your events programming (no language experience necessary!)

Do you work in a library that serves a multilingual community? Are you looking to bring multilingualism into your library events programme, but aren’t sure where to start, especially if you are monolingual yourself?

In this session, we will be joined by Sabine Little, Professor of Literacy and Multilingualism at the University of Sheffield, to consider practical ideas around multilingual storytelling.

Sabine will look at how you can diversify your events and expand your own storytelling expertise, regardless of whether you are multilingual yourself or not. She will outline techniques that can be implemented immediately while also considering stock development and actively engaging the community in programming a range of events for all ages such as multilingual readathons.

Sabine’s years of experience telling stories and visiting schools has formed her unique approach of using the languages in the room rather than those of the storyteller. Her approach is to create stories that are different each time, growing and evolving with the audience.

This session will be of interest to librarians and others who are keen to facilitate stories in multilingual communities, drawing out the richness languages offer, and to create linguistically inclusive storytelling environments. Children’s librarians, reader development and outreach staff, prison librarians, speakers of several languages and none are all welcome.

About our speaker

Sabine Little is Professor of Literacy and Multilingualism at the University of Sheffield. Her work focuses on looking at the role multilingualism in society and the links between language, identity, and belonging.

Sabine works with families, schools, and wider spaces such as libraries and prisons, to explore what it means to grow up multilingual, focusing on the experiences of multilingual children. Her work with Sheffield Libraries, to introduce a multilingual children’s library, has won the international Brenda Eastwood Award for Diversity and Inclusion.