In recent years, there has been a pedagogical shift from "EAL" as a bridge to accessing the curriculum in English, to understanding children as "emergent multilinguals" who are using multiple languages to support their thinking and learning. This presentation stems from a collaboration between Lydgate Infant School, Sheffield, and the University of Sheffield, reporting on a whole-school initiative to meaningfully integrate children’s home languages into the classroom. The initiative included a nature-inspired poetry project, where words from a poem written in English were explored (with parental support) and performed in other languages. The presentation will provide a brief background on concepts such as the full linguistic repertoire, before explaining the project in detail, and sharing how it changed thinking and behaviour among both children and staff, collaborating to integrate multilingualism across the school. There will be time for questions, discussion, and sharing of good practice at the end.
This online session will be of interest to anybody looking to support multilingual learners in the classroom.
Presenters: Vikki Varley & Daisy Whitehead (Lydgate Infant School), Sabine Little (University of Sheffield)
The session is organised jointly by the Hub for Heritage Languages and Multilingualism at the University of Sheffield, and the Sheffield City or Languages initiative.
The link for the session (Google Meet) will be shared with all participants on the day of the presentation, in the morning.
