Category: Multilingual Learning
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“Oh, you know what I mean….”
Photo by Colin Maynard on Unsplash Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides. Rita Mae Brown Why language choice really matters and what it means for us in our communities. Take a look at the collection of images above. What impressions do these conjure up for you? What emotions or senses are…
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Elevating Portfolio Practices to Honour Multilingual Learner Identities
Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash I recently wrote about shifting our mindsets towards ‘honouring all languages’ in our learning spaces and communities. As with much that is connected to mindset this can be viewed on a continuum. Sometimes it requires small tweaks and finding ways to elevate current practices, other times it can result…
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Language Matters: From ‘being inclusive’ to ‘honouring’ all languages
Why we need to go beyond being inclusive to honouring. There are about 7,000 languages in the world. Being multilingual is now the ‘norm’ for the majority of the world’s population. It is more ‘typical’ for learners and their families to have knowledge of more than one language than to come from a strictly monolingual…
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What’s in a name?
I miss the puzzle of learning names. As a School Principal I used to love greeting families, learning student names and being part of the early morning routine welcoming everyone into school. I struggled, I got names wrong, I mixed up pronunciation, put the accent in the wrong place and from time to time muddled…
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Agency, Advocacy and Multilingualism
Empowering young learners to share their voice, to take action, to advocate for themselves and others, and to engage in all aspects of learning in local and global issues is crucial. Communities hold space for this agency and are central to creating and fostering a climate in which this can thrive. It seems logical that…
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Multilingual Voices
We often hear and use phrases like ‘student agency’, ‘student voice’, ‘student action’ in our daily conversations about learning. I continue to be fascinated about language acquisition and growth; the factors that accelerate and foster this, and those that inhibit language development. In an international school community, in fact I would argue in the majority…
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A ‘learning buzz’ in the virtual learning world
I recently wrote about missing the sense of, ‘a learning buzz‘, during these times where many of us have moved to virtual learning spaces. It made me wonder, how can you generate a ‘learning buzz’ in this virtual space? It of course would be fruitless and frustrating to try to copy and paste the same…
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Reflections on Intercultural Understanding
I recently concluded two days of listening, exploring and learning about developing intercultural understanding within our school communities. As someone who signed up to participate in the course, I am already committed to the critical nature with which we must address promoting intercultural understanding. Evidence is all around us signalling the need for us to…
Jenny O'Fee 