Tag: multilingualism
Continue Celebrating Mother Language Day!
In 1999 UNESCO declared February 21 to be International Mother Language Day to promote awareness of linguistic diversity and multilingualism. Although there are about 6000-7000 languages spoken or signed around the globe, there are...
Cardona Raises the Bar for US Bilingualism
In a speech last month, US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona described the department’s...
Multiliteracies and Multilingual Learners
Equipped with Miami Linguistic Readers, Camino de la Escuela, and my own ingenuity, my young multilingual learners and I dived into what we believed were sound biliteracy practices. These leveled reading programs developed eons...
The Path to Learning a Language
I recently invited a professional to speak to my adult students who are learning English as a second language. They were very excited to have a guest come in and share his view of...
English Hegemony as an Issue of Justice
“It is well known that proficiency in a foreign language seldom comes to one not instructed at...
Fostering Multilingualism for Inclusion
Sunday’s celebration of International Mother Language Day, the UN’s annual commemoration honoring linguistic diversity and multilingualism, focused on inclusion, both in the classroom and in society. “Fostering the use of the mother tongue means, precisely,...
Recognizing Multilingual Speech Patterns
More than 20% of children in the U.S. are bilingual, a number that continues to rise year over year (Kids Count Data Center, 2018). According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), there is a...
Google Limits Advertising to 49 Languages
Starting in November 2020, Google will not allow new websites and apps to use Google Ads, if the site is not in one of its 49 supported languages, over half of which are European....
Conversations with Experts in Multilingualism
Aida Walqui, the director of WestEd's Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) initiative will lead a dozen conversations over six weeks with renowned linguists and experts from around the world that will highlight scholarly perspectives on...
From Monolingualism to Multilingualism: Breaking Down the Wall One Essential Shift at a Time
DAN ALPERT: What are the most important academic, cognitive, and cultural benefits of multilingualism?
IVANNIA SOTO: There are so many benefits associated with multilingualism. Cognitively, multilingual proficiency strengthens how the brain functions. For example, bilingualism...