How can teachers maximize engagement among multilingual students?
Teachers can maximize engagement among multilingual students by embracing different languages to foster in the classroom. Resources like books written in the student’s mother tongue can help engagement among students, for they can collectively share and gain knowledge simultaneously.
What are some effective ways to integrate multilingual instructional strategies into classrooms?
For example, an English class can have students choose a book written in the language they speak. Then, students are given the opportunity to share with the class what the book is about. This encourages students to share their language with everybody through collective learning. Moreover, art classes can have students research artists from their country and show one of the artists’ works to the class. This will encourage students to be connected to their language and culture and educate others.
Another example is assigning students to be ambassadors of their language. Teachers will assign students to share a word or phrase weekly with the class, which the teacher will post on a board. This will help students to engage with different languages as well as to be proud of theirs. Lastly, teachers can create a “welcome” sign at their door, which consists of greetings from various languages.
Allowing students to express themselves through language means a lot to them. As a bilingual student, I always appreciate it when people stray far from the idea that I live in Canada, so I must speak English. Sadly this happens a lot, even in the modern world. Immigrants would often not teach their mother tongue to their children to avoid being judged by others. Hopefully, as teachers, and future teachers, we could eventually remove this negative notion from multilingual students.