In today’s classrooms, many of our students navigate more than one language and culture. Students come with diverse language experiences and different degrees of cultural connection, and those realities influence how they see themselves and interact in the classroom. In this interactive workshop, teachers of any subject who work with multilingual and multicultural students will explore practical, research-informed strategies for supporting their students across a variety of classroom contexts. Participants will learn how to get to know their students more deeply by identifying their previous language and cultural experiences. We will consider how multilingualism and multiculturalism can manifest differently across individuals, and participants will gain the skills to learn about, validate, and appropriately inquire about students' traditions and backgrounds. We will reflect on how teacher biases and personal experiences can shape classroom expectations and interactions. Participants will learn about dialectal variation and how to recognize students’ linguistic backgrounds without reinforcing linguistic hierarchies. They will also explore the identity-related pressures that many multilingual students face, including internal linguistic discrimination. While many examples in this workshop will focus on Heritage Language Learners of Spanish, these principles and strategies can be applied to many languages and cultures. Finally, attendees will apply these ideas to hands-on examples and case studies from real classroom scenarios. Instructors at all levels are welcome, and we look forward to hearing your experiences and working collectively to improve the classroom for our students.
In this session, you will:
Learn how multilingual identities impact classroom dynamics.
Examine personal and systemic language bias.
Implement inclusive strategies that validate students’ language and cultural backgrounds.
