CABE2021

The causes of underachievement among multilingual and minoritized students go beyond simply a mismatch between the language of the home and the language of the school. It is obviously essential that schools support students in learning the language of instruction and catching up academically. However, it is equally important that schools respond to (a) socioeconomic factors that potentially limit academic success, and (b) the devaluation of students’ identities that results from societal stereotypes and racism in the wider society.
International research has highlighted seven sets of overlapping instructional strategies that respond directly to the causes of educational disadvantage among linguistically diverse, socially disadvantaged, and marginalized students. These strategies together, instituted across the entire school, provide high challenge and contextualized support for all learners:
• Scaffold comprehension and production of language
• Reinforce academic language across the curriculum
• Engage students’ multilingual repertoires
• Maximize literacy engagement.
• Connect with students’ lives and the knowledge, culture and language of their communities
• Decolonize instruction by means of transformative (culturally sustaining) pedagogies
• Affirm students’ identities by enabling them to use their language and literacy skills to carry out powerful intellectual and creative academic work

The presentation will discuss these instructional strategies and ways that schools can develop school-based language policies that support all students in academic learning.

Sponsored by Caslon Publications • CABE 2021 Gold Level Sponsor

This presentation will describe the millions of students who experience part of their educations on both sides of the US- Mexico border, the challenges they face and the kinds of things that teachers need to know to create a brighter future for these students whose educations are currently at risk. 

Linguistic oppression is a reality in every classroom and school in the United States. Emergent bilingual and multilingual students, at times, even in dual language programs, are asked to conform to a rigid monolingual and monocultural perspective of teaching and learning. Participants in this session will be able to critically reflect and identify action items that will better allow students to leverage their entire linguistic repertoires in the dual language classroom.