On February 22nd, I attended the Glasgow EAL TeachMeet, a friendly group of teachers who come together to share resources and ideas to support EAL (English as Additional Language) learners. The beauty of this meeting was that all the presentations were short and to the point and very rich in teaching ideas and innovative ways of engaging pupils in different contexts. I presented the Language Toolkit, developed with our creative team and two of our team members, Dobrochna Futro and Sally Zacharias, also shared their own projects. Dobrochna presented a whole range of activities that build translingual environments by engaging in art-making. Some of these activities, the creative of use of idioms in different languages and language portraits, are already included in our Language Toolkit. Sally shared her project on moon-related idioms and used this as an example of how to teach learners to work with abstract concepts. Building on metaphors as key conceptual tools, Sally shared with us the many benefits of using metaphors to make sense and engage with each other’s languages and worldviews.
Many other colleagues shared fantastic resources that I will briefly mention here:
Activities for multilingual learners included board games (e.g., Scrabble) where words can be formed individually or in groups and where more than one language can be integrated as part of the learning exercise. For timid learners, the Chatterbox Champions toolkit was a very interesting set of resources. While this set has not been designed for a specifically multilingual context, it could be easily adapted and the tasks included on the cards could encourage learners to bring in all their linguistic resources to complete them.
All-In is an app and resource platform that provides support with learning subject content by accessing a wide range of topics. In an effort to make subject-specific content accessible to all learners, the app uses key words and definitions that have been professionally translated in multiple languages. If learners search for various topics or key words, these can be listed in single, dual and tri-lingual lists helping learners move from one language to the next more quickly and seeing them side by side. The app offers support for 29 languages, including transliteration of languages in different scripts.
Another resource, digital storytelling was presented as a framework for focussing learners’ attention to languages, digital literacies and family engagement. We also learned about a whole school intervention that aimed to bring parents into the school activities and culture, making visible and valuing their language and cultural resources. This intervention developed an entire range of events, from sessions on teas around the world to craft-making meetings, family book groups, sowing, beauty therapy, etc. It was refreshing to see so many colleagues work with passion and creativity to create rich environments for all our leaners. This spirit of inclusiveness is at the heart of a translingual approach and to see so much openness to new ideas and energy in creating new activities for our learners was very rewarding for me as a researcher and teacher as well. If you haven’t been to a TeachMeet before, make sure you organise or go to one in your area. They will fill you with energy and lots of new ideas!
