In the second blog entry for the Multilingual Stance series, Marianne Turner from Monash University and Ester de Jong from the University of Colorado, Denver discuss the benefits of thinking about multilingual stance as a continuum, rather than in opposition to a monolingual stance.

In this podcast series – designed for teachers, teacher educators and scholars – Ester and Marianne will examine how linguistic diversity can be meaningfully leveraged in today’s classrooms.

Prof. Ester de Jong and A/Prof. Marianne Turner explain the immersive experiences they have used to help teachers to empathise with multilingual learners, and also to think about what might help to foster these learners’ comfort and understanding in class. This elaborates on their discussion in the first entry for the Multilingual Stance series.

In today’s increasingly unquiet, unstable and interconnected world, it is more vital than ever to engage productively with difference. There has been a great deal of scholarship on harnessing the language resources that multilingual learners bring with them to school, and we know this to be beneficial for these students. However, we also know that the devil is in the detail when it comes to bringing these ideas into the classroom.