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Advocating for Multilingual Children and Families

With increased migration, our schools and early childhood programs are becoming linguistically and culturally more and more diverse than ever before. However, in most classrooms in the U.S., English is still predominantly spoken. This means children whose home languages are other than English (so called, Dual Language Learners) experience a linguistic gap between home and school. This directly affects their learning because they cannot freely express their thoughts and ideas. All the knowledge they obtained in their home language becomes hidden or invisible behind English.

Therefore, the ACTT project utilizes ‘translanguaging’ as a theoretical framework. Simply put, translanguaging refers to the use of one’s full linguistic repertoire/resources (Otheguy, García, & Reid, 2015). In other words, translanguaging acknowledges the use of not only the societal language (English) but also the home languages and dialects (and different modes of communication) that many of us speak!

To create space for translanguaging, it is vital to have materials not only in English but also in children’s home languages. Currently, there is a scarcity of bilingual resources. By building multiple communities of practice, ACTT develops a wide range of bilingual resources for children to foster their bilingual and biliteracy development and learning.

Please find the resources that our community members have developed so far by clicking the box below!