Multicultural Language Education

Bilingualism isn’t just a skill—it’s a journey, for children and for the adults supporting them. Working in international schools and raising my own bilingual child has given me a unique perspective on what it really takes to nurture true bilingualism—not just in conversation, but in identity, literacy, and learning. At home, we use the One Parent, One Language (OPOL) method, which has been key to maintaining a balanced exposure to both English and French. Despite the fears some have about bilingual children being "delayed" or "confused," our daughter was an early talker and today has an advanced vocabulary in both languages. Professionally, I’ve seen that fostering bilingualism in the classroom isn’t just about teaching two languages—it’s about creating immersive, respectful environments where both languages are celebrated, not ranked. In my work alongside my French binôme, we strive to: ✅ Create truly immersive bilingual projects where both languages play an equal role ✅ Model respect for both cultures and linguistic backgrounds ✅ Ensure our students feel confident switching between languages naturally without fear of "getting it wrong" What I’ve learned is that supporting bilingual learners requires patience, creativity, and above all, intentionality. It’s not enough to expose children to multiple languages—we must build bridges between them, help learners make connections, and empower them to use their full linguistic abilities. Whether at home or in the classroom, bilingual education is a gift—and one that shapes more flexible, empathetic, and globally-minded individuals. What lessons have you learned from raising or teaching bilingual learners? I’d love to hear your experiences—let’s celebrate the richness that bilingualism brings!

Taking Santhali Digital: What It Teaches Us About Language, Technology, and Learning A remarkable story is unfolding in the heart of eastern India, where coders, teachers, and grassroots educators are scripting a new future for one of India's oldest languages; Santhali. Having led a digital learning initiative in Jharkhand, I have seen firsthand how language sits at the heart of all meaningful education. It is not just a medium of instruction. It is a vessel of worldview, memory, and belonging. Yet it took over a hundred years since Ol Chiki’s creation for the script to find real traction in the digital world. Why? Because our digital infrastructures, Unicode standards, keyboards, operating systems, have been built without the multilingual, oral, and script-diverse realities of India in mind. What this movement around Santhali teaches us is clear: (i) Learning in one’s mother tongue builds not just comprehension, but confidence (ii) Community-led digital innovation is often more sustainable than top-down (iii) Edtech must support scripts like Ol Chiki to be truly inclusive interventions The future of education in India lies not in scaling uniformity, but in honoring multiplicity. When every child sees their language on a screen, they know they belong in the classroom and in the world. #Santhali #OlChiki #EdTech #LanguageJustice #Jharkhand #MultilingualEducation #DigitalInclusion #GrassrootsInnovation

🚨🚨Educators in Multilingual Language Learning (MLL), simplify your approach to scaffolding. You don't need a multitude of tabs open to make a significant impact.🚨🚨 After extensive experience in multilingual classrooms, here are MY five Research-Backed, Low-Prep, High-Impact Strategies that align with SIOP, are easy to execute, and highly beneficial for MLLs: ❇️ Use Sentence Frames with Purpose: Shift from basic structures to more complex formats to enhance academic language skills swiftly. ❇️ Implement Visual Word Banks: Combine images, words, and definitions for easy reference and improved retention, aiding independent student work. ❇️ Engage in Quick Partner Talk Routines: Encourage fluency, reduce barriers, and ensure every student has a voice through structured discussions. ❇️ Use Color-Coded Graphic Organizers: These tools assist in organizing thoughts and improving writing skills, facilitating tracking, assessment, and differentiation. ❇️ Introduce Choice Boards for Tasks: Empower students by offering multiple ways to demonstrate understanding, fostering agency and engagement. These strategies go beyond mere tactics; they are transformative tools that have elevated language proficiency, confidence, and autonomy for MLLs—and they can do the same for your students. 💬 Share with me: What low-prep strategy do you rely on for MLL success? #MLLs #SIOP #LanguageEducation #Scaffolding #MultilingualLearners #TeacherTips #EdLeadership #ELD #ESOL #MLLEducator #AngelMartinez

When we talk about allowing "translanguaging" in classrooms for our multilingual learners, it's often against a backdrop of strict school language policies that require 100% immersion in the allocated language, no exceptions. Our new article, published in the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, uncovers 13 multilingual discourse strategies that teachers employ to transgress these policies through "covert translanguaging" in Mandarin immersion preschools. By doing so, they create safe and inclusive spaces for children to bring their full linguistic repertoires into learning. Title: Promoting emergent literacy in preschool through extended discourse: Covert translanguaging in a Mandarin immersion environment. 💡 Main findings: (1) Teachers allowed translanguaging to help students adjust to the expectations and behaviors of classroom learning, guiding them not only in acquiring Mandarin but also in becoming comfortable with the structure and social aspects of school. (2) Translanguaging helped students grasp complex academic content, integrating both Mandarin language development and subject learning, demonstrating that multilingual strategies can enhance understanding in content areas while still fostering language immersion. We hope this research sparks dialogue on how translanguaging can be an essential pedagogical tool and stance, even in settings with strict language policies. The implications for schools and educators are significant as they strive to meet the linguistic and academic needs of all students. Read the article here: https://lnkd.in/g__gp5cJ I'm also happy to share an author's copy if interested. #Translanguaging #EarlyChildhoodEducation #BilingualEducation #LanguageDevelopment #MandarinImmersion #EmergentLiteracy #MultilingualLearners #EarlyLiteracy #Research #EducationResearch Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology // Pepperdine University

“UNESCO for the People” – Safeguarding Multilingualism: Humanity’s Shared Diversity The world’s 7,000+ languages represent one of humanity’s greatest treasures and form part of its intangible cultural heritage, deserving recognition, protection, and transmission for future generations. Language is not only central to communication; it shapes culture, strengthens identity, builds social and economic bonds, and fosters dialogue, understanding, and cooperation across borders. Each language embodies unique knowledge, a sense of belonging, and a vision for the future. UNESCO’s work—through the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032) and International Mother Language Day—champions multilingualism, safeguards linguistic diversity, and ensures the vitality of Indigenous languages while advancing access to equitable education. In over the more than 60 countries I visited during my campaign, I witnessed firsthand how languages embody diverse ways of imagining and describing the world. They remain vital repositories of knowledge, culture, and identity. “UNESCO for the People” means protecting multilingualism through: • Upholding UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace, by fostering collaboration among governments, academia, civil society, and the private sector to ensure equitable access to knowledge and digital content. • Safeguarding languages by supporting communities in transmitting them through oral traditions, literature, archives, creative industries, community radios, and multilingual cultural spaces, while collaborating with governments and other stakeholders to build inclusive language policies. • Integrating mother tongues into schools and curricula, providing teacher training, expanding learning resources, and working with local leaders to overcome language barriers, while continuing to provide learning for other international languages to foster dialogue and global citizenship. • Providing free, high-quality digital and printed resources in local languages, expanding the Global Digital Library, and ensuring accessibility with speech-to-text, braille, and sign language tools. • Promoting multilingualism in science and research, ensuring that knowledge and innovation are not confined to a few dominant languages, but reflect the diversity of human experience—by translating MOOCs, supporting multilingual research, and partnering with universities. • Harnessing technology and AI for translation and preservation, including initiatives like UNESCO–Meta for voice recognition of underrepresented languages. • Strengthening documentation and revitalization programs, including contributions to the World Atlas of Languages to track and protect vulnerable languages. What role should UNESCO play in ensuring that multilingualism is protected and promoted as a foundation of peace, inclusion, and knowledge? I’d love to hear your thoughts: contact@khaledelenany.com

Why Culture Club and Eduling Speak for 200+ global learners? What can be a better way to help students see the true value of language learning than engaging them in talking with students from other countries and cultures? Communicating with others online is perhaps the most common means of communication these days. That's why Robert Stroud, Ph.D. and a group of 9 other educators from Culture Club have been working hard to organize 6 zoom parties for these 200 global learners. We prepare students by setting up tasks with EdulingAI on the Eduling Speak app for them to complete in advance. Here's an argument by Marta González-Lloret: In an academic commentary (2024) by Marta González-Lloret in the Modern Language Journal, the author discusses the future of language learning and teaching in a technology-driven world. González-Lloret argues that well-designed, technology-mediated instruction can be as effective as in-person teaching if it incorporates robust methodologies, like Task-Based Language Teaching, and prioritizes a sense of community. The commentary stresses that language learning is vital for developing sociocultural understanding and critical digital literacies, advocating for practices such as virtual exchanges to prepare students for effective global communication. Her core arguments emphasize that language education must transcend linguistic acquisition to focus on global competence and cultural understanding: • Beyond Vocabulary and Syntax: Learning a language is much more than acquiring vocabulary and syntax. It entails gaining insight into sociocultural practices and developing the capacity to interact with others and comprehend the world from a multicultural and multilingual perspective. • Workforce Requirements: Most jobs today require communication with others in a different language even when English is often used as a lingua franca. • Understanding the World: Learning another language is essential for grasping the complexities of the world and how others live and communicate within it. This also helps foster innovative ways of thinking and working across cultures. • Rising Demand: The demand for language and linguistics studies, especially when intertwined with social sciences, is increasing due to their relevance in various sectors like big data, commerce, health, and business. Virtual Exchanges are highlighted as tools that provide authentic experiences of intercultural communication. VEs engage students from remote classes in collaborative activities aimed at promoting language learning and fostering cross-cultural understanding. Incorporating a well-designed VE component not only improves language proficiency but also offers invaluable opportunities for learners to engage with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds, gain deeper insights, and break down cultural stereotypes and racial prejudices. The article can be downloaded from Research Gate. #virtualexchange #culturalexchange #edulingspeak #cultureclub

Dear educators Please stop using English learners when talking about students who speak more than one language. People who speak more than one language are bilinguals, trilinguals, and multilinguals. They carry with them access to multiple cultures and forms of knowledge. If you are unable to speak their language and the only form of language you provide is English, then as an educator, you are the one who needs to do the work to access your bilingual/trilingual/multilingual students. How Provide translations Use art/sound/music/play Make multilingual groups Allow multiple languages in the classroom Invite the community Learn from your students how they learn, not how you want them to learn Language is about connections and collaborations. And learning happens when students have access to knowledge. Access to knowledge happens in English, Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish, Indigenous languages, Tagalog .......... De-center English They will learn English faster than you think because you would have allowed them to access the knowledge in their native languages. And for some of us, native means more than one language.

🌍 Language, Culture, and Global Competence In preparation for my graduate class on Teaching Methodology, we were tasked with reading the MLA Report of May 23, 2007: Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World. Chaired by Mary Louise Pratt, the report called attention to a national crisis in the United States, the inability to effectively communicate with and understand other parts of the world. It advocated for a broad, intellectually driven approach to language and culture learning, with strong emphasis on: ✅ Developing translingual and transcultural competence ✅ Promoting collaboration across disciplines ✅ Strengthening demand for language study within higher education ✅ Preparing citizens to engage meaningfully with speakers of other languages This framework has since shaped reforms in U.S. higher education. Reflecting on Nigeria, I see a different challenge. While we have vibrant scholarly bodies such as the English Scholars’ Association of Nigeria (ESAN) and the Linguistic Association of Nigeria (LAN), their scope is largely focused on English and indigenous languages. What is missing is a national structure that actively supports international language education, both within Africa and globally. For Nigeria to thrive in an interconnected world, we must: ✅ Establish a dedicated body to champion foreign language and culture learning. ✅ Foster government–academic collaboration to integrate this vision into our schools and universities. Building a citizenry equipped with global communication skills is not just an academic project; it is a national imperative. #LanguageEducation #GlobalCompetence #Nigeria #HigherEducation #TeachingMethodology #Multilingualism #CulturalExchange

The world is becoming increasingly interconnected, making multicultural education more critical. In early childhood education, cultivating an understanding and appreciation for diverse cultures can lay the groundwork for becoming informed and empathetic global citizens. This piece explores the importance of multicultural education in early childhood settings, its benefits, and best practices for implementation. Introducing children to various cultures, languages, and traditions at a young age can foster an inclusive mindset. It broadens their horizons, allowing them to appreciate differences and similarities among people from diverse backgrounds. Multicultural education enriches cognitive development by encouraging critical thinking and perspective-taking. On the social front, it enhances interpersonal skills and fosters a sense of community and belonging, essential factors in a child's social and emotional well-being. Effective multicultural education is not limited to specific lessons or holidays; it should be integrated into the daily curriculum. This can be done through multicultural books, diverse role models, and inclusive activities that highlight cultural practices. Teachers should be trained to handle the sensitive topics that may arise in multicultural education. Parents can support this educational approach by discussing diversity openly at home and providing opportunities for cross-cultural experiences. Multicultural education in early childhood serves as a foundational pillar for shaping informed, compassionate, and globally aware citizens. It offers both cognitive and social benefits that can last a lifetime. Through conscious effort from educators and parents, we can make multicultural education a norm rather than an exception in early childhood education.