How To Support Multilingual Learners In An English Language Arts Class

Support Multilingual Learners in ELAIf you’re an Oklahoma teacher looking for ways to support multilingualism in your classes, consider attending the “Foregrounding students’ multlingual repertoires through language and culture portraits” presentation by Dr. Madina Djuraeva, and her EDEN 5243 class (I’m one of the students!) at the 2022 Key Conference.

Our presentation features the research of Camila Tabaro Soares, Joana Duarte, and Mirjam Günther-van der Meij, who analyzed the use of language portraits as a tool to help students visually represent their multilingual identities. The authors published their original research “‘Red is the colour of the heart’: making young children’s multilingualism visible through language portraits” in Language and Education.

Students and teachers in traditionally monolingual contexts may not realize the level of multilingual and multidialectalism they engage in and monolingual teachers serving multilingual learners may not realize the depth and variety of their students’ language repertoires. This activity will help make this visible.

My class and I will be presenting from 11:45 to 1 p.m. I hope to see you there!

The conference is from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, March 5 at the University of Oklahoma’s Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education.

Sign up by clicking the button below.

The conference also features additional speakers and presentations. You can learn more here:

2022 Key Conference OU

About the author 

Michelle Boyd Waters, M.Ed.

I am a secondary English Language Arts teacher, a University of Oklahoma student working on my doctorate in Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum with an concentration in English Education and co-Editor of the Oklahoma English Journal. I am constantly seeking ways to amplify students' voices and choices.

  1. Just came across your page! Wish I had known about the March 5 conference before now, though. My friend Lindsay Williams went to Uganda one year. She works for the K20 Center. Perhaps you know her. Anyway, I’d like to network and collaborate if you’re interested.

    1. Hi Cecilia!

      I’m glad you found us and I hope you can get involved. I found out about the KEY Conference through my Teaching Language class at OU. As I find out about more resources, I’ll post them here or in my newsletter. You can sign up for it here, if you’d like: https://www.rethinkela.com/my-personal-newsletter/

      Thank you!

Comments are closed.

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}