Book Description
Engaging with Linguistic Diversity analyses a highly successful and innovative approach to inclusive plurilingual education at primary level and demonstrates how it can be replicated internationally, without access to special funding or resources. This book describes and interprets the extended case study of Scoil Bhríde Primary School in Ireland. The school has developed an approach to dual language education that assigns a central role to pupils' home languages, through content-language integration and the development of language learner autonomy. The book explores the benefits of this approach, which range from high levels of age-appropriate literacy in the language of schooling and the second language of the curriculum, and – in the case of pupils from migrant families – their home languages. It draws on a wealth of practical evidence, including video recordings of classroom interactions at Scoil Bhríde, to illustrate how schools can promote multilingualism in ethnically and linguistically diverse communities, for the benefit of all, including monolingual students. This is particularly relevant to a large number of European and Anglophone countries today, many of which are ill-equipped to address the pedagogic and policy issues raised in the book. The authors illustrate how to develop an inclusive whole-school language policy and reimagine teacher education, putting language at the centre of pedagogy. With sustained reference to a wide range of relevant research findings and theories, including translanguaging, plurilingual literacy, and the development of metalinguistic awareness, this book is essential reading for researchers and policy-makers in the field of linguistically inclusive education.
