The Multilingual ELA Classroom

Heritage language speakers, emergent bilinguals, simultaneous bilinguals—multilingual students are in nearly every classroom in the US and Canada. Their rich languages have a unique place in English language arts, allowing the subject to be taught more deeply by reading, writing, speaking, creating, viewing, and critically thinking across languages.

Yet how can ELA teachers do this successfully when they don't speak their students' languages? In this book, meet five ELA teachers in grades preK–12 who put literacy and language theory into practice in creative, innovative, and student-centered ways.

Each chapter contains specific teaching ideas and projects implemented by these teachers to engage their linguistically diverse students in authentic meaning-making. Learn how you can teach language arts through a multilingual approach that decenters the English component and allows for richer, multifaceted learning.