Reframing Language in Teaching and Learning:
Building on Plurilingual Repertoires in Mainstream Classrooms
Presenter: Dr. Jacqueline D’warte
Time: 1:30 - 2:20pm MT
Dr. Jacqueline D’warte
About the session
Scholars agree that the lived and evolving reality of contemporary classrooms demands a re-examination of current curriculum, pedagogies and assessment practices. Australia’s 120 surviving Indigenous languages (AIATSIS 2018) have been joined by more than 200 languages, spoken by over 20 percent of Australians. Yet Australian literacy, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment are conceptualized through a monocultural, monolingual frame (Schalley, Guillemin & Eisenchlas, 2015). In this paper, I discuss research undertaken with plurilingual young people, aged 6-14 in mainstream Australian classrooms. Teachers and students were co-researchers and students’ studied their own language and literacy practices as part of regular classroom work. I detail this approach and centre on language mapping (D’warte, 2014), a methodological and pedagogical tool for visually representing students’ linguistic lives. I consider how this tool facilitated knowledge building between teachers, students, and communities. I argue that we must actively work to disrupt monolingual framing in classrooms by offering students opportunities to be reflexive about themselves and their learning and encourage critical examination of home school relationships.
About Dr. Jacqueline D’warte
Dr. Jacqueline D’warte is a Senior Lecturer, in the School of Education at Western Sydney University. Dr. D’warte is Deputy Leader of the Equity, Social Justice and Inclusion Research Group at WSU and her research examines connections between language, identity and learning in culturally and linguistically diverse settings. Her recent research engages teachers and young people as ethnographers of their own language and literacy practices as part of regular classroom practice. Recent publications include a 2021 special issue (LTR) building on students’ plurilingual repertoires across educational contexts.