Adapting Mainstream Learning Environments to and for Learners from Migrant Backgrounds: Making Digital and Linguistic Knowledge Links
Adapting Mainstream Learning Environments to and for Learners from Migrant Backgrounds: Making Digital and Linguistic Knowledge Links
Convenors:
Shelley K. Taylor (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Saskia Van Viegen Stille (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Info:
This ReN falls under AILA’s “language teaching and learning” and “language in societies” strands. Its focus is on developing and supporting adaptations to learning environments for adolescents from migrant backgrounds in mainstream (Australian, Canadian, Danish, Indian, Irish and Mexican) classrooms by:
- Drawing on what Moll and González (1997) have termed “funds of knowledge” (the knowledge base and life strategies that children learn at home and in their local community, and which includes languages other than the language of instruction or the state language and digital literacy/digital practices) – that is, by drawing on the funds of knowledge that children learn autonomously in informal (out-of-school) settings – to enhance their development of plurilingualism and (digital) literacy in formal learning settings
- Exploring the potential roles of technology to promote language and literacy development
- Investigating learner/teacher beliefs about, and approaches to, educational innovation (specifically, computer assisted language teaching to promote digital literacy and plurilingual development)
- Cultivating learner autonomy (including teachers’ autonomy in their role as digital learners) and
- Developing learning supports (e.g., online learning material for students and professional development for teachers).