This article is Part One of a guest-author series by veteran international school teacher Eithne Gallagher – The Glitterlings and Interlingual Classrooms: Teaching and Learning through a Multilingual Lens in the Early Years

Building a better world for future generations is essential for the continued existence of humanity. Education can no longer simply reinforce conformity among homogeneous populations or promote homogeneity among diverse populations. We need a new educational paradigm. As Jim Cummins (2008) points out:

The building blocks for a better world must be seeded in Early Years education. We must enable children to see themselves as agents of change who are capable of understanding world views and universal values. Children should be aware that they all have a diverse cultural, ethnic, gendered, linguistic and racial identity because they will then be better equipped to accept that others are the same. As Skelton (2002) says, “I am different and have a right to be. You are different from me with the same rights but we can live together.”

Interlingual Teaching and Learning

In today’s ever smaller world schools need to be orientating their curricula towards nurturing tomorrow’s Global Citizens. This means implementing a thoroughly inclusive teaching approach that recognises and supports all languages and cultures present in the school. We need “Interlingual” classrooms and schools. The “Inter” prefix brings the notion of everyone being open and responsive to learning about other languages. In the Interlingual classroom children not only learn their own mother-tongue but learn about all the other classroom languages as well. Interlingual classrooms are places where children are allowed to use their languages as cognitive tools. They can transfer skills, concepts and learning strategies across languages.

Interlingual teaching and learning takes as its starting point the practices of bilingualism, which include translanguaging (using languages flexibly, shifting and mixing them in the learning process), and transliteracy in the individual, and expands these practices for the benefit of the individual and the Interlingual community. Garcia (2009) argues that translanguaging has much value for bilingual children. It gives them a voice and builds on their home language practices. It also creates authentic language awareness activities for monolingual children by stirring the natural linguistic curiosity that is inherent in all young children.

Children need to experience a sense of belonging in Early Childhood settings so there is a seamless flow between children’s homes and school. We know that children achieve greater educational outcomes when they learn in a setting that embraces their language and culture (Fleer, 2002) and values prior learning experiences.

Teachers should be careful that young children are not silenced because they are not encouraged to use their home languages. Research has shown that children need to construct and reconstruct their lived lives in playful contexts and they also have to find their lives mirrored and referenced in the texts they encounter in the early years.

Administrators and teachers must become informed about the relevant research on multilingualism and take responsibility for implementing practices that address both students’ language learning and academic needs. Principals and Vice Principals have the role of evaluating teachers and to do this correctly they need to be informed on what effective practice for multilingual learners looks like. Teachers need to build language objectives as well as content objectives into their planning. School leaders have a crucial role to play in creating a collaborative ethos of critical enquiry and setting up the circumstances for teachers to plan effectively.

(Stay tuned next month for Part Two of this guest-author series on interlingual education)

Eithne Gallagher is a recognised authority in the field of ESL in International Education and has over twenty years’ experience of teaching in international schools. She has twice been chair of the European Council of International Schools ESL & Mother-tongue Committee; she is a regular presenter at international school conferences and has delivered workshops and lectures for teachers, administrators and parents across the world.

Her writings on ESL & Mother-tongue issues have been widely published in educational journals and magazines and she has published a book entitled Equal Rights to the Curriculum in which she argues for school reform to meet the educational needs of all children growing up in a multicultural society. Eithne’s most recent work is a story-based Early Years programme for International Schools and Pre-schools: The Glitterlings was published by Oxford University Press in October 2015. Eithne provides support and consultancy for schools wishing to implement inclusive, ESL and mother-tongue policies.

Eithne is the mother of three bilingual children and lives with her family on a hilltop outside Rome.

* The Bibliography for this article series can be found here.