PRESENTATIONS OVERVIEW
keynote and plenarist guest speakers
Fred Genesee - McGill University - Montreal, Canada
Celebrating Bilingual Education in Monza and around the world: taking stock and moving forward It is 20 years since the inauguration of bilingual education in Monza and 50 years since the first immersion program in Montreal Canada. This is an opportunity to reflect on all we have accomplished and plans for the future. There has been a great deal of research on immersion education since its inception. In this presentation, I will lessons we have learned from this research and examine options for the future developments. Issues to be considered include: How effective is immersion education? Are there negative influences on students’ native language development and academic achievement? Is it suitable for all students? Is early immersion better than delayed or late immersion? Does more immersion results in higher levels of second language proficiency? What instructional strategies are most effective? … and others. Antonella Sorace - University of Edinburgh, UK
Il bilinguismo nell’arco della vita: miti, fatti, e prospettive Ci sono ancora pregiudizi molto diffusi sul bilinguismo nell’infanzia: per esempio, l’idea che il bilinguismo confonda i bambini e li ponga in una situazione di svantaggio scolastico rispetto ai monolingui. La ricerca invece dimostra che dove ci sono differenze tra monolingui e bilingui queste sono quasi sempre a favore dei bilingui. I bambini bilingui hanno migliori capacità metalinguistiche e di apprendimento delle lingue, una comprensione precoce del punto di vista degli altri, e una maggiore flessibilità mentale nella gestione delle situazioni complesse. Alcuni di questi benefici si riscontrano anche negli adulti che hanno raggiunto un alto livello di competenza in una seconda lingua. Nella prima parte discuterò i fatti e benefici del bilinguismo e dell’apprendimento delle lingue nell’arco della vita. Nella seconda parte dimostrerò l’importanza di una corretta informazione sul bilinguismo in tutti i settori della società e illustrerò il lavoro svolto in Scozia e in molti Paesi europei dal centro Bilingualism Matters per colmare il divario tra la ricerca scientifica e la percezione pubblica del bilinguismo. invited speakers
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Eithne Gallagher - Educational Consultant
Interlingual classrooms: promoting home languages as a right, a fact and a resource. In this session we will discuss the changes schools everywhere need to address in order to promote this innovative, pedagogical approach that is open to other languages and cultures. Viv Edwards - University of Reading, UK
The power of Babel: multilingualism as a right and a resource This presentation will explore the benefits of multilingualism, both for individuals and the wider society, as well as the very different contexts for multilingualism and the hierarchical relationships between different languages. It will ask the question: why should the ability to speak more than one language be so highly valued in some settings while being largely invisible in others? In arguing that multilingual education is a right and a resource, it will look at efforts to persuade parents and teachers – key players in transmitting languages from one generation to the next – of the benefits of bilingualism for young people growing up in an age of globalization. Combined Session: Fred Genesee & Else Hamayan Content Based Language Instruction: Opportunities and Challenges in Multilingual Schools We will have a conversation about research findings and their theoretical significance and educational implications for instruction and program development. We focus on five fundamental questions in the education of students who are learning language through content-based instruction:
Roma Chumak-Horbatsch - Ryerson University - Toronto, Canada
Linguistic diversity in our classrooms: a call FOR action - a call TO action The focus of this presentation is instructional practice with the growing number of bilingual and multilingual learners who arrive in classrooms with little or no knowledge of the language of program delivery. The case is put forward that this new demographic must serve as a call to action - for teachers to become linguistically responsive and retool their current practice, and a call for action - for school administrators and policy makers to move beyond the token acknowledgement of children’s home languages and “position them accurately … as intellectual, cultural and economic assets” (Cummins, 2014). To help teachers retool their instructional practice, move from monolingual practice, become linguistically inclusive, fulfill their educational responsibility to bilingual and multilingual learners a new instructional practice called Linguistically Appropriate Practice or LAP is introduced and explained. Patrizia Cordin - University of Trento, Italy
Quali lingue per un multilinguismo "inclusivo"? Scopo dell'intervento è illustrare come il multilinguismo possa essere declinato in combinazioni diverse da quelle più prestigiose e diffuse con le lingue nazionali, e possa includere anche lingue regionali, lingue locali e lingue non territoriali, queste ultime scarsamente protette dalla legislazione europea e dalle legislazioni nazionali. In questa prospettiva saranno portati alcuni esempi di esperienze svolte recentemente in Italia, in particolare nella provincia trentina, per favorire il multilinguismo con lingue locali e con lingue non territoriali nei bambini che frequentano la scuola d'infanzia e la scuola primaria. Nella presentazione si evidenzieranno i principali punti di forza e di debolezza delle esperienze condotte per trarne indicazioni utili ai fini di una più efficace politica per un multilinguismo "inclusivo". Alexandra D'Onofrio - Manchester University, UK
A personal journey to multilingualism: the role of the family and school During this presentation I am going to take the audience through my own personal journey to multilingualism. Brought up with three languages from birth, born in London where I attended an Italian nursery school, the first two years of the Greek Embassy elementary school, a local English elementary school before moving to Athens at the age of eight and two years later to Italy when I entered and stayed in the Italian state school system till I graduated from High school. I chose to pursue my higher education studies in the UK where I gained my Bachelors in Social Anthropology and Hindi at the School of African and Oriental studies (UCL), was offered a grant by Manchester University to continue with a Masters Degree in Visual Anthropology and subsequently a scolarship to pursue a PhD in Anthopology, Media and Performing Arts. The opportunities and challenges on the way were manifold and have led me to make significant life choices. I will discuss how the role of the family and of the schools I have attended, have facilitated or stood in the way to both the construction of my identity as a global citizen and to how I view the world today. I will bring an anthropological perspective to how multilingualism and intercultural understanding can enhance human understanding and contribute to a world of peace. My objective is to demonstrate how families and schools can be instrumental in meeting these goals and how, when they work in synergy and complement each other, they can turn challenges into significant opportunities for today's young generations. Marousa Gourdi - Head of Primary and Nursery, European School Bergen, The Netherlands
European Schools: A successful model for multilingual Education The European Schools have been in operation for 60 years in different countries in Europe. They cater to a linguistically and culturally diverse population and they have gained a firm reputation for their academic and linguistic excellence. Basic instruction is given in the official languages of the European Union following a broad curriculum leading to the highly regarded European Baccalaureate. Emphasis is given in the development of high standards in the pupil’s mother tongue and in foreign languages. One of the main objectives of the European Schools is to give pupils confidence in their own cultural identity and to foster tolerance, co-operation, communication and concern for others throughout the school community and beyond. Could the European Schools serve as a multilingual education model contributing to the mobility, employability and personal development of young people? How could the teaching of languages and other subjects in the target languages will promote multilingual proficiency at no cost to academic development? What is the structure for the provision of languages in ES? What are the key features of the success of the European Schools model? Marjorie Myers - Key Dual Language School , USA
Opportunities and challenges of a two-way Spanish Immersion/Dual Language program. Key School~Escuela Key in Arlington, Virginia, USA, was founded in 1986. In 1995 it became a whole school program. Key is a public school and must accept all children who meet the minimum requirements, such as live in an area around Key or enter as a Kinder or 1st grader if monolingual. The majority of the students at Key are either English speakers or native Spanish speakers from Central America. Our third language students come from Mongolia, Russia, and Ethiopia primarily, with a few from other countries. Because Key is located in the suburbs outside of Washington DC, this prime location lends it self to easy access to visitors and researchers. The Center for Applied Linguistics is in DC and has done quite a bit of research on the school. Drs. Collier and Thomas have used Key for their longitudinal studies. Recently, Dr. Myers was invited to contribute to their new book, Creating Dual Language Schools for a Transformed World: Administrators Speak, which will be released on November 20, 2014. With state accountability, testing all students has been a major challenge especially in recent years, as tests have gone from benchmark to challenge tests. Hiring teachers who are educated in Spanish and hold licenses to teach elementary education is another major challenge. Despite challenges like these, over the 29 years as an immersion program there have been many success stories with our students. James Monk - IB head of curriculum for DP languages
Multilingualism as a paradigm for language and learning in IB World Schools: from philosophy to policy and action The ability to communicate in more than one language is essential to the International Baccalaureate (IB) concept of an international education that promotes understanding of intercultural perspectives. In this session we will discuss, with specific references to good practice in developing and implementing a school language policy, how IB World schools support their diverse communities of students in ways that facilitate access to IB programmes and enhance the quality of teaching and learning, while ensuring the appropriate resources are in place. Daniela Perani - Università Ospedale San Raffaele - Milan, Italy
The bilingual brain The issue of language and the underlying brain mechanism becomes more intriguing when we consider the unique capacity of the human brain to acquire, store, and use more than one language. The greater ease with which infants, compared to adults, acquire a second language is uncontroversial. Neuroimaging researches have been specifically addressed to the question of the cerebral organization of multiple languages. In particular, on the potential role of variables which may act on language representations of bilinguals, namely, age of acquisition of the second language, level of proficiency, amount of exposure to a given language. All these indeed affect the pattern of brain involvement, accounting for functional modulation in the cerebral representation of languages. Today there is a large body of evidence on how two or more languages are organized in the brain and what mediates their processes. We know that two languages are represented in a similar fashion at the brain level and that .early acquisition of languages makes them very comparable in the involved neural substrates. We also know that bilingualism induces also neural changes upon some brain regions with plastic neural enrichments that can improve other cognitive functions. These changes in turn, may be responsible for protecting the bilingual brain against cognitive decline and dementia. The main focus of this presentation is to provide an overview of the most relevant results that have so far been achieved in the field of the cerebral basis of bilingualism using neuroimaging techniques and to discuss which conclusions may be drawn from these studies. Karen Serritslev - PYP Classroom Teacher at Copenhagen International School, Denmark
Ron Rosenow - PYP ELL Teacher at Copenhagen International School, Denmark EAL and Classroom Teachers Unite: A Co-Teaching Case Study As co-teachers in a Grade 5 classroom, we decided to keep track of everything about our ELL support model. What does it really look like to collaborate and co-teach? We have gathered quite interesting statistics of our practice. How did we plan? What best-practice ELL strategies did we use the most? What type of lesson did we facilitate? How did we integrate students’ home languages? In this interactive workshop we will provide real-life examples and share our teaching, learning and assessment experiences. Wilma Tonetta - Coordinatrice Enseignement bi/plurilingue et développement de l'éducation didactique - Valle D'Aosta, Italy
La scuola bi-plurilingue in Valle d’Aosta La lingua francese in Valle d’Aosta è regolamentata dallo Statuto speciale della Valle d’Aosta (Legge costituzionale 26 febbraio 1948, n. 4). Il titolo VI dello Statuto succitato recante “Lingua e Ordinamento scolastico”, agli articoli 38, 39,40 e 40 bis, definisce l’utilizzo della lingua francese nei pubblici uffici e nelle scuole del territorio. Fondamentale è affrontare la tematica riferendosi all’utilizzo del francese in tutti gli ordini e gradi di scuola dove all’insegnamento della lingua francese è dedicato un numero di ore settimanali pari a quello della lingua italiana.Importante il riferimento agli adattamenti posti in essere nel corso degli anni nelle scuole valdostane ad eccezione della scuola secondaria di secondo grado regolamentata dalla legge 50/96. |
Veronica Crippa, Kirsty Lottkowitz, Silvia Sangalli and Paz Tardio - Teachers at The Bilingual School of Monza
Developing Multilingual and Multi Literate Global Citizens: The Role of Collaboration in a Bilingual School
The development of competent and confident multilingual young learners relies not on one teacher but a team of teachers working in collaboration with each other to achieve this goal. Cenoz, Genesee and Gorter (2014), however, cite a lack of collaboration among L2 and classroom teachers as a fundamental flaw in much second language acquisition. Such teacher collaboration is central to the policies and practices of the Bilingual School of Monza. Within the school, teacher collaboration is more than a vain hope but an instituted process to which time is allocated within teachers’ work schedules. It is these practices, processes and the school’s commitment to collaboration which set the tone for all language learning within the school: mother language maintenance, Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) in L1, L2 and L3 and language awareness in general. In this presentation a group of BSM teachers, covering different teaching roles, will demonstrate how collaboration is instrumental into implementing a shared curriculum which promotes multilingualism and intercultural understanding.
Developing Multilingual and Multi Literate Global Citizens: The Role of Collaboration in a Bilingual School
The development of competent and confident multilingual young learners relies not on one teacher but a team of teachers working in collaboration with each other to achieve this goal. Cenoz, Genesee and Gorter (2014), however, cite a lack of collaboration among L2 and classroom teachers as a fundamental flaw in much second language acquisition. Such teacher collaboration is central to the policies and practices of the Bilingual School of Monza. Within the school, teacher collaboration is more than a vain hope but an instituted process to which time is allocated within teachers’ work schedules. It is these practices, processes and the school’s commitment to collaboration which set the tone for all language learning within the school: mother language maintenance, Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) in L1, L2 and L3 and language awareness in general. In this presentation a group of BSM teachers, covering different teaching roles, will demonstrate how collaboration is instrumental into implementing a shared curriculum which promotes multilingualism and intercultural understanding.
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