The Road to Dynamic Multilingualism: A 10-Year Historical Case Study of a Community School's Development

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: Comparative Perspectives on Education for Bi/Multilingual Students (Table 8)

Abstract

This historical case-study explores programmatic decisions made by a community public school (TK-12 grades) over a 10-year span to leverage the cultural and linguistic assets of teachers, students, and families. We collected school documents, memos, and in-depth, semi-structured interviews. We found that programmatic decisions made by teachers and staff both reinforce the school’s core principle of multiculturalism, bilingualism, and biliteracy while facing difficulties teaching language skills and communicative functions for the languages taught at school and the languages that students bring. We also found that the school’s expansion of the secondary school as well as critical language training has led to the creation of a unified vision to guide language and content teaching for its different language programs.

Authors

• Janet G. Cerda, University of California - Los Angeles

• Clemence Darriet, University of California - Los Angeles