OER 1 Attitudes to languages and gender
3.1 School leaders – Activity 1
Audit and celebrate languages in your school
1. Make an informal audit of languages in your school.
b. What languages do students have?
c. You can sketch this out as a diagram or a chart, noting:
i. majority languages
ii. minority languages dialects
iii. other ‘foreign’ languages that teachers and students use such as French, Arabic or English.
2. Do teachers and students have languages in common?
3. Based on the information you gather, create a simple display of all the languages of the school. You can ask students to help.
Such displays celebrate all the language resources of your teachers and students.
You can value and celebrate all languages, even if teachers and students are required to use one language in the classroom. When you have knowledge of the languages your staff and students use, you can think about different forms of support that students and teachers might need. You can also consider how these languages can be resources for teaching and learning. For instance, can students of the same language backgrounds work together? Can teachers who have a local language support groups of students to improve?
Reflection: how prepared are students and teachers?
In many countries around the world, the language policy allows or directs teachers to use a local language in the early years of schooling. This transitions to English or one of the national languages in upper primary school. In secondary school, it is usually one language only – English or a national language.
- In your context, when does this transition happen for your students? Is it gradual or sudden?
- What resources or training are available to support the transition, for teachers and for students?
- How prepared are your students to learn in the language of instruction?
- How prepared are your teachers to support students at different stages of language learning?
- In your context, what additional language support would be helpful to students and teachers?