Innovative Approaches to Teaching Multilingual Students

The purpose of this book is to guide teachers to understand theory related to teaching multilingual students and put it into practice in their classrooms. Throughout each chapter, the authors uniquely bring together relevant theory regarding language (e.g. the multilingual turn, second language acquisition, translanguaging) literacy (e.g. reading comprehension, new literacy studies, multimodality), and culture (e.g. funds of knowledge, culturally sustaining pedagogies). The chapter authors (practicing ESL, bilingual, world language, language immersion, and mainstream teachers) share how they are innovatively teaching multilingual students by understanding theory and applying it to their instructional setting.

The audience for this book is teachers of multilingual students who are in the dynamic process of language acquisition. This includes TESOL/ESL, bilingual, language immersion, and world language teachers, as well as mainstream teachers who teach bilingual students—essentially all educators in modern society. The book is of particular interest for teacher education programs since each chapter explains theory and then illustrates exactly how one teacher put that theory into practice in teaching multilingual students.