Teaching Strategies: “What If I Don't Speak It?” Classroom Strategies to Nurture Students' Heritage Languages

Promoting and Maintaining Bilingualism and Biliteracy: Cognitive and Biliteracy Benefits & Strategies for Monolingual Teachers

“…Teachers can promote writing in both languages with activities that involve individuals other than the teacher to review the work in another language (Szilágyi, et al, 2013). Paraprofessionals, parents, college students and community members who speak the given language can become involved in writing activities with students.…”

“…Engaging in sister-class projects that involve students who speak different languages, possibly from different countries, working together on creating literature and art can serve to enhance literacy skills in both languages (Cummins, 2005). Using these strategies provides the students practice using language and literacy skills in both languages, and the exposure of the students' work to native speakers of both languages relieves the teacher of the need to understand the HL of the students (Szilágyi, et al, 2013). Systematic use of cognates as an effective language learning strategy promotes the development of literacy skills in both languages and potentially supports students' vocabulary, reading comprehension, and spelling skills in both languages (Cummins, 2005;Nagy, Garcia, Durgunoglu, & Hancin-Bhutt, 1993;Szilágyi, et al, 2013).…”

“…These include strategies that can be implemented to promote reading in both languages, writing in both languages, and language development that supports biliteracy (Szilágyi et al, 2013). Teachers can provide access to high-quality bilingual books (e.g.…”

“…To ensure home and school connections, students can present this book talk to peers in English, and then present it to their parents in the HL at home. As a response, parents can write a comment or question in the HL, and students can translate the parents' feedback to the teachers and peers into English (Szilágyi, et al, 2013).…”