In Australian schools, approximately 20% of young children are emergent bilinguals, who are simultaneously developing their home languages while learning through English. While many teachers recognise the benefits of multilingual teaching approaches in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, there remains a significant level of uncertainty about how to enact them. These approaches depend heavily on teachers’ ability to leverage young learners’ cultural and linguistic funds of knowledge, as well as to apply pedagogies that engage the full range of their linguistic abilities. To effectively develop these strategies, many teachers require additional support. This paper presents a study in which researchers collaborated with a classroom teacher to initiate a multilingual storytelling project aimed at children aged six to seven. The objective was to explore the potential of multilingual storytelling to engage young emergent bilingual learners in early reading and writing activities. Our findings indicate that this pedagogical approach, rooted in the principles of translanguaging, significantly enhanced the students' engagement with literacy. By validating their home languages and cultural identities, the project provided strong support for their oral language development, demonstrating the effectiveness of integrating multilingual practices in the foundational years of education.

中文翻译：

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从小处着手：通过多语言讲故事让年轻学习者参与识字


在澳大利亚的学校中，大约 20% 的幼儿是新兴双语者，他们在通过英语学习的同时发展自己的母语。虽然许多教师认识到多语言教学方法在文化和语言多样化的课堂上的好处，但如何实施这些方法仍然存在很大程度的不确定性。这些方法在很大程度上取决于教师利用年轻学习者的文化和语言知识储备的能力，以及应用能够充分发挥他们语言能力的教学法的能力。为了有效地制定这些策略，许多教师需要额外的支持。本文介绍了一项研究，其中研究人员与一名课堂教师合作，启动了一个针对 6 至 7 岁儿童的多语言讲故事项目。目标是探索多语言讲故事的潜力，以吸引年轻的新兴双语学习者参与早期阅读和写作活动。我们的研究结果表明，这种植根于跨语言原则的教学方法显着提高了学生对识字的参与度。通过验证他们的母语和文化身份，该项目为他们的口语发展提供了有力的支持，展示了将多语言实践整合到教育基础阶段的有效性。