We presented the following workshop at the Australian Linguistic Society on 29 November:
https://als.asn.au/Conference/2023/Workshops2023
Home language maintenance: Connecting children, families, and classrooms
Paola Escudero, Western Sydney University
Sharynne McLeod, Charles Sturt University
Presenters: Chloé Diskin-Holdaway3, Kate Margetson2, Gloria Pino Escobar1, Van H. Tran2, Sarah Verdon2, Paola Escudero1, Sharynne McLeod2 1 Little Multilingual Minds, The MARCS Institute, Western Sydney University, Australia 2 VietSpeech, Charles Sturt University, Australia 3Little Multilingual Minds, School of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Melbourne, Australia
During this practical workshop, participants will have the opportunity to learn from two innovative teams of researchers who have developed fun, evidence-based programs for supporting children’s home language maintenance at home and school.
- VietSpeech (https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech). The VietSpeech SuperSpeech program was developed to support families (preschool children, parents, grandparents, etc.) at home. The 8-week online bilingual Vietnamese-English program included: (a) Word Superpower activities addressing target words and sentences; (b) Speech Superpower activities addressing consonants, tones, and syllable structures; and (c) Home Language Maintenance Information for parents. The VietSpeech SuperSpeech program was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.
- Little Multilingual Minds (LMM, https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/marcs/impact/case_studies/little_multilingual_minds) LMM is a research-based multilingual education program for children that supports and extends home language (HL) maintenance and foreign language (L2) learning during the early, formative years, using evidence-based principles, structure and guidelines. LMM, within research-partnership collaborations with education providers, delivers education in any Language Other than English by harnessing recent world-wide research and r findings from our own research on early childhood education and primary education. LMM currently delivers in Spanish ,Vietnamese, Mandarin and French.
The workshop will commence with an overview of home language maintenance throughout life and factors impacting home language maintenance. Next each team (VietSpeech and LMM) will outline their vision, target group, challenges, and solutions, as well as principles and theoretical frameworks. The practical component of the workshop will be preceded by presentation of the structure and weekly session delivery, themes, session plans and example activities to inspire attendants. Then each team will demonstrate an example of how they have targeted the theme of healthy lifestyles/food and how they have used The Very Hungry Caterpillar to support children’s home language maintenance at home and at school. The workshop will conclude with time for participants to work together to consider how these programs can relate to their own experiences and to develop activities for their own situations. The aim is to show that HL maintenance takes a village and that the community of academics within the language and linguistics discipline should feel part of the village.
Presenters’ biographies:
• VietSpeech - https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/team
• Little Multilingual Minds – https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/marcs/impact/case_studies/little_multilingual_minds/team
Materials available prior to the workshop:
• VietSpeech - https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/info
• Multilingual Children’s Speech - https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/home
• https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/marcs/impact/case_studies/little_multilingual_minds/news_and_faqs
References:
• Diskin-Holdaway, C., & Escudero, P. (2021). Don’t be afraid to pass your first language, and accent, to your kids. It could be their superpower. The Conversation. Retrieved 19 March 2023, from https://theconversation.com/dont-be-afraid-to-pass-your-first- language-and-accent-to-your-kids-it-could-be-their-superpower-143093
• Escudero, P., Jones Diaz, C., Hajek, J., Wigglesworth, G., & Smit, E. A. (2020). Probability of heritage language use at a supportive early childhood setting in Australia. Frontiers in Education, 5, 93. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.00093
• Escudero, P., Diskin-Holdaway, C., Pino Escobar, G., & Hajek, J. (2023) Needs and demands for heritage language support in Australia: results from a nationwide survey. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2023.2189261
• Escudero, P., Pino Escobar G, Diskin-Holdaway, C. & Hajek, J. (Forthcoming) Nurturing Australia’s Little Multilingual Minds: Program description and evaluation.
• McLeod, S., Verdon, S., Tran, V. H., Margetson, K., & Wang, C. (2022). SuperSpeech: Multilingual speech and language maintenance intervention for Vietnamese-Australian children and families via telepractice. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 53(3), 675-697. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_LSHSS-21-00146
Here is my pre-recorded presentation:
