Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/34.609

AUTHOR: Luciana C. de Oliveira
AUTHOR: Loren Jones
TITLE: Teaching Young Multilingual Learners
SUBTITLE: Key Issues and New Insights
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2023

REVIEWER: Laura Dubcovsky

SUMMARY
Teaching young multilingual learners is a brief book centered on five key concepts and possible pedagogical practices that prove to be effective with young multilingual speakers. De Oliveira and Jones define frequent terms used in the field while providing solid evidence of the growing multilingual population all over the world, which makes imperative the need to describe and improve current teaching strategies used with students of different languages. The authors highlight the big shift between negative values used in the past to characterize multilingual learners in subtractive terms and contrast it to modern positive attitudes that support multilingualism and value students who speak other languages than English as assets to the classroom. The booklet is organized in three sections that consider an overall socio-cultural framework, emphasize successful strategies and techniques for the teaching of young multilingual learners, offer abundant examples drawing from pedagogy-informed research studies, and conclude with implications for teacher education.
The first section is devoted to culturally sustaining pedagogies within contexts where English is the dominant language and medium of instruction (Ladson-billings, 2014). De Oliveira and Jones show some “Practices to enact the culturally sustaining pedagogy” (Figure 1, p. 7). The authors suggest incorporating students’ funds of knowledge. This allows teachers to include students’ interests and needs, as well as practices developed in households and communities (Moll et al, 1992). They also propose to draw on previous interactional scaffolding moves that assure better tutoring and higher student participation in the classroom (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005), and they also add a model that explicitly shows how teachers can integrate specific discourse supports, such as linking to prior experiences, recasting, moving conversation forward, etc. (Figure 2, p. 10, based on de Oliveira, Jones & Smith, 2020). The authors underline the use of students’ first language in the classroom as a powerful strategy to convey meaning, explain grammar, and encourage collaborative learning, among other positive consequences (Reyes, 2012), as well as translanguaging practices that have been shown by several studies to produce a significant improvement in language and content development (Garcia & Klein, 2016).
De Oliveira and Jones also encourage the use of multimodal instruction to convey meaning across content areas, expanding their understanding of academic texts (Ajayi, 2009), and even enhancing multilingual learners’ experiences, strengthening their agency, and building on their identities (Pacheco & Smith, 2015). Finally, the section highlights how a functional approach to language will enable teachers to better help their multilingual learners analyze how the language of instruction works, develop their own linguistic repertoires, and explore meanings in texts. Moreover, a functional approach will provide students with explicit metalinguistic tools to engage in discussions about language and identify choices across genres and registers through the language of schooling (Schleppegrell, 2004). Following Martin’s and Rose’s pedagogical framework of a teaching and learning cycle (2005), the authors present in the original and modified Figures 3 and 6 (pp. 14 and 34, respectively) an “Enactment of a functional approach to language development,” that comprises building shared knowledge, deconstructing a model, bridging reading to writing, guiding a joint reconstruction, collaboration among students, and independent work.
The second section shows practices in action. De Oliveira and Jones offer examples of culturally sustaining teaching practices, drawing from pedagogy-informed research studies that shed light on successful strategies. The authors bring vivid evidence from varied classrooms, different grade levels, and specific type of programs. In excerpt 1 they exemplify how a 5th grade teacher promotes conversations with her multilingual class on a lesson about their families and ancestors drawing on students’ funds of knowledge, while fostering home/school connections (p. 21); the second excerpt shows how interactional scaffoldings moves with first graders who speak other than English languages create spaces for meaningful classroom participation (pp. 23-4). Likewise, two passages on a Kindergarten teacher who allows the incorporation of her Latino students’ first language in the classroom bring clear evidence how home language and culture is a valuable resource to support and legitimize minority voices (Excerpts 3 and 4, pp. 25-6). Moreover, a careful lesson plan on the parts of the plant (science project) directed to second graders exemplifies varied multimodal and multisensory elements (auditory, reading, writing, visual, kinesthetic) used to deliver instruction and facilitating language and content comprehension (table 2, pp. 28-9). In a different class about animals delivered to fourth grade students, the teacher follows a functional language approach to promote a joint discussion of the main participants, processes and scientific descriptions that take part in the science lesson. While Excerpt 5 enables us to follow a “detailed reading” of a mentor text (pp. 33-4), Excerpt 6 illustrates how students develop their linguistic awareness, build shared knowledge, and expand meaning-making resources (p. 37).
The third section offers implications for general teacher education, including content for language teachers, elementary and secondary teachers, bilingual and special education teachers, and ESOL specialists of young multilingual learners. De Oliveira and Jones claim that not only do well-prepared teachers need to manage language and subject matter, but they also must integrate pedagogical knowledge and linguistic and cultural awareness. The authors highlight the fact that the culturally sustaining practices analyzed embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion elements for young multilingual learners (figure 4, p. 20). Additionally, effective deploying students’ funds of knowledge, interactional scaffolding moves, students’ first languages and home cultures, multiple modalities, and functional approaches to language development must be accompanied by solid and asset-based studies. Finally, the authors consider future research steps toward a thorough understanding of a positive learning environment and more comprehensive integration of language and content, as well as a stronger preparation of teachers’ cultural and linguistic awareness to better serve multilingual learners (Peercy et al, 2022). Above all, de Oliveira and Jones suggest educational programs should provide frequent professional opportunities so that pre-service teachers can gain experience in diverse classrooms and interact with students from different backgrounds and languages, who have different needs and face particular challenges. In this way, experienced and novice practitioners can work together to find the most appropriate resources according to age, grade levels, language competence, and particular school disciplines’ demands.

EVALUATION
Teaching young multilingual learners is a succinct book that helps current and future educators with fundamental concepts and practical steps to better perform in the teaching of young multilingual learners. De Oliveira and Jones design a straightforward plan, offering unambiguous goals and definitions. Their clear explanations are accompanied by visuals that enrich the understanding of more complex notions, such as the mentioned enactment of a culturally sustaining pedagogy (Figures 1 and 4, pp. 7 and 20, respectively), a functional approach to language development in the teaching-learning cycle (Figures 3, and 6, pp. 14 and 36, respectively), a model of a detailed reading (Table 1, p. 16), and the delicacy of interactional scaffolding moves (Figure 2, p. 10). Written in a direct and unpresumptuous style, the book is supported by episodes from real classrooms across content areas, which contribute to compose a reading very accessible to all types of audiences. Although the booklet constitutes an ‘Element” in a series that is not intended to elaborate on capital concepts and explanations, de Oliveira and Jones provide a bibliography that acknowledges pioneer and current studies in the field, inviting readers to deepen their understanding and test the results in their daily practice. A minor weakness involves the cited bibliography, as there are a few mismatches between the body of the text and the final reference list regarding the year of edition and the authors. Otherwise, Teaching young multilingual learners represents a useful tool to be implemented as an instructional manual in teaching preparation programs, especially directed to future educators willing to serve bilingual and multilingual learners in today’s global societies.

REFERENCES
Ajayi, L. (2009). English as a second language learners' exploration of multimodal texts in a junior high school. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(7), 585–595.
De Oliveira, L., Jones, C., & Smith, S. (2020). Interactional scaffolding in a first- grade classroom through the teaching-learning cycle. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1-19. doi:10.1080/3670050.2020.1798867
García, O., & Kleyn, T. (Eds.). (2016). Translanguaging with multilingual students: Learning from classroom moments: Routledge.
Hammond, J., & Gibbons, P. (2005). Putting scaffolding to work: The contribution of scaffolding in articulating ESL education. Prospect, 20(1), 6-30.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 20.: Aka the remix. Harvard Educacional Review, 84(1), 74-84.
Martin, J., & Rose, D. (2005). Designing literacy pedagogy: Scaffolding democracy in the classroom. Continuing discourse on language: A functional perspective, 1, 241-280.
Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 132-141. doi:10.1080/00405849209543534
Pacheco, M., & Smith, B. (2015). Across languages, modes, and identities: Bilingual adolescents’ multimodal codemeshing in the literacy classroom. Bilingual research journal, 38(3), 292-312.
Peercy, M., Tigert, J., Fredricks, D., & al., e. (2022). From humanizing principles to humanizing practices: Exploring core practices as a bridge to enacting humanizing pedagogies with multilingual students. Teaching & Teacher Education, 113, 1-14.
Reyes, I. (2012). Biliteracy among children and youths. Reading Research Quarterly, 47(3), 307–327
Schleppegrell, M. (2004). The language of schooling. A functional linguistics perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Laura Dubcovsky is a retired instructor and supervisor from the Teacher Education Program in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis. With a Master’s in Education and a Ph. D in Spanish linguistics/with special emphasis on second language acquisition, her interests tap topics of language, bilingual education, and bilingual children’s literature. She has taught bilingual teachers to use and practice communicative and academic Spanish needed in bilingual classrooms for more than ten years. She is currently helping with professional development courses for bilingual teachers, interpreting in parent/teachers’ conferences, and translating for several institutions, such as Davis and Riverside Joint Unified School Districts, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, YoloArts in Woodland, Davis Art Center, STEAC, and the Zapotec Digital Project of Ticha. Laura is a long-standing reviewer for the Linguistic list Serve and the California Association of School -University Partnerships (CASUP), and she also reviews articles for the Elementary School Journal, Journal of Latinos and Education, Hispania, and Lenguas en Contexto. She published “Functions of the verb decir (‘to say’) in the incipient academic Spanish writing of bilingual children in Functions of Language, 15(2), 257-280 (2008) and the chapter, “Desde California. Acerca de la narración en ámbitos bilingües” in ¿Cómo aprendemos y cómo enseñamos la narración oral? (2015). Rosario, Homo Sapiens: 127- 133