Reciprocal Multilingual Learning with EAL/D Students

Reciprocal Multilingual Learning with EAL/D students

Mei French

University of South Australia

As multilingual speakers, our EALD students bring a valuable repertoire of languages, skills and knowledge to their learning. Dr Mei French will share some principles for multilingual pedagogies, developed through research and practice that bring engaging, effective and empowering learning into EALD and mainstream classrooms. She will illustrate these with examples from students and teachers in Australian classrooms, and support you to develop ideas for enhancing multilingual approaches in your own primary, post-primary and adult classrooms.

Mei French is an educational linguist. She is an Early Career Researcher and Lecturer with Education Futures at the University of South Australia, and a member of the Centre for Research in Educational and Social Inclusion. Mei’s research focusses on education for multilingual learners in Australian schools and higher education. She has researched how multilingual high school students use their languages to support their learning and identity, and how these practices can be used to inform teaching and educational policy. Her research connects with teacher education in English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D), Languages education, and across all learning areas.