Building on the linguistic and cultural resources of children newly arrived in Australia.

What is it about?

This paper details curricula and pedagogies employed in a classroom with six- to eight-year old children newly arrived in Australia. In this classroom, children were positioned as ethnographers of their own language practices; language repertoires were recognized, validated and treated as resources for learning. Analysis centres on the relevant connections made between academic content, children's experiences and the promotion of children's identities as bilingual meaning-makers.

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Why is it important?

Realizing the linguistic and cultural competencies needed for a rapidly changing world is central to the educational endeavour. In the current era, a crowded curriculum focused on standardized assessment and system wide accountability, make finding ways to uncover, build on and extend young peoples’ individual cultural and linguistic resources challenging for many teachers. This study offers new curricula and pedagogies that support educators in harnessing young peoples' cultural and linguistic resources as part of regular classroom practice.