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Chapter 4. Promoting communication practices about school activities in multilingual families

  • Cecilia Andorno and Silvia Sordella
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Language and Social Interaction at Home and School
This chapter is in the book Language and Social Interaction at Home and School

Abstract

The low academic achievement of children with an immigrant background is a well known problem in the European context as elsewhere; multilingualism is not a drawback per se, as widely shown in the relevant literature, but the access to bilingual educational programs including both the family and the majority languages emerge in these contexts as a crucial requirement for an adequate development of academic abilities. Bilingual education programs are scarcely available in Italian schools, partly because of the children’s diversified linguistic background. From these premises, the project “Con parole mie” (In my own words) aimed at exploring an alternative way to enhance bilingual education, in promoting multilingual communication practices about school activities within the families during homework sessions. Thanks to the cooperation with teachers in the design and implementation of interactional tasks, and the tutoring role of bilingual speakers, the dialogue sessions show promising opportunities for the enhancement of children “competence-in-performance” (Weigand 2010) concerning schooling communicative practices in both the home and the school language.

Abstract

The low academic achievement of children with an immigrant background is a well known problem in the European context as elsewhere; multilingualism is not a drawback per se, as widely shown in the relevant literature, but the access to bilingual educational programs including both the family and the majority languages emerge in these contexts as a crucial requirement for an adequate development of academic abilities. Bilingual education programs are scarcely available in Italian schools, partly because of the children’s diversified linguistic background. From these premises, the project “Con parole mie” (In my own words) aimed at exploring an alternative way to enhance bilingual education, in promoting multilingual communication practices about school activities within the families during homework sessions. Thanks to the cooperation with teachers in the design and implementation of interactional tasks, and the tutoring role of bilingual speakers, the dialogue sessions show promising opportunities for the enhancement of children “competence-in-performance” (Weigand 2010) concerning schooling communicative practices in both the home and the school language.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Language, culture and social interaction 1
  4. Part 1. Dialogues at home
  5. Chapter 1. Children’s socialization to multi-party interactive practices 45
  6. Chapter 2. Making unquestionable worlds 87
  7. Chapter 3. Talking to children with atypical development 121
  8. Chapter 4. Promoting communication practices about school activities in multilingual families 153
  9. PART II. Dialogues at school
  10. Chapter 5. Language, interaction, and culture at school 193
  11. Chapter 6. Dialogicity in diapers 221
  12. Chapter 7. Challenging the triadic dialogue format 257
  13. Chapter 8. Building bridges 295
  14. Chapter 9. Facilitating children’s elicitation of interlaced narratives in classroom interactions 317
  15. Chapter 10. Student-teacher e-mail interaction as asynchronous dialogue in an academic setting 351
  16. Contributors 377
  17. Index 383
https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.32.04and

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Language, culture and social interaction 1
  4. Part 1. Dialogues at home
  5. Chapter 1. Children’s socialization to multi-party interactive practices 45
  6. Chapter 2. Making unquestionable worlds 87
  7. Chapter 3. Talking to children with atypical development 121
  8. Chapter 4. Promoting communication practices about school activities in multilingual families 153
  9. PART II. Dialogues at school
  10. Chapter 5. Language, interaction, and culture at school 193
  11. Chapter 6. Dialogicity in diapers 221
  12. Chapter 7. Challenging the triadic dialogue format 257
  13. Chapter 8. Building bridges 295
  14. Chapter 9. Facilitating children’s elicitation of interlaced narratives in classroom interactions 317
  15. Chapter 10. Student-teacher e-mail interaction as asynchronous dialogue in an academic setting 351
  16. Contributors 377
  17. Index 383
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