The Language Friendly School: supporting teachers as transformative agents of change

Abstract

This article highlights research collected during a year-long critical participatory ethnographic study at a primary school in Trinidad and Tobago. The study presents the experiences of two teacher collaborators who engage in the processes of problem identification, design and implementation of a language-friendly plan, reflective practice and knowledge mobilisation. Drawing inspiration from the Language Friendly School [Le Pichon-Vorstman & Kambel, 2021. Language-friendly pedagogy and children's well-being. https://hundred.org/en/articles/languagefriendly-pedagogy-and-children-s-well-being#1ec8c421, 2022], this research highlights the importance of collaborative dialogue in bottom-up approaches to language-inclusive education. Particularly, the research advocates for consequential validity [Cummins, 2021b. Evaluating theoretical constructs underlying plurilingual pedagogies: The role of teachers as knowledge-generators and agents of language policy. In E. Piccardo, A. Germain-Rutherford, & G. Lawrence (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of plurilingual language education. Routledge] of the Language Friendly School, as an approach that is not only valid in theory but also extremely effective in practice. Considering the teachers' roles in this study, the findings highlight their important function as key stakeholders in inspiring sustainable change through educational practice. This article highlights the effectiveness of the language-friendly approach in creating space for teacher agency at the heart of bottom-up approaches to multilingual education.

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