Multilingual Language Program for Children - Your Language is a Superpower
With Andrea MacLeod, PhD, Vice Dean & Associate Dean Research, and Professor, Department of Communication Sciences & Disorder, Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Alberta.
August 21, 2024
Recording link – link password: CAMHirmhp0821
Webinar description
Newcomer parents who speak their home language often experience challenges in transmitting their language(s) to their children resulting in children losing their home language. Language is deeply connected to how we enact our culture, raise our children and maintain ties to our family and our community. Children who share a home language with their parents build strong intergenerational connections, experience higher self-esteem, and can navigate resources within their family and community in addition to mainstream settings. We have partnered with early education settings and community organizations to implement the Multilingual Language Program. Through our partnership, community members learn to implement practices that help children and parents feel that their languages are valued and important.
About the presenter
Dr. Andrea MacLeod is a professor at the University of Alberta, a bilingual speaker, and a parent of three bilingual children. She has developed an expertise in the study of speech and language development among bilingual children from Official Language Minority Communities in Canada and among children from minoritized language communities, including immigrant and refugee children. Her work with bilingual children led her to co-found a non-profit organization to support bilingual language development in young refugee children. This work has led to continued community-based research within a social-justice framework to understand how to best support language maintenance and transmission. Her research to study multilingual language development and language maintenance has been funded by major grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.