Traditional EAL models often segregate multilingual learners and place responsibility on specialists alone. This article argues for reimagining EAL teachers as multilingual learning specialists who consult, collaborate, and coach colleagues, helping all teachers integrate language and content while fostering a school-wide multilingual ecosystem.
A Promising Mythconception By Dr. Virginia Rojas
Many international schools still rely on EAL specialists to support multilingual learners, leaving content teachers unprepared to address language needs. This article explores strategies like CLIL, immersion programs, and deliberate language-focused pedagogy that enable all teachers to intentionally support language development while teaching grade-level content.
Build It and They Will Learn: Scaffolding Success By Jon Nordmeyer
Deficit-based approaches often simplify tasks or segregate students, limiting access to rigorous content. This article outlines instructional scaffolding strategies including modeling, graphic organizers, translanguaging, and text engineering that make complex learning accessible while building on students’ existing linguistic and cultural assets.
From Identity Theft to Asset Framing By Jon Nordmeyer
English-only policies and deficit labels can erase multilingual learners’ identities. This article offers solutions such as asset-framing, assigning competence, linguistically sustaining instruction, and systemic reforms like revising language policies and removing EAL fees, promoting an inclusive school culture where multilingualism is recognized as a strength.
Dismantling the Monolingual Paradox of Multilingual Schools By Dr. Virginia Rojas
This article is a research-based exploration of how international schools remain shaped by a monolingual habitus despite commitments to multilingualism, and how this dominant orientation can be reimagined through a plurilingual ecological model that integrates language, curriculum, and pedagogy to reposition multilingual learners’ full linguistic repertoires as assets within school-wide systems.
