Building on Children's Linguistic Repertoires to Enrich Learning: A Project Report for the NSW Department of Education

Australian schools increasingly consist of speakers of diverse languages and dialects of English, many of whom struggle with acquiring standard English literacy, impacting on their learning across the curriculum. A considerable body of research continues to demonstrate that students’ everyday language and literacy practices are not reflected in schools and their communicative competence is narrowed (Compton-Lilly, 2008; Garcia & Yip, 2015; Gutierrez et al., 2011; Gutiérrez, Morales & Martinez, 2009; Rymes, 2010). This project builds on an innovative pilot study designed to investigate the relationship between multilingual children’s language practices and their potential pedagogical application in schools (D’warte, 2013).