Exploring linguistic repertoires : multiple language use and multimodal literacy activity in five classrooms

This research provides an insight into how deficit perspectives about everyday language practices can be challenged and offers possibilities for both enhancing classroom teaching and learning and building on students’ everyday language skills and experiences in service of learning. In this study, nine teachers and 105 students in grades 5, 6, 7 and 8 collaboratively explored students’ everyday language practices, skills and experiences. As co-researchers and ethnographers of their own language practices, these students who spoke 31 different languages and dialects and engaged in wide ranging multimodal activity were given the opportunity to explicitly recognise and use their ‘repertoires of linguistic practice’ (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003) as tools for thinking and acting in their study of English Language Arts. Teachers used this knowledge to design National English curriculum linked lessons and activities. Qualitative analysis reveals positive influences on classroom culture, student identity and confidence and a very noticeable shift in teachers’ expectations of their students’ abilities.