Mapping languages and literacies with multilingual students in Australian classrooms

Increasingly, Australian classrooms comprise students who have oral and written communicative skills in two or more languages (García, 2014). Classrooms may also include students who are first-language speakers of Aboriginal English, a nonstandard dialect that differs from standard Australian English in morphology, syntax, and semantics (Eades, 2013). Many Australian students are bidialectal/bilingual and plurilingual. This context offers exciting possibilities, and many teachers are looking for ways to place their students' cultural and linguistic flexibility at the center of teaching and learning.