Dear TESOL Bi-Multilingual Education Interest Section community and all readers,

As the global and the local continue to shape one another, it is important for teachers of multilingual learners to invite and integrate diverse global and local languages and cultures as funds of knowledge [1] into their K-12 classrooms. This practice is critical to the cognitive, linguistic, and social development of learners across learning contexts. Glocalization directly and indirectly shapes student lives and learning, as individual and group identities converge with and diverge from cultural and linguistic identities represented in classrooms and schools. While benefits of multilingualism are well documented, evolving sociopolitics of multilingualism have viewed languages as a problem, a right, and a resource. [2] Students’ sociopolitical realities can become invisible when diasporic multilingual communities go unrecognized, and when sociopolitical disparities play key roles in determining which students are afforded access to and identification with the global and the local. The Covid-19 pandemic complicated these intersections, by deepening digital and physical divides between those able and unable to access and appreciate global and local cultures and languages.

Education standards intend to equalize the playing field, and ensure that all learners have access to essential knowledge, skills, and dispositions, continuing into the 21^st century. However, learning how to navigate standards to achieve these aims can be challenging for teachers of multilingual learners, and in some cases, may even hinder teachers’ efforts toward this.

How are gifted teachers of multilingual learners bridging and engaging critical intersections in ways that elevate disparities as vital educational resources, while engaging standards in supportive ways?

This B-MEIS special issue newsletter invited instructional designs, reflections, and philosophies to support teachers of multilingual learners in learning from one another’s successful practices and persistent challenges. This issue invited submissions that address curricular goals, learner backgrounds, learning context, instructional strategies, lesson materials, collaborative partnerships, and philosophical perspectives on lesson design for multilingual learners.

We express our gratitude to the authors of the articles published here, to all professionals engaged in supporting multicultural, multilingual learners -- and to the learners themselves, for bringing cultures, languages, and stories to glocal classrooms, as an educational resource for all.

Laura B. Liu and Shuzhan Li 

[1] Moll, L.C., Amanti, D., Neff, Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 132-141.

[2] García, O. (2009). Bilingual Education in the 21^st Century. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.