B-MEIS Newsletter - December 2020 (Plain Text Version)

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In this issue:
LEADERSHIP UPDATES
•  LETTER FROM THE CHAIR
•  LETTER FROM THE EDITORS
ARTICLES
•  CRITICAL LANGUAGE INQUIRY: TOWARD ANTIRACIST AND DECOLONIAL PEDAGOGIES
•  THE VALUE OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCIES IN SERVING IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE COMMUNITIES
•  BEYOND MONOLINGUAL MYTHS TOWARD A MULTILINGUAL ENGLISH MEDIUM INSTRUCTION CLASSROOM
•  ADVOCATING FOR MULTILINGUAL STUDENTS IN A TIME OF CRISIS
•  HOW IMPORTANT ARE CROSS-LINGUISTIC SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN BILINGUAL ACQUISITION?
•  SHORTCOMINGS OF VALIDATING TRANSLANGUAGING WITHOUT PEDAGOGIC FOCUS IN BILINGUAL CLASSROOM
•  TRANSLANGUAGING AS A SOCIALLY JUST PEDAGOGY IN LITERACY PRACTICE
•  HERITAGE LANGUAGE PARENT EMPOWERMENT IN THE TIME OF COVID
•  MIXING TOGETHER LIKE A FRUIT SALAD: MAINTAINING IDENTITY IN A DIGITAL AND GLOCAL WORLD
ABOUT THIS COMMUNITY
•  CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Matthew Nall, Miyagi University, Sendai, Japan
Kirti Kapur, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), New Delhi, India

Dear Bilingual Basics Newsletter Readers,

Greetings!

We are incredibly proud to announce the publication the Fall 2020 issue of the Bilingual-Multilingual Education Interest Section (B-MEIS) newsletter—Bilingual Basics. The theme for this edition is“Glocalized Approaches to Bilingual Education.”Within this edition, our authors focus on addressing various challenges in bilingual education across different cultural and social contexts. The newsletter also provides opportunities for global collaboration and the re-thinking and refurbishing of existing paradigms. The Covid-19 pandemic has compelled professionals in the field to reposition themselves, reimagine possibilities, and retool practice in order to better protect and maintain diversity in education.

With shifting boundaries between work/classrooms and the home, between the global and the local, English language classrooms of today need to be restructured and expanded, going beyond the existing frameworks to stay relevant and productive for our students. We have dedicated this issue of Bilingual Basics to exploring the evocative potential of changing educational landscapes in contemporary education, so that we can continue to build strategic coalitions and expand our knowledge base moving forward. Innovative research being conducted to find creative solutions and meet the challenges of bilingual/multilingual education also find representation via the contributor’s reflections.

We have eight manuscripts in this Newsletter that were reviewed by the chair of B-MEIS Ching-Ching Lin, and three editors, Kirti Kapur, Matthew Nall, and Islam M Farag.

Input related to bilingual education research and practices are valuable funds of knowledge. This Newsletter is an important source for educational researchers, teachers, community organizers and other stakeholders, who have been working closely with students’ assets to share their knowledge and perspectives.

Warm Regards,

Kirti Kapur and Matthew Nall

Kirti Kapur has 32 years of experience in ELT. At NCERT, she works on curriculum design, textbook development, research, and training across all stages of education. She holds certifications in Critical Thinking, Assessment, and Special Education Needs, from the University of Maryland and University of Oregon, USA. She is also an alumna of the Summer Institute for English Language Educators, Hawai‘i Pacific University, USA. Kapur has trained teachers from Afghanistan and Tibet on making ELT learner centric. She has over 90 papers, on issues like Multilingual Education, Second Language Teaching, Problems of Learning among Indigenous Communities, and Assessment, to her credit. She is a recipient of the Ray Tongue scholarship awarded by IATEFL, UK and the International TESOL, USA award for Professional Development.