Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Beyond The Label: Multimodal Strategies For Working With Multilingual Learners, Reka C. Barton

The Montana English Journal

This paper encourages teachers to move beyond the label of English language learner, and the possible connotations and limitations that may be associated with the designation, and instead expand their notions of the possibilities of working with linguistically diverse students. In this expansion, multimodality can serve as a basis for instructional strategies that would benefit multilingual learners and their classmates. Two strategies are offered, Visual Thinking Strategies and Talking Drawings. Both strategies move past the modes of reading and writing, and allow entry points via visual modalities which offers more opportunities for multilingual learners to access content and express themselves.