TRANSLANGUAGING IN MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOMS WITH HALTON DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD
“What [Living Hyphen] is doing is modeling for teachers the questions and prompts that they can ask in order to dive a little bit deeper and to have students really reflect their full identity.”
Living Hyphen has been working with the Halton District School Board to support their new multi-year strategic plan for 2024-2028 that aims to create inclusive and welcoming learning environments where all students and staff feel a sense of belonging. Their commitments include:
Learning, Engagement, and Achievement
Kindness, Connection, and Community
Indigenous Rights and Education
Human Rights, Equity, and Inclusion
Mental Health and Well-Being
Environmental and Global Citizenship
We facilitated a series of storytelling workshops for middle schools across Burlington, Halton Hills, Milton, and Oakville, emphasizing translanguaging as a means to support the Halton District School Board’s commitment to human rights, equity, and inclusion.
Students developed and shared their personal narratives in the language(s) of their choice. Our goal was to instill a sense of courage, confidence, and curiosity in the students to speak out loud their stories, while also listening and bearing witness to their classmates’ lived experiences. At Living Hyphen, we believe that developing confidence and connection first will create the foundation for technical proficiency later.
In past years, we’ve also facilitated professional development workshops with elementary and secondary school educators to build system-wide capacity for supporting English Language Learners and all students of diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.
“Working with Living Hyphen has had a profound impact on students and staff at the Halton District School Board. The student storytelling workshops and Justine’s professional development workshops, which foster confidence and creativity and are grounded in anti-oppressive practices, have been incredibly positive experiences for both multilingual language learners and educators. I enthusiastically recommend Justine and Living Hyphen to any school seeking to support students and educators with engaging and empowering educational experiences.”
Human Rights, Equity and Inclusion OBJECTIVES
“We ensure an inclusive, respectful, accessible, and equitable environment where human rights are upheld, diversity is celebrated, and systemic barriers are addressed.”
1. Reduce achievement and opportunity gaps by continuing to provide environments that promote success for students and staff with complex intersecting identities, diverse experiences and varying socioeconomic circumstances.
2. Honour the diverse identities within the community, ensuring equitable access for all.
“The new multi-year strategic plan uses translanguaging as a form to allow students to communicate in their own language and gives them access to content in a classroom or a method to communicate and really show their knowledge in their first, second, maybe even third language. As we know, language is so rich and it’s important. It allows them to show their deeper meaning when they express anything. Languages always guide our thinking and so translanguaging is important in our classrooms. ”
“We are so grateful to Justine and her team for hosting a writing workshop for our newcomer and multilingual learners. Right from the start, the students felt heard, seen and valued in their experiences through the way in which Justine scaffolded the creative writing process. As a group, we learned through the sharing of our stories how we are more connected to each other than we once thought while also gaining a deeper understanding for the experiences others have been through to get to this moment. I cannot recommend Living Hyphen and their work enough; we will be having them back next school year!”
BRING LIVING HYPHEN TO YOUR CLASSROOM
We believe in the power of storytelling to create inclusive classrooms and build equitable futures for everyone. At Living Hyphen, we take a decolonial, intersectional, and anti-oppressive approach to teaching. We believe that cultivating confidence first and foremost is critically important for student success and fulfillment in academics, as well as for personal well-being and social connectedness.
We are proud to have worked with school boards across Ontario and post-secondary institutions across the country to share our approach to storytelling through professional development for educators and administrators, as well as through interactive writing workshops and engaging educational presentations with students. We hope to work with you soon too!