Genuine respect for languages

How can schools and educators demonstrate that they really do want to foster all learners’ first or home language? Allowing and actually encouraging learners to use their first language throughout the school day in all parts of the school can show them that their language is considered of value and needs to be developed and utilized. Posters and signs can be written in home languages, in appropriate places throughout the school, so that all the learners accept that there are many languages within the school, all of which are positively accepted. Courses in the various languages within the community can be offered to parents, learners and educators alike. It is also vital that school libraries and the classrooms include books and other material in the bilingual learners’ languages. Alongside these it is important, for two reasons, to include bilingual books. For beginners learning English as their second language they are particularly useful, as they also can be for English speakers who want to learn a friend’s first language. It is easy to see that if bilingual learners enter an educational environment where this level of support is freely and positively interwoven into the school day, the learning and their surroundings, they are going to begin at least to feel welcome, secure and valued.