Exploring linguistic repertoires: Multiple language use

Exploring linguistic repertoires: multiple language use and multimodal literacy activity • D’Warte

Exploring linguistic repertoires: Multiple language use and multimodal literacy activity in five classrooms Jacqueline D’warte University of Western Sydney

ABSTRACT This research provides an insight into how deficit perspectives about everyday language practices can be challenged and offers possibilities for both enhancing classroom teaching and learning and building on students’ everyday language skills and experiences in service of learning. In this study, nine teachers and 105 students in grades 5, 6, 7 and 8 collaboratively explored students’ everyday language practices, skills and experiences. As co-researchers and ethnographers of their own language practices, these students who spoke 31 different languages and dialects and engaged in wide ranging multimodal activity were given the opportunity to explicitly recognise and use their ‘repertoires of linguistic practice’ (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003) as tools for thinking and acting in their study of English Language Arts. Teachers used this knowledge to design National English curriculum linked lessons and activities. Qualitative analysis reveals positive influences on classroom culture, student identity and confidence and a very noticeable shift in teachers’ expectations of their students’ abilities.

Introduction Student populations in Western education systems consist of communities of young people who come from an increasingly diverse range of linguistic, cultural, class and racial backgrounds. While language and literacybased practices are central to all school learning, and opportunities are created in classrooms to explicitly address how language meets our academic needs, few opportunities exist to explore the ways students use language every day. Rarely do we consider or explicitly address how language meets students’ social needs across the variety of contexts and settings in which they engage. Despite teachers’ best intentions, recognising and building on the language, literacy, and cultural competencies that students develop in their everyday lives in service of classroom learning can be a challenge. Teachers are continually looking for ways to help students make meaning while being actively engaged and cognitively challenged. One possibility addressed here in this research is to make students’ understandings and practices, what Gutiérrez and Rogoff (2003)



call ‘repertoires of linguistic practice’, the object of study. This article details how nine teachers in Years 5/6, 6, 7 and 8 in four Australian schools worked to explore their students’ language practices, skills and capacities as they addressed English syllabus outcomes. One teacher’s comment captures the commonly shared reflection on this work: I think what was most powerful was the sense of community and shared respect that was developed within our class. The students and I increasingly recognised the collective language abilities and skills they had, and we came to see how all the things they were doing with language every day both inside and outside of school were connected to what we were working on in English.

Background research Exploring linguistic repertoires Current scholarship suggests that the total complex of linguistic resources available to speakers to use in different social contexts and within particular communities has come to be referred to by the terms ‘linguistic

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D’Warte • Exploring linguistic repertoires: multiple language use and multimodal literacy activity

repertoires’ (Zentella, 1997), ‘repertoires of linguistic practice’ (Gumperz, 1964; Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003), and more recently ‘communicative repertoires’ (Rymes, 2010). Sociocultural research over the last two decades has increasingly documented the experiences of young people in and out of school settings, and the dynamic literacy practices that accompany them (Heath, 1983; Hull & Schultz, 2002; Orellana, 2009). New understandings about literacy or currently ‘literacies’ acknowledge the everyday communicative practices of language users; we know that literacy is plural, encompasses multiple languages and practices and that language users participate in ongoing authentic socialisation (Kress, 2006; Pennycook, 2010). Current research purports that young people engage in multimodal activity; they use multiple languages and cross registers and codes with flexibility, deploying them strategically for different relationships, contexts, and purposes (Alim, 2004; Martínez, 2010; Rampton, 1995; Zentella, 2005). Clearly, everyday language practices and students’ linguistic repertoires are valuable cultural resources and funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff & Gonzalez, 1992) that can be built on in school. We have not fully realised how to take up these varied linguistic resources in traditional school curriculum. Unfortunately, a considerable body of research (Gee, 2004; Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López & Tejeda, 2003; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003) underscores how students’ own learning, language and literacy experiences are not often reflected in the school practices in which they engage. Increasingly student diversity of communicative competence is often erased or narrowed, especially under the influence of high stakes testing.

Linguistic repertoires and the school context Ongoing research on young people’s language practices and experiences (Au, 1980; Gee, 2004; Heath, 1983; Luke, 2004; Michaels, 2005; Phillips, 1983) has been important in identifying what has been commonly termed cultural ‘mismatches’ in ways of using language at home and school. This work has helped to elucidate misunderstandings that occur across contexts and it is these misunderstandings that have led some teachers to underestimate the abilities of children and those from cultural backgrounds outside of the dominant cultural group. Compounding these notions is the conception of home and school as very separate contexts. Recent work (Hull & Schultz, 2002; Compton-Lily, 2008; Orellana & Reynolds, 2008; Moje, Ciechanowski, Kramer, Ellis, Carrillo & Collazo, 2004) suggests that there are increasing connections between home and school language and learning experiences and new

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ways of thinking about variations across contexts are continually emerging. This new thinking provides us with ways to support schools in challenging deficit perspectives that treat everyday language practices as `inferior’ to school practices and it offers productive ways in which we may build on students’ everyday language skills and experiences in service of learning. Sociocultural research on school language and literacy learning for diverse students (Gutiérrez, Morales & Martínez, 2009; Lee, 2007) provides compelling evidence of the importance of recognising and building upon student practices, skills and understandings to enhance all language learning. Taking account of students’ increasingly textured linguistic dexterity, research emanating from the USA has considered how to involve teachers in designing and implementing curriculum that acknowledges the linguistic skills and understandings of their students (Alim, 2004; Carbone & Orellana, 2010; Lee, 2007; Martínez, 2010; Morrell, 2004). This innovative work starts with the assumption that youth use varieties of English and their home language to do all kinds of things in their everyday lives, and much of this research has focused on finding ways to leverage those abilities in school (D’warte 2012; Martínez, Orellana, Pacheco & Carbone, 2008; Orellana, Lee & Martínez, 2011; Orellana, Martínez, Lee & Montaño, 2012). In this research students are employed as ethnographers of their own language practices, using a range of audiovisual tools to identify, document and analyse their own linguistic repertoires. Teachers in the US involved in this work report that their students’ emerging awareness of their linguistic dexterity continues to have a powerful influence on achievement, self-efficacy and identity (UCLA XChange, 2010). Language is inextricably linked to students’ identities, experiences and, most importantly, opportunities to learn. Australia’s significant history and ongoing presence of Indigenous languages is enhanced by the inclusion of people from over 100 countries from around the world. In 2011, Australian Census data report that 23.2% of people nationally and 40.1% of people in NSW speak a language other than English. The Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2012) acknowledges Australian students’ linguistic diversity and identifies three key strands: Language, Literacy and Literature underpinning the study of English in Australia. This research offers possibilities for enriching the teaching and learning of English Language and Literacy by distinguishing and then building on the dynamic linguistic assets Australian students possess.

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Study design and method This research combines multi-phased ethnography with a form of ‘design research’ (Brown 1992). This research was funded by a NSW Government Education grant, all participation was voluntary, and all participants submitted formal written consent prior to commencement.

Participants and settings Four public schools across Western and South Sydney participated in this study. The schools comprised of student populations from both low and high socioeconomic backgrounds in one grade 5/6, two grade 6, one grade 7 and one grade 8 classes. These 105 students spoke 31 different languages and dialects other than English.

Students Participants classified as English Only and Language Backgrounds other than English (LBOTE) and students who spoke one or more languages other than English were represented. Approximately half of the students were classified as English as Additional Language (EAL) Learners, their English Language Proficiency assessed into phases 1–3. All classes included phase 2 and 3 students and three classes contained phase 1 students.

Teachers Participants included five classroom and four English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers. Two teachers were male and six teachers female; ages and teaching experience varied widely. Five teachers spoke one or more languages in addition to English and the remaining four teachers were English only speakers. English was not the first language of two of these nine teachers.

Data sources and analysis Research data comprised audio-recorded student and teacher interviews, transcriptions of interviews, curriculum artefacts, student work samples, audio recordings and field notes from classroom lesson observations. The application of ethnographic and discourse analytic methods to all data supported an inductive approach to analysis. Codes, themes and patterns emerging from analysis across the data set and contrastive thematic analysis of entry and exit interview data provided evidence for the research findings. Attention was paid to the search for change over time and disconfirming evidence and exceptions to the emerging findings that may have been ignored through analytical induction. The following research questions provided the central frame for analysis across all project phases presented here.



• What are teachers’ and students’ understandings of their everyday language and literacy skills and experiences? • What opportunities can be created for students to reveal their language and literacy skills and experiences? • What connections do teachers and students see between their everyday language and literacy skills and experiences and the further development of English language and literacy?

Project Phases 1–4 Phase 1 This research began in individual interviews; participating teachers discussed their teaching careers, shared their experiences of learning a first or second language and expressed their views about the kinds of understandings and experiences they supposed their students engaged in at home and in the wider community. Teachers reflected on possible links between students’ home and school practices. Following these interviews, teachers participated in a review and discussion of current Second Language Acquisition research and sociocultural research on language and learning. Teachers also reviewed research that documents the experiences of young people in and out of school settings and US curriculum work (http:// centerx.gseis.ucla.edu/xchange-repository/back-issues/ fall-2010). Phase 2 In groups of four to six, students were asked about their everyday language and literacy skills, practices and experiences. Students identified the languages they spoke and those they were studying formally or informally. They shared the multimodal language and literacy practices they engaged in (i.e., how and when, with whom, and in what language/s they were reading, writing, talking, listening and viewing). Students reflected on the practice of speaking two languages and translating/language brokering in multiple languages. English only students discussed translating across modes for parents, family members and with friends, for example, when texting, or when using colloquial language or subject related terms. All students were asked to reflect on whether their shared practices and experiences were called on in school. Data revealed that students engaged in translation and language brokering practices with a wide variety of texts and people across diverse settings in an array of multimodal activities that included watching movies and other audio-visual segments in multiple languages,

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D’Warte • Exploring linguistic repertoires: multiple language use and multimodal literacy activity

downloading music lyrics, sourcing biographical information, and using bilingual dictionaries. Phase 3 Teachers were presented with individual and across school student data. These data comprised quantitative tables: languages spoken, languages studied, students’ everyday multimodal experiences and/or practices, translation/language brokering practices, detailing what, where, when and with whom. Qualitative data comprised representative student comments about bilingualism, translation/language brokering (in multiple languages and across modes in English), general language and connections between everyday language and English study in school. Reflecting on the data above and using the Australian Curriculum: English, teachers designed a series of lessons with activities that would collaboratively involve students in further examining their own language practices and experiences. The project goal was to facilitate opportunities for students and teachers to recognise and explore the understandings and skills students possessed and then use them to further develop explicit knowledge about language while expanding students’ repertoires of language use. Introduced in English classes with lessons and activities aligned to Curriculum outcomes, units were entitled Family History in Year 5/6, Cyber-Bullying in the two Year 6 classes, and Folktales and Fairy Tales and Scripted Humour in the Year 7 and Year 8 classes. Undertaken over the course of a school term, each sequence constituted multiple components and activities of between 30 minutes and 2 hours. Attention was given to the following NSW syllabus for the Australian Curriculum: English outcomes (ACARA, 2012, V 4.0): • Students communicate effectively for a variety of audiences and purposes using increasingly challenging topics, ideas, issues and language forms and features. • Students discuss how language is used to achieve a widening range of purposes for a widening range of audiences and contexts. Phase 4 Students completed reflective journals detailing what they had discovered about their own language practices and experiences and what they may have learned from this work. Students also shared their parents’ reflections on this project. Teacher and student exit interviews were conducted and a final project symposium was held with teachers for discussion and review of preliminary project findings and sharing of curriculum

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material. Data and subsequent analyses from each project phase have been sourced to provide evidence for the following findings.

Analysis and discussion Engagement and collective awareness of linguistic dexterity Initially all students shared their language and literacy practices and experiences in focus group interviews. In every classroom teachers and students continued to expand on this initial data set. Figure 1 displays the vast array of languages and dialects spoken by the 105 students in this study.

Figure 1. Languages and dialects spoken as identified by students across the five schools

In three of the five classrooms as teachers shared quantitative and qualitative phase 3 data sets, students were asked to consider what the data revealed about their class, what surprised or interested them and what may have been missed in relation to how and in what ways they used language/s to talk, listen, read, write and view every day. Students were excited to see their own data and volunteered additional information not offered in initial interviews; the use of electronic white boards enabled teachers to add new data to graphs and tables instantaneously. The student comment below is representative of the common views expressed by students about their own linguistic dexterity and multimodal activity: It was so cool because you don’t expect so many people to speak another language, but there were barely any people who spoke only English. It was so fun learning about what we all do.

Analysis revealed teachers’ surprise at both the range and frequency of their students’ multiple language use. This was echoed by students, who were most often unaware of their peers’ and in some cases their

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friends’ abilities. Students were interested to talk about the origins of some languages and in some cases to hear their peers speak in that language. Data revealed ongoing student excitement as practices and experiences were shared; teachers also reported a collective enthusiasm for this curriculum. The student comment below reflects the ongoing tone of student discussions: It’s hard; it’s not easy speaking different languages because you forget your English sometimes. It (this project work) helped me teach people about my language. It is important because people can know you better. It’s good to know more things. I learned more and you get it, it gives you more intelligence.

Multiple languages and engaging in translation and language brokering Discussion turned to the speaking of multiple languages, translation/language brokering in two languages and translating across modes. Skyping, playing online video games, reading and viewing a wide range of audiovisual programs and texts in multiple languages were common practices and elaborated topics of discussion. The translating of song lyrics (particularly K Pop songs and those from a popular music show called Pop Asia) was identified as a common practice across schools. English only speakers were active participants, interested to hear about their peers’ experiences with translating for family and friends and led into considering how they too were translating across multiple settings when text messaging and using colloquial terms. Students shared their feelings about translating/ language brokering, and questions about how the practice changed for different audiences, purposes and contexts focused these discussions; i.e., using multiple languages in a grocery store in their community as opposed to a large public space where only English was being spoken. In two classrooms, students in groups of four or five were given a list of qualitative comments concerning bilingualism, translation/language brokering (in multiple languages and across modes in English), multimodal experiences/practices engaged in every day and connections between everyday language use and English study in school. Students were asked to highlight those comments that resonated with them, encouraged to add additional ones and build on or counter those of others, in this way further validating their everyday practices. Figure 2 shows one group’s responses to using two languages.

Leveraging skills and understandings Students were developing critical awareness of how their languages were not only used, but also valued,



Figure 2. Students’ qualitative comments about using two languages

within their classrooms and the wider society. Comparative analysis of students’ entry and exit data reveals a considerable change in students’ views about bilingualism. Entry data revealed little acknowledgment or recognition that using two languages was a valuable ability, something they could share or acknowledge in school, and something that required considerable skill: Because now I’m proud of myself, I learnt that it’s (speaking another language) a gift when you say it in Chinese and write it in English. Most of the people in our class have this gift and nearly all of us at the school have it.

Class data became a lens through which to view students’ knowledge and individual and group identity. Students studied how language worked across familiar and unfamiliar cultural contexts and at the text and word level. As teachers had hoped, students were developing explicit knowledge about language and employing critical complex analysis skills in the process. Analysis focused on what they did with language within and outside school and how word and text level choices were influenced by purpose and audience in authentic ways in both contexts. All classes engaged in a progressive brainstorm. Groups of four to six students were given large pieces of paper and asked to list then post how, why, when, and where they used language, and the types of language used. Students were encouraged to think about how they used language every day, what language/s or type of language (formal/informal) they used with whom and when; this information was then used to create a pictorial representation (or language map) that depicted

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D’Warte • Exploring linguistic repertoires: multiple language use and multimodal literacy activity

Figures 3. Pictorial representations of language use

their individual language use. Students relished the task of representing their language use in multiple ways, including organisational trees, geographic maps, lists, streetscapes, pictures, circles, aerial views and text in multiple languages and took this work home to share with parents. Figure 3 presents two students’ work. These pictorial representations provided students and teachers with another tool through which to view their use of language/s, further consolidating students’ recognition of their skills and abilities. These maps supported teachers in focusing learning on the Language Strand of the English Curriculum, Language for interaction, helping students to see that language interaction varied across social contexts, texts and signaled social roles and relationships (ACELA1501). One teacher’s comment about students’ ongoing awareness and the links to learning represents the collective view: I think they (students) became more aware of their abilities and I think for the kids at our school that was vitally important, particularly because they were in one of the lower ability classes, and they all realised that. So they became very conscious of the sorts of things they were doing with language every day and they began to take great pride in it. So it got the brain working, the thinking process happening and just made them more conscious of what they were doing and how they could apply that to what we were asking them to do in our English class.

A focus on register dimensions Students explored register dimensions through focusing on their everyday Language and Literacy. Halliday and Hasan (1985) see three variables as constituting register: (1) the subject, (2) the relationship between the participants, and (3) the channel of communication whether the language is spoken or written, commonly referred

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to as field, tenor, and mode. This curriculum engaged all students in substantive talk: how, when, where and why language changed in different contexts and for different audiences and why these changes mattered in making meaning. One Year 5 student offered: Well it is not just the word but the idea that you are using language in another context. All the things you are practising, what words are appropriate, how the order goes. Those sorts of things can translate into English even though it’s a different language.

The student’s mention of ‘appropriate’, signals an understanding of choice as it relates to curriculum strands: Language in Interacting with others and Literacy in Interpreting, analysing, evaluating: (ACELY1699; ACEY1711). In one Year 5/6 and one Year 6 class, students reported that parents and siblings reminded them to include specific language in shops in their community, Skyping with grandparents and singing in multiple languages in their maps. Students reported parents’ pride and interest in this study of multiple language use in school. One student shared: Mum talked to me about music and that it was an important part of language, cause you can express feelings and emotions better than words.

This mention of music led students in considering the multimodal nature of language and how signs and symbols, such as peace signs, tags and mathematical symbols made meaning. Students also discussed how the use of certain expressions, gestures and body language could express emotion that would persuade, discourage or encourage others to a point of view, for example, smiling, frowning and crossing arms. In pairs students used a Venn diagram to compare and contrast their individual language use. Student groups went on to choose a context or

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Exploring linguistic repertoires: multiple language use and multimodal literacy activity • D’Warte

Figure 4. Excerpts from family history presentations

interaction from their language maps to role-play. Teachers and students discussed the organisational structures and features of scripts before students created them, and developed appropriate characters, actions and dialogue for their role-plays; multiple groups of students wrote their scripts in two languages. Students created literary texts that combined aspects of their own experiences in innovative ways (ACELT 1618); at the end of the week after much rehearsal and excitement, role-plays were performed and group performances video-recorded. Role-play topics included amongst others, a shopping encounter with English only speakers at a Chinese grocery store; a parent teacher interview with Greek speaking parents where their child acts as translator; a cyber-bullying incident involving students, parents, and the school principal; and, an encounter between non-Australian English speakers and a group of Australians using Australian slang. In the discussion that followed the Australian slang role-play students articulated how codes and conventions varied in this context and across cultures. Students used a variety of tools in their performances; two groups held English translation cards to cover multiple language use.



In subsequent lessons recorded role-plays were viewed and register foregrounded as realised in role-plays and more specifically students’ everyday lives. Groups were asked if place (grocery store, a sports field, etc.) influenced the talk between people and if so how; if the topic influenced the type of language or the way they spoke and acted (e.g., using slang, talking about school work); and, if relationships between people influenced the talk. Students were asked if words or other ways of communicating could have been used and why this would be appropriate. Students detailed how they talked to a coach and how different the conversations were when they wanted to make a complaint about training as opposed to talk about strategy: When we complained we had to do it nicely, think about the words, get on our side; when it was about the game, its facts and questions we didn’t need to think what to say or how to say it.

Students discussed how scripts changed when performed; how different stakeholders, such as parents, non-English speakers, principals were represented in their role-plays; and how particular stakeholders and they themselves may have felt in similar situations.

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D’Warte • Exploring linguistic repertoires: multiple language use and multimodal literacy activity

Students articulated understandings about Language and Literacy in relation to Language for interaction and Interaction with others, how formality, social distance and topic influenced interactions (ACELA1516; ACELY1816). In this sequence the issue of English as the only accepted language in Australia became a lively topic of discussion and one that students continued to discuss and revisit in future lessons across all five schools.

Teachers’ expectations and reflections on students’ abilities All students achieve higher educational outcomes when teachers hold high expectations for their students’ abilities (Ball, 2009; Comber & Kamler, 2004; DarlingHammond & Schon, 1996; Gutiérrez, Morales & Martínez, 2009). In this study, all teachers reported an increase in their expectations of students’ abilities. One teacher’s comment reflects the collective view: I really got to know my students better and that really makes a difference to what we did in our classrooms. Now I realise that they have a vast array of skills that I hadn’t really thought about, that they are using language constantly and a mix of languages, and what surprised me was that they were using first, second and sometimes third languages in the home and that’s just amazing.

In the Year 5/6 a series of lessons on family history scaffolded students’ collection of information and formulation of questions for family and community interviews. Students reviewed and discussed family histories, interviewed parents in one or more languages, translated and compiled information, and created audio-visual family history presentations. These presentations shared with parents and school executives were delivered in multiple languages. The presentation excerpts in Figure 4 and the comment below represent students’ collective work: It was great to learn about my family. It was good and also sad I made my Mum cry. I learned about my culture and my language.

This unit of work incorporated the three interrelated strands of the curriculum and required students to apply their linguistic repertoires to studying English and history in real ways. Teachers reported that this complex task would not have been undertaken before exploring students’ linguistic repertoires and expressed surprise and appreciation at parent involvement and students’ capabilities. One teacher noted: What I realised is the power of first language. We do this detailed scaffolding of a task and then when students do the independent work I realise that they didn’t really get it. In the unit on family history, students explained

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things to each other in their first language and they understood so quickly. They used their first language to tell each other how to use digital storyboard, for example, or how to formulate interview questions and they got right to it. There was a buzz, it was exciting.

In the Year 7 and 8 classes particular attention was paid to grammatical elements within the genres of folk and fairy tales and scripted humour. Students compared these genres across cultural contexts. Scripted humour drew students into examining how the grammatical structures of English and Chinese were similar or different. Folk and fairy tales engaged students in analysing, creating and presenting their own multilingual folk and fairy tales (ACELT 1619; ACELTY 1625; 1721). One teacher commented: I found that when they realised that they had something in common in relation to language, that they were using the same sorts of skills like translating or doing something after school, discussions became far richer and more pertinent to their lives and their class work. So we tried with fairy tales to draw on their personal experiences and background experiences and talk about how a fairy tale in English might be similar or different to a fairy tale in a different language, and that really drew them in. They really enjoyed doing that because they could see the relationship between their own understandings and what they actually were doing at school.

Conclusion This research offered productive ways to build on students’ everyday language skills and experiences and generated insights into how deficit perspectives about students’ everyday language practices could be challenged. Qualitative analysis revealed detailed evidence of students’ widespread engagement and enthusiasm for explicitly studying their own practices and then applying them to school work. Teachers reported students’ enthusiasm and engagement as key highlights of this project work. All students whether multilingual or monolingual had experiences to share, teachers and students learned from each other and the classroom space became a shared place of inquiry. Multilingualism was normalised in these classrooms as students documented their language resources. The experiences of students who are multilingual, multidialectal and use `nonstandard’ varieties of English were acknowledged and built on in these classrooms. This had a powerful effect on students’ identity, confidence and the classroom culture as reported by all teachers and students. Cummins (2000) suggests that how teachers talk about and with their students is determined by how they view their students as learners. In these classrooms, teachers positioned students as active participants

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whose contributions and knowledge were used as resources for building new shared knowledge; language use was not serving as a response to an activity or event, but rather, as an actual social activity that was studied, an event that engaged students in examining and calling on their own everyday practices and experiences (D’warte, 2012). Students and teachers came to recognise and then utilise what they knew and could do and applied this to studying English. Teachers involved students in complex cognitive work that increased in complexity as teachers and students continued to reveal their linguistic capabilities and the relationships that could be made between home and school. Importantly, this work provides compelling evidence of students working towards English curriculum outcomes. Students applied analytical skills to their sociocultural competence, multiple language use, translation experiences, how they traversed multiple registers, and how they used a variety of multimedia to communicate. Students employed critical literacy skills in discussing the dominance of English only in Australia and how particular languages and speakers of other languages were viewed in the Australian context, important understandings and key concerns for people living in multicultural, multilingual societies, such as Australia. This curriculum engaged students in developing intercultural competencies and metalinguistic awareness, evidenced as students continued to think and talk about how language worked and the modes, processes and strategies appropriate to their needs. Applying their knowledge in creating a variety of multilingual and multimodal texts expanded their repertoires of language use. Involving students in being ethnographers of their own language practices provides exciting possibilities. This research offers possibilities for developing the cognitive complexity of English study across contexts and offers new ways of thinking about how students’ skills, experiences and understandings can be taken up by teachers and the students themselves and leveraged for a range of in school learning.

Author’s Note I would like to acknowledge and thank the inspiring teachers and students who produced the work shared in this article. This work was supported by a research grant from the NSW Department of Education and Communities Multicultural Programs Unit. I would also like to thank Bhasha Leonard for her invaluable feedback on early drafts of this article.



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Jacqueline D’warte is a lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Western Sydney. She teaches and researches in the areas of English, language and literacy teaching and learning and has worked as a teacher and researcher in a variety of state and international educational settings.

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Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2014

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