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Bishop’s University researcher co-edits new international volume on language and classroom equity

Every classroom in Canada is already multilingual. A new Bloomsbury column co-edited by Dr. Sunny Man Chu Lau, Full Professor in the School of Education at Bishop’s University, makes the case that it’s time to address this need. The volume draws on translanguaging research and practice from scholars across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. 

Translanguaging in Action in English-Medium Classrooms: A Resource Book for Teachers, co-edited with Rutgers University (Newark) Associate Professor Zhongfeng Tian, draws on contributions from scholars across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas to offer both conceptual grounding and practical tools for educators working with linguistically diverse students. The book arrives amid growing international discussion about how schools respond to increasingly multilingual classrooms and widening student diversity. The volume is now available. 

“Every classroom is already multilingual — the question is whether we take action to meet the need,” said Dr. Sunny Man Chu Lau, Canada Research Chair in Integrated Plurilingual Teaching and Learning. “This volume brings together educators and researchers from across the world who are answering that question in practice. “The teaching approaches and strategies offered in the book are informed by research and have been applied in real classroom settings”.  

Dr. Lau contributes two chapters to the volume. The first, co-authored with a researcher from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil, examines how translanguaging can support critical literacy through a decolonizing lens. The second, co-authored with a pedagogical consultant from the Kativik Ilisarniliriniq School Board in northern Quebec, presents a critical intercultural model to deepen language learning by drawing on learners’ home language and knowledge systems. 

“This book addresses the reality of the classrooms in which our teachers work every day”, said Dr. Julie Desjardins, Dean of the School of Education. “Students come to class with languages, literacies, and forms of knowledge that have more often been viewed as challenges to be overcome rather than opportunities to be leveraged. Dr. Lau’s work, and this volume, reframes that entirely. It’s a resource that will matter in classrooms well beyond our own.”  

Dr. Lau holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Integrated Plurilingual Teaching and Learning at Bishop’s University, where her research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) examines collaboration between English and French teachers across languages and disciplines. She served as co-editor and is now a board member of Critical Inquiry in Language Studies. She is also Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University and in the Department of English Language Education at The Education University of Hong Kong 

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MEDIA REQUESTS:

Sonia Patenaude, Manager of Communications 
Bishop’s University
819-342-2587
sonia.patenaude@ubishops.ca 

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