Understanding Multilingual Children's Language Development

Discover the value of multilingual environments at school and at home

Most people in the world speak more than one language and schools across the globe are becoming more and more multilingual as families move around.

However, training in supporting multilingual children is not a qualification requirement for teachers, and many teachers, speech and language therapists (SLTs), and parents feel unprepared to meet the needs of these pupils.

On this three-week course, you’ll gain the skills to support and nurture multilingual children.

Be empowered by the evidence from the University of Reading

A multidisciplinary team of experts will guide you through the research on multilingual language development which argues for more emphasis on using heritage languages both at school and at home.

To understand the value of creating rich and diverse multilingual environments for learning, you’ll develop your knowledge of how young children learn to understand and produce spoken language.

Become equipped to support multilingual children through peer learning

The course provides a platform for inter-professional dialogue between teachers and SLTs to help transform working practice so that multilingual children can reach their full potential.

Delving into a case study of a UK primary school, you’ll see how languages are valued and cherished in practice as you hear from a teacher and SLT who share their experiences in overcoming challenges.

Put your knowledge of multilingualism into practice

Throughout the course, you’ll develop a profile of a fictional child, and use it to plan an advocacy or support strategy that you can take back to your classroom or clinic.

Finally, you’ll be encouraged to reflect on three actions you can take as the first steps towards putting this learning into practice in your own professional setting.

This course is designed for anyone who supports multilingual children – teachers working in Primary, Foundation Stage, and Early Years, speech and language therapists, and parents.

• Multilingualism and Identity
• What is multilingualism?
• The range of multilingual experience
• Multilingualism and identity
• Review and reflect
• Language development and multilingualism
• Being multilingual
• Mechanisms of language development in multilingual children
• Mechanisms of phonological development, word learning and role of decoding
• Discourse level development
• Review and reflect
• Putting it into practice
• When languages interact
• Quantity and quality of language input
• Putting it into practice
• Review and what's next?