Inquiring into Your Multilingual Classroom: An Integrated Seminar Series + Grants Program

2018-2020

SFU has recognized the need in today’s globalized higher education context, to respond to the multilingual and multicultural composition of the university community. In its work with students, faculty and staff across SFU, the Transforming Inquiry into Learning + Teaching (TILT) team has cultivated and supported research-based teaching and learning practices in disciplinary specific academic language development. Such practices are built upon the recognition and understanding of multilingual students’ unique strengths and needs. To expand our efforts to support the curiosities and concerns of faculty teaching linguistically and culturally diverse students, in collaboration with the Centre for Educational Excellence (CEE), TILT & CEE piloted an Integrated Seminar Series and Grants Program, entitled “Inquiring into Your Multilingual Classroom”. This program will enable participating faculty to gain background knowledge related to working with such students while at the same time crafting an inquiry project to support related changes to teaching and learning in their classrooms.

Seminar participants:

Gained knowledge about working with multilingual and culturally diverse students to enhance academic success
Crafted a project proposal on exploring teaching and learning issues related to multilingual and culturally diverse students and/or implementing and evaluating changes they wish to make to their teaching
Received feedback from fellow seminar participants and facilitators on their inquiry design
Received up to $6000 to support their design and/or implementation and evaluation work
Received support finding research assistants to help them with their design, implementation and evaluation work
Received on-going administrative, curricular and research support throughout the implementation of their projects

Examples of topics addressed in the seminar:

Myths and realities about language and language acquisition
Language and content integration in higher education settings
Additional topics arising from participants’ specific interests and inquiries

Facilitation Team

Roumi Ilieva

Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education working. Roumi's scholarship is in the field of applied linguistics and focuses on language and culture, the internationalization of education, and professional identities. Her most recent study centers on interdisciplinary collaboration for multilingual student success.

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Laura D’Amico

Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Education and former Research Associate with TILT (2015 - 2019). With over 20 years of experience in the development and study of systems for supporting and implementing educational improvement and reform, Laura provides faculty with practical advice on how to conduct their project evaluations. She is versed in a wide-range of educational research methods and approaches.

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Completed Projects - Project Summaries + Final Reports

“Language, whether seen as a discourse, social construction, commodity, or semiotic system, plays a critical role in processes of globalizing and internationalizing education.” (Byrd Clark, Haque, and Lamoreux, 2012)

“In [many] practices in higher education, language issues are often overlooked and dangerously simplified.” (Dafouz, 2017)

Transforming Inquiry into Learning & Teaching (TILT)