Abstract:

This talk explores findings of a study of youth who were born and/or began formal schooling in the province of Ontario but were raised in homes where the societally dominant language was not spoken. Specifically, she focuses on the events that transpired when students were given electronic dictionaries to communicate with their elders regarding a class assignment that asked students to trace the routes that their families had followed to arrive in Canada and to construct a narrative around these life-altering journeys in the context of discourses around 21st century learning. The assignment was embedded within an action research project that sought to identify and pursue pedagogical approaches that showed promise in fostering the academic success and identity reconciliation of this student demographic. Grounded in principles of community-referenced pedagogy, we looked toward techniques and strategies that could be harnessed to individuals’ prior knowledge and experiences as approaches that would hold the maximum potential for stimulating students’ literate engagement and cognitive growth. A key finding from this study was that in contrast to immigrant ESL students who by and large share in their parents’ migration narratives, generation 1.5 language minority students were largely unaware of these critical events and circumstances. Another important insight pertained to the linguistic dynamics that characterized generation 1.5 students’ home environments. Researchers found that the multifarious ruptures referenced in caregivers’ narratives resulted in discontinuities with regard to language transmission that complicated social arrangements among family members who did not share access to a common linguistic code. The use of electronic technologies to communicate with members of the same nuclear family over a class assignment brought home dramatically that negotiating a common linguistic code in which to conduct family business may, for this cohort, be more challenging an operation than originally understood, presenting unanticipated obstacles to the educational success of generation 1.5 language minority students.

Keywords:

Linguistic minorities, learning, technology, education.