Educating Transnational Students: Languages and Identities across Borders

WEBINAR RECORDING

RECORDED: Tue, Oct 31, 2023

DETAILS: Schools in the United States are increasingly populated by students whose lives cross national borders, both physically and virtually. These transnational students face challenges and possibilities related to their multiple languages and identities, especially in educational spaces. This webinar explores the existing research and practices around multilingual transnational students. Our panel engages with thoughtful questions and offers creative solutions for educators and policymakers to support successful academic outcomes for transnational students.

RESOURCES REFERENCED:

Film: Una Vida, Dos Países: Children and Youth (Back) in Mexico

Book: Living, Learning, and Languaging Across Borders: Students Between the US and Mexico

Critical Biliteracies without Borders: Translanguaging and Culturally Sustaining Approaches

View the recording below.

RECORDED: Tue, Sep 26, 2023

DETAILS: The Sol y Agua research-practice partnership is a team of teachers and administrators from El Paso Independent School District and researchers from the University of Texas at El Paso, and our work aims to center the biliteracies and experiences US-Mexico borderland students in their learning of computer science. In this webinar, we share how students’ extensive knowledge of border crossing and their translanguaging skills figured centrally in the team’s planning process but receded to the margins in practice when the curriculum was piloted and how collaborative reflection and revision of the curriculum helped us to bring biliteracies back to the center. We share some of the ways that we did this, identify pressures that made it difficult, and discuss the Continua of Biliteracy as a tool that can help keep focus on students’ biliteracies in both planning and practice. Check out the Sol y Agua game mentioned in the webinar at this link.