Multilingual Learning and Language Supportive Pedagogies in Sub-Saharan Africa

This edited collection provides insight into multilingual education in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), highlighting its benefits for content and language learning. It explores strategies for creating materials, classroom environments, and teacher education programs that support the use of all students' languages to improve learning. The book addresses challenging contexts, such as low resources and policy barriers, and draws on successful approaches from higher-resource countries. It showcases how multilingual learning can transform education and provides inspiration for its spread and development in SSA and beyond.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 22 pages
Publication date: 09 January 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This edited collection offers a groundbreaking exploration into the rapidly evolving realm of multilingual education in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Multilingual education is heralded for its multitude of benefits, chief among them being its ability to enhance both content and language learning, particularly for learners who may face challenges in the medium of instruction and struggle to acquire knowledge. The book showcases a diverse range of Sub-Saharan school contexts, providing detailed accounts of how multilingual strategies have been devised and implemented to support content and language acquisition. It examines multilingual learning from various perspectives, including translanguaging, which involves the utilization of multiple languages, particularly African languages, for learning and language-supportive pedagogy, which entails the implementation of a distinct teaching approach to assist learners navigating through a second language.

The book proposes innovative strategies for developing materials, classroom environments, and teacher education programs that foster the use of all a student's languages to enhance language and content learning. The contexts depicted in the book are complex, encompassing factors such as limited school resources, poverty, and low literacy rates in the home, as well as school policies that discourage the use of African languages in the classroom. Furthermore, the volume draws upon multilingual education approaches that have proven successful in higher resource countries and presents opportunities for their adaptation to the unique circumstances of SSA. It showcases how multilingual learning can bring about transformative changes in education and offers valuable insights into how these strategies can be disseminated, further refined, and expanded to enhance learning outcomes in schools across SSA and beyond.

Chapter 3 of this book is made freely accessible as a downloadable Open Access publication, allowing readers to delve into its contents without any barriers to access.

Weight: 566g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367677527