with other peers in similar circumstances. Within a few months, when she was com- municating more confidently in English, she began helping other Spanish-speaking new- comer students adjust to the school.
DRIVING CHANGE THROUGH TEACHER LEADERSHIP
While many teachers in boards across Ontar- io have already shiſted toward an assets-based approach to teaching multilingual English language learners, ministry policy should be updated to drive large-scale, systemic trans- formation. Te ESL/ELD Resource Group of Ontario
(ERGO), a collective of ESL/ELD educator leaders – including many ETFO members – is calling on the Ministry of Education to critically examine and enhance the ESL/ELD policy framework. Draſted by a passionate working group committed to decolonizing language and literacy programming in On- tario, the 2022 ERGO Position Statement on Multilingual Language Learners
in Ontario
Education, K–12 describes the changing per- spectives of language educators across the province. As the document states: “Based on regional variances, community
demographics, and socio-cultural contexts, there is a continuum of thought and practice across school districts in Ontario. More than
15 boards in Ontario have shiſted or are in the process of shiſting language from “ELL” to “MLL” to honour students’ multilingual rep- ertoires as carriers of ancestry, identity, pride and cultural values that enrich learning in schools.” (ERGO 2022). While the change in acronym may seem
like a minor detail, the implications for pro- gramming and policy are manifold. Shiſting from English language learner to Multilingual language learner decentres English as the sole language of learning and is a first step toward recognizing the rich cultural and linguistic re- sources of students and how these contribute to thinking, learning and communication at school, home and beyond. ERGO’s position statement highlights some of the program- ming implications that can arise by shiſt- ing toward an anti-oppressive, decolonizing framework that honours student multilin- gualism: • creation of a starting point for educators to critically reflect on biases and interrogate notions of neutrality;
• more opportunities for MLLs to access grade level learning opportunities across all subjects; addressing multilingualism in assessment for, as and of learning;
• creation of accessible pathways responsive to all learners’ aspirations and lived experiences;
• strategic use of translanguaging and other bi/multilingual endeavours;
• capacity building for co-teaching among classroom teachers and language support teachers. To read the ERGO’s full position state- ment, visit
ergo-on.ca.
THE LONG ROAD AHEAD Getting to the point where the context of traditional ESL/ELD programming is trans- formed into an assets-based, anti-oppressive framework will take time and purposeful, intentional efforts aimed at changing the poli- cies and processes that undergird English lan- guage learning in Ontario. Tere is also a need to dismantle the stigmas that surround Eng- lish as a Second Language programs among educators and the broader community and the tendency to see such programs as deficit- correcting supports that are best administered in isolation from the classroom. Following ETFO’s Building Better Schools agenda, al- locating language opportunity funding ap- propriately, is essential to building capacity among all educators, along with providing more specialized staff to support language programming for MLLs. n
Colleen Elep is a member of the the Peel Teacher Local.
ELEMENTARY TEACHERS’ FEDERATION OF ONTARIO 31
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