Craig Gerow

Title: Mother Tongue Literacy in the Mainstream Classroom

Description The benefits of students maintaining and developing mother tongue literacy skills is being increasingly documented and studied, yet many schools are still hesitant to develop mother tongue programs or expand them beyond single session classes. This session will seek to foster a collaborative exchange of ideas on ways teachers can promote mother tongue literacy within English medium schools and classrooms. Initially, the cognitive, identity, emotional and practical benefits of promoting mother tongue literacy will be discussed along with ways of promoting awareness of these benefits at school and home. The majority of the session will focus on strategies teachers can use to make use of students' mother tongues in everyday classroom activities and how gains in literacy in one language can be transferred to others. Teachers will leave the session with practical ideas for classroom use from the presenter and from engaging in dialogue with colleagues.

Audience: All

Strand: Traditional Literacy, Research and Inquiry

Materials:

Biography: Craig has been a teacher for 15 years at schools in Canada, Japan, China, Malaysia and now Singapore. Currently he is working at the Canadian International School, Singapore where he holds the position of Grade 9-10 Lead and ESL/Language B Coordinator teaching MYP Language B English and Humanities and ESL. He holds a Masters of Education in Second Language Education with a specialty in Comparative International Developmental Education from the University of Toronto. Working with second language learners in English medium schools since the beginning of his career has fostered an interest in second language acquisition, and the maintenance and development of Mother Tongues. He regularly tries to put his studies into practice in the classroom and promote literacy as a means to transcend and understand language.