Judith Kingsbury, Tara Shaver, Jane Treftz and Charlotte Gregson recently attended a three-day conference in Geneva entitled “Promoting Multilingual Student Identities Across the International School Curricula” which featured a variety of speakers including some pioneers in the research field of second language acquisition.

One presenter commented that when you forget your language, you lose a piece of yourself. Mother tongue language needs to be recognized as an integral and valuable part of each child.

Current research has several implications for parents, teachers, and schools. It is important to clear up the widely held misconception that if a child uses a mother tongue with peers or family it will slow down English language development. To the contrary, students of all ages should be discussing and clarifying school content in their mother tongue. It was also revealed that extensive reading, with a comprehension focus, is crucial to develop the vocabulary and academic language that will enable EAL students to succeed academically.