This creative writing workshop, devised by 2018 OWRI Fellow Dr Catherine Barbour (University of Surrey), examines the role of translingualism in the experiences and education of young children and asks how multilingual/heritage-speaking children, or those learning a second language, engage in translingualism through creative writing?
Reay School has a high proportion of pupils with multilingual, migrant heritage, and a specific focus on Modern Foreign Languages, with a number of subjects taught through the medium of Spanish from Reception to Year 6.
Leading a class of Year 3 pupils in the composition of a poem or short story that draws on their linguistic heritage, bilingual Peruvian-British writer and researcher, Karina Lickorish Quinn, will encourage the children to move between English and another language they speak, whether a mother tongue, heritage language or second language. And we hope to be able to show some of their work online soon.
The project informs Dr Barbour’s research at the Institute of Modern Languages Research on translingual migrant writing, and forms part of a programme of Community Engagement within the OWRI “Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community” Translingual Strand, exploring ideas and experiences of migration, wellbeing, language and identity within migrant communities in the UK.