Despite the presence of multiple languages in many homes, schools, and workplaces, monolingualism still persists as a normative educational and everyday practice in Canada and many places around the world.
In this talk, based on stories of language maintenance and loss from my research studies, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair Guofang Li shares how such monolingual beliefs and ideologies frame multilingual parents’ language policies and management at home and teachers’ instruction in schools and how these practices often lead to learners to prioritize English over other languages.
Advocating for a changing view of multilingualism as a gift, Dr. Guofang Li discusses the needs and the ways of challenging the deficit narratives of multilinguals to celebrate the strengths and the worlds of possibilities that they bring.
