ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the researchers’ analyses and interpretations of a two-hour recorded conversational interview conducted with a group of six Reggio educators in May 2019. The conversation was a rare and special opportunity to have a lengthy dialogue with a cross-section of Reggio educators, to ask questions and to learn more about their pedagogical approaches to working with emergent multilingual children and their families. Key concepts and threads of discussion from the interview included the importance of building trusting relationships with children and families who are newcomers, developing their sense of belonging, learning from and with them through the pedagogy of listening, and using the theory of the hundred languages to support non-verbal expression, interactions, shared experience, and, eventually, shared oral language, translanguaging, and exchange. The chapter serves as a springboard for the rest of the book, which further investigates and continues the conversation, the circulation of ideas and multiple perspectives, which help us to understand how to affirm the rights of emergent bilingual and multilingual language learners and their families to high quality early education.
