ABSTRACT
This chapter is intended primarily to support teachers at school or pre-school in their preparation and work with multilingual students, who may or may not have first-language competence in the language of schooling. The chapter includes the challenge of individualisation of learning targets and scaffolding for classes with a linguistically diverse student body, possibly including recently arrived students with little knowledge of the language of schooling. The difference between everyday language and academic language, and the time needed to achieve a useful level of the latter, is raised. The use of students’ existing language skills as a resource for their learning is discussed along with the availability of digital tools to facilitate this. The students’ possibility of continuing to develop their first language is mentioned. The fair assessment of students who have been a short time in the local school system, or who have limited proficiency in the language of schooling, is discussed, as is the provision of teaching or support in that language as a second language.
