Multilingual Learner News

Happy autumn, Lake Bluff multilingual families!

Students are getting into their routines here at school, after our first 5-day week of the school year. The weather changed this week and gave us some days that felt more like fall. Make sure your students are bringing warm clothes so they can be warm and dry at recess time, including boots on rainy, cold, or snowy days.

Read on for information about:

Code Switching: What is it, and why do we do it?
Moon Festival
Job Opening at Lake Bluff: Multilingual Learner Aide
Talking Points App Reminder
Lunch Menu
Calendar (there are a few NO SCHOOL days in October)

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Take care and be safe,

Jennifer Conigliaro

Multilingual Learner (ML) Teacher

In conversations with parents, many have shared with me that they notice their child switching between languages, often within the same sentence. This is a normal part of language acquisition and use. There are times when a speaker may not know the word in one language, but there are also many times when the word in one language is a "better fit." This might be because the word better matches the intended meaning, or it might better fit the context of the conversation.

According to the linked article from Bilingual Kidspot, code switching is an important linguistic tool: "Rather than indicating a lack of ability, or laziness, code-switching in children is usually a sign of them using all the resources in their brains to get their meaning across."

Bilingual Kidspot is always a great place for information about raising bilingual children, and you can read more in this article: Code Switching - A Sophisticated Linguistic Tool

To everyone who celebrated this past week, I hope everyone had a lovely time celebrating the Moon Festival.

This was a holiday that I just learned of this year. For those who celebrate, it is an important day. The Moon Festival is also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival or the Mooncake Festival. It is celebrated in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Vietnam. People in other Southeast Asian countries such as Japan and Korea celebrate a similar festival. This article from the York News Times explains more about the festival, comparing its celebration to the U.S. Thanksgiving.

If you or your family has information about the celebration, or pictures of your own celebrations, and you would be interested in sharing them with students at our school, please feel free to share with me at jconigliaro@shorewood.k12.wi.us.

Also, as a reminder, if your family is celebrating a holiday that is not marked by a day off of school, you can call the office and report the day as an excused absence. Just let us know that your child will be absent and why.

Last week, you received your first text from me through the Talking Points app. Some parents have already used it to ask questions and offer feedback. You can read more about Talking Points by clicking here. The Talking Points app allows the teacher to send texts to families, and it will automatically translate my text into your preferred language. Families can also text me using their preferred language, and I will see it in English. I will use this app to send important reminders to families about events at Lake Bluff. Please let me know how it is working for you!

You can reply to my texts on your own texting app. If you like, you can also download the Parent version of the Talking Points app. Let me know if you need an invitation. My class code is NBMARo.

You can find more detailed instructions here:

Simplified Mandarin Chinese

Amharic

Bengali

Traditional Chinese / Cantonese

Korean