Dual Language Books Go Digital: Storybooks Canada in French Immersion Schools and Homes

Authors

  • Rahat Zaidi University of calgary
  • Robin Metcalfe University of British Columbia Okanagan
  • Bonny Norton University of British Columbia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37213/cjal.2022.31626

Abstract

In response to Canada’s growing ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity, educators in French immersion classrooms are increasingly responding with enhanced cross-linguistic initiatives, and dual language books are promising resources in the promotion of multilingualism (Zaidi, 2020; Zaidi & Dooley, 2021). This paper details a research project we completed in a 2019 classroom-based qualitative case study in a French immersion school experiencing an increasing enrollment of linguistically diverse students. The researchers sought to determine if Storybooks Canada, a free digital platform with 40 dual language books in multiple languages, could help promote literacy engagement and strengthen home-school connections. Five teacher participants identified a range of features that make the platform a useful resource for promoting literacy engagement, text comprehension, learner autonomy, meaning-making, and instructional differentiation. These included (i) the multilingual features, (ii) the ability to project stories on a large screen, (iii) the audio component, (iv) the illustrations, and (v) the different levels of text difficulty. While teachers made almost exclusive use of the French language features of the site, for classroom purposes, they supported cross-linguistic uses of the platform in the home context, with a view of strengthening home-school connections. 

Downloads

Published

2022-03-07

How to Cite

Zaidi, R., Metcalfe, R., & Norton, B. (2022). Dual Language Books Go Digital: Storybooks Canada in French Immersion Schools and Homes. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 25(1), 64–87. https://doi.org/10.37213/cjal.2022.31626

Issue

Vol. 25 No. 1 (2022)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Rahat Zaidi, Robin Metcalfe, Bonny Norton

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with The Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics (CJAL) agree to the following terms:

  • Authors retain copyright and grant the CJAL right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/> that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in the CJAL.
  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the CJAL's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the CJAL.
  • Authors will not simultaneously submit the same piece of work for possible publication to more than one academic journal at a time.