Researcher of the month

People for Education is partnering with leading Ontario researchers to highlight emerging research. Find out more.

Meet Professor Heather Lotherington

Our first researcher of the month!

“Kids can do a whole lot more than we’re asking them to”, says Professor Heather Lotherington of York University.  Working with teachers, students and parents at Joyce Public School in Toronto, Heather tries to link theory with practice.

Her big question: How can we use two great assets – 16 languages in a class of 25 students, and cutting edge digital technology – to teach language and literacy the way it is used in the twenty-first century?

Teachers at Joyce Public School use the provincial curriculum, and work, in teams, with students in kindergarten to grade 5 – and families from all over the world – to produce exciting multimedia, multilingual works.  The students really like what they do – and they are learning to read and communicate in English.

Learn more!  >> Watch this 4 minute video created by TVOParents.

Do you have a question for Heather?

As researcher of the month, Heather is looking forward to receiving your questions about reading, technology and multilingual classrooms! No question is too big, or too small. We will post all your questions and Heather’s answers, here on our website.

Read the latest Q & A with Heather

>> # 1. The rules of English pronunciation have always perplexed me…

>> #2. How does one measure the effectiveness of multi-media / multi-lingual approaches?

Here’s a bit more information about Professor Heather Lotherington:

Heather Lotherington started her career in education as an English as a Second Language teacher in Papua New Guinea and Singapore, then returned to graduate study in linguistics where her focus was on ‘language maintenance’ – how to preserve and strengthen languages being influenced by the dominance of global languages like English.

About fifteen years ago, she started working in the field of ‘multi-literacies’, a theory which emphasizes how people become literate in multiple languages and new visual and digital forms, from pencil and paper text to web publishing and gaming.  Her research goes beyond the theory to ask, ‘what would this look like in the classroom?’

To answer it she began to work – and learn – with the staff at a highly diverse school in Toronto.  The challenge was to change children’s experience of schooling from an experience of “backwards time travel” because too often, schools don’t incorporate the stories and technologies children take for granted in their home lives.  Schools that take advantage of diversity and technology open up possibilities.  Joyce Public School, which was a front runner in teaching with technology, was the perfect partner. Working with teachers already exploring digital forms of communication, classes developed multilingual texts so kids’ home languages were part of projects.  According to Heather, because of the emphasis on using home languages, “The kids go from ‘you don’t speak English’ to ‘what language is that?’”

 

Out of that work has come changed experiences for children, a body of research and writing, countless workshops for educators and families, and a new book The Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Rewriting Goldilocks.

Find out more about Heather on York University’s website