Approximately 40 percent of CUNY undergraduates speak a language other than English at home, and with 174 different languages spoken across campuses, CUNY is one of the most linguistically diverse universities in the nation. In a recent Teaching and Learning Center workshop, we looked at ways in which we can leverage this multilingualism in our classrooms and how we can better support our non-native English speaking students. Research and resources on bilingualism in the K-12 classroom has greatly expanded over the past years, with the CUNY-NYS Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals, for example, and multilingualism is, rightly, increasingly seen as an asset rather than a hindrance in student learning. We wanted to know what a classroom that leverages our students’ (and possibly our own) full linguistic repertoire would look like and what we can do, as GC instructors and in the wide variety of courses we teach, to embrace this linguistic diversity.

Multilingualism is, rightly, increasingly seen as an asset rather than a hindrance in student learning

One of the first takeaways from a very fruitful discussion is that often we already do a lot to accommodate and build on our students’ backgrounds. One of the workshop participants shared that in her French classes at Hunter College she has come to notice that her Spanish speaking students approach their new language completely differently from her English speaking students. But responding to these differences usually happens “on the fly” and she wonders how you can formalize or more consciously work with these differences so that students learn in the best way possible for them. Often, we all realized, we respond to our classrooms’ multilingualism like that: on the fly. So what would we need to do, and what would we need to keep in mind, if we want this to be less spontaneous and more part of the structure of our course and our teaching practice?

In thinking this through, we started to realize that in every case you want to acknowledge but never essentialize students’ linguistic or cultural backgrounds. Just like you never want to ask a student to speak as a representative of a country or culture, a language is not necessarily a defining trait or something even that a student might want to emphasize. All workshop participants, mostly language instructors, said that for many of their students learning another, third language can also feel like an opportunity to move away from their (linguistic) rootedness and feel a kind of freedom learning something new.

Just like you never want to ask a student to speak as a representative of a country or culture, a language is not necessarily a defining trait or something even that a student might want to emphasize

We ourselves went through that same experience, which came to the surface when we did a short sample activity, “My Name, My Identity.” This activity asks students to think and free write about their names (first, middle, last, nicknames), maybe the language it’s (originally) in, the culture it’s from, and any meanings, naming practices, but also personal feelings one has (had) about their names. It’s a great way to share thoughts on name, language, and identity as a way to recognize and appreciate how our and our students’ names are signifiers of so much more. Yet, when sharing the stories of our names we all said we’d felt the same almost liberating feeling when in a new city or even new country your name does not have the same meaning and or connotations as in your home environment.

Learning another, third language can also feel like an opportunity to move away from their (linguistic) rootedness and feel a kind of freedom learning something new.

So when sharing examples of activities and assignment, we agreed that at all times we want these to incorporate multilingualism as a possibility. As one participant put it, we want to “leave the door open” but not demand students to walk through.