We invite you to this special event which is a launch of a special edition of TESOL in Context that focuses on Early Childhood Education. The papers address important questions about the place of home languages in early childhood contexts, and focus on plurilingual pedagogy in early childhood education, mothers as first teachers in remote Indigenous contexts and a bilingual Samoan- English early childhood community kindergarten program in Queensland.

Presenters

Paper 1 – Leveraging languages for learning: Incorporating plurilingual pedagogies in early childhood education and care

Dr Caroline Cohrssen is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong and Honorary Fellow, Melbourne Graduate School of Education at The University of Melbourne.

Dr Yvette Slaughter is Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education within the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (The University of Melbourne).

Dr Edith Nicolas, is a linguist and lecturer in early childhood education at The University of Melbourne.

Paper 2  – Mothers as first teachers: exploring the features of mother- child interactions that support young Aboriginal children’s multilingual learning at playgroup

Janet Scull is an Associate Professor in Language and Literacy at Monash University.

Dr Jane Page is an Associate Professor and Associate Director, Pedagogy and Leadership Research in the Research in Effective Education in Early Childhood (REEaCh) Hub at the University of Melbourne.

Paper 3 – Knowing who you are: Heritage language, identity and safe space in a bilingual kindergarten

Kerry Taylor-Leech is an applied sociolinguist attached to Griffith University Institute for Educational Research.

Eseta Tualaulelei is a senior lecturer with the School of Education at the University of Southern Queensland.