The Changing Landscape of Education (25 September 2020)

Initial teacher education (ITE) in New Zealand continues to build teachers' competencies to support bicultural and bilingual learners. All of the ITE programmes in the FoE have been redesigned to be consistent with a culturally sustaining theoretical framework, Te Waharoa. Our classes are increasingly digital or blended. Meanwhile, the decline in international student numbers as a result of Covid-19 has affected how bilingual and multilingual learners are taught in schools. Translanguaging is a pedagogical tool that enhances the learning of bilingual and multilingual learners. This can be employed both online and face-to-face, in synchronous or asynchronous classes. Translanguaging allows learners to engage their full repertoire of linguistic skills and sets them up for life-long learning regardless of the changing linguistic and educational landscape..