Mixing languages to build confidence and raise achievement

Kathryn meets Dr Corinne Seals, a senior lecturer in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies at Victoria University, who has been researching how to help multilingual pre-schoolers improve their English by mixing the languages they know. Called 'translanguaging', the idea is that multilingual speakers draw on whichever language they need at the time to communicate. Dr Seals says mixing the languages they know together builds confidence and helps them demonstrate what they know, which makes it easier to learn a different language. She says her research shows that children naturally learn this way, and her research has strong implications for how we teach children additional languages.