Language Educators Exchange
The Language Educators' Exchange is a podcast for language enthusiasts and learners of all levels, hosted by Drs. Sarah Albrecht and Aniqa Shah. Every month, we dive into the fascinating world of language teaching and learning, offering expert insights and practical tips from language educators and researchers. Our episodes are packed with the latest techniques in language teaching and ideas for turning research into practice. We invite you to tune in on the 15th of every month to join us for engaging discussions that will enhance your teaching journey and inspire your passion for language education! For the upcoming year, we would love to hear from in-service teachers regarding research-based strategies they use in their language classrooms. Please reach out to us on our Language Educators' Exchange Podcast page on FaceBook if you are interested!
Language Educators Exchange
Strategies 5: Teacher-Created Mentor Texts
In this episode of The Language Educators' Exchange, hosts Dr. Aniqa Shah and Dr. Sarah Albrecht welcome Dr. Mandy Stewart, professor at Texas Woman’s University and author of The Multilingual ELA Classroom (NCTE). Dr. Stewart shares the HEART approach to teaching for biliteracy—strategies that empower teachers to support multilingual learners even when they do not speak students’ home languages. Focusing on the “T” in HEART (teacher-created mentor texts), she offers concrete classroom examples from the U.S. and Poland that highlight how identity-affirming, multimodal mentor texts foster engagement, belonging, and biliteracy development for immigrant and refugee students. Listeners will leave with practical ideas, research-based insights, and links to open-access resources they can immediately apply in their own classrooms.
Resources:
Open Access Journal Articles that show teacher mentor texts for language learning.
- In Poland-And this gives a full explanation of the HEART approach to teaching for biliteracy
- In the US
- Forthcoming book with NCTE that shows teacher mentor texts PreK-12
Stewart, M.A. & & Abbasher, D. (2024). Supporting biliteracy in the English language arts through family partnerships: Cases of early childhood teachers and their Arabic- and Russian-speaking students. Research in the Teaching of English, 59(1), 19-46. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.58680/rte202459119
Stewart, M.A., & Genova, H. (2020). But does this work with English learners? A guide for English Language Arts teachers grades 6-12. Corwin.
Flint, P., Dollar, T. & Stewart, M.A. (2019). Hurdling over language barriers: Building relationships with adolescent newcomers through literacy advancement. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 62(5), 509-519. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.927
