Using and Researching Dual Language Books for Children

Young Authors

The Computer Geek / Geek Computri by Magda and Albana is now available as an e-book. Click to view

"This is so much fun. It's been a great experience to actually make a book. We have worked really hard to make this fantastic book and we are proud of ourselves" (Magda and Albana, 2010)

The teachers at Christchurch Primary School in Ilford make extensive use of dual language books and encourage the parents of bilingual children to read to their children in both languages. Encouraged by their teacher, Navneet  Padda, some of the children also learn to read for themselves in their home language, as Magda and Albana did, and working with their mothers in Albanian

Having become fluent readers they learned to write in Albanian through keeping diaries when on holiday in Albania. The diaries turned into illustrated bilingual books which their school published.

After the success of Magda and Albana’s adventures into biliteracy the school’s Ethnic Minority Achievement co-ordinator, Catherine Coop invited the 15 francophone children in the school and their parents to a meeting. As a result of this meeting 9 children from Reception and Y1 classes worked with Catherine to write a group story in English. They later worked together with two of their mothers to translate the story into French and illustrate it.

A group of KS2 children produced, in a similar manner, a highly inventive and complex story in English which challenged all of them (and their mothers and teachers!) to translate.

While the children, whose families originate from France, Mauritius, Cameroon and Morocco, all understand French and used it in varying degrees in the home, there were very few opportunities for them to use the language in school.  In the course of producing the French version of their books the children gradually gained confidence in using French in a school environment and explored and played with the sounds, the structure and the meaning of their two languages. Both books were published by the school and printed in a limited edition of 15 copies.

In the meantime Magda and Albana, now in Y5 and studying Albanian in classes on Sunday mornings, were following up the success of their holiday stories by working together both in the classroom and in their lunch hours to make up their own adventure story from scratch and translate into Albanian as they went along. The fantasy in cyberspace was also published by the school, all three books were formally launched in July 2010 and the e-book was made available by the UEL Web and Digital Media Department in March 2011.

Magda and Albana

The authors of the Dragon in the Jungle

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© 2011