Celebrating Mother Language Day: Embracing Linguistic Diversity at LAS

Mother Language Day is a time to celebrate linguistic diversity and the vital role different languages play in student education and identity. While LAS emphasizes English development and proficiency, we recognize that students’ mother languages are valuable for learning and developing inclusion in our community. 

At LAS, we actively promote additive bilingualism through various initiatives. Our home language support includes the IB school-supported self-taught option, the LAS library’s International Collection, public signage in multiple languages, International Week, and inclusive classroom practices. These efforts ensure that multilingualism is not only acknowledged but embraced within our community.

As we celebrate Mother Language Day, we look forward to upcoming sessions such as our multicultural storytelling event in March. Our Savoy ELA students will present storytelling projects centered on bilingual identity. This will be a really fascinating event, as it’s great to hear stories from a speaker rather than reading from a book. This will develop students’ speaking skills and confidence, as well as celebrate their cultures and identities. We encourage everyone to participate in this event to celebrate multiculturalism in our community.

With 75% of our students speaking a language other than English at home, LAS is an ideal setting to celebrate Mother Language Day! We nurture and advocate for multilingualism, encouraging students to develop proficiency in their first and additional languages simultaneously. Through programs such as English Language Acquisition (ELA), having a diverse multilingual library, and going on cultural trips, LAS encourages language learning and global citizenship. Even within student dorms, we pair roommates from different language backgrounds to support cultural and language exchange.

The LAS library plays a significant role in supporting multilingualism, offering an extensive collection of books in multiple languages. We have over 400 French books, more than 200 Chinese selections, 50 Polish works, nearly 200 Japanese texts, and almost 1,000 English Language Acquisition (ELA) books across our two campus libraries. By offering access to diverse reading materials, we help students develop their linguistic skills in their mother tongues and additional languages.

By embracing linguistic diversity, LAS continues to create an environment where all students feel valued and empowered in their language-learning journeys. We can’t wait to celebrate the many languages that make up our incredible LAS community!