This book serves as a professional development guide designed for elementary school teachers to help them center multilingual and bilingual students’ language and culture in the classroom by recognizing and harnessing their students’ assets through semiotics and self-discovery. Its purpose is to promote compassionate education, fostering empathy and connection to students’ identities in response to the known problem of student disengagement and the challenges in teaching reading and writing.
The guide showcases planned and tested modules to facilitate student success in diverse learning environments, and each module includes resources, sample lesson plans, and hands-on experiences designed to help students find joy in learning. Emphasizing strategies intended for learners with varied abilities and interests, this book focuses on students’ identities and cultures as they are related to race, language, heritage, and semiotics. It is an ideal resource for in-service elementary school teachers interested in incorporating culturally responsive teaching practices into their classrooms, as well as for preservice teachers who want to focus on students’ cultures, languages, and assets. Teachers, students, and the student community share the joy of knowledge together through this guide.
By:
Tala Michelle Karkar-Esperat
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781041066941
ISBN 10: 1041066945
Pages: 260
Publication Date: 08 December 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
1. A New Day for Education: A Program Toward Self-Discovery Chapter 2. Self-Discovery through the Linguistic Mode: Idioms, Identity Text, and Storytelling 3. Self-Discovery through the Visual Mode: Examining Customs and Traditions and Visual Knowledge 4. Self-Discovery through the Audio Mode: Examining Language Using Music Genres 5. Self-Discovery through the Spatial Mode: Connecting Local to Global 6. Self-Discovery through the Gestural Mode: Examining Gestures in the Classroom 7. Self-Discovery through the Synesthesia Mode: Examining Culture through Local Historical Figures
Tala Michelle Karkar-Esperat is Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education and Technology at Eastern New Mexico University. Her research is focused on preservice teachers' literacies, online literacies, coaching of teachers, and pedagogical literacy practices through multiliteracies, new literacies, and semiotics.
