Language of Identity, Language of Access: Liberatory Learning for Multilingual Classrooms

Grow students’ linguistic capital AND value their home language

In Language of Identity, Language of Access, authors Michelle Benegas and Natalia Benjamin highlight the urgent need for a revolution in language education that validates home languages and dialects while equipping students with the linguistic tools for social mobility. Their original LILA framework rejects the socially constructed hierarchy of languages and provides students with a broader linguistic repertoire.

This accessible and teacher-friendly guide presents an overview of this liberatory approach to language and literacy, an exploration of linguistically sustaining and expanding instruction, and practical guidance on designing lessons that attend to the language of identity and the language of access. Additional recurring features include:

• Voces provide real-life teacher experiences from the classroom
• Reflecciónes encourage educators to consider how principles and ideas relate to current practice and promote translanguaging
• Practical applications of theories (PATs) provide conceptual frameworks and lesson plans on various topics and activities.
• End of Chapter Conversaciónes encourage dialogue and enable educators to implement concepts in their classrooms.

Offering a fresh perspective on academic language as a means to access power and social capital, Language of Identity, Language of Access is a guide for ALL educators committed to linguistically sustaining pedagogies and empowering students with linguistic capital for social mobility.

Michelle Benegas, Ph.D., is an associate professor of TESOL at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. A former secondary English Language (EL) teacher, her career began in a newcomer high school. She now prepares English language teachers, as well as general education teachers, to meet the needs of linguistically diverse students. She is co-author of Teacher Leadership for School-Wide English Learning (2020, TESOL Press), and co-creator of the School Wide English Learning (SWEL) Professional Development Series for TESOL Education. Benegas has prepared over 600 EL teacher leaders across the country. Her scholarly interests include EL teacher leadership, teacher leader identity, systemic approaches to improving EL services, and etymology. 

Michelle Benegas works with educators! Learn more at benegasconsulting.com/

Natalia Benjamin, EdS is the Director of Multilingual Learning for Rochester Public Schools and prior to that, she taught high school Ethnic Studies and Multilingual Learners in Rochester, MN. She is dually licensed in K-12 ESL and reading and holds a master′s degree in Language Acquisition and Teaching. She advocates for multilingual and multicultural education and is part of the Facing Inequities and Racism in Education - Racial Equity Advocates (FIRE-REA) program. She is also a trainer in Cultural Competency for Education Minnesota. She has been a member of several organizations that support teachers and students: Education Minnesota League of Latinx Educators, Employees of Color Resource Group and Rochester Education Association for her district, and the Women Issues Committee for the National Education Association. She is passionate about the liberation of marginalized students and works on important issues such as identity work, Heritage Speakers, and humanizing pedagogies in education. She is an active member of MinneTESOL and TESOL, and was named Minnesota Teacher of the Year in August, 2021. She has presented at the MELED conference in Minnesota, WITESOL conference, the WIDA conference and the MCTLC conference in Minnesota. She also works with districts nationwide to provide professional development and keynotes on multilingual learning topics.