Supporting inclusion through innovation: Faculty perceptions of a content and language integrated model of support in a Canadian, anglophone university

This presentation shares research findings that reveal the challenges and opportunities of implementing a language and content integrated approach at the institutional level in a Canadian anglophone university with increasing numbers of multilingual students (i.e. international, recent immigrant, or exchange students). In addition to gathering insights from language faculty on implementing such an approach, the study focuses on issues, questions, and professional learning opportunities perceived by content faculty in supporting multilingual students across the disciplines. Qualitative data were gathered through interviews and professional learning focus group meetings with faculty members in the fields of Education, Engineering, Business, and Health Sciences who had engaged in a variety of collaborative activities in support of students’ discipline-specific academic language and literacy development: The end goal was to facilitate an institutional change management process by engaging faculty members across these disciplines to re-examine ‘drop-in’ and ‘adjunct weak’ models of language support, and to rethink their teaching practices given increased internationalization and diversity in higher education.