Sultan Turkan

I research ways to improve educational practices for multilingual immigrant children. My research is guided by the view of language as a resource (rather than a deficiency) for effectively teaching immigrant learners. I have conducted research on the validity and fairness of assessments administered to these learners and their teachers and investigated ways to provide opportunities for immigrant children to demonstrate their funds of knowledge in assessments and classrooms. As the lead author of influential papers, I have argued that teachers need to develop specialized knowledge base and set of skills in order for the work of teaching to attend to the translanguaging practices of the multilingual learners. Current research project examines the development of formative simulated classroom environments for educating science teachers to teach immigrant children. I have nine years of teaching experience in higher education and foreign language contexts with culturally and linguistically diverse groups.

My academic background is in language teaching and teacher education. My research focuses on promoting bilinguals/multilinguals’ participation and engagement in the formal and informal processes of schooling and other sociocultural landscapes through drawing on bilinguals/multilinguals’ linguistic and cultural capital. I am primarily influenced by Bakhtinian and Vygotskyan perspectives to research languaging practices, linguistic and cultural identity formations, and the work of learning to teach students with rich languaging backgrounds and practices.