Rethinking Diversity in CLIL through an Ecological Lens: Classroom Practices, Teacher Understanding and Learner Agency.

This presentation is based on the tenet that diversity is a complex, multi-levelled phenomenon which requires analysing and understanding by all those involved in specific contexts including the learners. Working towards a shared understanding of 'diverse' learners, and how attainment is transformed into achievement, how individuals 'own' their learning and how teachers and their peers can support them in so doing, requires a hard look at how as educators we understand and frame learning in general and through other languages in particular. When this analysis is open, inclusive and transparent, the processes and conditions for learning require a genuine co-creation of dynamic classrooms which impact on the way teachers teach and learners learn. Transformative practices are possible within any classroom – they are not dependent on national policies and curriculum. Instead they require teachers to develop their own growth mind set alongside their learners, to take some risks and to experiment how in their own spaces all learners have the means to be and become pluriliterate global citizens. Recent research which focuses on teacher design of learning spaces and how normative measures become personalised learning pathways, suggests that inclusive practice – a term frequently used in current literature, policy and guidelines- is not a distinct way of operating relating to so-called 'diverse' classrooms, but inclusivity is fundamental to all learning - any age, any stage. Reference will be made throughout this presentation to recent ADiBE case study research carried out with Professor Kim Bower, supported by Dr Yvonne Foley and Jonathan Hancock, into innovative literacy-oriented ways of successfully addressing diversity in a multilingual, multicultural school in England