Educator Workshop: Readers of the World—Promoting Youth Multilingualism

In Sweden, there are many children who are multilingual. But instead of seeing their mother tongue as an asset, many multilingual people relegate it primarily to the private sphere. Join Karin Hansson and Daniel Gustafsson from the Swedish Center for Translators to learn about the Swedish project Readers Of the World! (Världens läsare!). 

Readers of the World! works with schools and public libraries to encourage multilingual children in marginalized areas to develop their linguistic superpower and to see their mother tongue as a strength. Readers of the World! facilitates interactive, playful workshops between professional translators and young people to show young people that there is a need for their language skills in society and inspire an interest in language development. In this way, the project aims to increase the feeling of participation and belonging in society and inspire language development to strengthen multilingual kids and youths’ feelings of being an important part of Sweden. 

In this City of Asylum-hosted workshop, Karin and Daniel invite Pittsburgh-based educators, librarians, teaching artists, and other partners to learn about Sweden’s Readers of the World! project as well as share their own experiences of working with multilingual young people in Pittsburgh.