Description
This talk discusses how translingual and transcultural picturebooks develop linguistic competencies and cultivate young language enquirers. It focuses on the production and reception of I want to Speak Ukrainain, a trilingual picture book in English, Ukrainian and Irish that was created in 2022 to facilitate interlingual and intercultural exchange in Irish schools in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Our talk will introduce the text which was written in both the Roman and Cyrillic script and show some examples of its multilingual illustrations. It present the activities that we created to facilitate its use in two multilingual, primary schools, one in Ireland and one in Spain. It describes some of the intercultural, interlinguistic and intergenerational exchanges that took place in our classrooms and shows a few of the drawings and mini-books that our students produced. A respect for, and interest in, the languages, scripts and cultures of others is a necessary requirement for language learning and the conversations that took place in our classrooms all revolved around the intercultural benefits of being a polyglot speaker. They showed how interaction with translingual, picturebooks can bring about a shift in perspective and engender a humanistic, integrative view of language learning.
Lindsay Myers and Erin Becht
Lindsay Myers is a Lecturer in Italian and Children’s Studies at the University of Galway, Ireland. Her specialisms are Italian children’s literature, picturebooks, children’s literature in translation and the adaptation of children’s books in theatre and film. She is interested in the relationship between words and pictures in multilingual children’s picturebooks and in the playful ways in which these can foster and develop interlinguistic and intercultural competencies. She is the author of two picturebooks for children, I Want to Speak Ukrainian (2022) and Mootsy and the Awfully Big Bite (2020) and an advocate for the child’s voice in children’s literature.
Erin Becht is a PhD candidate in Education at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. She is based in Spain and has over ten years experience as an English, German, and Spanish language teacher. Her PhD project explores the potential of translingual picturebooks in multilingual educational environments. Erin is currently working as a primary teacher at an International school in Northern Spain and enjoys exploring creative ways to support students in developing their linguistic and cultural identities.
This video was recorded at the Polyglot Gathering 2025: https://www.polyglotgathering.com.