Supporting bilingual families

There are key practices that practitioners should consider adopting to get the most from their work with bilingual families - as our recent Knowledge Makes Change seminar showed.

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The Knowledge Makes Change seminar series aims to inspire and be informative on ‘what works’ for young children and their families to ensure the best possible outcomes. It forms part of NCB’s work in Jersey and is delivered in partnership with the Jersey Child Care Trust.

On 12 October 2017, Nabiah Sohail gave an exciting and interactive session on Support Bilingual Families as part of our Jersey programme.

Nabiah Sohail is a Clinical Lead Speech and Language Therapist who has a love for multiculturalism and promoting multilingualism. She believes that everyone should have access to high quality services regardless of their cultural and linguistic background. Nabiah is multilingual being able to speak, read and write Urdu and has spoken language skills in Hindi and Punjabi.

Nabiah has worked across a range of clinical areas throughout inner London, been a Teaching Fellow at University College London and is Chair of the London Bilingualism Clinical Excellence Network. Nabiah is passionate about proving that Speech and Language Therapy works and that services can and must show that they are effective and worthwhile. In 2012 Nabiah received The Sternberg Award for Clinical Innovation for her work in Outcome Measures which Nabiah has presented across the country.

Nabiah’s session focused on ‘Saying Yes to Bilingualism’ and exploring the key practices often needed when working with bilingual children, including:

  • Knowing the key difference between identifying when a child has English as an Additional Language or Speech, Language and Communication Needs.
  • Understanding the different types of bilingual children
  • Summarising essential theory and myth busting common questions - such as, “Is code-switching is ok?”
  • Sharing some practical top tips for how early years practitioners can engage with bilingualism in their day to day work.

You can find a copy of Nabiah’s presentation online or watch our recording of the evening on NCB’s YouTube channel.

Also remember to download a copy of our briefing paper which gives a summary of the research and practice supporting Nabiah’s talk.