ABSTRACT
Their profi le questionnaires indicated that 43% of the students were born in Canada, although only 14% (three participants) reported English as their fi rst language. In addition to English, 15 other languages were spoken in participants’ homes: Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, French, Jamaican Patois, Kikongo, Lingala, Mandarin, Pashto, Portuguese, Seswati, Somali, Tamil, Urdu, and Vietnamese. Most of the students were highly multilingual: 49% spoke two languages at home, and 28% spoke three or more languages at home. Three students, however, spoke only English. With respect to writing, eight students said they wrote in one home language, nine wrote in two home languages, and four wrote in three home languages. Most of the students reported family literacy activities taking place in their home languages, and in 62% of the students’ homes, reading and writing were said to take place in two or more home languages. Seventeen students lived with both of their parents; four lived with a single parent. The average level of their mothers’ education was high school, whereas the students’ fathers generally had some college education (most in a country other than Canada), although without completing a degree. On average, the students had one older and one younger sibling.
