Kelleen TOOHEY

From Precis

was born and raised in the multilingual city of Edmonton, Alberta, where English was the dominant language, but there were significant communities speaking Ukrainian, German, French, and other languages. To her, speaking another language seemed like some kind of magical power, and she was excited to begin audio-visual French instruction in fourth grade, learning about the escapades of Madame and Monsieur Thibault with filmstrips. Her French instruction in high school was similarly uninteresting, and despite the heavy use of language labs in her school, she did not attain any magical power in speaking French, although she passed the written tests required for university entrance. She did, however, enjoy learning Latin, as did many of her classmates, mostly because of their wonderful teacher who provided stories about the students in Latin for translation.

Spending summers as a child at a lake in northern Alberta, Kelleen came into contact there with First Nations people who spoke Cree. She took a few Cree courses in university, and did her Masters and PhD research in two Cree communities, the first in Alberta and the second in Ontario.

Teaching English as a second language to immigrants in her university years led Kelleen to study Spanish, and her previous study of Latin was helpful in this endeavour. Participation in a Canadian research consortium since 1996 with Quebecois colleagues stimulated her interest in learning French again, and she studies it now, with renewed enthusiasm. She conducts research in schools in British Columbia enrolling immigrant and refugee children from a wide variety of different backgrounds. Her most recent projects concern the development of print and multimodal literacies in English and other languages in children and youth.