Literacies in the English classroom: leveraging and extending the linguistic repertoire of all students

Abstract

In countries such as Australia, the bi/multilingual student demographic is increasing. Bi/multilingual students are commonly learning alongside monolingual students and also Indigenous and first-and-second-generation immigrant students who have a great range of exposure to heritage languages. In this article, we explore how literacies and language variation can be drawn together in order to support teachers’ navigation of linguistic diversity in the English classroom. More specifically, we discuss how linguistic variation can be an explicit focus, and how extending students’ linguistic repertoire can be an end in itself. If home language resources are solely considered to be a scaffold for standardised English language practices at school, or a way to transition students to English, they are not applicable to monolingual (in English) students nor students who have grown up speaking English as well as another home language. This orientation does not do justice to the learning potential related to linguistic diversity. We propose that the embedding of language variation in literacies and multimodality, digital multimodal composing in particular, is a way to address the intrinsic value of developing students’ linguistic repertoire as a whole.