Multilinguality, Multimodality, and Multicompetence: Code‐ and Modeswitching by Minority Ethnic Children in Complementary Schools

Abstract

This article examines the multilingual and multimodal practices of British Chinese children in complementary school classes from a multicompetence perspective. Using classroom interaction data from a number of Chinese complementary schools in 3 different cities in England, the article argues that the multicompetence perspective enables a holistic look at codeswitching and modeswitching by multilingual children of minority ethnic background and helps to highlight creativity and criticality—2 important and closely related concepts that have hitherto been underexplored in multilingualism research.