ABSTRACT In culturally and linguistically diverse school settings, English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) specialist teachers play a critical role in fostering equitable, socially just, and responsive learning environments. In Australia, EAL/D learners are students whose first language is not Standard Australian English (SAE) and who require targeted support to develop proficiency in SAE. This paper reports on a study examining EAL/D teachers’ reported pedagogical practices that nurture multilingual students’ plurilingual repertoires as acts of social justice. Framed through pedagogical judgement—encompassing action, reasoning, and responsibility—the study explored how teachers leveraged students’ cultural and linguistic resources as learning assets. Data were generated through in-depth semi-structured interviews with five EAL/D specialist teachers working with newly arrived Ezidi refugee-background students in a regional town in New South Wales. Findings indicate that teachers enacted inclusive, plurilingual practices grounded in strong pedagogical reasoning and a moral commitment to equity. Despite recognising persistent monolingual and deficit discourses, teachers actively challenged these narratives by affirming students’ linguistic and cultural identities.

ABSTRACT This study examines how plurilingual practices shape interaction, language awareness, and translanguaging in autonomous tandem language learning (TLL) involving languages other than English (LOTEs). Fourteen university students participated in a semester-long Czech-based TLL course, keeping reflective diaries and completing open-ended questionnaires. Thematic analysis explored how learners reflected on and mobilised their plurilingual repertoires. Participants drew on languages beyond the two target ones to sustain communication, negotiate meaning, and compare linguistic and cultural features. Metalinguistic awareness emerged as learners identified similarities and differences across their repertoires and strategically transferred linguistic resources to facilitate understanding and reflection. Translanguaging functioned both as a communicative strategy in interaction and as a discursive resource in writing, supporting the articulation of complex plurilingual identities. These findings problematise the long-standing separation of languages and target-language-only principles, underscoring the pedagogical potential of tandem formats as dynamic spaces for fostering plurilingual competence. The inclusion of both widely taught languages (German, French, Spanish) and less common ones (Swedish, Finnish, Japanese) offers new insights into plurilingual interaction in TLL and underscores the potential of tandem learning to foster pluralistic autonomy-oriented pedagogies.

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the transitions experienced by international mobility students during semester-long sojourns in English as a Lingua Franca Study Abroad contexts, with a particular focus on the role of language. It responds to recent critiques of dominant terminology in mobility research by shifting the focus from fixed categories such as ‘integration’ to the more flexible, process-oriented notion of transitions — understood as multidimensional and ongoing adaptations to change [Jindal-Snape, D. 2023. “Re-Conceptualising Multiple and Multi-dimensional Transitions of International Students and Significant Others.” In Research with International Students: Critical Conceptual and Methodological Considerations, edited by J. Mittelmeier, S. Lomer, and K. Unkule, 165–173. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003290803-21]. The study also addresses a gap in the literature by offering a systematic account of language as a dynamic factor shaping students’ transitions. Drawing on longitudinal qualitative data from 22 Croatian economics students, four interrelated dimensions of transitions were identified: transitions into adulthood, into a global identity, into a wider academic community, and into the host context. Across all dimensions, language proved to be not only a communicative tool, but also a symbolic, emotional, and strategic resource. Participants activated their plurilingual repertoires in flexible, context-sensitive ways, often shifting between English as a lingua franca, host languages, and other previously acquired languages. These findings support calls for acknowledging diverse linguistic and cultural realities/experiences, and for moving beyond fixed notions of integration toward more holistic understandings of international student experiences.

ABSTRACT Mainstream classroom teachers are increasingly being called on to affirm pupils’ linguistic identity and to use plurilingual repertoires as didactic resources for learning. Multilingual pedagogical approaches often point to the value of enabling pupils to use their home language in group work and discussions, yet little research has explored the perspectives of pupils who are the only speakers of their language in a class. This paper explores how such pupils participate and interact when their teachers begin to implement ‘Functional Multilingual Learning’ in their highly linguistically diverse primary school in a socio-economically deprived area of Brussels, Belgium. Drawing on classroom video and pupil interviews collected over 9 months, it shows how sole-speaker pupils employed overt and covert acts of self and interpersonal positioning in order to narrate and navigate their linguistic competence in a classroom community that could not understand them. Multilingual practice sometimes reinforced a sense of solitude, particularly when pupils struggled to convert symbolic capital into meaningful linguistic and didactic capital. Yet their position could be could nonetheless be harnessed to support productive learning outcomes and to enable sole-speaker pupils to 'be multilingual'in school.

This brief research report explores the language choices of Emirati fathers when sharing reading with their young children, and discusses how implicit plurilingual family language policies may be expressed through these choices. Participants’ responses were shared via WhatsApp messages following on from workshops provided by the team which offered tips for sharing reading. Fathers’ reported language choices for communicating via shared reading prompted the authors to reflect on these practices and situate them within a larger discussion on plurilingualism and the ways in books may be shared within plurilingual homes. The language choices of Emirati fathers demonstrate a range of implicit family language policies. They allude to translanguaging and plurilingual practices, which become enacted policies within the home. With some children wishing to read in English, others wishing to read in Arabic, some fathers reading in Emirati Arabic and combinations of all of those languages and language varieties, and only a few of them reading the book in the language within which it was originally printed, it seems like a translanguaging stance is being taken for communication within homes, as plurilingual repertoires are being actively harnessed through this shared reading.

ABSTRACT The current study investigates the predictive relationships among demographic (arrival age, gender, SES), linguistic (exposure, home languages), and social-psychological (attitude, motivation, parental aspirations) factors and immigrant students’ plurilingual self-assessment (SA). The sample includes 160 French-speaking immigrant youth drawn from 6 Israeli schools. Drawing on holistic views of multilingualism, the study utilises a unique plurilingual ‘can-do’ instrument for examining students’ SA in three languages: (1) French, the heritage language (2) Hebrew, the school language and (3) English taught as a foreign language. Questionnaires were administered to collect information about the factors under investigation. Hierarchical regression analyses reveal a differential pattern of prediction of SA in French, Hebrew and English respectively involving analogous background variables, notably current language use, and those playing a language-specific role, e.g. integrative orientation to learn French and Hebrew. Moreover, SA in Hebrew and English were found to be significantly related, implying that SA of additional languages is interdependent. The results highlight the role of the sociolinguistic context and the specificity of each language as a source of variation in multilingual learning among immigrant students besides individual characteristics. The results imply that immigrants’ perceived plurilingual repertoire along with context-specific variables must be taken into account in their instruction and assessment.

ABSTRACT This study provides insight into Vocational Education & Training (VET) students’ plurilingual repertoires, their behaviours during and attitudes towards interactions in daily life, school and work. A multi-modal approach comprising language mapping, reflective discussions and focus group (FG) interviews with VET students in the Netherlands (N = 38) shows that both heritage- and majority-language students possess rich plurilingual repertoires which are used in distinctly different ways in daily life and at work, but not at school. Students generally possess an open attitude towards plurilingualism, which is tempered by perceived limitations in language proficiency and language retrieval difficulties. The study shows that students’ existing plurilingual competences, and issues encountered when employing these, are currently neither recognised nor addressed in the school context. Implications for education are formulated.

One of the aims of early language learning is to guarantee equal access to language learning for all children and to develop their plurilingualism. Studies on multilingual practices in early foreign language learning and teaching are, however, scarce. This study fills this gap by examining Finnish teachers’ experiences of the possibilities and obstacles for the development of pupils’ plurilingual repertoire and equal participation in the teaching of English starting in the first grade. The data comprised 550 teacher responses to a questionnaire on the practices of early language learning. Qualitative thematic analysis of the data revealed that teachers saw as supportive factors positive attitude towards language learning, children’s courage to interaction, development of linguistic and cultural awareness, teacher’s bilingual practices, and peer support. Problems in the skills of one’s first language and the school language and in teaching arrangements were seen as challenges.

Resorting to ecolinguistic theories, underscoring the concept of (trans)languaging and methodologies highlighting the need for analytical contextualization (Steffensen, Fill, 2014), the author presents the understanding of success in learning English as an L2 among selected multilingual students of Applied Linguistics at his home university, for whom knowledge of English and other languages is to be a final product of a professional character. Data has been elicited via focus group interview methodology (Parker, Tritter, 2006; Lankiewicz, 2023) with the use of a semi-structured interview and thematic framework analysis. The research findings suggest that English occupies a special place in students’ plurilingual repertoires and its pluricentric character helps them to be legitimate L2 users of their linguistic repertoires who do not measure their success by native speaker standards. The research undertaken offers insights into the process of the language learning evaluation of multilinguals via including their full linguistic repertoires to account for language learning processes.

ABSTRACT Albeit the growing plurilingual research due to the new sociolinguistic realities in education and a reaction to the dominant monolingual bias, few studies have focused on plurilingual assessment and students’ ideologies towards using their plurilingual competence and resources such as translanguaging. A total sample of 36 undergraduates who completed a five-month EMI or ESP course in Catalonia, Spain, participated in our study. We examined their stance-taking discourse on a speaking assessment task in which they could draw upon all their communicative resources if they felt that it would increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their message. Findings suggested that, rather than two clear extreme positions, there is a continuum of positions in favour and against the legitimacy of using their whole plurilingual repertoire. Moreover, our results also showed the dominance of a deeply-ingrained monolingual mindset among the learners which leads them to implicitly or explicitly resist the possibility of translanguaging.

Academic writing is an inseparable aspect of graduate school (Holmes et al., 2018) as students’ academic writing is the primary basis for assessment (Turner, 2011). The high-stakes nature of academic writing is magnified for plurilingual students, whose attendance at English medium universities is growing exponentially (Fenton-Smith & Humphreys, 2017). However, there is a scarcity of research that addresses how faculty support writing as an essential practice for plurilingual graduate students, particularly in English-medium universities where English is implicated in structures of power and privilege. Employing a critical analytic collaborative autoethnography (Anderson, 2006; Kempny, 2022) this research uses polyvocal conversations among seven researcher/practitioners to consider the question of how faculty members perceive and respond to the academic writing needs of plurilingual graduate students. Informed by intersectionality (Crenshaw, 2017; Hankivsky, 2014), these conversations illuminate the ways both educator identities and epistemological turns in education theory impact approaches to writing support for plurilingual graduate writers. Importantly, these discussions are implicated in the socio-political contexts of Canadian and Australian universities where systems of inequality act to marginalise plurilingual writers. These contextualised conversations then aim to problematise and revise existent, dominant deficit discourses and pedagogies of writing support for plurilingual students. Findings illuminate the capacity of educators, who are cognisant of their power and place, to generate alternative practices to support plurilingual graduate writers in service of more asset-orientated and inclusive spaces that take advantage of students’ plurilingual repertoires in English-dominant universities.

This study focuses on the role of affects in additional language learning in the context of mobility. The starting point is the discovery of Francophone migrant literature by intermediate-level learners of French at an international university in Bulgaria. It concerns in particular the encounter with the Hungarian-Swiss writer Agota Kristof and her autobiographical text “L’Analphabète” [The Illiterate], which reveals a polarized attitude towards languages that have marked her life and career. Brought to reflect on the tension behind the way the author qualifies languages as “enemies” or “friends”, the learners share their own attitudes towards the languages of their repertoires through reflective drawings (language portraits), autobiographical narratives, and semi-structured interviews. Qualitative analysis of the collected data was conducted to examine in what ways students express their affects relating to languages with different status and how their attitudes are connected to the mobilities and other significant changes they have experienced. The results indicate that the participants express predominantly positive affects. All are attached to their initial languages, although this strong identification may be destabilizing in critical situations like mobilities abroad and significant life changes. English has an important place in the learners’ identity and is related to fluency, comfort, desire, and various opportunities. French is cherished mostly for its aesthetic values, although pleasure is often mixed with anxiety due to the lower levels of proficiency. Students feel attracted to additional languages, which they connect to cultural and leisure activities but have omitted other languages from their repertoires since they do not feel strongly attached to them. It appears that both teachers and learners can benefit from the multimodal autobiographical approach as it allows to explore the complexity of the learners’ plurilingual repertoires, the stories behind their construction, and the affects related to this process. / Keywords: additional language, affects, language portrait, migrant literature, mobility, multimodality, plurilingualism

Abstract Plurilingualism goes beyond the mere ability to use multiple languages; it emphasizes the interconnected nature of languages within an individual's linguistic competence. In line with the European language policy, university students are becoming users of several languages, and international university students in Czech universities often learn Czech as their fourth language or beyond (L4+). Understanding how their linguistic competencies interact can impact their language acquisition experience. Learners may perceive interactions among the languages within their linguistic repertoire. The concept of Perceived Positive Language Interaction (PPLI, Thompson, 2016) pertains to the perception that languages previously studied are interrelated in a positive way, ultimately enhancing a plurilingual's ability to acquire additional languages. This study explores the relationships between Czech as an additional language and the learners' prior languages. The research aims to answer three main questions: Do learners of Czech as L4+ perceive positive interactions among their learned languages? In what areas do these interactions manifest? How does Czech relate to their other languages? The study was conducted at a Czech university that provides optional introductory Czech courses (A1/A2), primarily to students in the Erasmus+ program. Fifty-four international students filled in an open-ended online questionnaire over two consecutive semesters. The analysis revealed that while students perceived positive interactions among some of the languages they had learned, especially within language families, interactions across typologically different languages occurred, particularly between Czech and German. The participants' mother tongue also emerged as a significant factor. While language instruction often follows a monolingual approach, where the target language is the primary mode of classroom interaction (Woll, 2020), learners may significantly benefit from their previous language learning experiences when learning an additional language. Despite the relatively limited research sample, this study suggests the didactic potential of positive language interaction in language teaching and learning and highlights further research opportunities.

Abstract The need to reconsider the value of mediation in language teaching/learning has been highlighted due to such processes as globalization and migration in the contemporary world. The importance of a language learner's entire plurilingual repertoire has been emphasized in The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) Companion Volume (2020) and students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds have been recognized as useful teaching resources to enhance language learning (Piccardo & North, 2017). The application of translanguaging has become an innovative method applied in language teaching and is now seen as a tool for increasing learners’ commitment and self-belief (Duarte, 2020). A survey was conducted to explore the role of mediation in learning a host country's language in the UK and Lithuania. The study aimed to investigate the use of non-linguistic competences to reduce linguistic and cultural barriers, encourage collaboration among language learners, and improve their competence in translanguaging. The survey included 23 English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) students (levels A2 and B1) and 15 Lithuanian as a second language students (levels A1 and A2). A quantitative and qualitative research methodology was used to analyze their language learning experiences during mediated lessons of the target language. The results of the surveys and short semi-formal interviews showed that learners had developed various non-linguistic competences and demonstrated the ability to use other languages for learning a new language. Although most of the research participants agreed that such a way of learning had helped them to successfully learn the target language and preserve their national identity in a foreign country, a careful guidance provided by a language teacher is necessary in order not to be misguided among the variety of similar or different languages.

Abstract This study aims to bridge the gap between ‘communicative’ and ‘plurilingual’ approaches, by providing a means for teachers to integrate learners’ plurilingual repertoires when teaching an additional language (Lx). We developed a model of crosslinguistic instruction embedded within the task-based language teaching approach. It consists of a 4 stages task sequence: input-based task, crosslinguistic consciousness-raising task, output-based task, and recap of the sequence. An iterative process of field testing and analysis (Harvey & Loiselle, 2009) allowed us to refine the model: researchers in-depth analysis (functional field test), implementation of the model in Lx classrooms (empirical field test) and experts assessment (second functional field test). Participant perceptions and evaluations provide an overview of their appreciation of different aspects, which lead to the current version of the model.

The question, ‘how to deal with language issues in Korean public education in the era of transnational mobility?’ initiated this study. This case-study aimed to explore the possibilities of implementing plurilingualism based on CEFR in Korean classrooms through examining in-service teachers’ experimental plurilingual classes. The research participants were eight teachers who attended online meetings through zoom and Google classroom as a ‘community of practice’ over a year. The eight plurilingual classes developed by the teachers had five common characteristics: convergence of language and cultural elements, integration of multicultural contents, student-centered activities, subject-based plurilingual education, and use of multimodal materials and technology. It was also found that, from the perspective of plurilingualism, the developed plurilingual classes aimed to change students’ perceptions of languages through experiencing diverse languages; to develop their plurilingual comprehension; to build on their plurilingual repertoire; to build on their pluricultural repertoire; and to raise their critical awareness of power issues in languages. This study is meaningful in that it served as a space for teachers not only to learn about plurilingualism but also to design plurilingual classes and see how it actually works in their own classrooms.

ABSTRACT Watching Netflix, YouTube or TikTok videos are day-to-day activities of young people which can produce different language encounters. We argue that watching videos online opens opportunities for students to use their plurilingual repertoires through different and combined modalities and analysing these practices is useful to construct the multi-situated learning in the classroom. This is an exploratory study that aims to document how Portuguese university students engage in video practices, meaning watching videos, reacting to videos and commenting on videos. In 2022, we issued a questionnaire aimed at all students at the University of Aveiro, collected 212 full responses, and analysed it through descriptive statistics. The results attest to the language diversity of the new media, where English, though dominating, is not the only foreign language used by participants, featuring Spanish, French, Korean and Japanese. To understand these languages, the participants mostly used subtitles in different languages and intercomprehension strategies. The students were confident that they learnt different languages through video practices, especially English and Romance languages. These results indicate that online video practices frequently lead to valuable multilingual and multimodal encounters, hence they could be beneficial to use in the classroom to enrich students’ plurilingual repertoires and multiliteracies.

This study focuses on the role of plurilingual repertoires in the construction of identities among adolescents in the Arabian Gulf region. The region attracts numerous migrant workers, each contributing to the linguistic diversity of a largely multilingual yet under-researched population. We analyzed visual data -specifically language portraits (LPs) -and interview responses from twelve adolescents attending a Turkish school in this region. This school was chosen for two reasons: firstly, its plurilingual environment was representative of the diverse linguistic interactions we aimed to study, and secondly, the school offered convenient access to the study group as the first author was working there as a teacher. Our analysis contributes to the understanding of the complex and dynamic interplay between plurilingual repertoires and identity constructions. A thematic and metaphorical analysis of LPs reveals how the young participants navigated their identities amidst intricate relationships among social, territorial, imagined, and symbolic affiliations. These connections notably shape the dynamics of transit societies, particularly in settings where English is the common language.

Abstract It is undeniable that English has become the worldwide lingua franca for the academic world. Many countries have therefore opted for Higher Education programmes fully in English, of which the Netherlands is the frontrunner. Language policies that include drawing on students plurilingual repertoires could offer the opportunity to employ several languages in the classroom (Duarte and van der Ploeg 2019). Although the attitudes of lecturers have been studied before, students are often overlooked when creating language policies and in particular students in language-related courses. This mixed-method study aimed to map the affordances and constraints associated with the implementation of a plurilingual policy from the students’ perspective. First, 20 h of classroom observations showed that plurilingual approaches were used when explaining concepts, yet were refrained from when struggling with the language of instruction. Second, a survey with 103 students attending language-related courses showed general positive attitudes towards using plurilingual approaches, in which being proficient in a large number of languages played a significant role. Overall, the affordances of a plurilingual policy, such as new ways of thinking, and the use of a student’s full linguistic repertoire, surpassed the constraints, such as the lack of inclusion, and as a result, the advantage for Dutch students was mentioned.

Abstract This partially longitudinal study focussed on the ability of pupils to write descriptive texts in English and French as foreign languages and German as language of schooling. The teaching of two foreign languages from primary school onwards is compulsory in Switzerland, where this study is situated. The study responds to the urgent need for empirical research on cross-linguistic and cross-level development as a foundation for the improvement of language teaching. Current curricula do provide for the coherent fostering of the plurilingual repertoires of learners, across languages and school levels. But this still stands in sharp contrast to the multiple compartmentalisations and discontinuities induced by the educational system. Letters with spatial descriptions were collected in a quasi-experimental design in the canton of St. Gallen at the end of primary school (Year 6, N=185) and in the first year of secondary school (Year 7, N=218). The texts were analysed in terms of spatial organisation and text length. Moderate but statistically significant correlations between languages were found for both variables. The analysis revealed continuity of the development in the foreign languages, but stagnation in the language of schooling. The benefits of fostering transversally accessible textual patterns through a genre-based approach, in particular for the second foreign language (L3), are discussed.