Multilingual education is on the increase around the world, and there are several reasons for this. Societies are becoming more multilingual because of globalization, movement of people, and so on, and the same is true of school populations. More schools are aiming at bilingualism (using the dominant language plus English) or multilingualism (using the first language plus the dominant language and English, and sometimes other languages). Increasingly, individuals also have more mixed language backgrounds, and all of this is leading to a demand for more multilingual education.
Of course, it is difficult to predict the future, but studies of translanguaging in different models of multilingual education will most likely increase further. The trend is to use learners’ knowledge of other languages as a resource and not an obstacle when learning additional languages. This means moving from learning languages in isolation towards integrated curricula for language learning.
We work on multilingualism in educational contexts where three or more languages are part of the curriculum. We work on the way these languages are learnt and the way emergent multilinguals navigate among their languages. We are currently working on a project on multilingualism in the school where we actively try to intervene with a translanguaging approach to see if metalinguistic awareness of children can be raised.
Our book brings together research studies that focus on the use of different languages in the classroom with particular emphasis on the interaction between the different languages (code choice / translanguaging / code-switching /code meshing etc.) and on language combination versus separation issues.
It’s arranged in two parts preceded by an introduction. The first part includes studies on the use and functions of the L1 (or other previously acquired languages) in the L2/FL class. Its focus is within SLA studies. The second part also includes research studies in the classroom, but the focus is more sociolinguistic and does not refer specifically to the language class but to multilingual children who use more than one language at school (and in many cases out of school). It has a more educational aim and looks not only at language development but also at multiple identities. The final chapter is a meta-discussion of the ideas expressed in the previous chapters of the volume.
We hope it will be of interest to scholars, researchers, PhD-students, educators, teacher trainers and teachers working in bilingual and multilingual educations.
You can find out more about their book here.