Supporting Advanced Multilingual Speakers as Individuals

Translanguaging is a concept that is increasingly used in multilingualism studies with disparate definitions and uses in the literature. In this chapter, students who are advanced multilingual speakers at home, school, and elsewhere are in focus. The chapter examines historical and contemporary definitions of translanguaging and shows that not all definitions view the literacy practices of advanced multilingual speakers as translanguaging. However, those that see these speakers as having a unitary linguistic system allow the literacy practices of advanced multilingual speakers to be viewed as translanguaging. Working from this perspective, the chapter argues for translanguaging writing spaces to be created in schools as a way to foster learning. The chapter also presents ways in which teachers can support the creation of these spaces in multilingual classrooms and considers how translanguaging writing spaces can be maintained when advanced multilingual speakers move to writing for monolingual readers. The challenge of this move is also discussed.

Toward Racially-Just Multilingual Classroom Pedagogy

Creating equitable multilingual classrooms grounded in explicitly anti-racist teaching practices requires transformation of practice preceded by transformation of thinking. Classroom learning centers can provide the context for truly transformational, anti-racist teaching, but equitable implementation requires a deliberately humanizing approach toward teaching multilingual learners. The chapter outlines the process of operationalizing learning centers in such a way, through pedagogy grounded in the enduring principles of learning and critical sociocultural theory. Based on over 50 years of teaching across five countries and conducting international research in the field of multilingual education, the authors provide research-based, practical steps for learning center design and implementation. Educators will gain a practical pathway for implementation, as well as a model for the self-reflective work that is essential for any meaningful transformation toward racially just classrooms.

Assessment of EAP Literacies in Diverse and Multilingual Classrooms

Older views of the English for Academic Purposes Literacies (EAPL) assessment have been in line with the assessment of the four-skills second language (L2) competencies. However, the new understanding is that literacy is not just a cognitive competence of reading and writing but also a set of other purposeful social processes. This understanding makes EAPL assessment multifaceted by calling upon a set of supra-linguistic behaviors, i.e., cognitive and social skills in addition to L2 competencies. This chapter starts with a brief history and the current state of theoretical constructs (of what is actually assessed) of EAPL assessment. It then centers its discussion on different academic literacies models, and the critical issues in measuring EAPL. The author highlights different strategies for planning assessment in the practical applications of academic literacies constructs. The chapter ends with the presentation of useful steps in creating EAPL assessments.

Carrió-Pastor, M. L. - Bellés-Fortuño, Begoña (2021) (Eds.). Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms CLIL and EMI Approaches. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan, ISBN 978-3-030-56614-2, pp. 377

It is not surprising that there is a clear interest in specialised English language teaching at a time when academia needs to evidence its strong connection to social practices and internationalization (Carrió-Pastor 2019, 2020). This is a timely book, both in scope and usefulness. The contents are organised in such a way as to allow an understanding of methodological practices, firstly by establishing the difference between CLIL, i.e. Content and Language Integrated Learning, and EMI, i.e. English as a Medium of Instruction. In principle, these two terms refer to clear concepts, but in practice the distinction does not always seem to be so apparent. In fact, this book succeeds in providing a theoretical stance and examples to illustrate and clarify these approaches. The usefulness of this Palgrave volume for language professionals, namely teachers, researchers and newcomers, is easy to foresee.

Learning in and through classroom interaction: On the convergence of language and content learning opportunities in subject-matter learning

This study uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore the interplay of linguistic and subject-matter learning. Drawing on previous linguistic work on discourse and genre acquisition, subject-matter teaching as well as the convergence of linguistic and content learning in multilingual classrooms, the study seeks to examine the following questions: (1) How can patterns of classroom talk support or hinder the acquisition of academic discourse competence and subject-matter learning? (2) How are these two learning domains related? The analyses of 120 video-recorded mathematics and German lessons in five classes (n=149 students, 10 teachers) in different German school types revealed two patterns of teacher-student-interaction, which differ in the participatory roles and the (language) learning opportunities they assign to the students. Two larger excerpts from mathematics-lessons are analyzed to illustrate the ways in which linguistic and content learning merge in the two patterns.