‘Mézclalo un poquito’: plurilingual practices in multilingual educational milieus

ABSTRACT

We analyse data collected at multilingual schools in Catalonia, taking a plurilingual and socio-cultural Conversation Analysis approach to the interactions studied. The analytical sections of the article show how plurilingual practices are resources for students’ participation in classroom activities; we argue that language learning is a process that is reflected in how students’ participation is achieved and modified in classroom interaction over time, and in the ways in which they mobilise interactional resources for scaffolding their completion of cognitive and communicative activities. Our results suggest that learners set out from an initial stage in which they have little possibilities of participating in communicative activities in the target language, and progressively, through practice, and through the use of interlinguistic (e.g. recourse to resources from other named languages in their plurilingual repertoire) and intralinguistic (lexical substitution and paraphrasing) procedures, they learn to participate in interactions in unilingual mode in that language. We then argue that as plurilingualism is a reality both of social interaction and of learning processes, it should be ‘didacticised’; that is, transformed into classroom teaching methodology. We introduce our understanding of the didactics of plurilingualism, an approach based on project-based learning, and discuss its operation on the macro, meso and micro levels.

KEYWORDS:

• Bi/plurilingual repertoires
• plurilingual mode
• unilingual mode
• codeswitching
• translanguaging
• didactics of plurilingualism

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Julia Llompart is a member of the Research Centre on Plurilingual Interaction and Teaching (GREIP) and the Research Group on Multilingualism, Social Identities, Intercultural Relationships and Communication (MIRCo). She has taught several courses on foreign languages and cultures and on plurilingualism, multilingualism and languages in contact in different national and international universities. Her PhD – which she obtained at the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona in 2016 – analysed the socialisation processes and plurilingual practices of students of immigrant origin in Barcelona. She is currently a Visiting Professor at the Universidad Autònoma de Madrid and continues her research on plurilingual practices and education and collaborative and participatory action-research.

Dolors Masats is a founding member of the Research Centre on Plurilingual Interaction and Teaching (GREIP) and of the International EDiLiC (Éducation et Diversité Linguistique et Culturelle) Association. She has ample experience as a foreign language (Catalan, English & Spanish) teacher in a great variety of contexts. She is currently a teacher trainer, lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Education of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where she holds the position of Vice-Dean of Quality and Innovation. She also works as a curriculum advisor for the Ministry of Education and Youth of Andorra. Plurilingual education and project-based learning are her main areas of expertise.

Emilee Moore is a Serra Húnter Fellow (Assistant Professor) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She is interested in language practices in multilingual and multicultural educational contexts from a perspective that integrates linguistic ethnography, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnomethodology and sociocultural learning theories. She helps develop primary and secondary school teachers who are prepared to educate children and youth in contexts of linguistic diversity. She is a member of the Research Centre on Plurilingual Interaction and Teaching (GREIP) and co-convenor of the AILA Research Network on Creative Inquiry in Applied Linguistics.

Luci Nussbaum has been professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona until 2016 and leader of the Research Centre on Plurilingual Interaction and Teaching (GREIP) until 2014. She has specialised in the study of plurilingual practices from interactional and sociolinguistic perspectives.

ORCID

Dolors Masats http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2335-6670

Emilee Moore http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0112-4251

Luci Nussbaum http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4679-2678

Notes

1 Data collected by Júlia Llompart and analysed in Llompart (2016). See transcription symbols in annex 1.

2 Data collected by Dolors Masats and Luci Nussbaum. The extract was first analysed in Nussbaum and Unamuno (2006, 112).

3 Data collected by Dolors Masats and Melinda Dooly. The extract was first analysed in Nussbaum (2014).

4 Data collected by Luci Nussbam. First analysed in Llompart and Nussbaum (2018).

5 Data collected by Dolors Masats and Luci Nussbaum. The extract was first analysed in Masats, Nussbaum, and Unamuno (2007, 130).

6 Data collected by Dolors Masats and Luci Nussbaum. The extract was first analysed in Masats, Nussbaum, and Unamuno (2007, 137).

7 Data collected by Dolors Masats. The extract was first analysed in Masats (2008, 298).

Additional information

Funding

The production of this article has been supported by the following project: Linguistically sensitive teaching in all classrooms (LISTiac), funded by Erasmus+ Key action 3 - Support for policy reform - Policy experimentations (call EACEA 28/2017, code 606695-EPP-1-2018-2-FI-EPPKA3-PI-POLICY).