Students’ conceptions and experiences of institutionalised curriculum for multilingual learning: the case of a dual-foreign-languages programme

ABSTRACT

Whilst the existing literature on multilingual learning in curriculum has properly addressed a variety of instructional factors, few studies have been dedicated to investigating the influence of institutionalisation as a contextual, power-laden factor on multilingual curriculum which in turn influences multilingual learning. To fill this gap, this qualitative study examines undergraduate students’ conceptions and experiences of the institutionalised dual-foreign-languages programme of English and French in a Chinese university. The findings unveil how the institutionalisation of dual-foreign-languages learning, as mediated by specific curricular arrangements, imposed a predetermined pathway towards achieving predetermined curricular goals. In such institutionalised curriculum, students experienced and conceived dual-foreign-languages learning as a rigidly devised project, in which they were pressurised to conform to fixed curricular arrangements as well as their underlying ideologies, and in which they also agentically responded to the institutionalised curriculum with the initiative to reflect and negotiate. It is thus suggested that curriculum developers and administrators should be cautious about imposing curricular intentions that over-simplify multilingual learning dynamics which may impede learning instead of promoting it.

KEYWORDS:

• Language curriculum; multilingual learning; foreign languages
• institutionalisation
• multilingualism

Acknowledgements

The authors sincerely thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions! We also feel extremely grateful to Professor Shi Pu for her insights and support in our collaborative engagement in this dual-foreign-languages programme!

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by ‘Research on the Innovation of Foreign Language Education in China’ (grant number: 22JJD740011), a major project of Key Research Institutes of Humanities and Social Sciences under the Ministry of Education. It was also supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in Beijing Foreign Studies University (Grant number 2023JJ040) and Beijing Foreign Studies University ‘Double First- Class’ Fund (Project title: Research on the Theories and Practices in Training Multi-lingual Translators and Interpreters, Project No: 2022SYLPY003).