‘English as an additional language’, ‘multilingual’, and ‘vulnerable’: a reflexive account of the labelling practices surrounding school pupils in a researcher-practitioner collaboration

ABSTRACT

Despite their diversity, UK school pupils with non-English home languages are uniformly labelled English as an additional language (EAL), presupposing linguistic deficiencies and academic challenges; thus, equating multilingualism with vulnerability. As part of a researcher-practitioner collaboration with a London primary school, we explore how researchers and educators assign and contest the labels EAL, multilingual, and vulnerable. Through this, we reflexively consider whether changing discourses around multilingualism can minimise potential vulnerabilities associated with EAL. We argue that researchers play a crucial role in mitigating a priori categorisation of EAL pupils and expose the impact of our agenda on potentially vulnerable pupils.

En las escuelas británicas, los alumnos que usan idiomas aparte del inglés en casa son uniformemente etiquetados como ‘inglés como lengua adicional’ (EAL), presuponiendo deficiencias lingüísticas y académicas que equiparan multilingüismo con vulnerabilidad. Colaborando con una escuela primaria londinense, investigamos el uso de las etiquetas EAL, multilingüe y vulnerable por parte de investigadores y educadores. Utilizando un enfoque reflexivo, examinamos si cambiar la conceptualización del multilingüismo puede minimizar potenciales vulnerabilidades asociadas con EAL. Así, sostenemos que los investigadores juegan un rol crucial en mitigar categorizaciones tempranas de estos alumnos y exponemos el impacto de nuestra agenda en estudiantes potencialmente vulnerables.

KEYWORDS:

• English as an additional language (EAL)
• multilingualism
• vulnerability
• reflexivity
• labelling practices

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All names used in this paper are pseudonyms.

2 Please note, only 1 interview was conducted with Mark, thus the content corresponds roughly with that of interview 2 for other teachers.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by British Association for Applied Linguistics: [Grant Number Applying Linguistics fund].

Notes on contributors

Gonzalo Pérez Andrade

Dr Gonzalo Pérez Andrade is a Senior Lecturer in English Language Teaching at London Metropolitan University and holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Southampton. His research interests include teacher education, language ideologies, and multilingualism. Gonzalo is also a founding member of the Centre for Multilingualism with English (CME).

Hannah M. King

Hannah M. King is a Senior Lecturer in English Language at London Metropolitan University and PhD Candidate in Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck, University of London. As a sociolinguist, her main research interests include interactional and discursive identities, transnational language practices, multilingualism, and multilingual literacy-particularly through multilingual libraries and linguistically and culturally diverse picture books. Recent work published in the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development focuses on the methodological practicalities of conducting multilingual research as a multilingual researcher within multilingual settings.