Background: While the concept of translanguaging has gained significant traction in education in multilingual contexts, it is also debated and contested. Claims are made about what translanguaging can and cannot do, how different it might be from code-switching, whether it arises from a single repertoire of language resources or from use of…

Research indicates that encouraging translanguaging can enhance learning in a range of contexts. However, there are few studies examining translanguaging for learning among newcomers in science education. This case study fills this research gap by examining in what ways a newcomer to the school uses translanguaging practices with his classmate to…

Background: Our article argues that the role of translingual instruction in mathematics classrooms is under-recognised in South Africa, as policymakers, teacher educators, teachers, learners, and parents assume that mathematics is just about numbers and calculations and not language. This is despite findings on the value of using children's…

In a multilingual classroom, students come from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. They bring various cultural experiences, knowledge, and linguistic resources with them, however, most of the time, these resources remain unutilized as the medium for discourse in the classroom is often the dominant language. As a result, minority…

The increasing influx into Australia of (im)migrants whose first language is not English has made Australia linguistically more diverse than ever. Despite this, Australia remains a strongly Anglocentric nation, and migrants, in response, tend to abandon their heritage languages (HL) and shift to English relatively quickly. Korean migrants in…

Since its inception in the 1990s Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has transformed from an initiative to improve communicative competence in foreign languages into a complex language-aware construct in which translanguaging and curriculum integration are identifiable pedagogical practices. This shift of paradigm in its…

Background: South Africa's "Language-in-Education Policy" (LiEP) provides for bi/multilingual education, but schools are only supported to choose monolingual English language policies from Grade 4 and ignore the learners' home language or languages as resources for learning. Many teachers translanguage orally, using the learners' home…

The majority of learners in South African schools are African language speakers, yet the dominance of English in the political economy has meant that schools choose to switch to English medium instruction by Grade 4, before learners have the necessary English proficiency to access the curriculum, with negative effects on learning. This paper…

Although South Africa is a multilingual country with 11 official languages, English dominates as the language of teaching and instruction in almost all schools. In addition to this, the Natural Sciences teachers at the school of study were cautioned not to use code-switching because the school policy states that the medium of instruction should be…

This study investigates the effect of bilingualism on learning English as a foreign language (L3), examining the impact of manner and sequence of bilingual acquisition and learning as well as language use practices in language minority children. With a sample of 1295 German eighth and ninth graders (bilingual: n = 456, monolingual: n = 839), we…

This article seeks to develop the research agenda of multilingualism and multicompetence by bringing together three research fields and their related methodologies: bilingualism, third language acquisition and language learner strategies. After a brief introduction to each area, it describes a study to explore whether bilingual adolescent students…

This paper reports on the classroom languaging practices of a group of science teachers in rural and township schools in South Africa where the majority of learners learn through the medium of English, despite the fact that it is the home language of only a small minority; and learners' poor English proficiency frequently restricts their access to…

This article presents partial results of an ethnographic study about literacy practices among adolescents living near the United States-Mexico border. The students became involved in literacy practices with their friends and family at home. These practices were related to the adolescents' interests in popular culture such as reading magazines or…

In South Africa, as in many parts of postcolonial Africa, English dominates the political economy and as a result is the medium of instruction chosen by the majority of South African schools, despite the fact that most learners do not have the opportunity to acquire English to the levels necessary for effective engagement with the curriculum.…