Opening minds to translanguaging pedagogies: perspectives and practices of professionals in early childhood education and primary school.Keynote

In Europe, migration, mobility, technology and globalisation have resulted in multilingualism at the societal and individual level. These changes require policy-makers and educationalists to adapt teaching. For the last decades, institutions and scholars have called for multilingual education programmes that recognise the existence of the multiple languages spoken by children. The policies of the Council of Europe encourage ‘pluralistic approaches’ as well as early language learning. In the United States, García and her team developed multilingual pedagogies, later called translanguaging pedagogies, that draw on the students’ entire semiotic repertoire to leverage their learning. Research findings in monolingual, bilingual and multilingual contexts testify to the benefits of translanguaging for learning, well-being and identity-building. Such programmes are in line with the UN convention of children’s rights demanding respect for their language, culture and values. While multilingual programmes have been implemented in early childhood education and primary schools in several countries in Europe, professionals seem to be unsure of how to promote multilingualism and deal with language diversity.
This presentation is based on the perspectives and practices of professionals in early education and primary schools in multilingual Luxembourg where a programme of plurilingual education has been implemented in the early years in 2017 and where children follow a trilingual curriculum in primary school. I will provide insights into the perspectives of practitioners by drawing on several research projects carried out over the last 6 years in Luxembourg. I will show excerpts of interviews and observations that indicate that early years practitioners have opened up to multilingual education over the last years and are tackling the multiple challenges they face during the implementation of the multilingual programme. Translanguaging also exists in primary schools but a clear language hierarchy is in place and teachers and children do not draw on their entire semiotic repertoire. The presentation concludes with implications for practitioners and policy-makers.