Translanguaging pedagogy and creative activism for early education in multilingual Luxembourg

Luxembourg is a highly linguistically and culturally diverse country. In early education, there are 64 % of four-year old children who not speak Luxembourgish at home (MENJE, 2018). From 2017, multilingual early education is mandatory, which obliges teachers to develop children’s Luxembourgish, familiarizing them with French, and valuing their home languages. Therefore, the present project aimed to: (1) offer an 18-hours professional development (PD) course in translanguaging pedagogy to 40 teachers over 6 months, (2) strengthen home-school collaboration, and (3) support children’s linguistic, socio-emotional, and cognitive development and engagement in the classroom. The results from teacher questionnaires, focus groups, and interviews, showed that there was some positive change regarding the attitudes towards children’s home languages. The interviews with 17 parents indicated that there was a need for more home-school collaboration. The tests in early literacy and numeracy with 23 preschool children over one year, identified that children performed higher in their home languages. The video observations showed that when the teachers used children’s languages in the classroom, this impacted positively their well-being. Following the principles of creative activism, the author produced: (1) the website with over 100 practical activities on how teachers can involve children’s languages and families, (2) the illustrated book Sumak for parents, showing difficulties with integration in a new country, and (3) the illustrated book, Mara’s song for preschool children, showing how Mara finds her way in the new classroom.