What is plurilingualism?
The phone rings. Itto, a German woman who lives in Morocco, picks up the phone and sees it’s her Berber husband calling. The conversation goes like this:
“Salam alaikoum, labas? Mei’ tskiirt? Is’ tanna?”
“Alhamdulillah, oui ça va. Et les enfants vont bien, was machen sie? kulshi bi’chair?”
“Willst du mit Papa reden, er fragt wie’s euch geht.” (Itto’s Journal, 2010).
“Other language proficiencies as well as multicultural sensitivities can mark employees out. These skills enable confidence in less familiar situations and domains that employees can find themselves in.”
Belonging and empowerment
“Plurilingualism can make a difference in terms of facilitating gains in linguistic abilities, strengthening student self-confidence, and addressing issues related to social justice.”
How can we teach and assess plurilingualism?
“It is of course wrong and not an English word, but succeeds in at least making the message complete. The assessment criteria…is not focused on accuracy of vocabulary but on communicative message, and therefore does not penalise” (p. 23).
Changing the way we think about languages
Plurilingualism challenges our assumptions about what it means to “know” a language, reframing multilingual speakers as resourceful communicators who draw on their full repertoire. In educational settings, it can foster pride and belonging by allowing learners to contribute meaningfully, even if they cannot do so in a single language. That said, plurilingualism has its critics: the abundance of overlapping terminology, challenges in implementation and reluctance amongst teachers have all been noted (Piccardo, 2019). Nevertheless, the concept continues to receive attention and, at the very least, invites us to rethink what linguistic competence looks like. If you are interested, here are some resources you may wish to consult.
References
Council of Europe (2020), Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment – Companion volume, Council of Europe Publishing, Strasbourg, https://www.coe.int/lang-cefr.
Fleming, D., Mbida, L., Bangou, F., Fleuret, C., Masson, M. E., Thibeault, J., & Arnott, S. (2023). Plurilingualism: A review of theory and current practice. TESL Canada Journal, 40(2), 63-76.
Galante, A., Okubo, K., Cole, C., Elkader, N. A., Carozza, N., Wilkinson, C., … & Vasic, J. (2020). “English‐only is not the way to go”: Teachers’ perceptions of plurilingual instruction in an English program at a Canadian university. TESOL Quarterly, 54(4), 980-1009.
Itto’s journal. (2010). A multilingual Life. Itto’s journal. https://ittosjournal.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/a-multilingual-life/
Lau, S. M. C., & Van Viegen, S. (2020). Plurilingual Pedagogies: An Introduction. In Plurilingual pedagogies: Critical and creative endeavors for equitable language in education (pp. 3-22). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Piccardo, E. (2019). “We are all (potential) plurilinguals”: Plurilingualism as an overarching, holistic concept. OLBI Journal, 10.
Preece, S., & Marshall, S. (2020). Plurilingualism, teaching and learning, and Anglophone higher education: An introduction Anglophone universities and linguistic diversity. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 33(2), 117-125.
Seed, G. (2020). What does plurilingualism mean for language assessment? Cambridge Assessment English Research Notes, 78, 5-15.
