Eco-Storytelling:
A Digital Toolbox for the English Classroom
for Building a Climate-Just Future

Multilingual Approaches to Education

Definition:
Multilingual Approaches to Education recognise multilingualism as the norm and give equal values to all the languages and cultures present in the classroom. Students are encouraged to strategically use their full linguistic and cultural repertoire with the aim of supporting the learning of content (cognitive) and of the target language (linguistic), drawing connections between their different languages (metalinguistic), and contributing to their personal growth and empowerment as active citizens (affective). The presence of multilingual approaches in the competency framework aims at making visible the parallels between ecology and multilingualism:

(i) language loss and extinction is linked to loss of ecosystems thus the need to respect and promote all languages;

(ii) English should be viewed as a language of commons and as part of a wider repertoire that also includes other languages;

(iii) the field of English teaching has long witnessed a call to “decolonise” its practices through recognising and valuing students’ linguistic and cultural resources that also bring with them different ways of knowing and experiencing the world;

(iv) using multilingual practices and strategies in the English language classroom means opening a space for creative experimentation with language and identity.[1]

[1] Pennycook, Alastair (2021). Critical applied linguistics: A critical re-introduction. Routledge.