G Eckert

This paper explores a school sector in the Australian education system, and the extent to which discourses around bilingualism in that sector have appropriated concepts utilised to describe the ways in which people use multiple languages in their day to day lives such as bilingualism, code- switching, translanguaging and plurilingualism. The main consensus in the literature is that the use of multiple languages by one person does not occur in parallel. Instead, individuals utilise their knowledge of languages to enhance their knowledge and production of other languages; their languages not only intersect, but also influence each other. Sociolinguists recommending the application of such concepts in the classroom advocate that multilingualism be integrated into classroom practice so that students use all languages at their disposal, even when some of those languages are not spoken by the teacher, in working toward their attainment of target language proficiency. The paper presents findings from document analysis and teacher interviews to ascertain the gap between current official school discourses and contemporary education methods and frameworks around lingualism, language use, and language teaching approaches. The paper thus raises issues that are yet to be seriously considered by school managements which are situated in multilingual communities.

Translanguaging, multilingual learning, bilingualism, plurilingualism