Teaching in multilingual classrooms: strategies from a case study in Portugal

This study examined teaching practices developed by teachers to respond to linguistic diversity in a Portuguese case study. We analysed the position that students’ languages received in the classroom, and what these practices revealed about teachers’ awareness of multilingual pedagogies, a step to social justice. Three main strategies emerged: promoting Portuguese without involving students’ languages, using a common language (English) as lingua franca, using students’ languages. These strategies appeared in a dynamic way as teachers tried to satisfy the aims of developing the language of schooling, communicating with students and valuing students’ linguistic identities. Prioritising Portuguese language dominated, and the strategies were enacted through monolingual views, indicating little awareness of multilingual pedagogies. Thus, the need to support teachers in transforming practices in multilingual classrooms is emphasised.

KEYWORDS:
multilingualism; linguistic diversity; pedagogy; teachers, classroom practices

	School Cluster (altogether)	School A	School B	School C	School D
Number of nationalities	32	23	9	14	7
Distribution of Portuguese students and students with other nationalities (%)	78-22%	79-21%	70-30%	59-41%	95-5%
Nationalities other than Portuguese in the highest numbers	Brazil, Nepal, Cape Verde, India, Bangladesh	Brazil, Nepal, Cape Verde, India	Brazil, Cape Verde, Nepal, India	Brazil, Nepal, Bangladesh	Brazil, Cape Verde, Italy, India, Nepal

Strategy	Interview data (out of 24 participants)	Observational data (out of 7 participants)
Promoting Portuguese language learning without involving other languages
Altogether	21	7
Displaying images, drawings	8	7
Using body language, gestures	3	5
Playing games, role plays, other playful exercises	3	2
Demonstrating with objects	2	5
Manipulating or playing with objects	1	2
Using simplified material	5	3
Using multimodal projects to enhance reading and writing	3	-
Playing videos (Portuguese language, no subtitles)	1	2
Repeating in Portuguese	1	3
Letting Portuguese speaker peers to help Portuguese learners	2	4
Performing real-life tasks in Portuguese	1	-
Allowing only speaking Portuguese in the classroom	1	-
Teacher repeating student talk in correct Portuguese	-	2
Explaining in Portuguese again but in other words	-	3
Explaining task in Portuguese again but individually	-	1
Expressing insecurity to modify strategies	18	-
Using a shared language (mostly English) as lingua franca
Altogether	11	6
Speaking English in general, to communicate	9	5
Teaching in English and Portuguese (in general)	1	-
Speaking English to clarify instruction	1	4
Speaking English to translate learning content	2	5
Speaking English to teach Portuguese vocabulary	-	4
Letting student explain in English then asking for repeating in Portuguese	-	1
Using English to translate Portuguese to create worksheets and learning material for students	4	-
Playing English video with Portuguese subtitles	-	1
Communicating in Spanish in general	1	-
Speaking Spanish to teach Portuguese vocabulary	-	1
Communicating in French in general	1	-
Using students’ languages
Altogether	12	4
Asking students speaking similar languages to translate to each other in order to understand Portuguese instruction	4	2
Letting students using phones and iPads to translate from Portuguese	2	2
Letting students reply in their languages then asking them to translate to Portuguese	1	-
Teacher using Google to translate Portuguese worksheet or material into students’ languages	2	-
Teacher learning a few words in students’ languages	3	-
Students teaching a few words in their languages to whole class	1	-
Students reading stories, poems, performing a play in their languages to whole class	2	-
Students writing short sentences in their languages on artwork	-	1
Asking students what languages they speak	-	1
Teacher telling the whole class what languages a student speaks	-	1

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[1] Nikolett Szelei holds a PhD in European teacher education from the ty of Innsbruck (Austria), in co-tutelle with Universidade Lisboa (Portugal). She is a researcher at Ghent University (Belgium). E-mail: nikolett.szelei@ugent.be