Multilingualism in classrooms: drawing from a diverse language pool for greater understanding

Abstract

Research shows that bilingualism and multilingualism have beneficial impacts on the developing mind. In addition, when multilingual learners are allowed to draw freely from their repertoire of language to communicate a practice called translanguaging they achieve a better conceptual understanding. At an HSRC seminar earlier this year, Dr Robyn Tyler argued that the ideology of single language use in South Africa was blinding us to better ways of teaching.