This article examines "de jure" language officialization policies in Andorra and Luxembourg, and addresses how these are discursively reproduced, sustained or challenged by members of resident migrant communities in the two countries. Although the two countries bear similarities in their small size, extensive multilingualism and the…

Language maintenance research generally argues that providing endangered varieties with a standard impacts positively their vitality by e.g. increasing positive attitudes. This paper investigates whether different degrees of linguistic proximity between vernacular varieties and the standard may lead to different speakers' attitudes towards the…

Linguistic nationalism in Western Europe most commonly takes a monolingual form, involving the promotion of one dominant national language. This is not the only form of linguistic nationalism possible, however, as the link between language and nation can also be constructed in more multilingual ways. This article looks at the case of Luxembourg, a…

Background: Children's interactions are inherently multimodal. Accordingly, when children engage in science in classroom communities, their interactions are grounded in material and embodied aspects of interactions with teachers and their peers. Purpose: This study explores the nature of children's science interactions in a classroom community…

While the language portrait (LP) is a visual research method that can make visible speakers' multilingualism, this article considers how and why speakers may use the LP to make elements of their linguistic repertoire "invisible." Analysing the portraits created by three primary school students in Luxembourg, I explore why these young…

There is a consensus that home languages are the foundation on which to develop additional languages and that collaboration between homes and institutions of early childhood education and care (ECEC) can contribute to the development of children's language and literacy skills. Nevertheless, educators seem rarely to draw on multiple languages in…

This manuscript elaborates the value of looking beyond the written and spoken word in science education research and practice at the early childhood level. We examine one plurilingual child's descriptions of a science activity to explore the "diversity of resources" that she used while expressing her understandings of a sound…

Multilingual education is mandatory in early childhood education in several European countries. Scholars working in first, second and foreign language learning have shown the effectiveness of interaction-promoting and language-modelling strategies for language development. In addition, teachers in bilingual contexts have been translanguaging to…

This paper focuses on the transformation of conversation analytic findings on L2 classroom interaction into resources for changing teachers' pedagogical practices. It argues that identification of problems in student-teacher interaction or of interactional sequences that create learning opportunities can provide valuable insights for teachers, as…

Based on an analysis of the video recording and transcript of one lesson chosen by preschool teachers in Luxembourg as an example of translanguaging pedagogy, this article shows the teachers' limited understandings of translanguaging. As a result of a new 2017 multilingual education policy for early childhood, the first author designed a…

In the context of multilingual education, translanguaging has been put forward as a means of including several languages in education. However, teachers often assess translanguaging-based approaches as being too vague and idealist. This study discusses data from two settings (Luxembourg and Netherlands) in which teachers working in design-based…

While translanguaging has been well researched in bilingual settings with older pupils and has been found to contribute to cognitive and personal development, there is little research on translanguaging of young multilinguals. In trilingual Luxembourg, at school, children learn Luxembourgish aged 4, German aged 6 and French aged 7, with the…

There is a call for multilingual pedagogies including the use of literacy in several languages in early childhood education. However, many practitioners find it difficult to challenge the dominant language ideologies and are unsure of how to develop literacy practices in multiple languages. This paper is based in Luxembourg where a multilingual…

With its own national language, Luxembourgish, and three languages of administration, French, German and Luxembourgish, Luxembourg has long been a very multilingual country. The nature of this multilingualism is now changing, due to the rising proportion of migrants in the country, who now make up 43% of the resident population. The changing…

Our paper provides an empirically based perspective on the contribution of Conversation Analysis (CA) to our understanding of children's second language learning practices in a multilingual classroom setting. While exploring the interactional configuration of a French second language learning activity, we focus our analytic lens on how five…