Tackling the Plurilingual Student/Monolingual Classroom Phenomenon

Abstract

For translation‐based activities to prove effective and shake off the negative connotations linked to this practice, they should be informed, authentic, and collaborative. The translation‐based project presented above has aimed to cover these three requirements as follows:

Designing multi‐competence and multi‐skill activities, tasks, and projects. Working on authentic materials to be shared with a wide audience besides the teacher. Encouraging pair and group work while working on collaborative tasks and projects. This project is an example of how translation can be used in the AL classroom in dynamic ways, incorporating new technologies and project‐based group work. By allowing students to translate, we are fostering the use of natural plurilingual learning skills and strategies that can be transferred to other learning contexts. Perhaps most importantly, by working plurilingually in our AL classrooms, we can give students the opportunity to go beyond learning about the target language only, so that they can become plurilingual students learning in a natural plurilingual environment rather than plurilingual students in monolingual classrooms.