WP174 Multilingual classrooms in times of superdiversity
Spotti & Kroon
2015
Abstract
In this paper, we discuss multilingual classrooms and superdiversity. More specifically we address the consequences that a revised understanding of language, based on the concept of language repertoires,? has for language education, as well as for educators caught in the transition between diversity and superdiversity. After showing that at least in Western Europe, dealing with multilingualism in regular school classrooms has been a matter of concern for teachers? and learners? educational pathways for decades, we turn to the founding fathers of sociolinguistics, and to how their seminal work has brought us to the recent re-evaluation of sociolinguistic repertoire. We then discuss how the repertoire concept highlights the fact that regular education professionals appear to suffer from a ?trained blindness?, mostly focusing on attainment targets and normativity rather than paying attention to the actual ways in which students are ?languaging? across formal, non-formal and informal institutional spaces.