Flexible bilingualism through multimodal practices: studying K-12 community languages online

Abstract

Community language schools are complementary schools set up and run by minority communities in Australia. They aim to assist in intergenerational language and identity transmission, but previous research has indicated that these schools position their students in monolingual ways that contradicts how bilingual speakers use their language in contemporary society. As a result, it has been proposed to teach these students through bilingual practices. Drawing on findings from research into the learning sciences, this study aims to explore how students construct their participation in a monolingual learning environment when taught online. Two students aged 14–16 taught in a blended mode (every second lesson online and every second lesson in a classroom) video recorded themselves during their online lessons. Data were analysed using multimodal interaction analysis. The results show how student agency increased outside of the learning environment where students repositioned themselves as peripheral learners and drew on scaffolding with humans and technology through bilingual practices to construct new knowledge.

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