Plurilingualism in vocational education & training: exploring students’ plurilingual repertoires, behaviours and attitudes towards interactions in daily life, school and work

Abstract

This study provides insight into Vocational Education & Training (VET) students’ plurilingual repertoires, their behaviours during and attitudes towards interactions in daily life, school and work. A multi-modal approach comprising language mapping, reflective discussions and focus group (FG) interviews with VET students in the Netherlands (N = 38) shows that both heritage- and majority-language students possess rich plurilingual repertoires which are used in distinctly different ways in daily life and at work, but not at school. Students generally possess an open attitude towards plurilingualism, which is tempered by perceived limitations in language proficiency and language retrieval difficulties. The study shows that students’ existing plurilingual competences, and issues encountered when employing these, are currently neither recognised nor addressed in the school context. Implications for education are formulated.

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