Tandem language exchange as a space to foster plurilingualism in higher education: reflections on languages other than English

Abstract

This study examines how plurilingual practices shape interaction, language awareness, and translanguaging in autonomous tandem language learning (TLL) involving languages other than English (LOTEs). Fourteen university students participated in a semester-long Czech-based TLL course, keeping reflective diaries and completing open-ended questionnaires. Thematic analysis explored how learners reflected on and mobilised their plurilingual repertoires. Participants drew on languages beyond the two target ones to sustain communication, negotiate meaning, and compare linguistic and cultural features. Metalinguistic awareness emerged as learners identified similarities and differences across their repertoires and strategically transferred linguistic resources to facilitate understanding and reflection. Translanguaging functioned both as a communicative strategy in interaction and as a discursive resource in writing, supporting the articulation of complex plurilingual identities. These findings problematise the long-standing separation of languages and target-language-only principles, underscoring the pedagogical potential of tandem formats as dynamic spaces for fostering plurilingual competence. The inclusion of both widely taught languages (German, French, Spanish) and less common ones (Swedish, Finnish, Japanese) offers new insights into plurilingual interaction in TLL and underscores the potential of tandem learning to foster pluralistic autonomy-oriented pedagogies.

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