In classrooms around the world, including in Australia, linguistic diversity is increasingly common. Many children arrive at school with rich repertoires of languages, dialects, stories, and cultural knowledge. At the same time, the books we offer them can sometimes tell a more limited story about language, learning, and belonging.

In applied linguistics, multilingualism has become an established—and largely uncontested—ideal. Concepts such as translanguaging, linguistic repertoires, and challenges to monolingual norms are now widely discussed in scholarship and policy.

In the second blog entry for the Multilingual Stance series, Marianne Turner from Monash University and Ester de Jong from the University of Colorado, Denver discuss the benefits of thinking about multilingual stance as a continuum, rather than in opposition to a monolingual stance.

In today’s increasingly unquiet, unstable and interconnected world, it is more vital than ever to engage productively with difference. There has been a great deal of scholarship on harnessing the language resources that multilingual learners bring with them to school, and we know this to be beneficial for these students. However, we also know that the devil is in the detail when it comes to bringing these ideas into the classroom.

As a bilingual teacher, researcher, and mother, I have long been involved in children’s language education, both in theory and in practice. Over the past decade, I have worked with children aged six weeks to eight years. Since 2019, my research has focused on bilingual programs in early childhood education. In 2025, with the birth of my daughter, this professional interest became deeply personal as I began raising a child in three languages: Chinese, English, and Greek.

Recently, Dr. Mobina Sahraee Juybari spoke with A/Prof. Julie Choi (ARTP Lab leader), Dr. Raf Cleeve Gerkens, Dr. Shu Ohki, and PhD candidate Melissa Slamet. The discussion offered insights into how plurilingual, arts-informed, and holistic approaches can come together to support learners across educational contexts.

When I first joined an English bridging program as a teacher in Australia, I quickly learnt the unwritten rule: real learning happens in English. Even a stray browser tab showing Chinese text could raise eyebrows. I knew this because a coordinator reminded me that Chinese text should not appear in a classroom computer's browser history. I am Chinese-born and raised, and I felt like an imposter, as if my Chinese-ness was a liability that needed to be carefully managed.

La Alabarda (the halberd symbol of Trieste, Italy) has featured as a sticker on every car I have owned. I expect the symbol, a white lance on a striking red background, would be unfamiliar to most motorists who view it on my back windshield.

A few years ago, a multilingual student shared their experience of school assessment with me during a research project:

As an English language learner, migrant, and long-time TESOL practitioner, I have often found myself navigating the space between what is pedagogically sound and what is socially expected in English language classrooms—particularly in the Chinese context.

I remember the very first time I heard about hedging. It was during my master’s degree in the UK. In one particular class, where around 70% of the students were Chinese, our professor spent nearly 40 minutes trying to teach us how to hedge in our English writing.

The power of multilingualism in education is undeniable. However, while many schools celebrate the rich linguistic diversity that students bring, the reality is that embracing home languages in the classroom is still a challenge.

With the rise of social media, we can now see how people use English in different contexts. Along with this visibility comes a wave of grammarians in Indonesia, giving judgmental critiques on others’ use of English.

When I think about academic English writing, it is not just the topic of my PhD research – it is also a deeply personal journey that has shaped who I am: from a student to a teacher, and now a PhD researcher.

Dr Nashid Nigar & Prof Alex Kostogriz, Monash University Reimagining EAL/D Education: From Standard Norms to Sensory Pedagogies As shown...

As an advocate of bilingual education and a teacher in a bilingual primary school, I have seen many of the benefits and challenges for students, families and teachers alike.

Our world has become very interconnected. There are more speakers of English as an additional language than speakers considered to use

I've always been proud of my Basque roots, though bringing them up often leads to the same reaction: Basque? Where is that from?

Today I was looking at a list of oxymorons. It was a playful list that had been made for English language learning purposes.

I read a Japanese story a few years ago that made me feel very upset. It was about a mother who was carrying a baby on her back. She needed