From Multilingual Ideals to Classroom Decisions: 3 Pedagogical Moves That Actually Work

Easir Arafat, BRAC Institute of Languages (BIL), BRAC University, Bangladesh

When Multilingual Ideals Meet Classroom Realities

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 everyday teaching, however, the question feels more immediate and practical. It is less about whether multilingualism matters, and more about how it can be engaged within classrooms that are already multilingual, while still working within the expectations of English-medium instruction, assessment structures, and institutional norms.

This tension is particularly visible in the context of Bangladeshi higher education. At private universities such as BRAC University, English carries institutional authority as the official medium of instruction and assessment. At the same time, classroom interaction rarely follows a strictly monolingual pattern. Students draw on Bangla, English, and other linguistic means as they read, discuss, and write, often moving between them fluidly as they make sense of academic tasks. Much of this meaning-making remains informal and, at times, pedagogically unacknowledged.

Working within this environment, I have often found myself navigating a familiar challenge: how to remain aligned with English-medium expectations while responding to the multilingual ways in which students actually engage with learning. The issue is not how to introduce multilingualism into the classroom, but how to recognise and work with what is already there—without lowering academic expectations or creating uncertainty about assessment.

This account is based on ongoing classroom reflection rather than formal data collection, and is intended as a practice-based narrative. Drawing on my experience as a Senior Lecturer at the BRAC Institute of Languages (BIL), this essay explores how that tension can be negotiated through a set of small, deliberate pedagogical decisions. It focuses on three moves—related to task design, assessment, and feedback—that I have developed over time while teaching writing-intensive English courses. These are not presented as universal solutions, but as situated practices that have gradually reshaped how students participate, how they approach writing, and how classroom interaction unfolds within an English-medium university context.

Pedagogical Move 1: Purposeful Translanguaging for Task Scaffolding

The problem it addresses

In first-year courses such as ENG101 and ENG091, I often noticed that moments of silence during class discussions did not necessarily reflect a lack of ideas. During early attempts at paragraph writing, for instance, some students appeared to hesitate not because they had nothing to say, but because they were trying to formulate ideas directly in English without first working through them conceptually. This sometimes resulted in brief or formulaic responses that did not seem to capture the complexity of what they were trying to express.

Over time, this pattern raised a concern: when English was treated as the only acceptable medium at all stages of learning, it seemed to shape not only how students expressed ideas, but whether they were able to develop them in the first place.

The pedagogical decision

In response, I began to make space for translanguaging more explicitly during the early stages of tasks. In a typical pre-writing session, students work in small groups to unpack a prompt, often moving between Bangla and English as they clarify concepts and test ideas. Rather than discouraging this, I started to frame it as a legitimate part of the writing process.

At the same time, the boundaries of the task remain clear. Final written work, presentations, and assessed submissions are still produced in English, in line with course expectations. The shift, then, is not in the endpoint, but in how students are supported in getting there.

In practice, this often involves inviting students to articulate a central claim in Bangla if needed, discuss examples in whichever language allows for clarity, and then work toward expressing those ideas in English.

What I began to notice in the classroom

As this approach became more consistent, several patterns began to emerge across classes.

During planning stages, more students contributed to group discussions, often beginning in Bangla before reformulating their ideas in English. Writing tasks also appeared to become more purposeful. Rather than starting with language and searching for ideas, students seemed to arrive at writing with a clearer sense of what they wanted to say.

Students also described the process as more manageable, particularly in the early weeks of the semester. While English remained the required medium for final output, it was no longer experienced as the starting barrier to participation.

Over time, translanguaging began to feel less like a deviation from classroom expectations and more like a structured part of how learning unfolded.

Pedagogical Move 2: Designing Assessment for Linguistic Development, Not Penalisation

The problem it addresses

In writing-intensive courses such as ENG103, assessment often became a point where broader pedagogical intentions came under pressure. Even when classroom practices allowed space for idea development, grading sometimes appeared to re-centre attention on linguistic accuracy in ways that students found discouraging.

In feedback discussions, some students expressed uncertainty about how their work was being evaluated. They described investing effort in developing arguments and revising drafts, yet feeling that surface-level language issues continued to dominate how their performance was judged.

This raised a tension between what was emphasised during teaching and what seemed to matter most during assessment.

The pedagogical decision

To address this, I began to reorganise assessment criteria so that different aspects of writing were made more visible and distinct. In practice, this meant separating evaluation into areas such as content and organisation, argumentation, and language use, rather than treating writing as a single undifferentiated construct.

Language accuracy continued to matter, but was framed more explicitly as something that develops over time, particularly across drafts. I also introduced a draft-based structure where students submit and revise their work, with improvement becoming part of the assessment process.

Feedback practices were adjusted alongside this. Instead of correcting every error, I began to focus on recurring patterns and a smaller set of priority areas, aiming to make feedback more manageable and more directly connected to revision, so as to accommodate gradual progress in communicating ideas.

What I began to notice in learning and teaching

Following these changes, students appeared to engage with feedback in different ways. Rather than focusing primarily on grades, many began to treat feedback as something to work with during revision.

Across drafts, changes in writing were not limited to sentence-level corrections. Students seemed to pay more attention to how ideas were organised, how arguments were developed, and how sources were used in the English genres compared to the equivalent conventions in Bangla.

From a teaching perspective, feedback also became more focused. By concentrating on selected aspects of writing rather than attempting to address everything at once, it became easier to maintain consistency and clarity across assignments.

Assessment, in this sense, began to feel more closely aligned with the broader aim of supporting students’ development as writers within an English-medium context.

Pedagogical Move 3: Feedback as Dialogue, Not Monologue

The problem it addresses

Across many universities, feedback is often delivered as written commentary on student work, with limited opportunity for follow-up. In my classes, I began to notice that this model did not always lead to meaningful revision. Some students appeared unsure how to interpret comments, while others focused primarily on grades without engaging deeply with the feedback itself.

In multilingual classrooms, this seemed particularly significant. The language of feedback—often abstract or evaluative—could itself become a barrier to understanding.

The pedagogical decision

To make feedback more usable, I began to treat it as part of an ongoing conversation rather than a one-time response.

In practice, this took several forms. I introduced short feedback discussions where students could ask questions about written comments, sometimes drawing on both Bangla and English to clarify meaning. I also asked students to submit brief reflections alongside revised drafts, describing how they understood the feedback and what changes they chose to make.

At the same time, I continued the practice of selective feedback, focusing on a limited number of linguistic or rhetorical aspects of writing in each assignment.

What I began to notice in students’ engagement

Over time, students appeared to take a more active role in the revision process. Rather than treating feedback as a set of instructions to follow, many began to make more deliberate choices about how to revise their work.

The reflective component also made their thinking more visible. It became easier to see how students were interpreting feedback, where points of confusion arose, and how their writing decisions evolved across drafts.

Gradually, feedback interactions seemed to shift in tone. Instead of marking the end of an assignment, they became part of an ongoing process through which students developed both their writing and their understanding of academic expectations.

Moving from Ideals to Action

Much of the discussion around multilingualism in education takes place at the level of policy or theory. In everyday teaching, however, the questions tend to be more immediate: how to respond to the ways students actually use language in class, how to balance institutional expectations with classroom realities, and how to make pedagogical decisions that are both workable and meaningful.

The three moves described here did not emerge as part of a planned shift in approach. Rather, they developed gradually through classroom practice—through noticing where students seemed to hesitate, where tasks did not quite work as intended, and where small adjustments appeared to make a difference. Over time, these adjustments began to shape how lessons were structured, how assessment was framed, and how feedback was taken up by students.

What these experiences suggest is not a model to be replicated, but a way of working with what is already present in multilingual classrooms. In this context, multilingualism is not something that needs to be introduced or justified. It is already part of how students think, interact, and learn. The challenge, then, is how to engage with that reality in ways that remain aligned with academic expectations while making learning more accessible and purposeful.

Seen this way, pedagogical change does not necessarily begin with large-scale reform. It often takes shape through small, repeatable decisions—how a task is introduced, how a draft is responded to, how a moment of hesitation in class is interpreted. Across time, these decisions can begin to shift how students participate, how they approach writing, and how they experience learning in an English-medium environment.

This account has been offered as a reflection on those kinds of decisions. It remains partial and context-bound, shaped by a particular institutional setting and group of learners. Even so, it points to the possibility that working with multilingualism does not always require new policies or frameworks, but a closer attention to classroom practice and the choices that sustain it.

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Easir Arafat is a Senior Lecturer at the BRAC Institute of Languages (BIL), BRAC University, Bangladesh. His research and teaching focus on multilingual pedagogy,

academic writing, and learning experience design for language education, with particular attention to digital pedagogy and technology‑mediated practices in

English language teaching in higher education.