Normalising multilingualism for everyone at school
In this third blog entry for the Multilingual Stance series, Prof. Ester de Jong (University of Colorado Denver) and A/Prof. Marianne Turner (Monash University) explore what it means to treat multilingualism as the everyday norm for all students, not only for multilingual learners or in language classrooms. This entry pushes educators to rethink how language is positioned, valued, and enacted across whole‑school environments, classroom practices, and policy structures.
In any society, people have a great range of different experiences. Schools are microcosms of this diversity, and teachers are expected to navigate it effectively. This is no easy task, especially since differences are often considered hierarchically: some ways of speaking or being in the world are treated as better than others.
As Martha Minow pointed out in her discussion on the dilemma of difference, categorizing students can unintentionally stigmatize them. When multilingualism is treated as an exception, multilingual learners become “othered.” But when multilingualism is normalised, students learn to appreciate linguistic diversity as part of everyday life.
Normalising multilingualism fosters curiosity, empathy and mutual understanding — essential skills in increasingly diverse societies. It also democratises knowledge about the cognitive, cultural, and economic benefits of multilingualism. Instead of being siloed within specialist language education programs, this knowledge becomes shared across the whole school community.
Recognition of the value of multilingualism is particularly important for the often‑invisible group of students who speak a home language but are fluent in English. These students are rarely recognized as multilingual, and this lack of affirmation can mean that their home languages are at risk of being lost. Treating multilingualism as the norm can help them maintain language ties to family and identity.
So, given the benefits, what kind of strategies normalise and affirm multilingualism for everyone at school?
Whole‑School Approaches: Building a Language‑Friendly Environment
Educators can start by examining the linguistic landscape of their school. What messages do students and families receive the moment they walk through the door? Are welcome signs multilingual? Are notices displayed in multiple languages — and with equal quality? Do parents see their languages represented in official communication?
These are small adaptations to the language environment of the school but they can communicate powerful messages about belonging and value.
In David Carson’s work that pushes schools to embed multilingualism into policy and culture, he suggests a number of structures and practices that can help establish a systemic approach to multilingualism:
Professional development that prepares teachers to work with multilingual learners across subjects.
Anti‑bullying policies that explicitly protect students from language‑based discrimination.
Parent‑school communication that encourages multilingual engagement.
School‑wide language surveys to uncover hidden linguistic diversity.
Assessment practices that allow students to demonstrate knowledge using their full linguistic repertoire.
Strategic staffing to ensure multilingual students see themselves reflected in the adults around them.
These whole‑school approaches are an important step to ensuring that the recognition of multilingualism moves beyond tokenism and students receive a genuine message that their linguistic repertoire is valued.
Classroom Practices: Making Languages Visible, Valued, and Useful
Teachers have an influential role to play in a whole-school systemic approach. Inside the classroom, teachers act as language decision‑makers. Every choice — grouping, materials, talk, displays — shapes how languages can be used and hence how students perceive different language practices and their status/value. There are very simple ways to begin to promote multilingualism in monolingual spaces.
Languages can be made visible through multilingual word walls, books, labels, and digital tools. Students may be asked whether they know particular words in another language. Lessons may include songs, stories, and vocabulary activities that incorporate multiple languages. Students can be grouped strategically so multilingual learners can use their full linguistic repertoire. This will help move whole school and classroom practices along the multilingual stance continuum.
Of course, not all classes are the same. For example, students may be learning a particular language or learning content through a language that they do not understand very well. If students are learning content, they might be able to show their knowledge of content through different languages, dialects and/or registers. If they are learning a language, showing their knowledge of that language is the main objective, but there are ways to meet this objective through drawing on students' extended linguistic repertoire.
The normalisation of multilingualism can affirm multilingual identities and support learning even when students understand English very well. It can serve the dual purpose of helping students to understand the benefits of speaking a home language and English, and also to encourage monolingual students to learn another language.
A Deeply Humanising Approach to Education
Teachers may feel that they do not have the expertise to adopt a multilingual approach or that it will disrupt the learning of monolingual students. These are important concerns, but neither are inevitably true. Adopting a multilingual stance is not a single strategy but a holistic shift in how teachers and school leaders understand language, identity, and learning.
This shift is less about language expertise than about an enquiring mind and allowing students’ knowledge and experience past the school gate. Rather than needing a form of multilingual expertise, teachers need to be willing to learn from their students, and to show monolingual students – and all students – by example how multilingualism can be valued at school.
References and Related Reading
Corson, D. (1999). Language policy in schools. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Le Pichon, E., & Kambel, E. R. (2022). The language friendly school: An inclusive and equitable pedagogy. Childhood Education, 98(1), 42-49.
Minow, M. (1990). Making all the difference. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
Turner, M. & Green, B. (2026). Multilingualism as opportunity: An integrated perspective on English and languages education in Australia. Routledge.
Turner, M. (2019). Why creating a school-based policy makes sense for Australian schools. Accessed 11 September 2026 from https://www.monash.edu/education/teachspace/articles/why-creating-a-school-based-language-policy-makes-sense-for-australian-schools
