Towards A Holistic Perspective On English Language Learning In Educational Contexts: The Multilingual And Translanguaging Approach

Abstract

This article focuses on the learning of English in school contexts in Ibero-American states where Spanish, Portuguese, indigenous languages, minority languages ​​and immigrant languages ​​are also spoken. After showing data from different countries and the link between low levels of proficiency in English and low socioeconomic background, the article takes a holistic perspective by looking at multilingual competence instead of competence in English in an isolated way. The approach “Focus on multilingualism” is presented with its three dimensions: the multilingual speaker, the multilingual repertoire and the social context. Then, the concept of translanguaging is discussed paying specific attention to pedagogical translanguaging as an approach to activate the learners' prior knowledge when learning English as a second or additional language. The importance developing metalinguistic awareness and valuing the multilingual resources students already have are highlighted in the conclusion so as to improve the quality of English language teaching and proficiency in this language.