Language Policy for the Multilingual Classroom: Pedagogy of the Possible

With contributions from leading scholars all around the world, this volume underlines the ever-pressing need for new language in education policies to include all learners’ voices in the multilingual classroom and to empower teachers to develop responsive and transformative pedagogies. Using testimonies, narratives and examples from different international contexts, this book points clearly to what can be achieved practically in the multilingual classroom so that multilingual learners’ voices are legitimated, while also addressing the complex inter-relating sociolinguistic issues around the promotion of bilingualism and multilingualism in education.

Christine Hélot is emeritus professor of English at the University of Strasbourg, France. As a sociolinguist, her research focuses on language in education policies in France and in Europe, bi-multilingual education, intercultural education, language awareness, early childhood education, and children’s literature and multiliteracy. In 1988 she obtained her PhD from Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland) for a thesis on bilingualism in the family and in 2005 she was awarded an Habilitation (University of Strasbourg) for her research on bi/plurilingualism at school. Dr Hélot was a lecturer at the University of Ireland before returning to France and since then has been a guest professor in Spain, Germany, Japan, and the USA. She has published widely in French and English, and co-edited several volumes on bilingual and multilingual education. Her research on critical language awareness was the subject of a documentary film entitled "Raconte-moi ta langue/Tell me how you talk": https://vimeo.com/402284515

Muiris Ó Laoire is Professor in the School of Health and Social Sciences at Munster Technological University, Ireland. He is author of several articles, chapters and books on language revitalisation, language teaching, language policy and multilingualism. He is currently providing professional development in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) to the Department (Ministry) of Education and to the European Schools Inspectorate. He was on the organising committee of the first international conference on immersion education in Ireland in 2015 and co-edited the conference proceedings with T.J. Ó Ceallaigh in 2015 and 2021.