Academic discourse and joint construction in multilingual classrooms

As large-scale international school evaluation studies of the past decade show, there is a correlation between the academic success and the command of the language used in the classroom. The heterogeneity of linguistic experience, knowledge, ability, and interest in the mainstream classroom therefore requires special attention in the development of academic language and discourse, and presuppose explicit teaching and learning strategies. This contribution discusses academic language in its several dimensions and its impact on education research and practice. A strategy for arranging classroom activities is presented, based on socio-cultural theory, which enhances verbal interaction and teacher-guided talk, and integrates academic language and content learning through joint construction. It thus aims to give all students in multilingual settings access to academic language. Analyzing an example of classroom interaction in a German primary school, the paper reflects on the potentials of this strategy in multilingual classroom settings and urges for further systematic empirical research in this field