Interaction for transfer : flexible approaches to multilingualism and their pedagogical implications for classroom interaction in linguistically diverse mainstream classrooms

This study focuses on how teachers construe and give meaning to a pedagogical experiment in which the use of the home language in a primary school in Flanders was permitted in order to acknowledge the urban multilingual realities and resources of the pupils and to turn them into didactic capital (functional multilingual learning, FML). Using ethnographic interviews, teachers were asked to comment on recorded classroom activities in which FML played a role. Results showed that teachers created space for FML by facilitating and stimulating peer interaction, but tended to leave the interaction in the hands of the pupils. Teachers viewed individual learning outcomes as more important than collectively organized interactional efforts. Individual pupil characteristics occurred as a starting point to manage and organize classroom activities.This study focuses on how teachers construe and give meaning to a pedagogical experiment in which the use of the home language in a primary school in Flanders was permitted in order to acknowledge the urban multilingual realities and resources of the pupils and to turn them into didactic capital (functional multilingual learning, FML). Using ethnographic interviews, teachers were asked to comment on recorded classroom activities in which FML played a role. Results showed that teachers created space for FML by facilitating and stimulating peer interaction, but tended to leave the interaction in the hands of the pupils. Teachers viewed individual learning outcomes as more important than collectively organized interactional efforts. Individual pupil characteristics occurred as a starting point to manage and organize classroom activities.A