Dynamic interplay of language policy, beliefs and pedagogy in a nursery class in Luxembourg

This presentation focuses on the relationship between the language policy, language ideologies and language practices in a nursery class in trilingual Luxembourg. Individual multilingualism is an educational goal in Luxembourg, a small country in central Europe, and, thus, children learn Luxembourgish from the compulsory nursery school, become literate in German in Year 1 and learn oral and written French from Year 2 and Year 3, respectively. Currently, 62.4% of the children do not speak Luxembourgish on school entry (MENJE 2016). Many speak Portuguese, French or a language of the Balkans. As a result, educational policies focus on the teaching of Luxembourgish from preschool, sometimes at the expense of other languages. Gretsch and Kirsch (2015) developed the app iTEO in order to promote innovative teaching methods that capitalize on the children’s diverse language resources and that promote a dynamic view of bilingualism. This ipad app, which allows for the recording and editing of oral speech, was designed with social-constructivist theories and Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism in mind.
This case-study presents the ways in which a preschool teacher’s ideological beliefs influence a child’s language use over a period of two years leading to the child’s understanding of the legitimacy of translanguaging. The focus lies on the interplay between the educational policy focusing on the teaching of Luxembourgish, the teacher’s language ideologies rooted in her multilingual identity and in societal multilingualism, and the child’s experiences of separating languages at home (Kirsch, 2014). The data stem from a qualitative, longitudinal study using a multi-method approach. The study shows that dialogue between teachers, parents, children, policy-makers and researchers can contribute to shifting ideologies and to opening up dynamic languaging spaces.