Creating Space for Multilingualism in Superdiverse Schools
Creating Space for Multilingualism in Superdiverse Schools empowers students and teachers to create linguistically and culturally inclusive pedagogic spaces. Such spaces value, use and expand students’ entire language experiences and multilingual capabilities for curricular learning, identity affirmation, linguistic justice and wellbeing.
Primary page content
During 2024-2025, Educational Studies’ researchers Dr Vally Lytra (PI), Dr Thomas Quehl, Faris Sanhaji and Dr Cristina Ros i Solé worked with the senior leadership team, teachers, learning support assistants, students and their families at Wyvil primary school in South London. The university-school partnership resulted in the creation of a conceptual and practical A Toolkit for Implementing Multilingual Pedagogies in Primary Schools in England.
The project, funded by Goldsmiths University of London (Research Impact Fund), responded to a significant gap in teacher professional development in the field of multilingual pedagogies in primary schools in England. It aimed to enable student agency and teacher reflexivity and support and develop multilingual pedagogies for all children through a whole school approach.
Our motivation for the partnership was to engage in evidence-based research that could enhance our pedagogical approaches and allow us to celebrate the multilingual strengths of our children. We were particularly drawn to the opportunity to develop inclusive classroom practices and strengthen parental engagement in new and meaningful ways (Lisa Hodgkinson - Headteacher, Wyvil Primary School)
Multilingual pedagogies
Multilingual pedagogies aim to:
- Acknowledge, include and promote children’s linguistic and cultural repertoires and identities within the school context.
- Challenge the monolingual norm in classroom instruction and curriculum linked to a deficit perspective on linguistic diversity in primary education.
- Advocate for a linguistically and culturally inclusive narrative of multilingualism as a resource to support learning for the benefit of all children.
Multilingual pedagogies allowed us as teachers and the children to learn more about everyone within the classroom. We discovered just how diverse our classroom was which led to adults and children alike asking each other questions and therefore meaningfully engaging with one another’s languages and cultures (Isobel Casey, Emma Shi and Jonathon Smith, Y4 teachers)
My multilingualism is a superpower because it is a talent that some people don’t have.
Amy, session 2, 21.1.2025
The toolkit
A Toolkit for Implementing Multilingual Pedagogies in Primary Schools in England has been designed to support senior leadership teams, teachers, learning support staff, Modern Foreign Languages coordinators, teacher educators, student teachers and school services in local authorities.
The toolkit contains:
- Pedagogical principles and pathways, multilingual activities and curricular links across primary school years.
- Points for further teacher reflection and development that can be integrated into day-to-day classroom routines and practices.
- Two case studies of embedding multilingual pedagogies to enrich children’s science learning and multilingual identities in two Year 4 and one resource-based classes.
- A description of the university-school partnership that underpins its creation.
The science unit acknowledged multilingualism as an area of competence that can also be included in classroom learning. We observed how children took pride in speaking their languages and experienced this competence when sharing words and short sentences within their learning activities (Jacqueline Crawford, resource-based class)
Looking forward
The toolkit is a first step in collectively exploring, designing, implementing and evaluating multilingual pedagogies in primary schools - both in England and beyond. It is designed to be flexible, adaptable and responsive to the diverse realities of your classroom and school. We invite you to explore the toolkit with a spirit of curiosity, experimentation and collaboration and to contribute to its evolution.
You are free to download, share and adapt the toolkit, provided you cite it.
Cite the toolkit: Lytra, V., Quehl, T., Crawford, J., Sanhaji, F., Ros i Solé, C., with Casey, I., Shi, E., Smith, J., Hodgkinson, L. and Stevens, S. (2025) A Toolkit for Implementing Multilingual Pedagogies in Primary Schools in England. Goldsmiths, University of London. DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.00039245
My multilingualism / speaking more than one language every day is like my motorbike is as fast as a cheetah.
Colson, session 2, 21.1.2025
Share your feedback
We are keen to hear about how you are using and adapting the Toolkit to your school context. We warmly welcome you to join the Multilingual Pedagogies Network that brings together educators in schools, teacher educators and researchers to support multilingual learning in schools and teacher professional development.
Our aims are to:
- Promote linguistic justice and inclusion by valuing and integrating students’ full linguistic repertoires in schools and classrooms, fostering curricular learning and pride in multilingual identities.
- Co-create approaches to multilingual pedagogies by expanding, trailing, and refining A Toolkit for Implementing Multilingual Pedagogies in Primary Schools in England that respond to diverse school contexts.
- Stimulate collaboration and partnerships by creating opportunities for educators in schools, teacher educators, researchers and policy makers to share knowledge, experiences, practices, and resources.
- Encourage reflective practice by providing a space for critical reflection on language policies, classroom practices, and their impact on students’ curricular learning, identity affirmation and well-being.
- Build research-informed education practice by connecting research on multilingual pedagogies with classroom application and supporting a school-wide research rich culture.
- Influence language in education policy and practice by contributing to wider conversations on languages and language learning in education, shaping school practices and policy directions.
We invite you to connect through our LinkedIn group and take part in the conversation.
Contact us via email:
Dr Vally Lytra, v.lytra@gold.ac.uk
Research team
- Dr Vally Lytra, Goldsmiths
- Dr Thomas Quehl, Goldsmiths
- Faris Sanhaji, Goldsmiths
- Dr Cristina Ros i Solé, Goldsmiths
- Jaqueline Crawford, Wyvil Primary School
- Isobel Casey, Wyvil Primary School
- Emma Shi, Wyvil Primary School
- Jonathon Smith, Wyvil Primary School
- Lisa Hodgkinson, Wyvil Primary School
- Stephanie Stevens, Wyvil Primary School