1 Introduction/Context

Language education for plurilingual speakers is an increasingly important issue on an international scale particularly given the rise in multilingualism in many countries (UNESCO, 2019), including Canada (Kubota & Bale, 2020; Lau et al., 2020; Piccardo, 2019). Many multilingual countries have national language policies that favour one or two languages, which result in a power imbalance among languages present in the landscape and a false monolingual/bilingual identity of individuals who speak the national languages that are recognized officially. Canada, for example, has an official bilingual policy, with English and French enjoying official status, but the country has over 200 non-official languages, including Indigenous and immigrant languages. Similar to other immigrant receiving countries, linguistic diversity in Canada is on the rise primarily due to an increase in immigration over the past few years (Statistics Canada, 2017). Immigrants account for two-thirds of the growth in the population between 2011 and 2016 (Statistics Canada, 2017) and the number of Canadians who reported a first language other than English or French increased 13.3%, from 6,838,715 in 2011 to 7,749,115 in 2016. These numbers indicate that the landscape is more multilingual than ever before and language policies and pedagogy need to catch up with this current phenomenon. In language education, this new reality requires that teachers are well equipped to teach the target language while concurrently preparing their students to develop plurilingual and pluricultural awareness. In additional language teaching, this is important especially given that the field of language education has traditionally been monolingually-oriented and rather than preparing plurilingual speakers, language education aimed at preparing students to be speakers of the target language only (Piccardo, 2019).

Despite the growing multilingual trend, linguistic and cultural diversity is often overlooked in educational settings. There are concerns that monolingual policies assume that separating languages is the default best practice (Cummins, 2017), which can have a negative impact on the educational path of plurilingual speakers and their chances for academic success. These speakers are often subject to stereotypes regarding lower academic expectations and achievements, for example, in the assessment of language proficiency and/or deficient categorizations such as labelling students as being “at risk,” or “remedial” (Mahboob & Szenes, 2010; Stanley, 2010). This issue calls for the need to address language learning and performance that does not conform to monolingual standards and expectations (García, 2019). If students’ linguistic repertoires, identities and prior lived experiences are undervalued or ignored, plurilingual speakers’ linguistic practices will remain marginalized.

In this chapter, we use the term multilingual to refer to the side-by-side existence of many languages in the social landscape (not necessarily interacting socially) and plurilingual and pluricultural to refer to the repertoire of languages and cultures within the individual, which is a distinction made in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR; Council of Europe [CoE], 2001, 2020). While some scholars, including ourselves, may use the terms multilingual and plurilingual interchangeably in the literature, we make this distinction here to help us highlight individual plurilingual and pluricultural awareness as it is the focus of the chapter. We are particularly interested in addressing current social multilingual realities and through teacher education assist pre-service teachers change potential monolingual biases. That is, we strongly believe that through teacher education on plurilingual approaches, teachers can help their students reject the potential monolingual-oriented notion that in order to be a legitimate speaker of a language they need to speak it like a native speaker. Instead, teachers can help empower their students to see themselves as plurilingual speakers with rich linguistic and cultural resources that can be used for communication, as we later explore in the chapter. Therefore, we use the pluri to focus on the individual and multi to focus on the social landscape.

Given that language policies and pedagogical practices in many countries may be incongruent with plurilingual speakers’ realities, our goal is to provide pre-service teacher education on plurilingual approaches to validate student identity. As part of a research project funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Societé et Culture (FRQSC), we produced pre-service teacher education materials on plurilingual approaches for a teaching English as a second language (TESL) program at McGill University in Montréal, Québec, Canada. While we focus on a city that presents a unique multilingual context in a non-English-speaking province of Canada, the learner-centred nature of our pedagogical materials allows for their applicability in other contexts.

1.1 Montréal: Linguistic and Cultural Landscape

Montréal is the city in North America with the highest percentage of trilingual residents, where more than 40% know French and English along with an additional language (Statistics Canada, 2017). Montréal is the largest city in the French-speaking province of Québec and has a population of over 4 million people with approximately 150 languages (Statistics Canada, 2017). English in the province of Québec is considered a minority language, but at the national level, English is the majority language. Montréal faces the contradicting reality of being a multilingual and multicultural city having to conform to official monolingual French policies which legislate and regulate French language use in public and encourage residents to support Francophone culture as a means of integration in the dominant Québec society. In 2020, first-generation immigrants accounted for 38.5% of Montréal’s population, while second-generation immigrants—people with at least one parent born outside of Canada—accounted for 21% of the population (Office de consultation publique de Montréal, 2020). Our research is particularly aimed at TESL education and understanding the context where we are based is important as it provides indicators of potential challenges for pedagogical change given the historical facts and language policy structures. The terms ESL (English as a second language) and FSL (French as a second language) are commonly used across Canada and are indicative of the officially bilingual national identity supported in language policies. We problematize official English/French bilingualism and raise issues about the lack of recognition of other types of bilingualisms as well as of minoritized languages and cultures in the Canadian landscape. The ESL and FSL is reminiscent of the colonial legacy in Canada, as discussed in the next section. Thus, while we use TESL and ESL to refer to the current policies and the teacher education program, we argue that this dichotomy may permeate the view language learners may have of themselves as either monolingual or bilingual, only if this identity refers to these languages. Instead, we offer an alternative to empower language speakers as plurilingual speakers and develop a plurilingual identity.

1.2 Language and Culture in Québec

Canada carries a colonial legacy that has strongly influenced language use today. Historically, the conflicts between the English and the French as the two colonial powers have created a structure for the development of distinct language policies in Canada. While at the federal level (Canadian) language policies focus on promoting an English and French bilingual framework, Québec is the only Canadian province with a monolingual French framework. In Canada, English and French are the official languages as outlined by the federal Official Languages Act (1969), and in Québec, French is the official language as mandated by the Québec Charter of the French Language (1977). In addition to preserving the French language in the province, the education clause in the charter prevents access to English language schools for the majority of the population. In order to attend English language schools in Québec, students need a certificate of eligibility confirming that one of their parents or one of their siblings received most of their elementary education in English in Canada. As a result, most students complete their elementary and high school education in French, especially students from an immigrant background.

As noted, the evolution of Québec’s and Canada’s history of language policies conflicts with the current multilingual and multicultural reality of the province and country. To respond to the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity of the population, the federal government introduced the Canadian Multiculturalism Act in 1988, which supported the preservation of immigrant languages while reaffirming the two official languages in the country: English and French. Whereas Canada’s multicultural model supports the existence of cultural differences with no “official culture” within an English and French structure, Québec’s adoption of the intercultural model supports a distinct Francophone identity and culture by rejecting linguistic diversity. In Québec, interculturalism has been understood as a response to Canada’s Multicultural Act and as a different social model that would ensure the preservation of the French language and Francophone culture as to encourage the linguistic integration of immigrants to Québec society (Heller, 2011).

In 2015, 90.4% of students in Québec attended a French primary and/or secondary school; as well, in 2015, the percentage of plurilingual students who attended French school rose from only 14.6% in 1971 to 89.4% (Office québécois de la langue française, 2017) as a direct result of the 1977 inception of the French mandated policies. In Montréal, in 2015, the proportion of plurilingual students who attended school in French was 80% and over 62% of students in the city did not have French as a first language (Office québécois de la langue française, 2017). In higher education, Québec is the only province with both French and English college systems, and students have the option to attend an English or French-speaking college or university. Prior to attending a university, however, students are required to complete a two-year college diploma in an English or French CEGEP, the French acronym for Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel. Because there are both English- and French-speaking universities in Québec, students choose an English or French-speaking college based on their future path to university. For example, students who wish to attend an English-speaking university, which is the case of McGill University where we are based, often choose to attend an English-speaking college as prior academic preparation in English. However, students from an immigrant background, who did not have the opportunity to complete their schooling in Québec or attend college, need to take ESL courses to improve language proficiency in English. ESL classes are offered as part of the Québec curriculum whether it is an English- or French-speaking school. In any ESL class in Montréal, it is common to have students from an immigrant background and who speak multiple languages and students who grew up in Québec and who speak French as a first language and other additional languages. Our work, therefore, focuses on preparing pre-service teachers to teach this student population in ESL classes in Montréal schools.

Similar to this student population in Montréal schools, the pre-service teachers who attend teacher education programs in English-speaking universities, which is the case of McGill University where we are located, are largely plurilingual, as many speak two or more languages as a result of their immigrant and Indigenous backgrounds, or of growing up in Québec going through the French education system prior to attending an English-speaking university. By the end of the TESL teacher education program at McGill, the pre-service teachers will have the required Québec provincial license that allows them to teach ESL in provincially-funded elementary and secondary schools. Some of our pre-service teachers will teach local and international students in CEGEPs or other language programs, although the Québec license may not be required in these workplaces. Some of them may go to an English-speaking province in Canada (e.g. Ontario) or teach abroad. Therefore, despite the specificity of our context, our pedagogical materials were designed to be applicable to both national and international levels. One important point is that these materials do not offer ready-made prescribed tasks; instead, they allow pre-service teachers to reflect on their own context and student population, and how a plurilingual approach can advance their students’ plurilingual and pluricultural awareness.

2 Theoretical Framing: Plurilingualism, Pluriculturalism and Identity

As previously mentioned, our work draws on the concepts of multilingualism and pluriculturalism. Multilingualism refers to the presence of multiple languages at the societal level, such as in Canada, where Indigenous and immigrant languages exist and are spoken alongside the official English and French languages at home, work, schools (e.g. heritage language schools) and public spaces (e.g. public transportation and stores). In this sense, multilingualism refers to an enumerative addition of one language to a list of languages. Plurilingualism, on the other hand, puts forth a repertoire at the individual level of interrelated languages and cultures, from which individuals have the agency to draw when using their languages or when learning new ones. Hence, even a monolingual person can be considered plurilingual since familiarity with regional varieties or dialects in one language only is part of a plurilingual repertoire (Piccardo, 2019).

Pluriculturalism is also an inherent aspect of plurilingualism, which treats languages and cultures as inseparable. In a plurilingual framework, learners’ language use is tied to their cultural experiences, life trajectories, and social interactions (Marshall & Moore, 2018; Ortega, 2013, 2014). As such, language learners’ linguistic practices help them co-construct and negotiate their identity, through their lived and embodied experiences with languages and cultures, as well as their evolving investments in personal values and goals (Busch, 2017; Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton, 2013). Within a plurilingual framework, a person’s linguistic repertoire and identities are therefore dynamic, complex, fluid, and embedded in their linguistic and cultural experiences (Piccardo, 2019). Plurilingual individuals may use one language at work, another language at home and a mix of languages for several other purposes. They have a unique plurilingual blueprint (Galante, 2020a, p. 240) that belongs to them only and is a result of their linguistic and cultural resources which have developed in their past and will continue to develop in their lifetime. However, even individuals who speak two or more languages may not recognize themselves as plurilingual; instead, they may see themselves as a bilingual speaker who keeps their language practices separated, a belief which Grosjean (1989) referred to as two monolinguals in one over thirty years ago. Instead, developing plurilingual and pluricultural awareness is an essential holistic dimension of plurilingualism, as it helps learners recognize and foster their emergent plurilingual and pluricultural identity. Therefore, plurilingual/pluricultural awareness and identity allow individuals to have agency over their own language use, choose when to use their languages, where, and for which purposes. They can also challenge societal monolingual norms, their own potential monolingual biases, nativespeakerism and the notion of language separation.

Language learners’ identities are composed of several personal, historical, social, cultural and linguistic factors that interact with each other in different ways and for different purposes depending on the specific situation (Galante, 2019). For example, in language classrooms, they rely on their linguistic repertoires, choosing between two or three languages during social and discipline-specific interactions (Ortega, 2013; Rymes, 2014). As well, plurilingual students use their repertoires to negotiate and construct new varieties in their language practices, which suggests that language, culture and identity are interrelated (Canagarajah, 2018; Galante, 2020b; Lau et al., 2016). Pedagogical practices need to transcend standardized views that stem from monolingual/bilingual political discourses towards approaches that integrate students’ entire repertoire, whether stemming from languages learned at home, in social settings, or from prior educational experiences (Busch, 2017; García, 2019). Moreover, creating spaces and implementing pedagogical approaches which embrace the fluid language system of plurilingual speakers and contest the view that students need to conform to monolingual expectations of language use is urgently needed (Canagarajah, 2018; Cummins, 2017; Lau et al., 2016).

2.1 Empirical Findings: Student Identities and Plurilingual and Pluricultural Awareness

Existing literature reveals an intricate and tight link among language, culture and identity (Kramsch, 2009; Norton, 2013). This interrelationship is further made complex by ideological, political and historical factors that affect linguistic practices and identity (Dagenais, 2013; Lamarre, 2013). For instance, among language learners, research shows that more experienced language learners tend to be more aware of their plurilingual and pluricultural identity (Bono & Stratilaki, 2009; dela Cruz, 2022a). Yet, official educational and societal monolingual policies could potentially disparage or even suppress the expression of such plurilingual/pluricultural identities (Oliveira & Ançã, 2009; Pickel & Hélot, 2014).

Engaging in an introspective reflection of our own identities can better prepare us to understand others, their cultural beliefs and values. In Australian classes, where an intercultural approach to language learning has been widely embraced, research shows that a key element for students to develop interculturality and multilingual identity is self-awareness (we understand that plurilingual and multilingual can be used interchangeably here) (Fielding, 2021). Young and adult learners who recognize their plurilingual and pluricultural identity tend to also identify as having plurilingual and pluricultural competence (e.g. Galante, 2020b; Prasad, 2018). In a study with plurilinguals studying English in a French-speaking college (CEGEP) in Montréal, many learners who did not recognize their plurilingual and pluricultural awareness also tended to identify as monolingual and monocultural (e.g. dela Cruz, 2022b), even if they reported speaking two or more languages. More importantly, regardless of age, research shows that language learners’ plurilingual identity is dynamic and multiplex and is critical to their linguistic and personal developments within and beyond their language classrooms (Fielding, 2016; Lau et al., 2016; Stille, 2015). Such findings have implications for the inclusion of plurilingual and pluricultural dimensions to language education to ensure that students develop not only their linguistic competences on the target language, but also their plurilingual and pluricultural awareness and identities.

Apart from individual awareness, societal and educational language policies can play an important role in developing or hindering the development of plurilingual identities. For example, a recent study conducted with 250 Montréal residents in an English-speaking university shows that all participants had at least three languages in their repertoire and that 92.9% (n = 231) identified as plurilingual, reporting their rich linguistic repertoire and lived cultural experiences as a reason for this self-reported identity (Galante & dela Cruz, 2021). Most participants who did not identify as plurilingual reported that they perceived themselves as bilingual, even if they had more than two languages in their repertoire. Interestingly, all of those who identified as bilingual were born in Québec and were fluent in English and French. The authors explain that this result could be tied to official English–French policies in Canada (see also Churchill, 2003), as well as dominant language discourses: a bilingual person is only considered bilingual if they speak the two Canadian official languages fluently (Heller, 2007), while other types of bilingualism (minoritized languages) are often ignored. This discrepancy between policies and students’ plurilingual realities in many multilingual settings further necessitates inclusive language instruction in order to foster learners’ plurilingual and pluricultural awareness and identities.

2.2 The Need for Teacher Education on Plurilingual Approaches

Studies conducted in multilingual settings reveal that plurilingual language teachers can have different views of their students’ repertoires compared to teachers who perceive themselves as monolingual. One study in Australia shows that ESL teachers’ (n = 31) repertoires influence their beliefs about language teaching: plurilingual teachers have awareness that the varying proficiency levels in the languages in their repertoire is normal while monolingual teachers see this imbalance as a deficiency (Ellis, 2013). Moreover, the study shows that plurilingual teachers are more aware of language learning strategies, such as code-switching and intercomprehension, compared to teachers who consider themselves as monolingual. These results offer a step in the right direction but do not necessarily mean that teachers who identify as plurilingual are ready to implement plurilingual approaches in the classroom. For example, another study with teachers of diverse languages in Australia and the UK (n = 62) shows that even if teachers recognized the languages in their repertoire they still had limited awareness of their students’ repertoire (Pauwels, 2014), which can hinder the implementation of plurilingual approaches. In fact, most teachers considered their students’ plurilingual repertoire as an annoyance, but a few teachers who had received teacher education on plurilingualism considered their students’ repertoire as an asset. In another study with a collaboration between a researcher and seven university teachers of English for academic purposes in Canada, results show that teachers confronted their own monolingual and monocultural biases after applying weekly plurilingual tasks under the guidance of the researcher (Galante et al., 2020). These results show that teachers can successfully implement plurilingual approaches with the right support.

One way to support teachers in the implementation of plurilingual approaches is through teacher education, which can be done during their pre-service training or in-service with projects supported by a researcher. However, time and reflection is needed for teachers to challenge their own beliefs and rethink their own pedagogical practices. For example, researchers and teachers in Lau and colleagues’ (2020) study needed “cycles of planning, action, and reflection” in order to successfully implement a cross-curricular plurilingual approach in college English and French courses (p. 293). Thus, without support for teachers, the implementation of plurilingual approaches will remain a challenge (Ellis, 2013; Kubota, 2020). Without the necessary support and resources, teachers are often left to rely on the spontaneous plurilingual practices of their students, which could sometimes come off as random or unsystematic.

Another issue that poses barriers for the implementation of plurilingual approaches is teachers’ monolingual predisposition (Piccardo, 2013); that is, many teachers still follow the native speaker model as a standard, and students’ linguistic diversity remains unreflected in the language pedagogies that they receive (Sterzuk, 2015). This reality leaves language teachers professionally unprepared to teach languages to an increasingly multilingual and multicultural student population. For instance, many pre-service teachers feel unprepared to employ plurilingual approaches in their teaching, despite being committed to the importance of social justice in language education (Mujawamariya & Mahrouse, 2006); specifically, the pre-service teachers in this study felt that they received inadequate education to prepare them to effectively teach an ethnoracially diverse student population. Further, some of these teachers have expressed dissatisfaction with their training programs, citing the vague or generalized nature of the multicultural education they received. That is, while the challenges of increasingly multilingual societies are often presented, no room is fostered for real and meaningful discussions of these challenges.

In Québec, like other contexts, socio-political tensions pose further challenges for the inclusion of plurilingual education. As previously noted, Québec’s unique historical and political landscape has produced a space where the use and presence of English is tense and conflicted. This extends to ESL classrooms, where one study shows that the use of French by francophone learners is polarizing for many B.Ed. student–teachers (Winer, 2007); when discussing their internship experiences during their training, some pre-service teachers claimed that allowing students to use their first language was helpful in many situations, while others believed that this could lead students to excessively relying on their French, which in turn could eventually stunt their progress in English. These pre-service teachers’ linguistic identities also come into question in their ESL classroom, where language-mixing was often contested. That is, given the monolingual policies and ideologies that permeate many parts of Québec society–educational settings included–it is no surprise that some pre-service ESL teachers, especially those who identify as francophones, often experience ambivalence or even hostility from others towards their choice to teach English. That is, English can be seen as a threat in a province where monolingual French language policies are used to preserve French as a minority language in the country; thus, francophones who wish to become English teachers in Québec can be even seen as an enemy of their own people. Arguably, in contexts like Canada and Québec, where bilingual and monolingual frameworks are applied in multilingual cities, monolingual ideologies continue to inform policy and practice within and beyond language classrooms (Kubota & Miller, 2017). It is this precise gap that we were interested in addressing: how can we better prepare pre-service teachers on plurilingual approaches to teaching English in contexts with monolingual policies?

3 Our Positionality

Our positionality is an important aspect of this project as our own identities and trajectories have motivated us to conduct this study. We have several years of experience teaching English language programs (English as a second and foreign language, English for academic purposes and English writing) in Montréal, in Canada, and in other countries; we all have an immigrant background either as first or second-generation settler in Canada (from Brazil, Philippines, Greece, and Lebanon); we are speakers of English as an additional language. Combined, we speak eight languages besides English: Portuguese, Spanish, French, Greek, Tagalog, Ilocano, Kapampangan, and Arabic. Our plurilingual identities are similar to the identities of many English teachers and ESL students in Montréal.

We engaged in reading recent literature on plurilingualism, translanguaging, interculturality and identity, particularly as they relate to pedagogical applications as well as our own identities and language practices. We shared articles, read and discussed them in bi-weekly meetings for approximately three months. Our discussions examined the extent to which the concepts and practices would be applicable to ESL programs in Montréal and beyond and how to provide initial teacher education on plurilingual approaches to students attending a pre-service program in TESL at McGill University. Our main goal was to prepare pre-service teachers who would teach in multilingual settings—in Montréal, Québec, Canada and other countries—to affirm their students’ plurilingual and pluricultural identities while advancing their English language skills through action-oriented tasks.

4 Teacher Education on Plurilingual Approaches

The teacher education project described below was part of a second course on Teaching Methods that pre-service teachers attended as a required course in their 4th year of a B.Ed. program. The course was taught by the first author in the Winter term of 2021. Given the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, the course was delivered remotely with synchronous classes via Zoom and weekly asynchronous discussions via VoiceThread, which is a platform that allows students to post audio and video comments to one another, resembling a discussion. There were 22 pre-service teachers enrolled in the course. They were all familiar with traditional teaching methods such as communicative language teaching and task-based language teaching, but none of them were familiar with an action-oriented plurilingual approach to language teaching. That is, the pre-service teachers were familiar with decontextualized language activities such as using worksheets for grammar practice or role-playing a dialogue, but not on the use of language tasks for real-life situations, which is required when following an action-oriented approach. The course focused on hands-on applications so that the pre-service teachers could become familiar with the implementation of a plurilingual approach through the use of the new descriptors of the CEFR (CoE, 2020), which included plurilingual descriptors. While the descriptors are divided into proficiency levels, ranging from pre-A1 (novice) to C2 (experienced), the students were free to choose descriptors that best represented the abilities of their students, especially given that many times students may have different proficiency levels in the same class. For example, in a grade 10 class where most students have intermediate levels of English, the pre-service teachers sometimes chose similar descriptors across the levels: descriptors for building a pluricultural repertoire, pre-service teachers could choose Can discuss in simple terms the way their own culturally determined actions may be perceived differently by people from other cultures for B1 level or a similar descriptor for C1 level as Can deal with ambiguity in cross-cultural communication and express their reactions constructively and culturally appropriately in order to bring clarity. Since the CEFR descriptors are not meant to be used linearly or uniformly across levels as not all students are or should be equally proficient in all skills at the same level, the pre-service teachers would make decisions based on their own student population and choose most suitable descriptors regardless of the proficiency level suggested in the CEFR. The pre-service teachers were also required to adapt the descriptors chosen based on their students and their own context.

Advancing plurilingual and pluricultural awareness among language learners and affirming their identities as plurilingual speakers requires that pre-service teachers become familiar with pedagogical practices that can be implemented in their own classroom. For the purposes of our project, we focused on five plurilingual strategies, presented as video tutorials, followed by discussions on VoiceThread, and completion of tasks using a task template (see Appendix) which guided the pre-service teachers to reflect on and include a plurilingual approach in their classroom. The decision to include the strategies and the task template stemmed from the need to provide teachers education that suit their context (a multilingual setting), student population (plurilingual speakers) and pre-service teachers with little or no experience with plurilingual education.

4.1 Five Pedagogical Strategies

Based on our literature review and the fact that our pre-service teachers had little to no knowledge of plurilingual approaches, we selected five plurilingual strategies for initial pre-service teacher education:

  1. (1)

    Cross-linguistic comparisons (Auger, 2005, 2008a, 2008b): comparing the languages of the students to the target language, English in this case, as an effective way to get students to engage in learning. These comparisons can be done at the level of linguistic features, such as grammar, syntax, phonology and morphology or at the level of language use. For example, when learning a new feature such as connectors, students can compare where connectors are positioned in sentences in different languages, compare to English sentences, and discuss their use in oral and written texts. Through cross-linguistic comparisons, students actively engage in learning and have their linguistic repertoire valued during the English lessons. Importantly, it was highlighted that such comparisons should not be done only among the official languages of Canada (e.g. comparing English with French), or the languages that the teachers spoke as most pre-service teachers imagined. Instead, even if the teacher does not speak all the languages of their students, they can give students the agency to compare their own languages (minoritized and/or official). The students can also be positioned as the “teacher” and explain such comparisons in their languages to other students and the teacher who may or may not speak those languages.

  2. (2)

    Cross-cultural comparisons (Coste et al., 1997/2009): learning a new language offers a unique advantage to learning new cultures, customs, values and beliefs of a community. English is a language used in countries where the language is official, such as Canada, but also internationally; therefore, the way people use the language may differ depending on where it is spoken. Making cross-cultural comparisons can help students develop critical thinking, learn about how knowledge is constructed, understand their own culture and the culture of their peers, as well as new ways of life. By using cross-cultural comparisons, for example, when discussing topics such as food security and environmental issues, students can gather texts (oral, written or other semiotic resources) in different languages and compare the content that is prioritized, how knowledge is communicated in different languages and how language connects to culture. These comparisons offer opportunities to discuss values and ideas across languages and cultures, which in turn can develop an awareness of different ways of knowing or knowledge, develop criticality and creative ways of thinking. Cultures here are not bound to majority cultures attached to the language of instruction, for example, “mainstream Canadian culture” but to communities. For example, even though French and Québecois identity are promoted in language policies in the province of Québec, there are many Indigenous and immigrant communities whose cultures may differ from mainstream Québecois culture. As well, these discussions do not have to focus on difference only, but also highlight similarities across communities.

  3. (3)

    Translanguaging (García & Otheguy, 2019; García & Li, 2014; Li, 2018): translanguaging, or using different languages and dialects for communication can be an effective strategy for making meaning of content in a new language. Students can read, write, watch a news segment or listen to a podcast in a language other than English and bring the knowledge to class to be discussed in English or in another language, if there are students in class who share the same languages. For example, in small groups, students can discuss a topic in Mandarin and later express the meaning discussed in English. Students can also start writing an essay in English, and if they feel “stuck” because they cannot remember a word or a verb, they can switch and continue in another language (this is called postponing) and later check for the meaning in English. By using languages other than English, students have the opportunity to continue communication, getting the point across, which can make communication more effective. While exposure to the target language is often a concern among teachers, translanguaging here is not used at the expense of the target language but as way to integrate the entire repertoire in the language tasks. That is, students can watch a video in one language and explain the knowledge in English or even mixing the languages if it is more appropriate. Thus, instead of the ESL teacher relying on English texts only, they can use texts in other languages and encourage their students to do the same.

  4. (4)

    Translation for Mediation (Galante, 2021; González-Davies, 2017): whenever there is a new expression, vocabulary or grammatical item in the lesson, teachers can plan activities that engage students in using the languages in their repertoire. For example, teachers can ask students to translate the new items into languages they already know and in small groups share their translations with other peers, who will have translation in other languages. Students can compare meaning across languages, whether there is a translation in another language or not, how to pronounce these words, whether they are similar or different from English, etc. By translating in different languages and comparing these words, students have more opportunities to engage with meaning and are likely to learn these words more quickly. Here, the focus is not on professional translations but on building awareness of meanings, sounds, concepts and scripts across languages. For example, a student who speaks Cree, can write words or sentences on the board, pronounce them to their peers and explain how the suffixes attached to words can change the meaning of a sentence as well as compare whether these concepts even exist in English.

  5. (5)

    Pluriliteracies (García et al., 2007; Meyer, 2016): communication is a purposeful social activity, and plurilingual approaches consider language learners as social agents who complete different daily tasks using linguistic and cultural repertoire. Learners do not only interact through listening, speaking, reading and writing but also using other types or literacy such as visual representations (e.g. emoticons and GIFs), photographs, gestures and digital literacies (e.g. creating movies and Vlogs). Therefore, plurilingual approaches will make use of different types of pedagogical resources and materials already available, but new ones will be created by the learners. For example, one lesson can engage learners in analysing a written poem in English and subsequently have them create a poem of their own and deliver it in different formats, such as spoken word or a rap song. Importantly, pluriliteracies are considered semtiotic resources for communication that are not necessarily bound to the linguistic code, that is, through embodying language and using non-linguistic representations students can expand their repertoire and see themselves as having rich resources for communication.

These five approaches have been discussed separately here for ease of presentation and to allow teachers to not rely on only one approach: for example, many pre-service teachers think that plurilingual approaches basically mean allowing students to use other languages in class, which is a limited view. Thus, the five strategies allow pre-service teachers to develop an understanding of different ways of engaging students’ repertoires. Moreover, these strategies have soft boundaries among them and can be seen as interrelated as one can inform another or two or more can be used in a lesson at the same time. Given that the teaching methods course was delivered remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic face-to-face restrictions, we created video tutorials to facilitate pre-service teacher understanding of the five strategies.

4.2 Five Video Tutorials for a Plurilingual Approach

The five videos we created were each approximately two-minutes long. They provide a brief explanation of the plurilingual strategy and examples for implementation in the ESL classroom. Our aim was to bridge the knowledge of the complex notion of plurilingualism as a theoretical framework to teaching practice through a creative and engaging visual representation. They are available online as a playlist on our research lab’s (Plurilingual Lab) YouTube channel and in a teachers' guide we created as an outcome of this project (Galante et al. 2022). By watching the tutorials, the pre-service teachers were invited to reflect on using their students’ linguistic and cultural repertoire in the classroom and affirm their student identity. They also provide pre-service teachers with a description of the steps of implementing a task following a plurilingual approach. Importantly, the video tutorials were accompanied by a task template (see sample in Appendix) and discussions via VoiceThread, as discussed below.

4.3 Task Template

Besides readings on post-method approaches (Galante, 2014), action-oriented tasks in language teaching (Piccardo, 2014), calls for Indigenous education in ESL teaching (Abe, 2017; TRC, 2015), and classroom strategies such as explicit instruction (Hattie & Zierer, 2017), the pre-service teachers engaged in task development for their future teaching. To develop the tasks, they worked synchronously in small groups of three or four via Zoom to make decisions for their task development. Each group used the task template, which was later added to a Google document so the members of the group could asynchronously populate the template. The template required information such as the context of their ESL classroom, student population, task development based on a backward design and plurilingual strategies used. This group work was done three times in the course: at the start, middle and end so the instructor (first author) could evaluate a progression of the inclusion of plurilingual approaches. For example, in the first task it was observed that pre-service teachers would include comparisons between English and French only, even if they reported that a vast majority of their students spoke other minoritized languages. The instructor ensured to provide feedback, which was done in track changes, with comments such as “A plurilingual approach encourages the engagement of students’ entire repertoire and not only the official languages in Canada. How can you ensure that the minoritized languages of your students as well as their diverse backgrounds are recognized and validated during the lesson? You may want to reflect on this question and address this issue in your future task.” It was through constant feedback and engagement in reflections that pre-service teachers could challenge their monolingual or bilingual (English/French) biases and strive for a classroom that is more linguistically and culturally inclusive.

4.4 CEFR Descriptors

The development of the task required that the pre-service teachers choose CEFR descriptors which were related to the task. The CEFR companion volume (CoE, 2020) was made available as reference to the pre-service teachers, but they were not expected to read the entire document; instead, they were encouraged to familiarize themselves with the document, the plurilingual approach to teaching languages, and the descriptors based on proficiency level, from A1 (basic) to C2 (advanced). However, as previously noted, it is often the case that there are students who have different overall proficiency levels and students who may be more or less proficient depending on the skill (e.g. B2 in listening and A2 in oral communication); thus, the pre-service teachers were free to tailor the tasks to address individual differences. Given the large number of descriptors and to facilitate navigation, an excel file (see CERF Searchable Descriptors excel file available in the Council of Europe website) was made available so that they could “play around” with the descriptors by selecting different proficiency levels and language activities to design their tasks. Because the descriptors provide general information, the pre-service teachers were asked to adapt the original descriptors to suit their task design, student population and content. For example:

Original descriptor (B1, plurilingual comprehension): Can use what they have understood in one language to understand the topic and main message of a text in another language (e.g. when reading short newspaper articles in different languages on the same theme).

Adapted version: can use the information of a simple text about traffic signs in a language in their repertoire (e.g. French) to understand the main message of a text in the same topic in English.

4.5 Task Description

After selecting the descriptors, the pre-service teachers were asked to describe the scenario of the task which should be based on a real-life situation where students would use English for communication and describe the steps for task completion. Importantly, to ensure that pre-service teachers can advance their students’ plurilingual and pluricultural awareness, they were asked to complete a separate section in the template where they reflected on the plurilingual strategies used based on the video tutorials presented to them. Importantly, these five strategies have student identity at the core of the language task; that is, the pre-service teachers were encouraged to develop language tasks that included one or more of the strategies above but centred on the learner.

4.6 VoiceThread Discussions

Through the engagement of plurilingual pedagogical materials such as the five pedagogical strategies along with video tutorials, CEFR descriptors, task template and instructor feedback, pre-service teachers had opportunities to challenge their own beliefs about language teaching based on a monolingual approach and shift towards a plurilingual and pluricultural approach. We have observed that our materials have allowed pre-service teachers to reflect on their future teaching context, their students’ identities (background, family, languages and socio-economic status) and the plurilingual strategies that they can use to advance students’ plurilingual and pluricultural awareness and affirm their identities. Besides the required readings, the pre-service teachers were asked to watch the video tutorials and engage in weekly discussions online through VoiceThread by posting and replying to video and audio comments to one another. These discussions allowed them to be familiar with the topic of plurilingualism and an action-oriented approach to teaching, raise their students’ plurilingual and pluricultural awareness and use the CEFR descriptors to set goals by adapting them to their context, student population and task requirement. Figure 5.1 shows a sample question on VoiceThread.

Fig. 5.1
A screenshot from VoiceThread depicts the discussion on sample question on week 2 - class 3 session.

Sample of discussion question on VoiceThread

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In the first weeks of the course, it was observed that some pre-service teachers were hesitant to allow their students’ use of languages other than English in class. They claimed that because Montréal is located in a French-speaking province and students are mainly exposed to French outside of the classroom, at least officially, the need to maximize exposure to English in class was necessary. It was only through completing the readings, engaging in these discussions, receiving feedback from the instructor, and having this monolingual predisposition (Piccardo, 2013) challenged that they began to shift their perceptions. That is, changing teachers’ perceptions and opening up to a plurilingual approach in their teaching takes time. Thus, these discussions are crucial as they allow ample opportunities for pre-service teachers to reflect on their practice, listen to examples of how their peers challenge their own monolingual biases and the diverse ways in which their students’ plurilingual and pluricultural awareness can be harnessed in the classroom. Figure 5.2 shows a sample of video feedback provided by the instructor, although it is important to note that peer-feedback was also part of these discussions.

Fig. 5.2
A screenshot from VoiceThread depicts the discussion on sample video feedback on week 3 - class 5 session.

Sample of video feedback on VoiceThread

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At the start of the course, some terms that the pre-service teachers used to identify their students were challenged by the instructor and sometimes their peers, such as “Québécois” to refer to students who speak French only, or “bilingual” to refer to students who speak English and French only. The pre-service teachers were required to reflect on other types of bilingualism, such as recognizing that a student who speaks two languages that are not official in Canada are also bilingual, which although it may seem obvious, the dominant discourses of official bilingualism in Canada may pose challenges for recognizing bilingualism and plurilingualism of minoritized languages. Moreover, the pre-service teachers were encouraged to think of their students as plurilingual speakers and not only as ESL students, which reduces their repertoire to one language only. For example, the first discussion on VoiceThread asked the pre-service teachers to reflect on their own identities in relation to: their names, languages and dialects they speak, race, colour, gender, religion, cultures, beliefs, etc., and discuss how these dimensions helped shape their own identities. None of the teachers reported using only one language in daily tasks. Some of them talked about their heritage and how their language use changes depending on interlocutor, or how their religion and cultures have also shaped their linguistics practices; for example, one student mainly using Arabic for religious purposes like reading the Quran, using mostly English for academic purposes and both French and English to complete daily tasks such as at the bank or the supermarket. Through gaining self-awareness of their own plurilingual and pluricultural identities (Fielding, 2021), the pre-service teachers began to reflect on their own students and how their identities could also be similar. That is, regardless of the background their students came from—Québécois, Indigenous, immigrant or refugee—each one of them would likely have a unique identity, or a plurilingual blueprint (Galante, 2020a). The discussions on VoiceThread were particularly helpful as the pre-service teachers were encouraged to voice their thoughts about the inclusion of languages other than English in the class, the linguistic tensions between French and English in Québec, the frequent expectations from school principals and students’ parents of a monolingual English-only environment in the classroom, among other themes. These discussions served as a scaffold for the design of action-oriented tasks.

As shown in the appendix, the task which was completed by a group of four pre-service teachers demonstrates a critical reflection of their context and how their students’ linguistic and cultural repertoire can be included in the ESL classroom to not only raise students’ awareness of their plurilingual and pluricultural identities but also to engage them in learning the target language. The task relates to road safety in Montréal, where students are based, and allows them to use the knowledge learned in class in real life by applying the safety measures when walking to school. Following a backward design, the pre-service teachers selected CEFR descriptors which were relevant for the topic, the goals and their students’ proficiency levels. Because the descriptors offer a general overview, they were also asked to adapt the descriptors and include examples that were relevant for their task. The pre-service teachers also chose materials available online in different languages (e.g. a video with children giving safety measures to cross the street in different languages) as well as other semiotic resources such as sounds of busy streets. The task results in a plurilingual artifact which students can display in their classroom and showcase the knowledge about road safety in different languages, including English. In this example, while English is the target language, the pre-service teachers included their students’ repertoires in the process of completion of the task and also in the artifact which was a plurilingual poster.

During the course, the pre-service teachers designed a total of two tasks following the same template, and a lesson plan with both formative and summative assessments, allowing them to be prepared to implement the tasks during their practicum.

5 Implications for Plurilingual Approaches in International Contexts

With multilingualism being a reality in many countries, the provision of pedagogical approaches that take into account learners’ diverse linguistic and cultural repertoires is crucial. Research shows that current second language teaching practices are still largely based on a monolingual-oriented approach where learners are expected to disregard their plurilingual and pluricultural identities even in multilingual contexts (Cook, 2016; Piccardo, 2019). Research also shows that teachers value inclusive approaches to second language teaching that affirm learners’ identities as plurilingual speakers, but there is a lack of teacher education on how to implement plurilingual pedagogy (Ellis, 2017; Galante et al., 2020). In our context, the presence of monolingual French policies in Québec and bilingual French–English policies in Canada validate only one or two types of speakers: French and French/English bilinguals (Haque, 2012; Heller, 2007) and the fact that other types of bilingualism and plurilingualism are largely ignored is concerning and pose threats to the vitality of multilingual societies.

The project we discussed in this chapter was designed to address these issues and provide initial teacher education following a plurilingual approach to language teaching. We particularly focused on providing teacher education to English teachers in Montréal, Québec, a context where English is a minority language at the provincial level but a dominant language at the national level. While our work is based in Montréal, the video tutorials, task template and process can be applicable in teacher education programs in similar multilingual settings. Given that the materials require that teachers reflect on their own context, their students’ identities, their pedagogical practices and how to advance student plurilingual and pluricultural awareness, teachers can design tasks that are context-specific and suitable to their student population.

One important outcome of this project, which is applicable to other contexts, is an examination of the dominant language discourses present in societies and in educational institutions. Tensions among majority, minority and minoritized languages, and a critical examination of pre-service teachers’ potential biases that may disadvantage students from an immigrant, refugee or indigenous backgrounds warrant special consideration in multilingual contexts with monolingual language policies. In fact, even in contexts where language policies are bilingual (which is the case of French and English in Canada) may hinder pre-service teachers’ awareness of inclusive plurilingual approaches since social dominant discourses about language can be so ingrained in their mindset that these issues first need to be unpacked so that pedagogical practices can shift towards a plurilingual approach. In Canada, this issue is particularly important as the common discourse, which is influenced by Canadian language policies, only recognizes individuals who speak English and French as bilingual (Haque, 2012; Heller, 2007), leaving speakers of minoritized  languages at risk of marginalization. While updated policies that recognize all types of bilingualism and plurilingualism are needed to inform top-down educational policies and practices, we believe that teacher education programs can start by equipping pre-service teachers with the knowledge and practice of plurilingual approaches so they can implement educational change. This bottom-up strategy can empower students to see themselves as plurilingual speakers and in turn contribute with empirical evidence for the development of multilingual/plurilingual policies.