I enjoyed this week’s readings and considering about how multilingualism operates in the brain. Often times knowledge of multiple languages is treated as separate from one another (monoglossic ideology) rather than as a collective linguistic repertoire that people rely on for communication. These languages do not exist as distinct individual abilities and I’d argue there’s very few (if any) forms of knowledge that occupy their own separate space in our minds.
Translanguaging is a key example of how we use all the resources we have available to us, linguistic or otherwise (Garcia et al., 2025). So much of how language is used is experiential and cultural, but traditional bilingual education focuses on mastery of English and reinforces monolinguistic ideology. This is especially the case when students aren’t able to freely translanguage and must exist in mostly English-speaking academic spaces.
It's always difficult to hear how multilingualism is considered negative or harmful to children’s learning, both because this view is rooted in racial and monolingualism and because it just doesn’t make sense. Even in the case of the child with ASD whose family was recommended to limit native language in order to help facilitate his development, the specialist concluded that bilingualism was a primary issue (Yu, 2015). And while this recommendation to limit use may have been intended to be helpful, the family had many other suggestions about what could be done instead.
The intersection of dis/ability and multilingualism/ELL is so critical and there’s many families and students that lack the resources they need, whether it be cultural, financial, or academically. The rhetoric surrounding multilingualism is very similar to that of dis/ability, where it’s only framed as a detriment and something to ‘deal with.’ I think part of the fight towards justice for all learners, especially those with varying abilities and linguistic knowledge is breaking down these myths surrounding what constitutes proper language use and what’s considered harmful or helpful. Working towards recognition of pluralingualism in schools is something educators can advocate for to create more equitable learning spaces.
I think the readings also left me with more questions about the research surrounding multilingualism in development and what this looks like in practice. Many parents now in the U.S., mostly native-English speaking, opt to enroll their children in dual-language programs or hire tutors to ensure their child knows one or more languages by adolescence. But at the same time, many families with bilingual children are being told that their child should focus on English as to not interfere with their linguistic development. It just seems that much of this ideology is classist and English-centric, where it’s only acceptable to learn other languages once you have a mastery of the ‘dominant-language.’