In the global higher education landscape, the efficacy of English for Academic Purposes courses often falls short, particularly in the Global South, where Western-oriented educational models frequently misalign with local linguistic and cultural contexts. This study addresses the challenge of decolonizing academic literacy by examining the integration of African languages within EAP frameworks at a Namibian university, aiming to bridge this pedagogical gap and foster academic inclusivity. Utilizing a qualitative methodology, the research investigates students’ use of rhetorical patterns in academic essays written in both English and African languages, and their implications for academic writing skills acquisition. Results reveal significant differences in the rhetorical conventions employed by students, highlighting how these conventions influence the organization of their writing in academic settings. The study’s findings have broad implications, suggesting transformative strategies for academic literacy courses that acknowledge and leverage students' linguistic repertoires, especially in multilingual contexts. Recommendations for educators and policymakers emphasize the importance of incorporating translanguaging into curriculum design to cultivate a more inclusive and effective learning environment that reflects and respects the multilingual realities of students.
Despite increasingly diverse student populations, including international and home students with multilingual backgrounds, higher education teaching practices often remain implicitly oriented towards monolingual English norms, alongside a continued emphasis on standardised academic English. This linguistic landscape can inadvertently disadvantage multilingual students, shaping their participation and, at times, their assessment performance.
Drawing on exploratory practice research conducted within my own teaching context (Bulut Al Baba, 2024), alongside a review of relevant literature (Darling, 2026; Ryder and Lazar, 2025), I propose a self-evaluation tool designed to support teaching academics in assessing linguistic inclusion in their practice. The tool conceptualises three broad stages of engagement: multilingualism phobic, multilingualism tolerant, and multilingualism cheerleader.
This self-evaluation framework is grounded in the premise that linguistic inclusion requires not only pedagogical awareness but also cultural acceptance and intentional pedagogical strategies. It encourages academics to critically reflect on their underlying assumptions about language, challenge monolingual biases, and explore how multilingual pedagogies can be meaningfully integrated into their teaching.
By connecting research insights with practical, actionable approaches, this work invites higher education educators to reconceptualise linguistic diversity not as a challenge or deficit, but as a valuable resource for enriching teaching and learning.
Melike Bulut Al Baba· Journal of Scholarship of Te...· 0 citations
This paper investigates translingual practices and their influence on academic identity within higher education settings. It emphasizes a shift from traditional monolingual perspectives towards a more inclusive, plurilingual approach, driven by globalization and the rise of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) and lingua franca (ELF). Focusing on faculty members navigating across multiple languages, the study explores the complexities of translating ideas and concepts between languages and how language choices shape cognitive viewpoints and personal identities. It highlights the importance of mobility and internationalization, which foster viewing languages as flexible repertoires or thresholds rather than fixed national identities. The research specifically examines faculty members who teach in a second language (L2), analysing how their translingual practices influence their professional identities. Employing a qualitative, phenomenological methodology, the study involves interviews with faculty members at a German university to capture their experiences, strategies and perceptions. Findings reveal diverse uses of translingual practices, such as enhancing clarity, expressing emotions, navigating informal interactions and explaining culturally specific concepts. Strategies include simplifying language, reframing ideas, switching to L1 when needed, utilizing online tools and applying translanguaging as a pedagogical method. The interaction between translingual practices and academic identity emerges as a fluid, dynamic process involving identity shaping, social interaction, meaning‐making, power relations and reflexivity. These practices reflect a translingual mindset aligned with the goals of internationalization and the global scientific community. Overall, the study underscores the importance of understanding how translingual practices contribute to identity formation in a rapidly evolving, multilingual higher education landscape.
In an effort to develop disciplinary literacy in English as an Additional Language (EAL) students in tertiary-level learning contexts, there have been various linguistically responsive instructional (LRI) approaches to fostering the learning of both language and content. The LRI approaches point to the importance of nurturing discipline-specific literacies of students as apprentice scholars who can appropriately participate in the scholarly conversations and practices of a discipline. There is, however, little known about whether and in what ways tertiary-level LRI-based approach can be realized and contribute to students’ empowered identities as legitimate participants in the consumption, construction, and representation of disciplinary knowledge.
This autoethnographic teaching reflective account chronicles a ground-up pedagogical effort by university educators in Canada aiming to develop the disciplinary literacies of international undergraduate students in a course integrating content and language in conjunction with the content of first-year history, psychology, and geography courses. Illuminating specific instructional examples, this article illustrates how such a pedagogical effort informed by task-based, functional approaches to language learning may create an educational space within which students are invited to position themselves and others as producers of meaning. Drawing on students’ reflective voices, the article closes with pedagogical implications for fostering students’ empowered identities with a stronger sense ofaffective, cognitive, and communicative dispositions (beyond being “non-native” speakers/writers of English) while critically exploring the inextricable relationship between language and disciplinary knowledge.
Dans le but de développer la littératie disciplinaire chez les étudiants dont l’anglais est une langue additionnelle (ALA) dans des contextes d’enseignement supérieur, diverses approches pédagogiques adaptées sur le plan linguistique ont été mises en place pour favoriser l’apprentissage à la fois de la langue et du contenu. Ces approches soulignent l’importance de cultiver les littératies disciplinaires spécifiques des étudiants en tant qu’apprentis chercheurs, capables de participer de manière appropriée aux conversations et aux pratiques savantes d’une discipline. On sait toutefois peu de chose sur si, et de quelle manière, une approche adaptée sur le plan linguistique au niveau tertiaire peut être mise en oeuvre et contribuer à renforcer l’identité des étudiants en tant que participants légitimes à la consommation, à la production et à la représentation des connaissances disciplinaires.
Ce récit réflexif d’enseignement autoethnographique rend compte d’un effort pédagogique mené sur le terrain par des enseignants universitaires au Canada, visant à développer les littératies disciplinaires d’étudiants internationaux de premier cycle dans un cours intégrant le contenu et la langue, en lien avec les cours de première année en histoire, psychologie et géographie. À travers des exemples pédagogiques concrets, cet article illustre de quelle manière une telle initiative, inspirée par des approches d’apprentissage des langues fonctionnelles et basées sur les tâches, peut créer un espace éducatif dans lequel les étudiants sont invités à se positionner, eux-mêmes et les uns les autres, en tant que producteurs de sens. En s’appuyant sur les réflexions des étudiants, l’article conclut avec des implications pédagogiques visant à favoriser le développement d’identités autonomes chez les étudiants, dotées d’un sens accru des dispositions affectives, cognitives et communicatives (au-delà du simple statut de locuteurs/scripteurs « non natifs » de l’anglais), tout en explorant de manière critique la relation inextricable entre la langue et les connaissances disciplinaires.
Multilingualism is a defining feature of South African higher education, yet university classrooms frequently remain organised around English as the principal language of teaching, learning, and assessment. This conceptual article examines how university students and lecturers use language in multilingual classrooms and proposes an inclusive framework for transforming linguistic diversity into a pedagogical resource. The article is based on an integrative review of scholarship on multilingual higher education, translanguaging, linguistic capital, epistemic access, and language-policy implementation, with particular attention to South African research and policy. The synthesis identifies five interrelated patterns. First, English offers mobility and access to global academic discourse, but simultaneously functions as a gatekeeping mechanism. Second, students use code-switching, peer explanation, translation, multilingual note-making, and digital communication to negotiate meaning. Third, lecturers employ multilingual practices unevenly, often informally and without adequate institutional support. Fourth, strategic translanguaging can strengthen conceptual understanding, participation, identity affirmation, and epistemic access. Fifth, implementation is constrained by multilingual class composition, limited terminology, assessment conventions, lecturer proficiency, workload, and monolingual institutional cultures. In response, the article develops the Inclusive Multilingual University Classroom Framework, comprising four connected dimensions: recognition of linguistic repertoires, purposeful multilingual pedagogy, equitable multilingual assessment support, and institutional enablement. The framework positions English and African languages as complementary rather than competing resources and assigns shared responsibilities to students, lecturers, departments, and university leadership. The article concludes that multilingual inclusion requires more than policy recognition or spontaneous code-switching. It requires planned pedagogical design, lecturer development, terminology resources, technology-supported access, and assessment practices that preserve disciplinary standards while widening opportunities to learn.
I. C. Mulaudzi, N. M. Nndwamato· International journal of res...· 0 citations
As globalisation increasingly impacts languages, scholars have advocated for universal, standardised approaches. However, language practitioners adapt these frameworks to their local contexts, often diverging from global prescriptions. This study investigates the effectiveness of a glocalised language lesson by analysing responses from preparatory school students at a state university in Türkiye. The study examines students’ attitudes towards glocalised lesson design, involving a total of 212 language learners (108 English and 104 Arabic preparatory students). It also compares the reaction of English and Arabic students to the glocalised lesson material. Learner impressions were gathered through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The findings show that glocalised lesson materials enhance learner engagement, with learners valuing culturally relevant content and benefiting from diverse, culturally-rich lessons. The results suggest that English learners (ELs) thrive in student-centred, intercultural environments, indicating readiness for more autonomous and collaborative learning frameworks. Instructors should consider differentiating materials and pacing, incorporating more peer scaffolding, and gradually expanding exposure to intercultural content for Arabic learners (ALs) to support both linguistic development and intercultural competence. This study highlights the importance of shifting our perspectives to consider language learners’ global and local needs in flexible, adaptable educational contexts, potentially providing valuable insights into understanding learner needs and developing more effective teaching methods.
Vildan İnci Kavak, Mohamed Abdelrehem· Cumhuriyet International Jou...· 0 citations
Researchers have explored Linguistic Landscapes (LL) from diverse perspectives, recognizing its educational value as a tool for language learning. This study delved into the multifaceted impacts of integrating LL-centered materials into high school English as a foreign language classrooms. The investigation involved three LL-based activities implemented in an 11th-grade classroom in southeastern Türkiye, following a literacies-oriented pedagogy of Linguistic Landscapes in Second Language Teaching and Learning (LLinL2TL). Spanning 12 weeks, the intervention included data collection through semi-structured interviews and pre- and post-study reflective journals of 32 participants. The findings reveal that the activities fostered learners' awareness of multiculturalism and multilingualism, enhanced their understanding of sociolinguistic dynamics within local and global LLs, and challenged their preconceived notions, providing fresh perspectives. However, learners faced challenges with heavy workloads and limited time for LL tasks, limiting engagement and reflection. Despite this, the study underscores LL materials' value in fostering meaningful and engaging language learning experiences. The study contributes to pedagogical and theoretical discussions and concludes with limitations and implications.
Nesrin Bal, Osman Solmaz· Journal of language research· 0 citations