‘English as an additional language’, ‘multilingual’, and ‘vulnerable’: a reflexive account of the labelling practices surrounding school pupils in a researcher-practitioner collaboration

Pérez Andrade, Gonzalo and King, Hannah M. (2024) ‘English as an additional language’, ‘multilingual’, and ‘vulnerable’: a reflexive account of the labelling practices surrounding school pupils in a researcher-practitioner collaboration. Language and Intercultural Communication, 24 (5). pp. 458-474. ISSN 1470-8477

Abstract

Despite their diversity, UK school pupils with non-English home languages are uniformly labelled English as an additional language (EAL), presupposing linguistic deficiencies and academic challenges; thus, equating multilingualism with vulnerability. As part of a researcher-practitioner collaboration with a London primary school, we explore how researchers and educators assign and contest the labels EAL, multilingual, and vulnerable. Through this, we reflexively consider whether changing discourses around multilingualism can minimise potential vulnerabilities associated with EAL. We argue that researchers play a crucial role in mitigating a priori categorization of EAL pupils and expose the impact of our agenda on potentially vulnerable pupils.

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