Examining plurilingual repertoires : a focus on policy, practice, and assessment in the Australian context

This chapter discusses policy, practice, and assessment research pertaining to plurilingualism in the Australian context, with a focus on mainstream classrooms. In the recent past, Australian language policy was pioneering in its support and promotion of the maintenance and acquisition of languages other than English. However, since the late 1980s, languages and education policy have predominantly been characterised by a relentless move towards monocultural and monolingual conceptualisations of language and literacy in curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment across Australian education systems. Discussion centres on the role of educational policy and practice and the affordances and challenges offered when plurilingualism is placed at the centre of teaching and learning in mainstream Australian classrooms. The chapter considers the linguistic, cognitive, and social benefits that can be derived from recognising and harnessing students' plurilingual repertoires, and the competing tensions of predominantly monolingual, monoglossic educational policies, curricula, and assessment frameworks. The central contention is that assessment practices are failing to keep pace with conceptual and pedagogical progress in the education system and are perpetuating reductive interpretations of language and literacy that continue to limit the effectiveness of current pedagogical change.