1 Introduction

There has been a growing international call in education to engage with the diverse range of language resources students bring to class. The potential for this engagement is particularly conspicuous in Australia where the percentage of people who report using another language at home is increasing and comprised 22.8%, (5.8 million people) in 2021 (ABS, 2021). This percentage is higher in urban centres and does not include international students. The growing bi/multilingual demographic reinforces the importance of exploring the way language and literacy are conceptualised in schools. The issue of linguistic diversity is a longstanding one in Australia and has been acknowledged for at least three decades in formal education. Some clear examples of this acknowledgement are Australian’s first national policy on languages (Lo Bianco, 1987) and work on multiliteracies which recognises different languages, dialects and registers alongside a wide range of semiotic modes with which students need to work to be able to participate meaningfully in communities and civic life (The New London Group, 1996; Luke & Freebody, 1999). More recently plurilingual approaches have also been a subject of research in Australia (see Cross et al., 2022).

In this paper, our objective is to explore how the literacy practices of students from different language backgrounds can be integrated into subject English in ways that allow for all students’ learning. All students include English-as-an-additional-language/dialect (EAL/D) students, students who are exposed to and/or use other languages at home, and monolingual (in English) students. Even though linguistic and cultural diversity—and differences in meaning-making across contexts—is a priority in the English classroom (cf Cope et al., 2016), scholarship on meaning-making has focused more on multimodality than on language variation (García and Kleifgen, 2010). Language variation related to different languages is still commonly associated with language education, including TESOL (e.g., Council of Europe, 2018; VCAA, 2020), and linguistic diversity is not contained to this domain. Variation related to English has been a focus in the Australian Curriculum: English: a sub strand was named ‘Language Variation and Change’, although this was recently removed (ACARA, 2023). There have certainly been efforts to include teachers of language and literacy more broadly in TESOL-related curriculum standards (Turner & Windle, 2019), However, these teachers are commonly required to teach monolingual students alongside bi/multilingual students who range from having sophisticated English language practices to needing more English language support. Given the complexity, teachers might not see the incorporation of students’ extended language resources in class as necessary, even though their attitude towards these resources is positive (Alisaari et. al., 2019; Turner et al., 2022b).

Exploring linguistic variation within a frame of multimodality by drawing together different language and literacy perspectives may help to support a greater leveraging of linguistic diversity in the English classroom. Multimodality incorporates various semiotic modes—visual, aural, gestural, spatial and linguistic - and the linguistic mode can be conceptualised holistically, rather than solely in terms of one language. We understand that there has been a resistance to a strong print-based focus in multimodal texts: this relates to the way the written word has dominated over other modes in the teaching and learning of literacy (Mills, 2016). The widening out of conventional texts is important (Ibid.), but rethinking a monolingual approach to the linguistic mode, as well as its interplay with other modes, can assist with this. Our aim in the paper is to help to build capacity for leveraging and extending the language resources of students both inside and outside specialist language teaching settings. We seek to expand on scholarship that has shown the potential of multimodality when working with students’ linguistic repertoire in a more holistic sense (e.g., French, 2016; French & Armitage, 2020).

We will begin by discussing concepts that have been developed in the field of education to understand and leverage the language practices of (emergent) bi/multilingual students: plurilingualism and translanguaging. The concept of translanguaging has been further developed so that monolingual students’ language practices can be logically included alongside those of (emergent) bi/multilingual students, and this will also be addressed. We will then discuss how we understand multimodality and literacies to align with a translanguaging perspective, and will have a special focus on digital multimodal composing (DMC) as an approach conducive to the leveraging and extending of all students’ linguistic repertoires within a broader semiotic repertoire at school. We will conclude with a discussion on navigating the complexities involved in bringing these ideas to everyday teaching and learning.

2 Plurilingualism and translanguaging

The notion of plurilingualism, as adopted by institutions such as the Council of Europe (2018) and the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA, 2020) derives from an individual language user’s perspective. The Council of Europe (2018) focuses on the interconnection of languages within individuals, the way in which communicative aptitude relates to a person’s linguistic repertoire as a whole, and the importance of context-driven communication. The EAL curriculum in Victoria takes a similar view, referring to plurilingualism as ‘the ability of a person who has competence in more than one language to switch between them when necessary for ease of communication and learning. It is the interconnected knowledge of multiple languages’ (VCAA, 2020, np). This integrated view of the linguistic resources of (emergent) bi/multilinguals is the result of decades-long scholarship: for example, in schools, leveraging students’ home languages for their learning in English (dominant-language) education settings has been well-documented (e.g., Cummins & Swain, 1986; Lucas & Katz, 1994; Moll et al., 1992).

Nevertheless, a focus on linguistic repertoire as comprising different languages can make it challenging to include monolingual students. Monolinguals in mainstream classrooms can be included in critical discussions of linguistic hierarchies, or inequities that privilege the use of particular varieties of dominant language and marginalise and/or ignore other kinds of linguistic knowledge, rendering them irrelevant or inferior. This is an important endeavour, and we will discuss it in relation to critical literacies later in the article. A further way of including monolinguals is to consider their language resources alongside those of (emergent) bi/multilinguals. This is particularly important where the linguistic profile of students is diverse, not only in reference to many different language and dialects but also to the range of linguistic knowledge and experience of particular home, community and school-taught languages. A taken-for-granted institutional (and societal) focus on English in Australia has resulted in inter-generational language attrition (Eisenchlas et al., 2013). Additionally, home language literacy practices may not be required for daily communication, and this may also hasten their disappearance among immigrant groups (Ibid.). If a focus on students’ active use of their extended linguistic repertoire is to become more systemic in mainstream classrooms, there is great potential in working with a view of language that is inclusive of all students’ linguistic repertoire, whatever that may entail.

Translanguaging is a theoretical perspective that takes this view, thus disrupting the status quo, or a one-way transition to English at school and in society (Turner & Lin, 2020). Similar to plurilingualism, translanguaging emerged as a way to understand and privilege the language practices of (emergent) bi/multilingual students (Fig. 1). It was first used as a strategy of planned language alternation (Lewis et al., 2012), but grew to prominence in its opposition to the language deficit view commonly associated with English language learners in English-speaking countries (García & Li 2014). Translanguaging is understood to be the ‘multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual worlds’ (García, 2009, p.45), and the trans prefix indicates fluidity and creativity as much as ‘crossings’ related to bi/multilingual speakers’ linguistic repertoire. Scholarship on translanguaging has been particularly influential in the context of Spanish-English bilingual schools in New York (CUNY NYSIEB, 2021), but has since been applied in diverse contexts globally (see Bonacina-Pugh et al., 2021 for a literature review).

Fig. 1
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Valuing the linguistic repertoire of (emergent) bi/multilingual students

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Although commonly associated with the language practices of (emergent) bi/multilingual students, translanguaging as a theoretical perspective also includes language practices associated with one language. This is particularly useful for thinking about the range and diversity of students’ linguistic profiles in a country such as Australia. Language is conceptualised holistically; the notion of one language is essentially a myth (Bakhtin, 1981). One language—English, for example—cannot be unified in any bounded sense since people communicate in a variety of dialects, registers and styles (Li, 2018; Lin et al., 2020). Translanguaging extrapolates on this by viewing the process of communicating as inseparable from context, including the body (cf Thibault, 2011).

Translanguaging also recognises Thibault’s (2011) notion of second-order language, which refers to the existence of ‘cultural patterns’ that give an appearance of stability or fixity because they change so gradually. Monolingual standards align with second-order language rather than the extended—or actual—linguistic repertoire of students. Translanguaging takes this linguistic repertoire as a point of departure. Rather than begin with a monolingual standard, the diverse language practices of language users are taken to be the norm. However, whilst privileging the more extended linguistic repertoire of (emergent) bi/multilingual students, it also allows for the valuing of the dynamic, dialogic, communication practices of monolingual students in everyday teaching and learning. Attributing concepts such as translanguaging to the languages/TESOL domain, as is commonly the case at present, does not do justice to the potential of leveraging and extending all students’ linguistic repertoires at school.

As shown in Fig. 2, these repertoires differ in the kinds of language (and literacy) practices in which students engage. There is also a great range of confidence within each category presented in the diagram. For example, a student might understand a language spoken at home but respond in English, or they might be able to read some characters of a particular script (Arabic, Chinese characters) but be more confident reading in English. Further, they might be familiar with a particular dialect or register of a language. This is also true of monolingual (in English) students. Students may further fall into more than one category: literate bi/multilinguals are likely to also speak their home language(s). Although language maintenance and learning through a community/home language is not commonly considered to be the purview of formal schooling, it is an important consideration. A more holistic view of language allows for the leveraging and valuing of overlaps, patterns and students’ linguistic knowledge and experience more generally. This is also true of linking learning to school-taught languages.

Fig. 2
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Working with the linguistic repertoire of all students in Australian schools

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A translanguaging perspective has potential in education because it facilitates leveraging students’ linguistic repertoire both to develop this repertoire and to learn in general. Scholarship has focused on teacher education (e.g., D’Warte 2014; Menken & Sánchez, 2019; Turner et al., 2022a) and students’ language use (e.g., French 2016). Scholarship has also incorporated monolingual learners and settings (Rosiers et al., 2018; Turner, 2019). From the view of translanguaging, teaching and learning objectives, or achievement standards, become a means to an end, not the end in itself. Objectives are harnessed as a way to understand and extend students’ linguistic repertoire, as based on their social practices. Students still need to have access to the dominant variety of the dominant language in order to do well academically in the current system. However, solely focusing on this objective obscures ways of knowing and being associated with other languages and language varieties. This can be related to Janks’ (2004, p.36) access paradox: ‘if you provide more people with access to the dominant variety of the dominant language, you perpetuate a situation of increasing returns and you maintain its dominance. If, on the other hand, you deny students access, you perpetuate their marginalisation in a society that continues to recognise this language as a mark of distinction’. Increasing students’ critical awareness is important, and privileging students’ extended linguistic repertoire in class is a way to work towards this awareness.

3 Literacies and multimodality

Similar to a translanguaging perspective, the socio-cultural view of literacy offered by Literacy Studies emphasises everyday practices; literacy practices which vary from person to person because they are closely connected to their communities (Gee, 2015). People have a myriad of practices that are shaped by such dimensions as age, gender, ethnic background, socio-economic status, personal interests, and professional and social affiliations. Almost three decades ago, a desire to address this diversity in students’ literacy practices gave rise to a ‘pedagogy of multiliteracies’ (The New London Group, 1996). In this pedagogy, multimodality was understood to be intrinsic to new literacy practices, in settings of increasing—but unequal—access to digital technologies and the range of different contexts and social purposes that generate youth engagement with texts (Ibid.). More recently, the approach has been critiqued as primarily text-oriented in that there is a projected goal/outcome; it is focused on product rather than process (Leander & Boldt, 2012). When we engage in literacy practices away from school or work environments, there is not necessarily a projected goal because these practices are so often affective (we read something again and again because it makes us feel a certain way) and embodied (we might be very excited by what we are reading/viewing and want to try to enact it or make it ourselves). This ‘product’ orientation is also visible in established research-driven frameworks that show how multiliteracies can be understood (Ibid.).

Given the goal-oriented nature of formal schooling, it can be difficult for teachers to navigate everyday literacy practices without some kind of text-oriented logic. However, the inclusion of all students’ linguistic repertoire and multimodality can increase a focus on process, even when there are stipulated teaching and learning objectives. Different modes offer different semiotic resources for making meaning, and these resources are different across cultures whilst retaining certain similarities (Kress, 2010). For example, images may be used differently in different contexts, but images can be viewed on some kind of surface, and the space in which they occur is usually framed. In contrast, moving image or gesture occur in both space and time, and speech occurs in time (p.81). A consideration of mode highlights materiality over abstractions such as grammar, linguistic system and language, and acknowledges that ‘different societies have selected and continue to select differently, shaping different cultural/ semiotic resources of mode’ (p.83). Modes across cultures are specific and partial in different ways: ‘any one culture only ever provides a partial naming or “depiction” compared to the world that might be named or depicted’ (p.83). Thus, there is a meaning potential in semiotic resources, or the various resources we use to communicate, and also affordances that allow for use when interpreted in particular ways in particular domains (van Leeuwen, 2004). Literacies as viewed through the lens of multimodality relate to the ability to work with semiotic resources for the creation or discernment of meaning.

Linguistic diversity in the classroom aligns well with multimodality, although it is not commonly highlighted in literacies scholarship. Educators have been encouraged to take a strength-based stance and draw on students’ everyday literacy practices and associated capacities (Comber & Kamler, 2004; Pahl & Rowsell, 2012). School literacy practices may be similar to students’ social practices at home, or they may be different, and this can have a significant influence on student engagement and ability to navigate formal learning (Comber & Kamler, 2004; Purcell-Gates, 2007). For instance, there may be particular cultural ways of telling a story in a home language which may not be seen as appropriate or valuable in the mainstream language/culture. Although bi/multilingual students’ everyday practices have not been a primary focus of this body of research, it follows that a strength-based stance applies to everyone. Scholarship in the field of TESOL and bilingual education has further developed ways of conceptualising students’ language resources in the context of linguistic diversity and hybrid practices. For example, García (2017) worked on this principle in her development of critical multilingual pedagogy for (emergent) bilingual learners, which she based on aspects of the New London Group’s (1996) multiliteracies pedagogy. Further, the term ‘pluriliteracies’ takes a dynamic conceptualisation of language whereby literacy practices cross more traditional language boundaries (García et al., 2006).

Hornberger’s (2004) ‘continua of biliteracy’ model, developed in the field of bilingual education, is particularly useful for understanding and working with students’ literacy practices in linguistically diverse settings. The use of multimodality is not explicitly acknowledged. However, the continua provide a framework for thinking about different aspects of language use, which can be extrapolated to communicative repertoire more broadly (Hornberger, 2022). There are four sets of continua designed to assist in teaching and language planning in conditions of linguistic diversity, as well as in investigative analysis (Hornberger, 2004). They include the following:

  1. (1)

    Context—micro to macro (relevant to one setting versus to a greater number of settings), oral to literate and bi(multi)lingual to monolingual;

  2. (2)

    Content—language use from minority, vernacular and contextualised to majority, literary and decontextualized;

  3. (3)

    Media—the degree of language separation during communication (the degree to which students/teachers who share different languages use only one language);

  4. (4)

    Development—receptive to productive (understanding to producing language), oral to written and first language to second language.

In all these continua, there are aspects of language use that are commonly understood to be more prestigious; for example, macro, literate and monolingual. Monolingual norms may also apply to more than one language, meaning that the way a monolingual speaks a particular language is to be emulated by someone learning that language (García, 2009). In order to challenge structural biases, Hornberger (2004) argued for a focus on the less prestigious aspects of the continua in bilingual education, for example, minority, vernacular and contextualised literacy practices. The continua were developed in the context of bilingual education as a way to value ‘the rich and varied communicative repertoires’ of (emergent) bi/multilingual students (Hornberger and Link 2012, p.240). This logic can be extended to all students in linguistically diverse settings, where less prestigious literacy practices, such as the use of the vernacular and oral language can be explicitly leveraged for student learning. Multimodality can very much help with this—see the next section on digital multimodal composing.

Finally, in talking about literacy practices and multimodality, the role of critical awareness is significant to the leveraging and extending of students’ linguistic repertoire (Fig. 3). Hornberger’s (2004) continua of biliteracy model aligns well with a focus on inequity: what perspectives and conventions are privileged, or included, and which ones are marginalised, or considered unworthy of attention. Critical literacies are conceptualised in many different ways in the literature but, in the context of literacies in the English classroom, we take it to refer to ‘the politics of meaning: how dominant meanings are maintained, challenged and changed’ (Snyder, 2008, p.78). We understand an important task of teachers is to guide students’ understanding of the author’s desired effect on the reader (Janks, 2013), and also to facilitate critical interpretations of the social domains which they inhabit (Luke, 2000). It is further true that particular effects of the text may not be connected to any deliberate objective on the part of the author; for example, confining all learning-related texts to the dominant language (English) can send an implicit message that other ways of knowing and being are not important. In response, one of the goals of leveraging (emergent) bi/multilingual students’ language practices at school is critical awareness of linguistic hierarchies and social structures (e.g., Flores & García, 2017; García & Li, 2014).

Fig. 3
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Literacy practices of all students

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This critical awareness offers an important way to include monolingual students; their awareness is just as significant as that of (emergent) bi/multilingual students. If home language practices are actively privileged in classroom teaching and learning, monolingual students are positioned as not knowing something of value (Turner, 2019). This can highlight linguistic inequity by helping the monolingual students to understand the everyday experiences of English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) students. Referred to as ‘a pedagogy of discomfort’, it can facilitate learning and broaden students’ perspectives on the world (Palmer et al., 2019). It can also help students understand how learning another language is valuable: useful connections can be made between the language classroom and the English classroom to help meet English teaching and learning objectives and to provide students with more exposure to the school-taught language (Turner, 2021).

Critical awareness is therefore a significant aspect to consider, alongside multimodality, and can be developed through the leveraging and extending of all students’ linguistic repertoire. This approach can also help critical literacies to move into the realm of emotions: these literacies have been critiqued for their ‘focus on rational, analytical readings of texts’ at the expense of their ‘emotional force’ (Kuby, 2013, p.32). The positive emotion that arises from the affirmation of (emergent) bi/multilingual students’ identities is certainly well-established and the inclusion of home language practices in the classroom can help with this (e.g. Lin & He, 2017;  Turner, 2019, 2021). Any emotional force related to the privileging of these diverse practices among monolingual students is also an important aspect of critical awareness.

4 A focus on language variation through digital multimodal composing

If we take language variation as a central focus of literacies in the English classroom—this being inclusive of the language practices of monolinguals and (emergent) bi/multilinguals—it is likely that teachers will not share all these practices with their students. Digital multimodal composing (DMC) provides a constructive way to leverage and extend the linguistic repertoire of students in a wider semiotic frame. DMC is commonly conceptualised as the generation of a digital text through the use of both linguistic and non-linguistic semiotic resources, or different modes (Jiang 2017; Yi et al., 2020). Different forms of DMC, such as video production, audio podcasting, digital stories, digital posters, comic strips and webpages, have become popular in formal education (Mills et al., 2020; Vincent, 2006; Yelland, 2018). This body of research demonstrates that DMC can help to bridge students’ in-school and out-of-school lives, move towards more complex literacy experiences that reflect students’ worlds, affirm student identity and address social inequality (Ibid.). By positioning students as ‘producers’ of digital texts, DMC shifts the locus of control of learning and gives students more autonomy and confidence (Yelland, 2018). It also allows students to bring aspects of their semiotic repertoire into the classroom. This can then be discussed and add to everyone’s knowledge, the teacher included.

A growing body of research has explored the use of DMC in different language learning settings (Hafner & Ho, 2020; Jiang, 2017, 2022; Shin et al., 2020; Yeh, 2018). In such contexts, learners typically use English and other semiotic resources in their texts, and this provides opportunities to develop oral and written English, increase semiotic awareness, consider the role of audience, context and purpose for composing, cultivate agency and voice, engage in critical thinking and foster civic participation. DMC studies have also investigated students’ design of bi/multilingual texts (Dagenais et al, 2017; Liaw & Accurso, 2021; Rowe & Miller, 2016;). In addition to the benefits for learners reported in other contexts (Yi et al., 2020), this approach to DMC allows for the development of home language practices and legitimation of the practices as a resource for literacy learning. Digital forms of communication in society are not only multimodal but can draw on a multitude of different language practices (García & Li, 2014). People may engage in digital literacy practices associated with their home or heritage languages as well as shift fluidly in their practices between different languages they know (Nightingale & Safont, 2019). For instance, multilingual speakers can use different languages when commenting on social media posts in their groups or create a YouTube video in one language with captions in another.

The literature on DMC emphasises the need to expand what it means to be literate beyond the ability to read and write print-based, monolingual texts and help students learn how to use a range of semiotic (both linguistic and non-linguistic) resources to meaningfully engage with these new texts. Such practices reflect the idea of ‘orchestration’ (Hafner & Ho, 2020), or the use of different modes to achieve different effects. Orchestration incorporates different cultural/semiotic modal resources (Kress, 2010) mentioned previously. For example, in a manga-style digital composition in Japanese, the written ‘word’—the font and placement and the stylistic use of one script over another (English, hiragana, katakana or kanji)—can convey meaning in different ways. The manga community have selected for and shaped particular kinds of semiotic resources. In other texts, the aural mode can also be a different register to the written mode and used in conjunction with other languages in bi/multilingual DMC.

Finally, the literacy learning related to DMC can occur most productively through ‘process-centred exploratory play’ (Rowe & Miller, 2016, p. 445) with various kinds of semiotic resources, including in classrooms where there is a mix of monolingual and (emergent) bi/multilingual students (Tour et al., 2023). A product-focused approach, or preoccupation with a polished product, may not furnish the students with the same kind of learning opportunities (Liaw & Accurso, 2021), especially when the teacher is not in a position to check the accuracy of the kinds of linguistic resources used by the students. For example, students may not know the script of a home language and choose to transliterate it into the Roman alphabet, or a voiceover may not precisely match the particular text. From the perspective of privileging a final product, this may be considered incorrect. However, it can serve as a springboard for discussion and learning—including a focus on critical awareness—and an incentive for students to learn more about their home language. A preoccupation with accuracy can result in co-authoring with the teacher and more constrained use of students’ semiotic repertoire (cf Dagenais et al., 2017). DMC has potential in classrooms where the linguistic profile of students is increasingly diverse, but when used in a way that invites—rather than assumes—any particular kind of linguistic knowledge.

5 Navigating complexity

Engaging with linguistic diversity in the English classroom thus requires space for students to draw upon knowledge that their teachers do not share, and for this knowledge to be valued, or actively taken up in teaching and learning. It may take time for students themselves to trust that their home language practices are being valued in this way in Australian schools, where English can be so taken-for-granted. Teachers’ willingness to engage with the literacies arising from their students’ social practices and to learn alongside their students—as well as their capacity to connect this constructively to teaching and learning objectives—is central to the inclusion of students’ extended linguistic repertoire in the classroom (Turner et al., 2022a). It can be beneficial to incorporate a school-taught language to be inclusive of students who are initially wary of drawing on home language practices, as well as of monolingual students (Turner, 2021). Teaching assistants who speak different languages and multilingual education aides can further support the approach (Turner et al., 2022a).

One of the biggest challenges to the privileging of students’ linguistic repertoire in class is the influence of standardised language in formal schooling, and the institutional need to measure and benchmark student learning in the competitive market system applied to education internationally (cf Harvey, 2005). Engaging with linguistic diversity is not particularly efficient if teaching (rather than learning) is the main focus. Teachers’—and schools’—engagement with students’ language resources, as embedded in their broader semiotic repertoire, is very much reliant on what they see as the main objective of education. If the objective is the learning of their students, a sole focus on measuring performance in standardised language is limiting. The testing is not likely to be an accurate test of what they know, especially when the linguistic profile of the student population is diverse.

Certainly, generating society-wide systemic change in education is not within the immediate sphere of influence of the teacher, and they still need to work within institutional parameters. There is no real issue with this—teachers in classes with both monolingual and (emergent) bi/multilingual students have shown that they can leverage students’ linguistic repertoire as a way to meet achievement standards (Turner, 2019, 2021). However, part of the professionalism of the teachers is to be open to innovation and adapt this innovation constructively in their education settings. Given the dominance of English in Australia, leveraging home and school-taught language practices in the English classroom to further the learning of all students can be a novel idea for teachers, and they can be concerned that they do not have the necessary expertise (Turner, 2019). Teachers may also be uncertain about the degree to which other languages in the classroom may hinder English language learning for English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) students (Turner et al., 2022b). There are many different student profiles; for example, students may speak Aboriginal English, be a recently arrived immigrant or a second-generation immigrant. They may be literate in another language or they might not. Frequently, teachers are called upon to teach classes where there is a range of profiles in the same class. Navigating this kind of complexity and building capacity in teacher education is worthy of further scholarship.

It is also important to note that the perspectives and frameworks that underpin this discussion on the linguistic repertoire of all students come from the global north, and the promotion of critical awareness includes a constant need for the questioning of these ideas. The privileging bi/multilingual students’ linguistic repertoire is worthwhile in its own right, not solely as a way to help students achieve success in the dominant variety of the dominant language at school but as a way of highlighting, privileging and seeking to understand different ways of knowing and being. Lo Bianco (2022), in his call for the reconceptualising of literacy in Australia, discussed what he terms ‘a new literacy compact’ and questions what it means to the nation to ‘become literate’. As he states, ‘Public discussion about literacy should push into a confident assertion that there is no One Literacy for Australia just as there is no One Literacy for Australians’ (p.14). Teachers in English classroom can play a role in actively valuing a wide range literacy practices, thus supporting parents and communities’ language maintenance and revitalisation.

In sum, there are different pedagogical goals related to the leveraging of students’ extended linguistic repertoire. These include the affirmation of bi/multilingual identities (e.g., Lin & He, 2017), crosslinguistic and metalinguistic awareness and the development of linguistic resources (e.g. Martin Beltrán, 2014; Lewis et al., 2012), the demonstration and joint construction of knowledge (e.g. Gumperz & Cook-Gumperz, 2005; Martin-Beltrán, 2014), and critical awareness of language hierarchies and inequities (e.g. Flores & García, 2017; García & Li, 2014). The last goal aims to disrupt the status quo when it comes to the overwhelming dominance of a particular variety of English, and the incorporation of  home language practices is a preliminary step. The other goals can also relate to other kinds of literacy practices. If we truly consider linguistic diversity to be valuable, this includes language maintenance for bi/multilingual Australians and incentives for monolingual Australians to take the learning of other languages seriously. There is much potential in exploring the complexities involved in privileging all students’ linguistic repertoire in the English classroom.

6 Conclusion

In this article, our objective has been to draw different language and literacies perspectives together to support the incorporation of (emergent) bi/multilingual students’ language practices into English classrooms in a systemic and sustainable way. This support requires engagement with different linguistic profiles: students with a great range of exposure to/confidence in oral and written home language practices, and also monolingual students. In our discussion, we positioned students’ linguistic repertoire—as related to their social practices—in the broader frame of their semiotic repertoire. Making accurate assumptions around students’ out-of-school literacy practices is difficult, and the inclusion of semiotic repertoire as a whole (or multimodality) allows for hybrid practices to enter the classroom. We proposed that a translanguaging approach that includes monolingual students can help draw more attention to language variation when working with multimodality, and digital multimodal composing is one useful way of engaging with this variation. Although there are challenges involved, we see great potential for learning, and a need to build capacity for the leveraging and extending of students’ linguistic repertoire in teacher education.