MuLiPEC project: Developing multilingual pedagogies in Early Childhood

In our diverse and rapidly changing societies, multilingualism is everywhere. Multilingual education programmes have been implemented in early childhood education in some European countries following calls for multilingual pedagogies. The resource-oriented pedagogy of translanguaging is one way in which practitioners can give space to institutional and home languages, leverage children’s linguistic resources and contribute to their cognitive, linguistic and emotional development.

We invite you to browse the project’s page and find a wealth of resources:

https://mulipec.uni.lu

The project MuLiPEC (2016 – 2019) addressed the need for multilingual pedagogies in early childhood education in Luxembourg. It aimed, firstly, to develop the practitioners’ knowledge and skills in relation to multilingualism and effective pedagogies through a professional development, and second, to investigate to the multilingual practices in formal and non-formal educational settings.

The study used quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings show a change of the professionals’ perspectives, knowledge and practice: the 46 professionals who took part in a professional development developed a positive stance towards multilingual education and implemented activities in multiple languages. The seven practitioners who were observed over a period of one year, designed a holistic multilingual learning environment and began to implement translanguaging pedagogies. The findings contribute to our understanding of the ways in which professionals can move from monolingual to multilingual practices, and long-term, collaborative and performance-based professional development can influence knowledge and practices.

The project was headed by Claudine Kirsch

MuLiPEC project team: Claudine Kirsch, Gabrijela Aleksić, Katja Andersen, Simone Mortini, Laurence Di Letizia

The project was funded by: