Book Launch: Multilingual Learning in Sub-Saharan Africa

This book launch showcases two volumes on Multilingual Education in Sub-Saharan Africa from the Routledge Series in Language and Content Integrated Teaching & Plurilingual Education, edited by Angel M. Y. Lin and Christiane Dalton-Puffer. These volumes offer unique insights into the growing field of multilingual education in Africa, addressing the underrepresentation in international publications on research in this area. These books are valuable for academics, researchers, and practitioners in language education, language-in-education policy, and educational assessments in multilingual contexts in Africa and beyond. The editors and contributors will present and celebrate this contribution.
Volume 1, Multilingual Learning and Language Supportive Pedagogies in Sub-Saharan Africa (edited by Elizabeth J. Erling, John Clegg, Casmir Rubagumya and Colin Reilly) explores the development and implementation of multilingual education in diverse African school contexts. Emphasizing 'translanguaging' and language-supportive pedagogy, it provides examples of successful initiatives and programs in challenging contexts of low resources, low literacy, and restrictive language policies. It also draws on approaches which have been carried out in contexts of higher resource, which lend themselves to being adapted. The volume demonstrates how multilingual learning can transform education, inspiring widespread adoption and further development in Africa and beyond.
Volume 2, Multilingual Learning: Assessment, Ideologies and Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa (edited By Colin Reilly, Feliciano Chimbutane, John Clegg, Casmir Rubagumya, Elizabeth J. Erling) explores the persistence of former colonial languages and monolingual approaches in education, despite the proven effectiveness of multilingual pedagogies, and delves into the reasons behind their underutilization. Focusing on assessment, ideology, and policy, the chapters offer insights to navigate contemporary constraints and challenge monoglossic discourses hindering multilingual education in Africa and beyond.


The ‘Translanguaging & Trans-Semiotizing Research Group’ Channel aims at building a Community of Practice (CoP) of both emergent and experienced scholars for academic exchange on Translanguaging and Trans-semiotising research and pedagogies. It serves as a bridge between theory and practice, an interactive platform for intellectual dialogues across different generations and diverse contexts, a space for imagination, criticality and creativity, and an innovative Public Pedagogy forum for 21st Century students, teachers and researchers.