THE LEARNER DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL
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The Learner Development Journal Issue 5: Engaging with the Multilingual Turnfor Learner Development: Practices, Issues, Discourses, and Theorisations
Author: Huw Davies
Title: Imagining Fair Language Policies: A Practice-Related Review of Piller’s Linguistic
Diversity and Social JusticeDate of publication online: 2021
Author contact: <davies-h@kanda.kuis.ac.jp>

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The APA citation reference for this paper is:Davies, H. (2021). Imagining fair language policies: A practice-related review of Piller’s
Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice. In A. Barfield, O. Cusen, Y. Imamura, & R. Kelly(Eds.), The Learner Development Journal Issue 5: Engaging with the Multilingual Turn for
Learner Development: Practices, Issues, Discourses, and Theorisations (pp. 136-146). Tokyo:
The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) Learner Development Special
Interest Group.

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PRACTICE-RELATED REVIEW

Imagining Fair Language Policies: A Practicerelated Review of Piller’s (2016) Linguistic
Diversity and Social JusticeLinguistic Diversity and Social Justice: An Introduction to Applied Sociolinguistics. Ingrid Piller.
Oxford University Press, 2016. 283 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-993726-4

Reviewed by
Huw Davies, Kanda University of International Studies, Japan<davies-h@kanda.kuis.ac.jp>
Linguistic disadvantage is a global phenomenon produced by policies which connect languages to nation states. Japan iscommonly (and erroneously) seen as a monolingual country, and native-speaker models are endorsed there for learning
other languages. In this practice-related review, I contend that a shift to a multilingual perspective can create more
harmonious learning spaces, and better achieve the Japanese government’s aims and objectives for education. Using
Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice to provide a global perspective on language issues, I explore themes such as language
discrimination faced by migrants, and how schools tend to promote monolingual attitudes despite stated commitments tomultilingualism. I then refocus these themes and apply them to my situation as a university educator and as a parent. I
visualise what ideal multilingual education policies might look like. I argue that a greater focus on fostering participation by
all students regardless of proficiency, and greater incorporation of minority cultures and languages into the syllabus would
be beneficial. Future scholarly inquiry should examine the objectives of education systems in order to push for language
policies that are inclusive.
言語的不利益は，言語と国家を結びつける政策によって生み出される世界的な現象である。日本は一般的に（誤りではあるのだ
が）単一言語国家だとみなされ，ネイティブスピーカーモデルが様々な言語を学ぶ上で支持されている。この実践的な書評では，多言語の視点に移行することで，より調和のとれた学習空間を創造し，日本政府の教育の目的や目標をよりよく達成することができると主張する。言語問題に対するグローバルな視点を提供するために，Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice を用いて，移民が直面する言語差別や，多言語主義へのコミットメントを表明しているにもかかわらず，学校が単一言語の態度を促進する傾向にあることなどのテーマを探る。そして，これらのテーマを再訪し，大学の教育者として，また親としての自身の状況に当てはめてみる。また，理想的な多言語教育政策とは何かを視覚化する。言語運用能力にかかわらず全ての学生への参加を促すことに一層の焦点を合わせること，そして少数派の文化や言語をより一層シラバスに組み込むことが有益であると主張する。今後の研究では，包括的な言語政策を推進するべく教育システムの目的を検討する必要がある。
Ko te ngoikoretanga reo he āhuatanga ā-ao i hua mai i ngā kaupapahere e tūhono ana i ngā reo ki ngā iwi whenua. Ko tekitenga whānui (me te hē hoki) o Hapani hei iwi reo tōtahi, ā, e whakamanatia ana ngā tauira kaikōrero-tangata whenua ireira mō te ako i ētahi atu reo. I roto i tēnei arotake whai pānga ki te mahi, e tohe ana au mā te hūnuku ki tētahi tirohanga
reo maha ka hangaia pea ngā mokowā ako reretau ake, me te whakatutuki pai ake i ngā whāinga o te kāwanatanga Hapanihi
mō te mātauranga. Mā te whakamahi i te Reo Kanorau me te Tika Pāpori hei whakarato i te tirohanga ā-ao ki ngā take reo, katūhura ahau i ngā kaupapa pēnei i te whakatoiharatanga reo e tūtakitia ana e ngā manene, me te tikanga i roto i ngā kura ote whakatairanga i ngā waiaro reo tōtahi ahakoa ngā pūmautanga whaikī ki te reo mahatanga. Kātahi au ka arotahi anō iēnei kaupapa, ā, ka whakahāngai ki taku āhuatanga hei pouako mātauranga, ā, hei mātua hoki o ngā tamariki reorua. E
whakakite ana ahau i te āhua o ngā kaupapahere mātauranga reo maha e wawatatia ana. E tohe ana ahau ka whai hua te
aro nui ake ki te akiaki i te whakaurunga o ngā ākonga katoa ahakoa te matatau, me te whakauru kaha ake i ngā ahurea mengā reo o ngā tokoiti ki roto i te marautanga. Me āta tirotiro ngā pakirehua mātauranga anamata i ngā whāinga o ngāpūnaha mātauranga, e whakahau ai mō ngā kaupapahere reo e noho whakauruuru ana.

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Keywords
multilingual education, linguistic justice, language policy and planning, community engagement in schools, English educationin Japan
多言語教育，言語的正義，言語政策と計画，学校におけるコミュニティ・エンゲージメント，日本の英語教育
mātauranga reo maha, tika reo, kaupapahere me te whakamahere reo, te whakaurunga hapori i ngā kura, te mātauranga
Ingarihi i HapaniThere is a scholarly debate about language policies and pedagogical practices in language
education which would benefit from being looked at in a different way. Policy makers
and practitioners remain fixed in the mindset that connects a language to a nation
state, thus prioritising native-speaker models as the (unattainable) embodiment of thelanguage. As a result, activities in language classrooms are required to be performed only inthe target language, and the use of other languages and dialects is viewed with disfavour.
The multilingual turn is a movement towards understanding that languages are fluid andthe purpose of using language is to negotiate social functions, and away from the nationstate mindset which fosters an inferiority complex in language learners and devalues their
existing linguistic repertoires (May, 2014; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). In Linguistic Diversity andSocial Justice, Ingrid Piller deconstructs the nation-state mindset and pushes for a greater
understanding and acceptance of the multilingual turn and translanguaging practices in all
aspects of social life, arguing that linguistic equality is a social justice issue.
Framing linguistic injustice as a big issue that affects everyone is timely. As Piller
maintains throughout her narrative, there are problems with language policies at all levels:
global, national, local and institutional. These policies and the attitudes attached to them
are having a detrimental impact on people on a daily basis. The consequences of linguistic
discrimination can be devastating, as exemplified by the suicide note left under Piller’s doorby her student who was expecting to fail a class. In this book, Piller shows that diversity isa social reality that exists already, and it needs to be accepted, understood, and promoted.
In one part, Piller illustrates that the way people speak in Sydney in Australia, with code
switching and using languages differently in different situations, means that the labels or
names we have for languages are redundant and each person utilises their linguistic resourcesin unique ways. While it is widely seen as a homogeneous country, the same linguistic
diversity as Sydney can be observed in Japan (Pennycook & Otsuji, 2015). Furthermore, it has
been observed that the cultural heterogeneity of Japanese society is beyond the categories
created to describe it (Tsuneyoshi, 2011). As I am a part of the linguistic and cultural diversity
in Japan, Piller’s interpretation of multilingual practices and their effects are of personal
interest.
In this review, I respond to Piller’s book in two ways. In the first section, I utilise a
traditional book review format, giving the background to the book and its author before
scrutinising the contents chapter by chapter and evaluating their relevance for the readershipof this journal. In the second section, I share my personal response to the issues raised in
the book. I reflect on my early career as a teacher and relate the issues raised by Piller topractices and policies in my work context, a language learning space in a university setting inJapan. I then draw on my positionality as a parent to consider English education in Japaneseelementary schools. I ruminate on two puzzles: What appropriate policies for language
learning spaces are, and how language activities in primary education in Japan could be more
inclusive. In doing so, I attempt not to find definitive answers but to identify areas for further
exploration and discussion.

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Imagining Fair Language Policies: A Practice-related Review of Piller’s (2016) Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice

An Overview of the Book
Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice is an absorbing selection of stories and voices from aroundthe world, woven into an anthology that highlights the social consequences of a range of
linguistic injustices. The fundamental argument presented is that linguistic disadvantage
is systemic and a universal social issue. During her career, the author, Ingrid Piller,
has researched bilingual education, multilingualism, language policy, and interculturalcommunication. Piller was born in Germany, and is currently professor of applied linguistics
at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. She is the editor of the journal Multilingua,
and, since 2009, has managed the Language on the Move portal which she co-founded with
Kimie Takahashi. Language on the Move hosts a blog where researchers can disseminate theirfindings on topics related to multilingualism in short posts (Language on the Move, n.d.).
Much of this book originates from Piller’s blog posts.
Chapter 1, Introduction, details the notions of linguistic diversity and social justice, andChapters 2 and 3 explore how multilingualism is conceptualised in society. In Chapter 2,
Linguistic Diversity and Stratification, Piller explores hierarchies of languages and multilingualcompetence in different communities. She critiques the concept of contemporary
superdiversity and looks at how national language policies help societies to allow themselves
to be viewed as monolingual and monocultural. In Chapter 3, The Subordination of Linguistic
Diversity, the theory behind Piller’s understanding of social justice is explained, and thereader is encouraged to think beyond languages belonging to a territory or nation state; howlanguage is used to make judgements against people, and segregation by language are also
pertinent topics discussed here. This chapter offers useful insights for those whose jobs
involve assessing people’s language ability.
After the early chapters develop the concepts behind the issues, the middle chapters lookat the barriers to and potential for linguistic diversity in various areas of life: Chapter 4
focuses on the workplace, Chapter 5 education, and Chapter 6 general participation in social
life. Chapter 4, Linguistic Diversity at Work, largely addresses migration to Western, Englishspeaking countries, but it does question some widely-held beliefs about migrants in theworkplace. Examples are given to show that statements such as, “migrants who cannot speak
the language well are exploited,” or “work is the best way to develop language proficiency”(Piller, 2016, p. 64), are overly simplistic and that the reality is far more nuanced. Piller
suggests that it is not low language proficiency that diminishes access to jobs, but the ability
to play language games to sell yourself in the right way, for example, by using humour.
Chapter 5, Linguistic Diversity in Education, is apposite for language educators in Japan: It
describes issues surrounding immersion programmes, diagnosing language proficiency, andtesting. The most compelling argument in Chapter 5 is that while schools often claim tovalue multilingualism, their true agenda is monolingual, “to maintain and perpetuate thesocioeconomic order” (Piller, 2016, p. 99). The examples given of this “hidden curriculum”
should be mandatory reading in training for language educators; they would help teachers toreflect on the difficulties that linguistically diverse students often face with teaching methods
and materials.
Chapter 6, Linguistic Diversity and Participation, covers micro-aggressions towards study
abroad sojourners, gender issues surrounding language, and discrimination across different
ares of community life, and linguistic and cultural alientaion—for example that more Asian
Americans reported experiencing prejudice based on their language choice rather than theirrace and that Polish mothers in London were able to join local parental networks but notaccess the professional opportunities they aspired to, finding themselves members of alower socioeconomic group than they had been in their home country. The chapter could be

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improved by extending the focus beyond participation through the dominant language inthe target community. However, it provides detailed scrutiny of the lack of support for andisolation of women with low language proficiency, which is a global problem. Additionally,
Piller questions whether the inclination for migrants to seek out home-country media isbecause they feel excluded, rather than nostalgic.
The closing chapters focus on the universal dimensions of multilingualism and social
justice. Piller’s understanding of social justice is that it transcends nation states, yet she isforced to deal with examples in Chapters 4 to 6 where justice is viewed by policy makers as aterritorial entity. In Chapter 7, Linguistic Diversity and Global Justice, the focus moves to global
justice, in which English as a global language is discussed in detail. Chapter 8, Linguistic
Justice, then briefly explores linguistic privilege, examples of linguistically just communities
in action, and the connection between globalisation and nationalism.
A strength of this book is that by having such a rich, varied and global scope, it addresses
a broad range of issues surrounding linguistic justice across history that a book detailing a
research project could not cover. It adds to existing literature on the multilingual turn bymaking connections across settings, communities, and cultures. As readers, we are enrichedby engaging with the stories shared in Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice and comparing themto our own experiences.
However, in one section the narrative moves away from being empirical evidence-based
scholarship. Although this book’s stated aim is to look at linguistic diversity and injusticethrough comparison and exploring alternative situations, in the final chapter the notion of“perfect justice” is discussed. Studies that call for activism in the name of social justice havebeen criticised for being dangerously dogmatic rather than rigorously scientific (Pluckrose &Lindsay, 2020). However, struggles and fights are the means Piller suggests are necessary forachieving justice and promoting linguistic diversity. In spite of this, the examples of linguistic
utopias given, Isfahan in early 17th-century Persia and the contemporary public libraries
of Vienna, were created by authorities within existing systems. This call for revolution is aweakness in the argument, and the book would benefit from a more thorough and nuanced
discussion on how linguistic diversity can be celebrated and promoted within existing social
systems.

A Personal Response
I came across Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice while undertaking a research project into
the language policy in the university self-access centre where I currently work. I had alreadybeen reading about Nancy Fraser’s (2008) three-dimensional concept of justice, and Piller’s
use of it to frame an argument about multilingualism emboldened me to do the same. Fraser
conceptualises social justice as requiring economic redistribution, cultural recognition andpolitical representation. In education, this could mean to “strengthen schooling as a goodin its own right, as well as in positional terms (redistribution), work with and value culturaldifference (recognition) and accord students a voice (representation)” (Lingard & Keddie,
2013, p. 428). The multilingual shift has allowed language educators to better recognise
linguistic injustices in their classrooms, but what Fraser first alluded to, and Piller builds
on in this book, is the need to go beyond merely recognising differences. There needs tobe a concerted and methodical approach by educators to empower students and reimagine
pedagogy so that it suits all students’ needs.
I am interested in the connection between language loss and culture (see Piller, 2016, p.
28), an interest stemming from a language change in my family around a century ago, anddeepened by my experiences as an educator working with migrants and with English learners
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Imagining Fair Language Policies: A Practice-related Review of Piller’s (2016) Linguistic Diversity and Social Justicein Japan struggling to develop an English-speaking identity. As a result, my teaching is
informed with a desire to maintain and respect other languages. Existing knowledge is key tobuilding knowledge in the target language. As a result, I was surprised by the prevalence ofEnglish-only policies, spaces, and activities in English education when I first came to workin Japan. I had anticipated that a shared first language would be utilised to learn English
effectively. My previous teaching experience had been in New Zealand where I had believed
communication in English was the only option because it was the one language that everyone
shared. However, on reading Piller’s book, I reflected on my early career and came to realisethat the most successful interactions between students happened when they were able todraw on their knowledge and experiences using languages other than English. This realisation
leads into the first of two puzzles on policies and practices in language learning based on
issues in Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice that I explore in this section.

Puzzle 1: What is a Just Policy in a Language Learning Space?
My first teaching experience was working as an ESOL tutor for Te Wānanga o Aotearoa(TWoA) in Auckland, New Zealand. This was formative for my principles as an educator andresearcher as it led me into exploring and valuing equity in education. TWoA is a Māori-led
organisation which aims to share Māori knowledge and values (see Te Wānanga o Aotearoa,n.d.). Therefore, as well as teaching English, part of my duty was to share Māori stories,
culture and language with students, and advocate honour and respect to all. The students
I taught were long-term migrants to New Zealand who had already acquired permanent
residency or passports, and the rationale of the course was to support migrants and provide
them with the communication skills to lead a fruitful life and take a fuller part in their local
community.
In order to take a fuller part in community life, students need to take full part in classroom
activities. In the classroom, dialogue must be encouraged among students as equals, andvalue be given to the knowledge and opinions each person brings. This can be done byincorporating the idea of participatory parity. Participatory parity means a situation where
all are given equal power, and everyone can act as peers (Fraser, 2008), which is far more
effective in eradicating hierarchy than giving sympathy and other platitudes to marginalised
people (Fraser & Honneth, 2003). In a typical class of mine at TWoA, over half of the classwere Chinese and a third were Korean, meaning that the other members might be the only
person from their country, or the only European, the only Muslim, or a Taiwanese person who
did not identify as being Chinese. Creating mutual respect and understanding at TWoA wascomplex, and this complexity was amplified by me, the teacher, being the youngest personin the group, a substantial proportion of whom may have held Confucian values and beliefs,
where age begets status.
One memorable success with this class at TWoA was when we focused on food and eating
habits. This topic helped to create an environment where participatory parity and kotahitanga[group unity] could flourish (see Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, n.d.) and respect be inspired among
students who had not previously found a way to connect. We explained how to make simple
dishes from our home countries and for weeks after students were thanking each other for
sharing recipes that their families had enjoyed. On reflection, I now realise that as well as
successfully communicating in the target language, students had also communicated to theirpeers some of their own culture in both English and their own languages. For example, as
well as sharing the English and Chinese word for spring onion, one student asked how to say
it in Korean, Bulgarian and Japanese, building her relationship with classmates from different
backgrounds in the process. Hence the classroom, at its most successful, was a productive,

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vibrant and just space because different languages were used and accepted to develop
community.
Learning spaces in Japan have tended to have English-only policies based on the belief
that students have little opportunity to use the language elsewhere in their everyday lives(van der Walt, 2013). Perhaps this suggests that the way language learning in Japan has been
understood does not incorporate community building or sharing one’s own knowledge andculture, and therefore is a situation that requires some criticism because it is at odds withthe aims and objectives of education in Japan, set down by the government. A stated aim ofgovernment policy is to cultivate individuals who participate in society, and one objective
includes fostering “the value of respect for other countries and the desire to contribute toworld peace and the development of the international community” (Basic Act on Education,2006). English-only policies run counter to the fundamental principles of education in Japanbecause they suppress respect for countries and peoples deemed not to be English-speaking.
I work at a university in Japan, in an informal language learning space that recently changed
from having an English-only policy to a multilingual approach. Research suggests thatstudents there prefer to have an English-only area (Davies, 2018), yet their observed behaviour
demonstrates that they inhabit a multilingual space (Imamura, 2018; Wongsarnpigoon &Imamura, 2020). I contend that students report a preference for a monolingual learning
environment because they believe using English only will make them more proficient in that
language; in other words, they feel that speaking only in English is what they ought to be doing.
Another explanation for why university English learners self-report a preference for amonolingual learning environment is that they are unaware both of their own multilingual
practices and of the benefits of translanguaging. In my workplace, I often see people
doing Spanish homework while sending a message to a friend using Japanese and having
a conversation in English; when asked they usually say that they are just doing Spanish
homework, which suggests a lack of awareness of their multilingual habitus. It is importantthat language educators raise awareness about translanguaging and encourage learners toembrace their multilingualism.
Based on the message in Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice, a just language policy in alanguage learning space would accept that all users of the space are diverse, and discouragethoughts that groups of users and the languages they use are homogeneous. The ethos of an
ideal space would be to find, celebrate, and respect differences in those who visit and theirlanguage choices. In addition, a just policy would ensure that participation within the space isopen to all, regardless of language proficiency, “acknowledg[ing] that everyone has the rightto be heard and to be listened to” (Piller, 2016, p. 162). One criticism of English education in
Japan is that the myth of native-speaker competence remains, exemplified by the exclusive
use of Californian accents in school textbooks (Kubota, 2018), which perpetuates an inferiority
complex in many students because they are led to believe that there is one correct way to
speak English.

Puzzle 2: What is the Purpose of English in Primary Education in Japan?
Recently there has been a policy shift concerning foreign language instruction in Japanese
primary schools. English instruction has been brought forward two years so that it is part ofthe curriculum from age eight and a formal assessed subject for students in their final two
years of primary school (see Nemoto, 2018). As a parent of two young children, this is of greatinterest to me. Here I will describe the change in policy, then consider its justness basedon my own observations and connect it to descriptions of policy in Piller’s book, and finally
imagine how a linguistically diverse language activities curriculum could be realised.
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The previous curriculum’s objective was to develop “the understanding of languages andcultures through various experiences, [and foster] a positive attitude toward communication”(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 2009). There was nodirective that this experience of language and culture should be English so there were
opportunities built in to explore any language or culture, and to embrace the multilingual
turn. The new curriculum is for English rather than “language activities,” the rationale beingthat English is a required skill in the globalised world and a greater focus on English in theearly years can help develop this (The Mainichi, 2017). However, I argue that the previous
curriculum had more potential to prepare children for a globalised world than children
learning English as a formal assessed subject two years earlier because there is more of ascope to generate and follow interests, rather than be forced into exploring English in a
Californian accent (Kubota, 2018). If English were the right language choice, it might be more
appropriate to look at English as a tool for communication in Asia and accept varieties ofEnglish using voices from the region.
I contend that compulsory foreign language education in Japan needs to look beyond English. It
is important that prominent minority languages in Japan, such as Korean, Portuguese, Chinese,and Vietnamese, are promoted in the wider community rather than being viewed negatively(Kubota & McKay, 2009), and a presence in primary schools would be an effective way to achievethis. Languages and cultures could be brought into the primary classroom through engagementwith the community, for example inviting members of minority groups to showcase arts orcustoms and share stories from their own lives. Additionally, a focus on culture rather thanlanguage proficiency can reduce the pressure on teachers and young learners.
There is a danger that focusing purely on English in foreign language activities in primaryschool will devalue minority languages and cultures. There is a precedent for this inJapan, where “invisible” Korean residents have been pressured to assimilate (Okano, 2011;
Tsuneyoshi, 2011). There are similar cases of languages and cultures being marginalised in
China, and I will explore this using the voice of a current student of mine, Saran (pseudonym)
who comes from Inner Mongolia (see Baioud, 2020 for an overview of the situation there), in
tandem with a case study from Piller’s book of a person from a Russian-speaking minority.
Saran is an ethnic Mongolian who, because she went to a Mandarin-speaking school, has notbeen able to develop full literacy in her own language. She states:
When my father was young, he suffered a lot, lost many chances because he can not
speak Chinese very fluently. So he hoped that if he sent me to the Han school, I could
speak fluent Chinese and I would have many chances. And as my father hoped, now I
can speak Chinese better than most Mongolian people. But on the other side, I lost mylanguage. (Saran, personal communication, 25 September 2020).
She talks of a pressure for Chinese citizens to be able to speak fluent Mandarin, and foundthat the only opportunity she had to use Mongolian was at home. Wei Ru’s story appears in
Chapter 7, Linguistic Diversity and Global Justice. She grew up in a Russian-influenced area ofChina and had a high proficiency in Russian and Chinese. However, during her high schooldays the curriculum in China was changed to recognise only English proficiency for entry to
mainstream higher education, the social capital of her Russian skill became worthless, andshe was denied entry to a mainstream university and had to enroll in a minzu university, ora university for ethnic minorities. Due to language policy in China, Saran has lost access toher own culture, and Wei Ru has been denied access to participate in mainstream society.
Similarly, school students in Japan should not be forced to assimilate in a way that alienates
them from their heritage, nor should their otherness prevent them from the capacity to be
successful within the Japanese system.

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Piller issues two stark warnings about school language policies that could be applied to theprimary curriculum in Japan: the “hidden” purpose of schooling is to maintain the status quo,and the promotion of English benefits only the urban elite. English functions as a gatekeeper
in education (Price, 2014, as cited in Piller, 2016). Language should be used to promote
communication and understanding, not neoliberal values. As parents and as educators, weneed to see past the rhetoric of global skills in order to push for a curriculum that works topromote linguistic diversity and multilingualism, and is accessible to all.
One approach to create a multilingual curriculum flexible enough to suit the local needsof a particular location, classroom or student, while being stringent enough to become anational policy, would be a portfolio (Benson & Lamb, 2021). Students would be able toexplore community or home languages and cultures of their choice and be assessed on their
responses to this (done in the school language or visually if appropriate), rather than on
acquiring set phrases in English. A portfolio would give students the right to, and ownershipof, their language learning (Melo, 2021). It would have the potential of developing in students
self-learning skills, independence, and an interest in their diverse community. In a primaryschool, there may be a need for the teacher to make some of the learning choices for the
students. However, in my experience of developing and running a university class where
all students were learning different things, but at the same time keeping reflective journals
and talking with peers in a structured way (Stevenson & Davies, 2019; Edlin, 2018), having
learners make different choices does not create extra work for students or teachers. This
pedagogic approach is not novel in compulsory education in Japan: School students havepreviously been encouraged to keep personal records of their own learning (Nishioka, 2017),
and seikatsu tsuzurikata / 生活綴方 [daily life writing] has been long employed to encourage
students to reflect on their lives and communities, then share their perspectives with peers(Kawaji, 2017). A multilingual portfolio is a natural successor to previous teaching andlearning styles in Japan, and it fits the government’s objective of “developing individuals’
abilities, cultivating creativity, and fostering a spirit of autonomy and independence” (Basic
Act on Education, 2006). For minority and non-minority children alike, having a multilingual
approach to language education that involves the local community has many benefits thatexceed those given by learning stock phrases in English that are not directly connected to thelives of the individual learner or their community.

Concluding Thoughts
In this practice-related review, I first gave an overview of the themes in Piller (2016), andrelated them to learner development issues. I then examined two puzzles I developed basedon the book and my experiences as an educator and a parent. From this examination, I
propose that further exploration and discussion is required in the following areas:ʶ

how language learning and practices in schools can be accepting of, and connect to, thethe lives of all of the student body and diverse communities in the local area;ʶ

how to produce appropriate local responses to local language issues, that fit in with theethos of the school and education system; andʶ

how inclusive pedagogical practices which respect and promote multilingual knowledge
can be further developed.

Through reflection and scrutiny on these three overarching themes of this review,educational practitioners can consider how to minimise linguistic disadvantage in their
setting.

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For those specifically interested in learner development issues in language education,
I recommend reading Chapters 3, The Subordination of Linguistic Diversity, and Chapter 5,
Linguistic Diversity in Education, of this book as essential reading. In these chapters examples
are presented that show the danger of connecting language to territory and the problems thatarise in education from a monolingual mindset. Chapter 7, Linguistic Diversity and Global Justice,develops these ideas further, focusing particularly on the English language, and will help
English educators reflect on their own practices and policies. I contend that in Japan there
needs to be an adjustment in the way language learning is talked about both by professionals
and laypeople, in order that English learning becomes easily accessible for beginners, basedon more realistic models and attainment goals.
Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice has encouraged me to think more deeply about languagelearning policies in my work context, and the importance of raising awareness about being
multilingual—and its benefits—to students. Issues raised have encouraged deeper reflection
on the effects of language policies in tertiary and compulsory education in Japan. Future
discussions, practitioner research, and scholarship should appraise the objectives of educationin order to actively and appropriately shape and reflect society, and to examine how valuing
minority languages and communities can be a part of a just curriculum.

Author Bio
Huw Davies is a learning advisor at Kanda University of International Studies. He holds an
MEd from the Open University, and is a PhD candidate at Lancaster University. His working
day is centred around learner development. He has published papers on language learning
strategies, learner autonomy, and advisor professional development.
Huw Davies é conselheiro na aprendizagem de línguas na Kanda University of International
Studies. Possui Mestrado em Educação pela Open University e atualmente é doutorando
pela Lancaster University. Seu trabalho centra-se no desenvolvimento do aprendiz, tendo
publicado artigos sobre estratégias de aprendizagem de línguas, autonomia do aprendiz, edesenvolvimento profissional do conselheiro.

Review ProcessThis paper was blind peer-reviewed by members of The Learner Development Journal Review
Network and Journal Steering Group. (Contributors have the option of open or blind review.)

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