THE LEARNER DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL
学習者ディベロップメント研究部会誌

ISSN: 2433-5401
https://ldjournal.ld-sig.org

The Learner Development Journal Issue 5: Engaging with the Multilingual Turnfor Learner Development: Practices, Issues, Discourses, and Theorisations
Author: Maria Ruohotie-Lyhty
Title: Openness, Creativity, Collaboration and Narrativity Paving Our Road Towards Critical
Multilingual Practices in the Classroom
Date of publication online: 2021
Author contact: <maria.ruohotie-lyhty@jyu.fi>

Published by the Japan Association for Language Teaching
Learner Development Special Interest Group, Tokyo
http://ld-sig.org/Copyright 2021 each respective author

The APA citation reference for this paper is:
Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2021). Openness, creativity, collaboration and narrativity paving
our road towards critical multilingual practices in the classroom. In A. Barfield, O. Cusen,
Y. Imamura, & R. Kelly (Eds.), The Learner Development Journal Issue 5: Engaging with theMultilingual Turn for Learner Development: Practices, Issues, Discourses, and Theorisations(pp. 181-184). Tokyo: The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) Learner
Development Special Interest Group.

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License (CC BY), of which CC BY 4.0 is the most recent version. Under this agreement, authors grant users
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is given to the work.

COMMENTARY
Openness, Creativity, Collaboration andNarrativity Paving Our Road Towards Critical
Multilingual Practices in the Classroom
Maria Ruohotie-Lyhty, Department of Language and Communication
Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland <maria.ruohotie-lyhty@jyu.fi>W

hen asked to provide this commentary for Learner Development Journal (LDJ)
Issue 5, Engaging with the Multilingual Turn for Learner Development: Practices, Issues,
Discourses, and Theorisations, I felt privileged and intrigued. The call focusing
on narrative accounts and practice-related reviews matched with my interest and needs
as a university language teacher educator and researcher in applied linguistics. To me,in promoting multilingual teacher education and multilingual languages education, weneed ideas and support from other members of the teacher community. This is important
especially since tackling new paradigms necessitates challenging our habitual agency thatoften conveniently matches with our experiences and our students’ expectations (Conteh &Meier, 2014; Dewey, 1983; Moate & Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2014).
In her review, Gabriella Meier (2017) defines the multilingual turn as part of a criticalmovement in education, and calls for students and teachers to reflect together to tackle thechallenges of translating it into mainstream practice. This issue of the LDJ on multilingualism
provides exactly this: reflective narrative accounts and practice-related reflective reviewsof seminal work in multilingualism research, which all have the potential to help us asteachers and researchers to better address this complex phenomenon. Therefore, in mycommentary, instead of referring to the content of the individual contributions separately, I
aim at a reflective analysis of the contributors’ conceptualizations of multilingual practices
in the classrooms. In what follows, I will raise four important issues that, to me, seemto pave the way towards more multilingual and critical language education, and are also
valid for multilingualism research. These are collaboration, openness, ethical considerationand creativity. At the end of my commentary, I will also reflect on the role of narratives indeveloping multilingual practices around the world.

Critical Multilingual Practices Are Collaborative
The importance of community support and collaboration is the first issue I want to raise. The
articles of this collection demonstrate this from many different perspectives. The narrative
account from Vasumathi Badrinathan shows the reverse side of collaboration, that of teacher
isolation, where teachers have little opportunities for questioning their practices and learningfrom others. It also demonstrates how difficult it is for an individual to bridge the gap
between theory and practice without support from a similar minded community. On the otherhand, positive examples of the power of collaboration are also abundantly available. Thesecollaborative practices take various forms. In their narrative accounts, Isra Wongsarnpigoon &Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

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Openness, Creativity, Collaboration and Narrativity Paving Our Road Towards Critical Multilingual Practices in the Classroom

Yuri Imamura reflect together on their experiences in developing multilingualism-supportive
social learning spaces in their university, Oana Cusen recounts her discussions withcolleagues about the contribution they can make as non-native English speaking teachers(NNESTs) in Japan, and Lorraine de Beaufort describes her experience of reconstructing
a piece of her data again with some colleagues for LDJ5 to gain new perspectives to theexperiences of her research participant. These narrative accounts demonstrate the powerof teachers thinking together and the possibilities for change that this collaboration offers
for individuals and communities. Also the practice-related reviews by Andy Barfield, OanaCusen, Riitta Kelly, & Yuri Imamura and by Ellen Head & Chie Tsurii demonstrate how texts
can be discussed and elaborated together with colleagues for deeper understanding. Even
more powerful is the possibility to observe each other in action and get ideas for one’s
own practices like in the narrative account from Jussi Jussila & Riitta Kelly. In addition,
collaboration is not only possible among peers, but developing multilingual practices should
also benefit from collaboration with our students, who, as multilingual individuals, have a lot
to share, and without whom we cannot really succeed as Andy Barfield’s narrative accountdemonstrates. Researchers also need to build a genuine collaboration with their research
participants to be able to understand individual experiences.

Critical Multilingual Practices Are Based on Openness
The articles that are part of this collection demonstrate the role of openness in challenging
and renegotiating critical multilingual practices. Openness is important in sharing ourexperiences and giving the space for all participants to express their sometimes conflicting
perspectives. Many of the authors in this issue are open in sharing their own personal
experiences in relation to multilingualism. For example, Brennan Conaway in his practicerelated review, and Oana, Vasumathi and Akiko in their narrative accounts share a lot of theirpersonal experiences that can help others to identify with their reflections.
Critical multilingual education cannot be about indoctrination, but about critical perspectives
and practices that can be negotiated through open and democratic participation. The principleof democratic participation is particularly well demonstrated in the practice-related review
by Alison Stewart where she recounts her experience of reading and discussing research onmultilingualism with her students. Her review not only shows examples of good practices ofdealing with these issues in a language classroom or teacher education, but her practices arealso a good example of openness to student thinking, even when the teacher does not always
share the students’ views. Alison’s practices, and the fact that her students feel free to express
their differing opinions, show a genuine search for openness and trust in students’ ability tothink for themselves. Sometimes this might feel disappointing, since freedom always leads tounpredictable outcomes; However, I see it as the only possible way to go forward. Freedom ofthought is also strongly visible in Isra’s & Yuri’s narrative account where student thinking istaken seriously and given a great value in enriching and challenging teachers’ own thinking.
In addition, we see the power of openness between colleagues in the narrative account by Riitta& Jussi, who share their sometimes difficult experiences of collaborative and multilingualteaching. In their case, open discussion about their doubts, and the ways to share work andcollaborate with other teachers is a key to successful multilingual practices.

Critical Multilingual Practices Are Based on Careful Ethical Consideration andCreativity
The contributors also show the ways in which developing critical multilingual practices
necessitates ethical consideration and sensitivity. At the heart of multilingualism is the need182

Learner Development Journal • Volume 1: Issue 5 • December 2021

Maria Ruohotie-Lyhty

for understanding each other’s stories, and including multiple perspectives from research
participants, students, or teachers (see the pieces by Akiko, Alison, Andy, Lorraine, andVasumathi). In these texts, there are rich examples of how deeply multi(lingual) practices
affect their identities and beliefs, and how deeply they are intertwined with other personaland social identities, as well as issues of power and injustice. Recognizing the importance of
these experiences is the first step. In addition to this, we need a “concerted and methodical
approach by educators to empower students and reimagine pedagogy,” as Huw Davies points
out in his practice-related review. In the search of new pedagogies, we need creativity.
The various contributors to this issue also show examples of such creativity in relation
to at least one of the important puzzles of being a member of a multilingual working
community and educational institute, namely the status and balance of multiple languages
in multilingual institutional communication and teaching. The power positions visible in the“one-language-only” policy that Chie & Ellen, Andy, and Huw describe in relation to Japan aswell ideologies of the right kind of language use can seriously hamper multilingual practicesof educational communities. The narrative account by Isra & Yuri shows how teachers
can experiment together and find ways to tackle this issue through creating a place formultilingualism-supportive social learning spaces in their university. Similarly, Riitta & Jussi
provide a deeply practical and fair solution to this question by describing the development ofmultilingual practices in their work community. As they show, teaching languages together
without a distinction between concepts such as foreign language, or native language, provides
an example of the power of ethical consideration and creativity that is practical, doable, andresource wise. To me, these pieces of writing really show a way to go forward.

Narrativity Paves the Way Towards Critical Multilingual Practices
Finally, I want to raise an issue that might easily be considered as self-evident in relation
to the genres of writing in LDJ5, but I still want to highlight the power of narratives indeveloping the theory and practice of multilingualism. I perceive narratives, narrative
research, and the process of narration as important resources in developing criticalmultilingual practices. The contributions in this journal are all based on narrative approaches
and provide rich, human resources for other teachers and researchers who are seeking ways
to address these questions in their teaching. These narratives bind the societal to the personaland have the possibility not only to inform us, but also to move us and thus bring about
deep developmental processes (see Kalaja & Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2019). As a personal example,
the narrative account by Akiko about how multilingualism has, in her life and her research
participant’s, been connected to forming an identity as a woman touched me personally. In
my own mind, although I am from a different cultural sphere, her account resonated strongly
with my personal experience as a Finnish woman, raised by a mother who always highlighted
the importance for a woman to experience the world and a father who considered a university
degree and a steady government or municipal career the secure and desirable option for
his three daughters. I realized Akiko’s emotions were similar to mine when reading of her
experiences as an exchange student in South Korea and comparing them to my exchange
year in France. This insightful account helped me to discover my identity again in a more
multifaceted way and understand my past from new perspectives. These kinds of learning
experiences are also documented in many of the contributions to this issue, such as Melike
Bulut Albaba’s practice-related review of the book Visualising Multilingual Lives: More ThanWords. I think this is what narratives can mean to us. When we listen to each other and share
our stories, we create possibilities for emotionally and cognitively meaningful learning.

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Conclusions
Meier writes in her 2017 paper that “the multilingual turn faces important challenges thathamper its translation into mainstream practice, namely popularly accepted monolingual
norms and a lack of guidance for teachers” (Meier, 2017, p. 131). This is a basic dilemma thatfaces many of us trying to develop more sound educational practices for schools and teacher
education. Engaging with the Multilingual Turn for Learner Development: Practices, Issues, Discourses,and Theorisations, however, is one significant step forward. It has the power to make us think
about these issues and help us to bridge our own experiences with skilfully crafted narrativesof multilingual human experience.

Author Bio
Maria Ruohotie-Lyhty is Senior Lecturer of Applied Linguistics at the University of Jyväskylä,Finland. She is responsible for the foreign language teacher education master’s programmein the Department of Language and Communication Studies. Her research interests focus on
identity, agency and emotions in language learning and teaching and in developing better
language teacher education. She is a co-author of the book Beliefs, Agency and Identity in Foreign
Language Learning and Teaching (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and has published widely ininternational applied linguistics and educational journals.
Maria Ruohotie-Lyhty on soveltavan kielitieteen yliopistonlehtori Jyväskylän yliopistossa ja
toimii kielten aineenopettajakoulutusohjelman vastuuhenkilönä Kieli- ja viestintätieteiden
laitoksella. Ruohotie-Lyhdyn tutkimuksen kohteena on identiteetin, toimijuuden ja tunteiden
merkitys kielen oppimisessa, opettamisessa ja kielten opettajien koulutuksen kehittämisessä.
Hän on yksi teoksen Beliefs, Agency and Identity in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching(Palgrave, 2016) kirjoittajista ja on julkaissut tutkimustaan laajasti soveltavan kielitieteen ja
kasvatustieteen kansainvälisissä lehdissä.

References
Conteh, J., & Meier, G. (Eds.). (2014). Introduction. In The multilingual turn in languages
education: Opportunities and challenges (pp. 1–14). Multilingual Matters.
Dewey, J. (1983). Human nature and conduct. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The middle works of John
Dewey, Volume 14, 1899–1924: Human nature and conduct, 1922. Southern Illinois University
Press. (Original work published in 1922)
Kalaja, P., & Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2019). Narratives in L2 learner identity development. The
Learner Development Journal, 3, 79–95.
Meier, G. S. (2017). The multilingual turn as a critical movement in education: Assumptions,challenges and a need for reflection. Applied Linguistics Review, 8(1), 131–161.
Moate, J., & Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2014). Identity, agency and community: reconsidering thepedagogic responsibilities of teacher education. British Journal of Educational Studies, 62(3),249–264.

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