Multiliteracies and translanguaging pedagogy in the adult L2-classroom

In this article, we study space for multiliteracies in basic literacy education for adult second language learners of Swedish for Immigrants (SFI). The teaching observed was categorised as translanguaging pedagogy, and the study was part of an action research project with Linguistic Ethnography as the methodological framework. The material used comes from classroom observations in three schools and consists of fieldnotes, recordings of teaching, photographs, handouts and other artefacts. Hornberger’s (2003) continua of biliteracy was used for the analysis. Findings show there to be space for multiliteracies in these classrooms; however, since most students in these classes have limited literacy skills in their earlier languages, the written texts used in class are mainly in Swedish. Findings also show that teaching includes practices from all points on the continua, which Hornberger (1989) highlights as important for biliterate development, in this case to a lesser extent for written language. The shuttling between the ends of all continua is particularly important for students in SFI, Study Path One, who tend to have low status in, for example, the workforce and society. Findings also show that images tend to be used as tools rather than as objects for interpretation. Our conclusion is that space for multiliteracies varies depending on the earlier literacy skills of students, the number of students in a group who understood a particular language and the availability of study guidance assistants in the students’ mother tongues.