Experiencing multilingualism in daily school life in Greece: Semi-structured interviews with adolescent bi/multilingual students

This paper explores bilingualism, multilingualism, and translanguaging as social practices in the Greek context. Historical and sociopolitical changes in recent years have provoked transitions in the social context and the Greek schools as well. As a result, bi-/multilingualism is a wide usual practice in the public domain and family policy language, while it seems a contemporary pedagogical challenge. After the literature review of the theoretical concepts, the research with semi-structured interviews of three 17-year-old students with a migrant background and a bilingual family environment is presented and analyzed. The study aims to explore the use of translanguaging and bilingualism in the Greek context. The results relate to the examination of views at a micro-level of ideologies, concerning bilingualism and language maintenance or loss. In addition, it is obvious the recognition of the importance of bilingualism, but also the fear of using the language of the host society and the perception of the ease of using the English language.