Roma Chumak-Horbatsch (2025): Multilingual Teaching: The Missing Piece. Bristol/Jackson: Multillingual Matters.

Multilingual Teaching: The Missing Piece (Chumak-Horbatsch, 2025) offers a concise reflection on inclusive language education. The book’s central claim is that learners who already master the language of school should be explicitly included in multilingual education initiatives. Before examining the book’s contents, one conceptual stance deserves attention: the use of the word ‘multilingual’ in the title and throughout the book. There is general consensus that multilingualism refers to the presence of multiple languages within a space or community (Council of Europe, 2001). However, while the term multilingual is commonly used as an adjective to describe educational approaches in America and Canada, in Europe the term plurilingual is preferred, as the two concepts are not regarded as synonyms. ‘Plurilingual’ stands in contrast to ‘unilingual’. Unilingual pedagogies advocate for teaching languages in isolation, whereas plurilingual pedagogies recognise and use all the languages students know – both school and home/community languages – as resources for learning (de la Cruz, 2019). Chumak-Horbatsch’s ‘language-rich classrooms’ are multilingual in composition; however, her pedagogical objectives may be interpreted as either multilingual or plurilingual, depending on the reader’s background.