L2 Journal

One strand of Claire Kramsch’s work has been a deep reflection on what it means to be multilingual. Kramsch has argued that being multilingual involves subjective and symbolic dimensions of engagement with languages, cultures and interlocutors that have often been ignored in much language education practice. This article will reflect on the consequences of this thinking for language education and the ways that it has in turn expanded the scope and understanding of language instruction. It will consider what it means to posit the language learner as a multilingual subject living and communicating in and between languages and cultures and negotiating identities, as well as how the teaching and learning of another culturally contextualized language can be designed with reference to the developing multilingual subject.