All our research projects are based on a particular plurilingual approach to language teaching. Building on research from Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA) and recent perspectives from the field of multilingualism, we have developed new pedagogical interventions. Instead of limiting language use in formal settings to the target language only, our novel approach promotes the interaction between learners’ linguistic repertoires in order to maximize the acquisition of an additional language.

In more traditional, monolingual approaches, non-target languages are usually seen as a means to facilitate information transfer (e.g., to explain something). However, our plurilingual pedagogical approach doesn’t view non-target languages as information vehicles, but as learning resources. Learners are encouraged to draw explicit parallels between languages as a means of increasing language awareness. The use of non-target languages as learning resources forms the basis of our plurilingual approach.

Our research projects are unique in the field in that they always include two distinct, but interconnected, components: specialization, and pedagogy. These two components nourish and complete each other as our research progresses.