2026/03/06 by Pramod K. Sah · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Multilingual Education and Policy #Second Language Learning and Teaching #EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
paper · doi:10.1111/modl.70052
Over the past two decades, language education has been shaped by what is often described as a multilingual turn, characterized by an increasing acknowledgment that language learning and use are dynamic, socially embedded, and deeply entangled with issues of identity, power, and inequality (May, 2013). Concepts such as multilingualism, plurilingualism, and translanguaging have challenged long-held monolingual assumptions in teaching and assessment, emphasizing learners’ full linguistic repertoires as legitimate resources for making meaning. However, this conceptual change has occurred alongside a countercurrent: a renewed global skepticism toward diversity-based educational initiatives, including multilingual education, which are increasingly seen as politically controversial, economically inefficient, or ideologically excessive (Block, 2018; Kubota, 2016). Consequently, multilingualism often receives rhetorical support—for example, at the policy level—but remains structurally fragile in practice (Mendoza et al., 2024; Mohanty, 2019; Sah & Li, 2024). This tension has become especially evident within broader political movements that oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and liberal education more broadly. For example, in the United States, renewed discourses and policies emphasizing English-only have re-emerged as symbols of national unity, efficiency, and common sense, frequently framing multilingualism as a threat rather than a public good. Although such policies are frequently justified as domestically focused, their ideological influence extends well beyond national borders. English-only imaginaries circulate globally through policy borrowing, development discourse, standardized testing practices, and the internationalization of education, reinforcing the notion that social cohesion and economic competitiveness depend on linguistic uniformity. In this environment, multilingual education is not just a pedagogical issue; it is politically vulnerable. These global dynamics help explain why the multilingual turn, despite its significant theoretical influence, has had limited systemic impact—particularly within schooling systems shaped by nationalist and neoliberal language ideologies, high-stakes assessment, and market-oriented logics. Although multilingual practices are often promoted as pedagogical strategies or framed as transitional scaffolding, they remain tightly constrained by curricula and assessment structures that ultimately reward proficiency in a narrow set of dominant languages. As a result, multilingualism is frequently tolerated only insofar as it does not disrupt the gatekeeping functions of languages such as English. This tension is especially pronounced in the Global South, where multilingualism is a long-standing social and historical reality, yet education systems continue to privilege ex-colonial or global commodified languages as primary pathways to mobility and opportunity. Against this backdrop, Van Gorp's (2026, this issue) perspective offers a timely and significant intervention. By urging the field to “make all repertoires count,” and by grounding this call in critical multilingual language awareness (CMLA), he provides a principled and pedagogically coherent response to the continuing dominance of monolingual norms in task-based language teaching, assessment, and teacher education. His argument shows how multilingualism can be operationalized within established frameworks instead of remaining an abstract notion. However, building on this idea, this commentary raises a question that becomes especially urgent given current political conditions: What does it mean to “make all repertoires count” when only some languages have social and economic value? Within environments influenced by anti-DEI sentiments, neoliberal education policies, and global English dominance, addressing this question calls for not only pedagogical innovation but also persistent attention to the ideological and political-economic structures that determine which languages—and whose futures—are ultimately valued. This commentary argues that the uneven uptake of multilingual education and translanguaging—particularly in Global South contexts—cannot be explained solely by pedagogical resistance or a lack of teacher awareness, but must be understood through the ideological, political, and economic conditions that shape language-in-education policies and practices. While multilingualism is a lived and historical reality in much of the Global South, schooling continues to be governed by nationalist and neoliberal language regimes that, for example, position English as must-have linguistic capital and relegate other local/Indigenous languages to symbolic roles (Block, 2018; Sah & Li, 2024). In such situations, multilingual pedagogies risk becoming selectively adopted, unequally legitimized, or reduced to forms of linguistic recognition that leave deeper class-based and material inequalities intact (see Sah & Li, 2024). I argue that without confronting the political economy of language—particularly the entanglement of English with aspirations, privatization, and labor markets—multilingual interventions may unintentionally reproduce the very hierarchies they seek to disrupt. Moving the discipline forward, therefore, requires extending CMLA beyond a pedagogical stance to include redistribution of power and resources, policy critique, and structural alignment, especially in situations where multilingualism is already the norm, but educational justice remains elusive. In this commentary, I draw on years of research as well as personal and professional experiences with multilingual practices in both the Global South (e.g., Nepal and Hong Kong) and the Global North (e.g., Canada and the United Kingdom) to reflect on the challenges of multilingual education, writing as a South Asian critical applied linguist. As a minoritized speaker in both my home country context—Nepal—and in diasporic settings, I am acutely aware of the affective and material consequences of unequal treatment of languages and their speakers, often shaped by ideological and structural forms of governance. South Asia provides a particularly revealing context for reflecting on Van Gorp's call to “make all repertoires count.” The region is home to some of the world's most complex and longstanding multilingual ecologies, where fluid language use has historically been the norm across education, governance, religion, and everyday life. Long before contemporary proposals for translanguaging, South Asian societies sustained plural linguistic practices that focused on meaning-making over strict language separation (see Sultana & Sah, 2026, for a detailed review). Yet despite this rich multilingual history, formal schooling in the region has increasingly favored a limited set of languages—most notably English and dominant national languages (e.g., Hindi in India, Nepali in Nepal, and Urdu in Pakistan)—within hierarchical and exclusionary language-in-education policies and practices. This contradiction is central to understanding why multilingual education in South Asia remains fragile in practice. Across countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, language policies frequently endorse multilingualism in principle, often through mother-tongue-based multilingual education or transitional bilingual models. However, these commitments coexist with the rapid expansion of English-medium instruction (EMI), driven by neoliberal imaginaries that frame English as a prerequisite for economic participation, global mobility, and social legitimacy (Sultana & Sah, 2026). As a result, multilingualism is often positioned as an early-stage or compensatory measure, while English retains its role as the ultimate gatekeeping language. From the perspective advanced in Van Gorp's framework, this raises a key question about the boundaries of recognition. While multilingual practices may be recognized as pedagogically beneficial or culturally affirming, they are rarely granted equal institutional or epistemic value. In South Asian classrooms, translanguaging often appears as an informal, teacher-led strategy to bridge comprehension gaps caused by EMI, rather than as an officially endorsed pedagogical approach supported by curriculum, assessment, or policy. As a result, multilingual practices are tolerated but not fully accepted, leaving teachers to manage a continuing tension between what is pedagogically effective and what is institutionally accepted and rewarded. This tension is particularly apparent when comparing language and content-area classrooms. In English language classrooms, multilingual practices are often seen as threats to proper exposure or proficiency, while in content classrooms, they are regarded as temporary scaffolds rather than legitimate means of knowledge building. In both settings, the core idea remains the same: multilingualism is acceptable only if it does not disrupt the dominance of English, as well as dominant national languages. As Van Gorp cautions in his critique of monolingual tasks and evaluation design, such conditional acceptance risks reinforcing unequal language hierarchies even within seemingly multilingual frameworks. Furthermore, South Asian contexts show how multilingual education can become stratified by social class. Elite students’ multilingual flexibility—frequently involving English and prestigious national or global languages—is celebrated as cosmopolitan competence, while the multilingual practices of rural, working-class, or Indigenous learners are marginalized or erased. Translanguaging, in this sense, is not inherently emancipatory; it can just as easily reinforce unequal language practices when only certain repertoires are considered valuable (see Mendoza et al., 2024; Sah & Li, 2024). This strongly echoes Van Gorp's insistence that multilingual pedagogy must be rooted in CMLA, yet the South Asian case suggests that awareness alone is insufficient without addressing the broader ideological and political–economic structures that assign different values to languages. Viewed through this perspective, the issue in South Asia is not the lack of multilingual repertoires but the conditions that allow them to “count.” Making all repertoires count, as Van Gorp emphasizes, requires confronting the ways in which English—and, to a lesser extent, dominant national languages—still influence access to quality education, social and political participation, and future opportunities. Without such efforts, multilingual education risks being symbolically inclusive but materially unequal. The South Asian experience highlights the importance of situating multilingual pedagogy within a broader politics of redistribution beyond recognition (Block, 2018), aligning with Van Gorp's call to move beyond mere endorsement toward systemic change. Van Gorp's perspective offers a timely and principled intervention by insisting that multilingual education is unable to be meaningfully advanced without CMLA. By highlighting teachers’ ethical stances and professional judgment, his argument challenges the long-standing assumption that multilingualism can be addressed solely through appropriate methods. This emphasis is particularly important in a field where multilingual practices have too often been reduced to techniques—such as translanguaging activities, or task designs—detached from the ideological and political contexts that influence their adoption. I fully support this approach and see CMLA as a necessary foundation for any equitable multilingual future. At the same time, my view in this commentary is that teacher awareness, however critical, cannot alone bear the burden of systemic transformation on its own. In many contexts—especially in the Global South—teachers’ agency is deeply influenced, and often limited, by larger ideological, political, and economic structures that decide which forms of multilingualism are allowed, valued, or punished. When multilingual education is seen mostly as an individual attitude or classroom practice, there is a risk of overestimating what teachers can realistically achieve within systems that still favor monolingual norms, English dominance, and neoliberal accountability. The real question, then, is not only whether teachers are sufficiently aware, but also whether systemic conditions have been aligned to support the ethical goals of multilingual education. This concern becomes especially important when we look at places like South Asia, where multilingualism is not a new idea but a long-standing social and historical reality, yet it still faces institutional neglect. In South Asian classrooms, teachers often use complex, locally informed multilingual approaches in their daily lessons—drawing on students’ language skills to help them understand, participate, and make meaning. However, these efforts often happen in spite of policies rather than because of them. High-stakes tests, strict curricula, parental expectations, and the idea that English is the key to opportunity keep telling teachers that, even though multilingualism is useful for teaching, it is not what truly “counts.” Under these conditions, even teachers who follow CMLA may have their professional judgment overridden by institutional requirements and expectations. From this perspective, I argue that the field needs to move beyond a sole focus on individual awareness and adopt a structural view of multilingual education as a political endeavor. This does not mean neglecting teachers; rather, it involves positioning teacher agency within the larger ideological and policy frameworks that influence educational practices. Awareness without alignment can lead to professional frustration, moral loss, reduced emotional well-being, or selective implementation, in which multilingual education thrives only in protected settings while remaining absent or punished elsewhere. If the field genuinely aims to “make all repertoires count,” it must ask not only who is aware but also what systems are being asked to change. Furthermore, one constant challenge in multilingual education research is the tendency to focus on the classroom level for both problems and solutions. When multilingual pedagogies are not widely embraced, explanations often cite teachers’ beliefs, training, or resistance, oftentimes blaming individual teachers. Although these factors are important, they can mask the structural realities teachers face. In many education systems, especially those influenced by colonial legacies and neoliberal reforms, teachers are positioned as implementers rather than designers of policy. Their professional survival depends on conforming to assessment regimes and performance metrics that continue to privilege monolingual norms. While developing critical awareness among teachers is important, it does not automatically result in increased pedagogical flexibility. In such situations, the disconnect between awareness and action is not always about lack of knowledge but about structural limitations. Viewing multilingual education mainly as a teacher's stance risks shifting responsibility onto individuals with limited power to effect systemic change. This dynamic is especially evident in EMI contexts, where teachers regularly confront conflicting demands: guaranteeing students’ understanding through multilingual practices while concurrently preparing them for assessments that favor monolingual English skills (Sah & Li, 2024). This creates a pedagogical double bind, where multilingualism is used informally and publicly, while it is officially denied. From my view, this shows why multilingual education should be seen not just as a pedagogical choice but as a result of policy decisions, ideological alignment, and political commitment. Building on Van Gorp's framework, I propose a shift in analytical focus toward what can be conceptualized as “critical multilingual policy alignment.” This perspective does not replace CMLA but extends it by foregrounding the macro-level conditions that enable—or foreclose—multilingual practices. If CMLA asks teachers to critically reflect on language, power, and inequality in their classrooms, critical multilingual policy alignment asks systems and their agents to reflect on how policies, curricula, and assessments institutionalize particular language hierarchies. At its core, this framework rests on a simple yet often overlooked premise: Ideology becomes durable when embedded in policy instruments. Language-in-education policies, curriculum frameworks, and assessment practices do not merely reflect beliefs about language; they actively (re)produce and legitimize them. When multilingualism is celebrated in policy rhetoric but excluded from high-stakes examinations, the message to teachers and students is clear: Some repertoires are more valuable than others. Similarly, when curricula endorse multilingual engagement without allocating time, resources, or professional recognition to it, multilingualism becomes an optional add-on rather than a foundational principle. Critical multilingual policy alignment, therefore, calls for consistency across three interconnected areas. First, the curriculum must reflect multilingual realities. This implies moving beyond strict language separation and recognizing multilingual meaning-making as essential to disciplinary learning. In practice, this entails designing curricula that support the use of multiple languages for learning, discussion, and knowledge-building, rather than viewing them solely as tools to achieve monolingual outcomes. Second, assessment needs to be rethought in ways that align closely, for example, with Van Gorp's focus on multilingual task-based language assessment. As long as assessment structures remain implicitly monolingual, multilingual pedagogies will continue to be marginalized. From my perspective, assessment reform is not just a technical issue but a political one. It involves reconceptualizing what constitutes achievement and whose linguistic resources are deemed legitimate. Without this redefinition, multilingual education will continue to operate in the shadow of monolingual accountability. Third, policy coherence beyond education must be addressed. Language-in-education policies do not operate in isolation; they are deeply connected to labor markets, migration patterns, and broader political imaginaries. In many Global South contexts, English is seen as the main language of social and economic participation, creating a strong incentive structure that undermines multilingual education. When employability, higher education access, and social mobility are overwhelmingly linked to English proficiency, multilingual policies—however well-intentioned—are perceived as economically risky. Addressing this tension requires a broader conversation about how languages are valued across society, not just within schools. An important implication of this framework is a new way of understanding teacher agency. Instead of viewing teachers as the primary agents responsible for implementing multilingual education, critical multilingual policy alignment highlights collective and institutional responsibility. Teachers are not just lone actors making isolated decisions; they are professionals embedded within ideological systems that influence which practices are seen as possible, legitimate, and safe. Recognizing this does not teacher it it more From this perspective, professional development focused only on awareness risks becoming if it is not by structural change. Teachers be asked to multilingual practices without being given the assessment or institutional necessary to do this can even as multilingual education on individual teachers’ to about across and structural approach aims to shift responsibility that multilingual education is not on individual to the central question this it means to “make all repertoires this cannot be by pedagogy Van Gorp's call to “make all repertoires count” offers a timely and principled response to the persistent dominance of monolingual norms in language education, that multilingualism is not a pedagogical but also an ethical and I argue that this in the Global moving beyond individual teachers’ critical awareness to include the ideological, political, and policy structures that what multilingual education can When only certain languages are institutionally valued, multilingual practices may be symbolically but limited in practice. Making all repertoires means not only recognizing linguistic but also the conditions which languages are and rewarded. In this the importance of multilingualism is not just about it is about its power to challenge hierarchies and language education a of social and educational In contexts where only languages are linked to institutional assessment and future making all repertoires involves more than calls for multilingual assessment, institutional power, and ultimately social value. In my perspective is that the future of multilingual education depends on to see it not just as a pedagogical innovation but as a structural and political endeavor. CMLA remains a but it must be with critical policy alignment if multilingual education is to beyond isolated and become a of equitable education can the field to genuinely what it truly means to make all repertoires Without multilingual education risks being and In such multilingualism may be recognized symbolically while remaining materially unequal. From a Global South perspective, this risk is especially is already what is is institutional recognition of its full value. 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