The development of language awareness has become an important goal in multilingual education, encouraging learners to reflect on language use and to draw strategically on their linguistic resources. Classroom interaction offers a particularly valuable setting for exploring how multilingual practices contribute to language learning and the construction of knowledge.

This presentation examines how interaction in multilingual CLIL classrooms promotes language awareness through the flexible use of learners’ linguistic repertoires. Drawing on classroom data collected in the Basque Country, the study analyses how teachers and students use different languages to negotiate meaning, facilitate communication, and support learning. Particular attention is given to episodes of pedagogical translanguaging and the ways they foster reflection on language choices, cross-linguistic relationships, and participation in classroom discourse.

The findings indicate that multilingual interaction supports not only communication and content learning but also the development of language awareness by encouraging learners to compare languages, reflect on their linguistic choices, and use their multilingual resources strategically. The presentation discusses the pedagogical implications of these findings and argues that classroom interaction provides a powerful context for fostering language awareness as an integral component of multilingual education.

References

Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2021). Pedagogical translanguaging. Cambridge University Press.

Llinares, A., Morton, T., & Whittaker, R. (2024). Fostering language awareness for integration through teacher–researcher collaboration in a Spanish bilingual education context. Language Awareness, 33(4), 751–771. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2024.2385766