Exploring teachers’ and students’ language use in the Frisian trilingual classroom

In European bi- and trilingual education, content-based language teaching is often used to promote minority and/or additional language use. Within this context, there is growing interest in translanguaging practices. However, little is known about how these languages are used in bi- and trilingual education and how these practices relate to students’ language development. This case study explores teachers’ and students’ language use inside the trilingual classroom at the end of Frisian trilingual primary school. Quantitative data were collected by event sampling observations of 42 content-based lessons in Dutch, Frisian, and English (six schools, 148 students). Taking a dynamic systems perspective, relationships between teachers’ and students’ language use and students’ vocabulary and reading comprehension in the three target languages were tested. Data analyses show different teacher and student language use patterns between classes and target language lessons. Analyses of covariance demonstrate that higher Dutch Vocabulary Development scores were related to both exclusive teacher target language use, and students’ home language use in peer interaction. Similarly, higher Reading Comprehension Development scores were related to home language use in student-student interaction. These findings address the importance of developing teacher awareness of language use, and also future research and policy making in multilingual education.