Claudine Kirsch

• MA, PhD
• University of Luxembourg

Frequent and high-quality reading helps children develop language and early literacy skills, which, in turn, influence their academic achievements. Few empirical studies provide insights into the ways parents engage with young children. The aim of the present mixed-method study was to identify factors that influence dialogic reading at home, based...

Literacy holds a privileged place in early childhood education (ECE) as preliteracy skills are strong predictors of literacy skills which, in turn, influence academic achievement. To develop literacy, children need rich, meaningful, and varied print experiences at home and in ECE institutions. To this effect, ECE professionals have been shown to of...

The unprecedented Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic affected adolescents’ routines, experiences, and physical and mental health but not everybody reacted in the same way. The present longitudinal mixed-method study based in Luxembourg explores adolescents’ emotional responses to the pandemic as well as resilience factors that helped them...

There is a consensus that home languages are the foundation on which to develop additional languages and that collaboration between homes and institutions of early childhood education and care (ECEC) can contribute to the development of children’s language and literacy skills. Nevertheless, educators seem rarely to draw on multiple languages in lit...

Distance education, used to contain the spread of Covid-19 in 2020, radically altered adolescents’ learning experiences and affected their academic achievements. Based on a survey with adolescents aged 12–16 in Luxembourg, this study investigates the differences the 332 adolescents perceived in schoolwork when learning at school and from home durin...

Die Covid-19-Pandemie hat den Alltag grundlegend verändert. Dieser Beitrag stellt diese Veränderungen mit Blick auf Wohlbefinden, Beziehungen und Alltagsbeschäftigungen aus der Sicht von Sechs- bis Zwölfjährigen aus Luxemburg vor. Die Daten stammen aus qualitativen Interviews, die im Jahr 2020 durchgeführt wurden, sowie aus standardisierten Befragu...

The increasing societal and linguistic diversity in schools challenge traditional teaching approaches and call for pedagogies that cater to the growing number of multilingual pupils. Translanguaging pedagogies can offer multilinguals a productive learning environment that helps them leverage their resources for learning. Translanguaging studies in...

Purpose This study explores adolescent well-being during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in two high-income countries from Europe and one middle-income country from South America. The aim is to investigate the correlates of different dimensions of subjective well-being in 10- to 16-year-olds from different cultural contexts. Methods An onl...

Multilingual education is mandatory in early childhood education in several European countries. Scholars working in first, second and foreign language learning have shown the effectiveness of interaction-promoting and language-modelling strategies for language development. In addition, teachers in bilingual contexts have been translanguaging to fos...

The paper explores children's perspectives of distance education, their learning experiences and school satisfaction in Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data stem from an online questionnaire completed by 1773 primary and secondary school children aged 6–16. While the paper uses quantitative an...

There is a call for multilingual pedagogies including the use of literacy in several languages in early childhood education. However, many practitioners find it difficult to challenge the dominant language ideologies and are unsure of how to develop literacy practices in multiple languages. This paper is based in Luxembourg where a multilingual pro...

Numerous scholars have investigated translanguaging in students with a migration background by examining the deployment of their linguistic reper- toire. By contrast, few studies have adopted a social semiotic perspective on translanguaging. Similarly, studies on newcomers in this field are scarce. New- comers, especially those to the trilingual ed...

An inclusive translanguaging pedagogy aims to promote learning and participation by drawing on the learners’ entire semiotic repertoire. The focus of this chapter are the translanguaging practices of four early years practitioners in Luxembourg. We analyse the deployment of their linguistic repertoire, their reasons for translanguaging, and the way...

Drawing on two longitudinal case-studies, this study aimed to identify some salient characteristics of the agentic behaviour of two young emergent multilinguals in two different multilingual contexts: Luxembourg and Israel. Despite the fact that the studies were conducted independently, the two cases were analysed together owing to the similarities...

Abstract: Aufgrund von gesellschaftlichen, sprach-und bildungspolitischen Entwicklungen soll mehrsprachige Bildung ein fester Bestandteil des Schul-und Vorschulunterrichts sein. Es gilt deshalb, angehende LehrerInnen auf diese Neuerung vorzubereiten und ihnen beim Aneignen von Wissen und bei der Reflexion ihrer Haltungen zu helfen. Zu diesem Zweck...

Translanguaging pedagogies promise to capitalise on students' language backgrounds, improve their academic achievements and address social inequalities (García, Johnson, & Seltzer, 2017). While research studies in monolingual, bilingual and multilingual contexts testify to the benefits of translanguaging for learning, well-being and identity-buildi...

Multilingual Approaches for Teaching and Learning outlines the opportunities and challenges of multilingual approaches in mainstream education in Europe. The book, which draws on research findings from several officially monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual countries in Europe, discusses approaches to multilingual education which capitalise on...

In the wake of the increasing societal diversity in Europe, it is imperative that teachers reflect on their teaching approaches and adjust them to cater for the growing number of multilingual pupils. This introductory chapter outlines the monolingual mindset and language hierarchies that still exist in European education systems, and explains these...

Calls for multilingual pedagogies have reached early childhood education and some programmes have been implemented in Europe. However, their focus frequently remains on the majority language and home languages are given little consideration. For multilingual programmes to be inclusive and empowering, professionals need to break with monolingual pra...

Policies and professional development which focuses on pedagogical skills, beliefs, and agency are essential to ensure the sustainability of multilingual teaching approaches. This chapter begins with an overview of research studies on language policies, teacher agency and beliefs with a focus on multilingual settings. The intertwining of policy and...

This paper investigates seven early education practitioners’ attitudes toward multilingual activities and translanguaging as well as their actual practices in Luxembourg. They took part in a professional development comprising a course, coaching, and regular meetings to deepen their understanding of multilingualism and language learning, and enable...

Drawing on two longitudinal case-studies, this study aimed to identify some salient characteristics of the agentic behaviour of two young emergent multilinguals in two different multilingual contexts: Luxembourg and Israel. Despite the fact that the studies were conducted independently, the two cases were analysed together owing to the similarities...

Many scholars have been interested in studying patterns of language shift or language maintenance of migrants during their diaspora. One way of sustaining the development of a home language can be the attendance of a complementary school. This paper explores the differing perspectives on teaching and learning Greek in a complementary school in mult...

The concept of translanguaging has been continuously redefined in education, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, which has led to some loss of meaning. Regarding teacher translanguaging, studies show that it has been used as a strategy to further comprehension and learning, and as a pedagogy. The latter recognizes the existence of multiple lang...

While multilingual programmes have been implemented in early childhood education in several countries, professionals have shown to be unsure of how to deal with language diversity and promote home languages. Therefore, there is a need for professional development. The present article discusses the outcomes of a professional course on multilingual e...

This is a magazine produced for the project 'developing multilingual pedagogies in early childhood' in Luxembourg

There is a recognised need for multilingual pedagogies as these capitalise on children’s resources. Language policies calling for monolingual or multilingual policies are, however, not easily translated into pedagogical practices. Teachers play a crucial role in the process of policy implementation because they negotiate policies and adapt them in...

The need for multilingual pedagogies has been recognized in early childhood. These pedagogies are inclusive and supportive of social justice in that they provide spaces for dynamic and transglossic language arrangements where children have some agency over their language use (García & Li Wei 2014, Young & Mary 2016). The new language policies in ea...

The project described in this paper is part of the broader research project ‘Capitalizing on Linguistic Diversity in Education’ that investigates how multilingualism can be used as a resource for educational success and social well-being in Luxembourg. Research projects in preschool, Year 1 and Year 2 classes show that teachers have begun to draw o...

Against the backdrop of the ongoing crisis-led migration from Southern to Northwestern Europe, the present paper reports on a case study of two families who have recently migrated from Greece to Luxembourg. Luxembourg has a trilingual education system and many pupils of migrant background face difficulties on this account. Drawing on the framework...

In trilingual Luxembourg, 65% of the children do not speak Luxembourgish by the time they enter school. In 2017, a new law on plurilingual education in the Early Years replaced the previous legislation that considered the teaching of the national language as main mission of Early Childhood education. The new legislation requires practitioners in fo...

General description, research questions and theoretical framework: (600 words) Pedagogies that foster multilingualism are promising in our globalised and heterogeneous world as they are inclusive, empowering and supportive of social justice and political participation (Creese & Blackledge, 2010). García & Wei (2014) call for multilingual pedagogie...

Whilst contributing to a person’s language, cognitive and personal development and whilst a common practice in the daily lives of bilinguals, translanguaging is rarely observed in educational institutions. The present paper examines the situations and the ways in which preschool children in trilingual Luxembourg translanguage during collaborative s...

While translanguaging has been well researched in bilingual settings with older pupils and has been found to contribute to cognitive and personal development, there is little research on translanguaging of young multilinguals. In trilingual Luxembourg, at school, children learn Luxembourgish aged 4, German aged 6 and French aged 7, with the majorit...

The present small-scale study investigates language learning in primary schools in Luxembourg and the ways in which this process is mediated by peers and the iPad app iTEO. This study draws its data from the larger longitudinal qualitative research project iTEO (2013–2017) and is based on 13 hours of audio and video-recordings. The participants are...

Programme zur Förderung von alltagsintegrierter Mehrsprachigkeit in Kindertagesbetreuungen und Vorschulen sind selten. Das seit Mai 2016 laufende Forschungsprojekt MuLiPEC fokussiert die Entwicklung multilingualer Sprachpraktiken von Kindern im Alter von drei bis sechs Jahren sowie die zugrunde liegende Pädagogik im formalen und non-formalen Sektor...

This paper explores the language ideologies of three middle-class migrant Greek families in Luxembourg, one ‘established’ family and two ‘new’ crisis-led migrant families, all of whose children attend Luxembourgish state schools. While the families differ in terms of migration trajectory, their language ideologies converge. The findings of this eth...

L'apprentissage langagier avec l'app iTEO Résumé : Le système éducatif luxembourgeois exige des compétences langagières très poussées dans les trois langues du pays, ce qui présente un défi à tous les enfants. L'app iTEO pour iPad, en permettant l'enregistrement et le traitement d'un énoncé oral, propose une méthode innovante pour le développement...

This article discusses the strategy repertoires and strategy development of six English children who learned foreign languages at primary school. My study differs from mainstream research, in that it focuses on young children and on the development of their strategies, draws on sociocultural theory and uses ethnographic methods. My findings show th...

Using storytelling to teach vocabulary in language lessons – does it work?ABSTRACTIt has long been claimed that stories are a powerful tool for language learning. Storytelling is often used as a discrete pedagogical approach in primary modern foreign language lessons in England. There has, however, been little investigation into how storytelling mi...

Researchers have studied family language planning within bilingual family contexts but there is a dearth of studies that examine language planning of multilingual parents who raise their children in one of the world's lesser spoken languages. In this study I explore the ideologies and language planning of Luxembourgish mothers who are raising their...

Teaching Foreign Languages in the Primary School advises modern foreign language trainee and qualified teachers on how to teach MFL successfully at primary level. This book offers full information, including sections on: *children’s ideas about how to learn languages *the current situation of MFL in the UK, Europe and elsewhere *research into seco...

Luxembourg is a trilingual country where residents communicate in Luxembourgish, French and German concurrently. Children therefore study these languages at primary school. In this paper I explore how six eight-year-old Luxembourgish children use and learn German, French and English in formal and informal settings over a period of one year. Their e...