Abstract

Increased multilingualism and mobility have witnessed an increased focus on multilingual immigrant learners. This study aims to help educators understand experiences of immigrant students in South Africa that relate to language and identity by comparing such experiences across three different school settings: an urban school with a high (Black) immigrant and indigenous population, a former Indian school, and a former White school. Drawing on semi-structured interviews from a larger case study, this study makes visible the immigrant learner experience in multilingual settings in which xenophobic conditions arise. The findings reveal similarities as well as differences in individual identity construction and negotiation and its vital connection to language. Furthermore, they illustrate ways in which these learners must navigate xenophobic trends, exclusive language pedagogies, and language loss. The implications of this study point to a call for policy, practice, and research to take into account multilingual immigrant learners as well as a need to attend to the social construction of identities.

摘要

越来越多的语言能力和流动性使人们更加关注多语言的移民学习者。这项研究旨在通过比较三种不同学校环境中的经历，帮助教育工作者了解南非移民学生与语言和身份相关的经历：城市学校中有大量（黑人）移民和土著居民，以前是印度学校，以前的怀特学校。利用来自较大案例研究的半结构化访谈，该研究使出现仇外心理的多语言环境中的移民学习者经历可见。调查结果揭示了个人身份建构和谈判及其与语言的重要联系的相似性和差异。此外，它们还说明了这些学习者必须如何应对仇外心理的趋势，独家语言教学法和语言流失。这项研究的意义在于呼吁采取政策，实践和研究，以考虑到多语种移民学习者的需求以及对身份的社会建构的关注。