Beyond Compartmentalized L1/L2 Teaching: Connecting Languages to Foster In‐Depth Learning and Multi/Trans Lingual Selves

ABSTRACT

This paper examines elementary Grade 5 and 6 students’ emic perspectives on their L1 French and L2 English teachers’ cross‐curricular efforts to build linguistic and conceptual bridges. Drawing on research on translanguaging pedagogies and recent motivation scholarship, we propose a multi‐competence view of motivation that aligns more closely with translanguaging classroom practices. Using this lens, we analyzed focal students’ interview data on their linguistic profiles, aspirations for language learning and use, and perceptions of teachers’ attempts to integrate the two school languages while encouraging them to draw on their entire repertoires for meaning making. Findings show that students sought to affirm, mobilize, and expand their desired multi/translingual selves for present and future purposes. Teachers’ translanguaging approaches not only supported comprehension and vocabulary development but, crucially, aligned with students’ aspired multi/translingual identities. We argue that such dynamic pedagogies can enhance motivation and investment beyond a single target language, calling for a reconceptualization of motivation theories to recognize the interdependent, shifting dynamics across learners’ multilingual motivational systems.