Plurilingual Chinese learners of French Lx: agentic assembling of semiotic resources for learning

Abstract This paper reports an interview study with Chinese international students in Anglophone university Quebec, Canada, exploring their use of language and cross-language learning strategies to support French Lx (third beyond). Drawing on plurilingualism, Dynamic Model Multilingualism, strategies, this article examines how learners made dynamic, creative, and, at times, unexpected links among other additional languages mobilized previous professional experience strategically enhance learning. As a logographic language, is typologically distant from Latin-based languages. The focal participants, however, generated multilingual, multidirectional, multimodal connections the they knew. Their agentic assemblage communicative repertoires for contests abyssal thinking behind deficit-oriented label “allophones” (those whose mother tongue neither nor English) that used widely country. urges teachers researchers rethink pedagogies respond take full advantage these student-directed better Particularly, argues greater attention non-alphabetic backgrounds recognize co-learn them about self-initiated plurilingual order build metalinguistic resources create equitable classroom spaces more effective teaching