For millions of children across the Global South, struggles in the classroom do not usually signal a lack of intelligence or potential. Often, it signals a problem related to language.

It begins when students are expected to grasp complex concepts, express themselves academically, and participate confidently in languages that do not fully reflect their lived realities, cultural experiences, or ways of understanding the world.

These realities formed part of critical discussions during the Fifth International Translanguaging Symposium in the Global South hosted by the Academy for Multilingualism at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Qwaqwa Campus.

Bringing together scholars, linguists, language practitioners, and researchers from across South Africa and beyond, the symposium explored translanguaging as an important tool for inclusion, epistemic access, decolonisation, language sustainability, and transformation within multilingual societies.

Held under the theme ‘Translanguaging for Language Sustainability, Global Justice, and Decolonisation in the Global South’, the symposium interrogated how educational institutions can create learning environments that recognise students’ linguistic and cultural realities as valuable resources rather than barriers to participation and success.

Language, inclusion, and epistemic access

Speaking during the symposium, Prof Anthea Rhoda, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic at the UFS, reflected on the broader significance of multilingualism within higher education and society. “This symposium provides an important opportunity to rethink how language can become a vehicle for inclusion, dignity, transformation, and sustainable development,” she said.

She linked these conversations to the University’s vision of ‘Responsible Societal Futures’, which seeks to advance inclusive and socially responsive knowledge systems that recognise the lived experiences of communities.

Within this broader framing, the Academy for Multilingualism highlighted the importance of rethinking how language functions in relation to knowledge production.

“For the Academy, it is our responsibility to create platforms such as these for language practitioners, academics, linguists, and many others whose job is to communicate knowledge using languages other than native languages. No language as a tool should be given priority; what matters most is the knowledge it helps us produce,” said Dr Tholani Hlongwa, Deputy Director of the Academy.

Speakers challenged dominant understandings of language and learning, particularly within societies shaped by colonial histories and unequal education systems.

Delivering the keynote address on the opening day, Prof Angel Lin from the Education University of Hong Kong reflected on translanguaging, multimodal learning, decoloniality, and artificial intelligence within education. Her address explored how students naturally draw from multiple languages, experiences, symbols, and forms of expression to make meaning. She argued that education systems should work with those realities rather than suppress them.

Prof Lin also reflected on how key historic moments led to language hierarchies. “Colonialism imposed hierarchies that positioned English and other dominant languages at the centre while marginalising indigenous languages and ways of knowing,” she said.

She cautioned that, while artificial intelligence presents important opportunities within education, it also risks reproducing exclusion if African languages, cultures, and knowledge systems remain underrepresented in digital spaces and data systems. “Technology can support inclusive pedagogies, but inclusion must come first. If our languages, histories, and lived experiences are absent from these systems, then exclusion simply becomes digitised.” 

Discussions throughout the symposium also focused on multimodal approaches to learning, and the importance of allowing students to engage knowledge beyond conventional teaching methods.

Through frameworks such as the Multimodalities Entextualisation Cycle, delegates reflected on how students can deepen understanding through discussion, storytelling, performance, visual representation, role-play, collaboration, and other forms of meaning-making.

The second keynote address, delivered by Dr Robyn Tyler from the University of the Western Cape, further explored translanguaging within the context of learning and mother tongue-based bilingual education.

Dr Tyler reflected on how multilingual practices already form part of everyday communication across many African communities – and should therefore not be excluded from educational spaces. “Translanguaging is already happening naturally in homes, communities, classrooms, and everyday interactions. The question is whether our education systems are willing to recognise and work with those realities.”

She also emphasised the importance of creating classrooms where students feel linguistically included and confident enough to participate meaningfully. “When students are allowed to learn through familiar linguistic and cultural frames of reference, participation grows, confidence improves, and understanding deepens.” 

The symposium also highlighted the importance of investing in multilingual and multimodal learning approaches from early childhood education onwards, rather than only at tertiary level.

Dr Theodore Rodriguez from the University of South Africa reflected on the importance of decoloniality and social justice within conversations around language and education, describing them as a “golden thread” running through the symposium. 

He called on educators and institutions across the continent to resist systems that continue to marginalise African languages, identities, and ways of knowing. “We should not allow the powers that be to reduce us or determine the limits of our knowledge systems. We must stand boldly and apply translanguaging pedagogies in ways that empower children and contribute towards a brighter future for Africa,” Dr Rodriguez said.

He stressed the importance of investing in multimodal learning approaches from the earliest stages of development. “These approaches should not begin only at university level. They must begin in our homes, early childhood spaces, schools, and communities if we are serious about empowering children meaningfully.” 

As conversations unfolded across the two-day symposium, recurring questions emerged around whose knowledge is legitimised within education, whose languages are prioritised, and how institutions can create learning environments that genuinely reflect the realities of multilingual societies.