More than 60% of the world speak two or more languages. Therefore, it is important that classroom environments promote multilingual children’s listening, learning, and wellbeing. The aim of this paper was to understand how the classroom environment impacts listening, learning, and wellbeing for school children who are multilingual, how it can be improved, and identify future research areas. A scoping review centred around the terms of the Listen to Learn for Life Assessment Framework was conducted following the PRISMA-ScR. Fourteen papers met the criteria to be included. The results showed SNRs should be optimised to enhance multilingual children’s listening and learning. Visually, findings were mixed, but it may be beneficial to incorporate visual cues where possible to aid listening. The results were inconclusive on whether multilingual children are at a disadvantage compared to monolingual children, but factors such as differences in the task, chronological age, age of language acquisition, and socio-economic status are likely to contribute to these mixed findings. Future research to improve our understanding of how to make optimal classroom environments for multilingual children to succeed is discussed.
Mealings et al. (Wed,) studied this question.