Understanding linguistic repertoires

In Australian university language courses, learners are increasingly multilingual, highlighting the need to rethink pedagogical approaches to better support their learning processes. Such approaches depend on clearer understandings of how multilingual learners experience their linguistic repertoires, yet research examining this aspect, particularly in learning languages other than English at university, remains limited. This study investigates language portraits as a theoretically informed methodological and pedagogical tool for engaging learners with the concept of linguistic repertoire by exploring and unpacking their lived experiences with languages and making them visible. Analysis of portraits produced by nine students in an Italian course for beginners reveals how language portraits enable raised awareness of learners’ lived linguistic experiences and practices, their dynamic and evolving repertoires, and the richness of language experiences that they bring to the classroom. These insights create the conditions for learners’ linguistic resources to be leveraged in language learning. The findings demonstrate that language portraits not only foster pedagogical affordances for raising awareness of rich linguistic repertoires but also advance theoretical accounts of how multilingual repertoires become shared and collective resources for learning. The study underscores the potential of multimodal tools to inform pedagogies that more effectively acknowledge, value, and leverage the multilingual competencies of contemporary university language learners.