This qualitative case study was initiated to identify the existing process present in the Italian International Languages Program in the Hamilton-Wentworth area of the Province of Ontario. The premise was to investigate the various school practices that surround the International Languages Program as well as the interests of the various stakeholders in order to interpret and explain the current policies and practices that characterizes the Program. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate a distinctive problematic area within the Italian International Languages Program through an exploratory qualitative case study. The conceptual framework for this study looks at Bourdieu‘s (1977) theory that language is an individual capital as well as a social capital for its linguistic market. The value of a language cannot be settled in linguistic terms: languages are linguistically equal; however, many argue that they are not socially equal (Bourdieu, 1977). This case study revealed precisely that language is not socially equal. Through this research, the process that exists within the Italian International Languages Program was revealed, along with the stakeholders‘ individual interests in the program. The International Languages Program is only worth what the people who speak it feel it is worth. iii The study population was selected purposefully including various categories of stakeholders in the program; school administrators, teachers, students, parents and the community at large. Selection of each individual participant was random. The information was analyzed through interpersonal qualitative methods that included the representations and accounts from the various stakeholders about the Italian International Languages Program. The stakeholders‘ views and comments were the analysis of the representative discourse. The most striking results from the study were the stakeholders‘ representations of a program whose very existence is bordering on survival and quickly heading for demise. Through the stakeholders‘ accounts and representations, it is clear that the Italian International Languages Program may no longer be viable. The study is a last attempt for the stakeholders to convey their reality of the program and to educate those that have the power to make a change.

This qualitative case study was initiated to identify the existing process present in the Italian International Languages Program in the Hamilton-Wentworth area of the Province of Ontario. The premise was to investigate the various school practices that surround the International Languages Program as well as the interests of the various stakeholders in order to interpret and explain the current policies and practices that characterizes the Program. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate a distinctive problematic area within the Italian International Languages Program through an exploratory qualitative case study. The conceptual framework for this study looks at Bourdieu‘s (1977) theory that language is an individual capital as well as a social capital for its linguistic market. The value of a language cannot be settled in linguistic terms: languages are linguistically equal; however, many argue that they are not socially equal (Bourdieu, 1977). This case study revealed precisely that language is not socially equal. Through this research, the process that exists within the Italian International Languages Program was revealed, along with the stakeholders‘ individual interests in the program. The International Languages Program is only worth what the people who speak it feel it is worth. iii The study population was selected purposefully including various categories of stakeholders in the program; school administrators, teachers, students, parents and the community at large. Selection of each individual participant was random. The information was analyzed through interpersonal qualitative methods that included the representations and accounts from the various stakeholders about the Italian International Languages Program. The stakeholders‘ views and comments were the analysis of the representative discourse. The most striking results from the study were the stakeholders‘ representations of a program whose very existence is bordering on survival and quickly heading for demise. Through the stakeholders‘ accounts and representations, it is clear that the Italian International Languages Program may no longer be viable. The study is a last attempt for the stakeholders to convey their reality of the program and to educate those that have the power to make a change.

Multiliteracies theory extends the notion of literacy well beyond the traditional linear text-based definition of reading and writing (New London Group, 1996). It addresses the saliency of cultural and linguistic diversity and the multiplicity of communication channels and media available in our rapidly changing world. Multiliteracies involve engagement with multiple design modes, linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, spatial, and multimodal being a combination of the different modes. This research emerged from the need to open a space for students in an international languages school teaching Arabic language to engage in creative, aesthetic, alternative, and multimodal forms of literacy that involve the integration of the various semiotic resources in their meaning-making and design of texts. It is about a lived teaching-learning journey that draws on the concept of living pedagogy and dwelling in the in-between spaces of curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-live(d) (Aoki, 1991). In this research journey, I share the possibilities that opened up when students between the age of eleven and fourteen years old engaged with multiliteracies in an international languages classroom that teaches heritage language. This research journey also presents how the participative type of inquiry and collaboration between the researcher and classroom teacher contributed to the enhancement of their knowledge and learning about multiliteracies practices. After listening to and discussing a literary text presented by the teacher, students responded by creating their own texts to show their understanding of the narrative genre. They produced multimodal arts-based (Barton, 2014; Sanders & Albers, 2010) and digital based texts (Knobel & Lankshear, 2013). Through a multiliteracies/multimodalities theoretical, epistemological, and methodological perspective (Albers, 2007; Jewitt & Kress, 2008; Morawski, 2012; Rowsell, 2013), and drawing from approaches such as participatory action research (Chevalier & Buckles, 2013), and bricolage (Kincheloe, 2004), I developed this research story through a process of braiding and interweaving of various modes of texts and genres to produce a métissage (Hasebe-Ludt, Chambers, & Leggo, 2009) of the live(d) narratives of my research praxis. This inquiry offers a glimpse as to how opening the space for creative approaches in the teaching of literacy engages students in the design of texts using both linguistic and non-linguistic semiotic resources and incorporating multiple modes of representation from which they produce arts, digital, and multimodal texts.

Abstract This study examines Continuing Education (ContEd) administrators’ understanding of the notion of plurilingualism (PL) and its application in the context of Grade 9 to 12 International Languages (IL) classrooms in Ontario. Through cross-case analysis and a phenomenological lens, the perspectives of 17 administrators from across Ontario were analyzed in reference to PL as it is elaborated in the CEFR and the 2016 IL curriculum. Participants expressed a need for administrators to learn about PL-inspired classroom practices in order to guide and train IL teachers, to foster innovation in the immersion context of IL classrooms, and to advocate for IL and PL in the broader school system. The implications are far-reaching and touch on professional development for IL administrators and teachers, student motivation, and discursive practices in IL and the broader school system. The study contributes to theory on PL, SLE research about PL in the IL context, and administrators in the ContEd context.