Contemporary approaches to language teaching are centred on the understanding that languages exist in many varieties. Further, they seek to actively foster empowerment by following a holistic approach to language learning (see, for example, Cenoz & Gorter 2011) which employs translanguaging strategies in the classroom.

In our new initial teacher education (ITE) package, which comprises lectures, workshops and reflection on lesson observations in regional immersion classrooms in Switzerland, we consciously mirror this development in language education. Building on anecdotal evidence and informal interview data, we suggest that multilingual student and teacher resources are not being used to the maximum in Swiss upper-secondary immersion settings (see also Pitkänen-Huhta & Mäntyla 2021).

Our study therefore investigates student and teacher use of multilingual resources in Swiss immersion classes and involves a qualitative research design including a questionnaire and follow-up interviews to corroborate our assumptions. Our target group consists of both students and educators, represented by three classes of learners and ten teachers. Our findings help us stake out the status quo and evaluate the opportunities and challenges of using multilingualism in the current immersion landscape.

Findings bearing out our assumptions indicate that policy and practice can and should be adjusted to reflect a more linguistically inclusive holistic approach. Applied multilingual strategies in the classroom most often focus on contrasting vocabularies and languages (see also Illman & Pietilä 2018, pp. 241-244). We outline and discuss a selection of situations in the immersion classroom which would benefit from more deliberate attention to multilingual language resources on the part of both teacher and student, and suggest strategies to maximise on all-round linguistic resources.

Finally, we propose a way forward in ITE which encourages a positive attitude towards multilingualism in the immersion classroom and which firmly anchors related practice, reflection and development in teaching and learning.