Decolonizing language learning in digital environments through the voices of plurilingual learners in the Global South

Abstract

Digital pedagogies of empowerment are needed to shift discourses on marginalization, facilitate additional language learning, and sustain multilingualism. Grounded in plurilingualism and decoloniality as theoretical frameworks, this transformative mixed methods study explored the affordances of PluriDigit, a plurilingual, decolonial, and digital approach to language learning. This study was conducted with thirty six language learners enrolled in online language courses in a multilingual program in São Paulo, Brazil. We explored whether learners’ plurilingual and pluricultural identities and competence would change over time and the potential emergent contributions of PluriDigit to learner empowerment. Results from inductive and deductive analyses of three types of data indicate a shift in learners’ mindset from monolingual to plurilingual and pluricultural identity and a significant increase in plurilingual and pluricultural competence scores over time. Moreover, results show that PluriDigit offered a critical lens to plurilingualism, facilitating decolonial learning, agency, and relationality, as well as the development of voice in the target language. We argue that PluriDigit is one possibility of digital decolonial pedagogy that can empower language learners in the Global South and beyond.