The UK, and perhaps particularly England, is often seen as a nation subscribing wholeheartedly to a monolingual mindset, with mainstream classroom teachers only rarely representing the linguistic diversity of their schools (Tinsley and Board, 2016). Whilst guidance documents for monolingual teachers on best practice with children’s home languages in the classroom have been available for almost twenty years (Bourne, 2001), this work has never made it into official policy, and guidance for teachers on working with multilingualism has now been absent from the governmental publications for over ten years. Despite the strength of the ‘multilingual turn’ and the growth of understanding of the concept of translanguaging in applied linguistics, the current research literature and anecdotal evidence suggests that translanguaging practices are still very rarely adopted in English schools. Indeed, the place of home languages in schools at all remains extremely uncertain and patchy (Author, 2019). This presentation focuses on an aspect of a wider, international collaborative project focused on mainstream teachers’ attitudes, beliefs and knowledge about multilingualism. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 primary school teachers from all over England. The teachers represent a wide range of experience with multilingualism, and varying levels of seniority, as well as academic disciplines. The participating schools offered a wide demographic coverage, with a good spread of urban, rural and suburban schools, as well as from differing socio-economic environments. The aim of the study was to explore the discourses of teachers about practices that are in place that could be, generously on occasion, classified as ‘translanguaging opportunities’ in their schools. Interview data was analysed to uncover the extent to which any such practices could be said to have been designed with purpose or whether the presence of languages beyond English in the classroom was more through serendipity or a sense of necessity. It is hoped that the study will uncover a picture of teachers situated at the cusp of the ‘multilingual turn’ (Conteh & Meier 2014) as it makes its way into mainstream classrooms but it is recognised that participants will demonstrate varying levels of confidence in using languages beyond English in their classrooms. The value of this study will be in highlighting the fact that many teachers are making a significant effort in a challenging political and educational climate to welcome multilingualism, and to allow for children to make use of their linguistic repertoire and funds of knowledge.

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