Vol. 16 No. 2 (2025): (Regular Issue in Progress)
Research Article

Multilingualism as a Learning Resource in Map-Based Geography Lessons

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Neli Heidari
University of Hamburg, Germany
Johannes Heuzeroth
University of Cologne, Germany
Conceptualized Language Demands at Word Level Connected to the Map: Tourism in Bali from the German Diercke World Atlas. Source: Diercke Weltatlas (2023)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.48088/ejg.n.hei.16.2.211.224
Categories

Published 2025-05-31

Keywords

  • multilingualism,
  • geography education,
  • map-based task,
  • explorative qualitative design

How to Cite

Heidari , Neli, and Johannes Heuzeroth. 2025. “Multilingualism As a Learning Resource in Map-Based Geography Lessons”. European Journal of Geography 16 (2):211-24. https://doi.org/10.48088/ejg.n.hei.16.2.211.224.

Copyright (c) 2025 Neli Heidari , Johannes Heuzeroth

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Received 2025-03-20
Accepted 2025-05-31
Published 2025-05-31

Abstract

Multilingualism, including foreign and heritage language repertoires, is omnipresent in classrooms across educational levels and societies. How-ever, there is a lack of existing geography education approaches that allow students to use their language repertoires as a learning resource to ensure an in-depth understanding and participation. As maps are inherently geographical, and gaining map skills plays a pivotal role in geography education, an explorative qualitative research design was developed concerning a multilingual map-based approach. Upper secondary students (n = 20), six of whom had a heritage language different from the target language, at a high school in North Rhine-Westphalia completed a multilingual task and evaluated it. The results of the qualitative study provide initial evidence of multilingual map-based education settings in geography education. This approach allowed students to use their language repertoires as a learning resource, and learners with differing heritage languages performed equally well as their peers in correctly implementing map-related words in their written texts. However, this approach did not encourage the use of lexically complex map-related words. Students’ perspectives on the approach were included, although they were brief and limited. Still, the responses reflected a range of perceived benefits and challenges. The pedagogical implications of the results for teaching practice are elaborated upon at the end of the paper.

Highlights:

  • Conceptualizing multilingualism as a learning resource in a map-based geography education context.
  • Innovative qualitative research design regarding integrating multilingualism in geography education.
  • Pedagogical implications of the present study to empower teachers to integrate multilingualism.
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