This study investigates how a Greek language teacher in a culturally and linguistically diverse high school classroom constructs student identities, enacts authority, and manages multilingualism through everyday discourse. By employing classroom discourse analysis, the study analyzes and discusses four excerpts involving (non-)migrant students, the latter of whom have Greek as a second language. The analysis is based on two frameworks proposed by Koutsogiannis: the rhombus of language education (2012) and the three circles of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) use in education (2011). In this way, the present study explores the teacher’s language ideologies, pedagogical practices, and the use of digital tools. The findings reveal that the teacher’s discourse privileges fluent and highly proficient speakers of Greek, reinforcing normative literacies and monolingual participation structures and ideologies. Multilingualism appears informally, through student-initiated translation or peer validation, but does not fundamentally transform instruction. The use of ICT ranges from supportive to partially transformative, particularly in collaborative activities, enhancing critical digital literacy. Students are primarily positioned as academic writers and editors for the instruction of Greek only, although moments of collaborative authorship and digital inquiry suggest the potential for more inclusive practices, identities, and multilingual constructions. The present study highlights the need for greater pedagogical recognition of students’ linguistic resources and a shift toward more inclusive, dialogic, and critically oriented language teaching practices in Greek public schools.
Bernstein, B. (1996). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique. Taylor and Francis.
Bergroth, M., Llompart, J., Pepiot, N., van der Worp, K., Dražnik, T., & Sierens, S. (2021). Identifying space for mainstreaming multilingual pedagogies in European initial teacher education policies. European Educational Research Journal, 21(5), 801–821. https://doi.org/10.1177/14749041211012500
Cazden, C. (2001). Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning. Heinemann.
Christie, F. (2002). Classroom Discourse Analysis: A Functional Perspective. Continuum.
Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. Routledge.
Fotiadou, G. & Mattheoudakis, M. (2019). A quasi-monolingual tertiary education in Greece: Baby steps to internationalization. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 32, 42–65.
Garci?a, O., and Lin, A. (2017). Translanguaging in Bilingual Education. In Garci?a, A.L. & May, S. (Eds.), Bilingual and Multilingual Education (pp. 117–130). Springer.
Garcia, O., & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism, and Education. Palgrave MacMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137385765
Gottschalk, F. and Weise, C. (2023). Digital equity and inclusion in education: An overview of practice and policy in OECD countries, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 299, OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/7cb15030-en.
Hasan, R. (2006). Literacy, everyday speech and society. In A. Charalampopoulos (Ed.), Literacy, society and education [in Greek] (pp. 134–189). Thessaloniki, Institute of Modern Hellenic Studies.
Koutsogiannis, D. (2020). Towards a critical analysis of digital educational discourse. In: Bessie Mitsikopoulou and Evdokia Karava (Eds.), Political and pedagogical discourse in foreign language education (pp. 321–346) [in Greek]. Pedio.
Koutsogiannis, D. (2017). Language education yesterday, today, tomorrow: a political approach [in Greek]. Thessaloniki: Institute of Modern Greek Studies.
Koutsogiannis, D. (2012). The rhombus of language education [in Greek]. Studies in Greek Linguistics (Proceedings of the 32nd meeting of the Department of Linguistics), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (pp. 208–222). Institute of Modern Greek Studies.
Koutsogiannis, D. (2011). ICTs and language teaching: The missing third circle. In Stickel G., Vradi T. (Eds.), Language, Languages and New Technologies. ICT in the Service of Languages (pp. 43-59). Peter Lang Verlag.
Kress, G., Jewitt, C., Bourne, J., Franks, A., Hardcastle, J., Jones, K., & Reid, E. (2005). English in urban classrooms: A multimodal perspective on teaching and learning. RoutledgeFalmer.
Lytrivi, F. & Papadopoulou, M. (2025). Teaching Greek as a second language to multilingual students: Teachers’ challenges, goals and practices in mainstream and reception classes. In S. Karpava (Ed.), Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in Language Education (pp. 191–211). Springer. DOI:10.1007/978-3-031-76043-3.
Mercer, N. (2004). Sociocultural discourse analysis: analyzing classroom talk as a social mode of thinking. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1, 137–168. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/japl.2004.1.2.137
OECD. (2024). Curriculum flexibility and autonomy: Promoting a thriving learning environment. OECD Publishing, Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/eccbbac2-en.
OECD. (2015). Immigrant Students at School: easing the journey towards integration (OECD Reviews of Migrant Education). Paris: OECD Publishing. doi:10.1787/9789264249509-en.
Rogers, R., Malancharuvil-Berkes, E., Mosley, M., Hui, D., & Joseph, G. O. (2005). Critical discourse analysis in education: A Review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 75(3), 365–416. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543075003365
Rymes, B. (2015). Classroom Discourse Analysis: A Tool for Critical Reflection, Second Edition (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315775630
Rymes, B. (2009). Classroom discourse analysis: A tool for critical reflection. Hampton Press.
Sinclair, J., & Coulthard, R. M. (1975). Towards an analysis of discourse. Oxford University Press.
Uysal, H., & Sah, P. K. (2024). Language ideologies and language teaching in the global world: An introduction to the special issue. International Journal of Bilingualism, 28(4), 611–617. https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069241240964
Walsh, S. (2011). Exploring classroom discourse: Language in action. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203827826
Wodak, R. (2012). Language, power, and identity. Language Teaching, 45(2), 215–233. doi:10.1017/S0261444811000048
Paspali, A. (2025). Constructing Students’ Identities in a Multilingual Greek Classroom: A Discourse Analysis of Teaching Practices and the Use of Digital Tools. Multilingual Academic Journal of Education and Social Sciences, 13(1), 16–33.
Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s)
Published by Knowledge Words Publications (www.kwpublications.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
