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This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

Failing to acknowledge the presence of cultural and linguistic diversity within the scholastic institution, alongside with its monolingual habitus, causes the marginalization of entire groups of learners, whose effective and active participation in the democratic process of learning is prevented. The creation of plurilingual tasks to the contrary aims at promoting intercultural competence and inclusion, both of which can only be initiated, if all languages and cultures present within the learner group are included in the learning process. The present qualitative study aims at identifying emergent forms of inclusive and intercultural learning in such plurilingual task-based learning settings.

Translanguaging pedagogy values the dynamic interaction of languages. In doing so it promotes creative forms of learning in which critical literacy can develop in a trans-systemic approach. Thanks to the creation of translanguaging spaces, secondary school learners are engaged in plurilateral and multidirectional meaning making processes. While they are enquiring topical as well as socially and culturally relevant issues, they can develop critical engagement and civic empathy. The present volume provides a theoretical framework with descriptors for multilingual critical literacy. In addition, it showcases lesson-plans on rap-literature(s) in more languages (German, Italian, English, Spanish) and other multimodal and plurilingual inputs, as well as translanguaging tasks.

The present qualitative case study analyses the development of mediation strategies in English TBLL classes. Particular relevance is given to mediation strategies enhanced by cooperative learning and social interaction in the classroom: among these the ability to manage discourse, to work cooperatively and to help structure discourse and turn-taking in order to grant active participation of all members are highlighted. TBLL promotes autonomous learning and problem solving processes, as students interact and negotiate meanings as well as contents to complete tasks and produce an outcome. It is in this pedagogical context that mediation strategies are activated on different levels and support learners in the attempt to handle challenging linguistic and content-related situations. The study was carried out in a third class of a secondary school and 22 students between 15 and 16 years took part in the data collection. English TBLL modules were inserted in curricular English classes and audio-and video registrations were made during the lessons. A discourse analytical approach was applied for the analysis of the audio and video registration, in particular of the negotiating process, and semi-structured interviews were carried out with 5 students at the end of the project.