Exploring international students’ narratives on bilingualism and linguistic landscapes: A critical reflection

This blog piece offers a critical reflection on research conducted with international pre-service English teachers, exploring how their narratives of bilingualism intersect with linguistic landscapes to shape identity. Drawing on reflective blog entries written by students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, the study conceptualises bilingualism not as native-like proficiency in two languages, but as a dynamic, integrated linguistic repertoire enacted across contexts. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the analytical lens of bilingual identityscapes, the analysis examines how bilingual identities are negotiated through embodied experiences, geo-political spaces, cultural practices, and engagement with texts and media. The findings illustrate how students’ perceptions of their bilingualism evolve over time, often in response to migration, educational environments, and shifting power relations surrounding language legitimacy. Narratives reveal tensions between deficit-oriented views of bilingualism and more affirming understandings that emerge through immersion, reflection, and academic engagement. The blog concludes by arguing for asset-based, multilingual pedagogies in higher education and language teacher education, emphasising the importance of validating students’ linguistic repertoires and challenging monolingual norms. By foregrounding international students’ voices, the piece highlights the value of narrative and reflective approaches for understanding bilingual identity in globalised academic contexts.