Voices, visuals, and virtual connections: young language learners forming and constructing multilingual identity in a virtual exchange project

This case study explores how young language learners engage in multilingual identity processes within a year-long virtual exchange project integrated into primary school language education. The project connected 10- to 11-year-old students from two linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms in Australia and Germany, where children learned German and English, respectively. Activities centred on learners’ visual language autobiographies, which supported individual reflection and peer interaction around multilingualism. The study adopts a dual conceptual framing, viewing multilingual identity formation as a long-term, development-based process, and multilingual identity construction as a situated, interaction-based process. Structuring qualitative content analysis was applied to multimodal data, including children’s artefacts, digital messages, lesson and focus group recordings, classroom observations, and field notes. Findings illustrate how focal students engaged in multilingual identity processes by sharing language experiences, uncovering language beliefs, and exploring language selves in dialogue with peers across national and linguistic contexts. The study underscores the pedagogical potential of combining visual practices and virtual exchange in early language education. As an implication, the notion of a multilingual identityscape is proposed: a learner-responsive pedagogical environment that fosters reflection, expression, and connection through flexible, multimodal learning arrangements.