"Es waren die Stengel urr aufgewachsen": Language/s in Education - Going Back and Moving Forward.

The present contribution positions language/s
in education in a
Human
Rights perspective. It is argued that language is an influential factor in achieving educational equity.
Educational equity is linked to the pedagogical principle that all teaching shall start with the learn
-
ers’ capacities. In super-diverse classrooms the linguistic capacities may vary significantly, whereas
the competencies to be reached remain equal for all . In the background of Human Rights this calls
for a strictly learner-centred approach that oscillates between what learners already know and the
institution’s
requirements. What this means for language/s
in and for education is discussed in the
light of scaffolding and translanguaging. Both approaches were developed specifically for institu
-
tional learning in the context of super-diversity
. It is argued that they both only partially meet the
challenge and may complement each other
. This is illustrated with examples from action research
in a
sequence of biology lessons in a Viennese middle school .