Abstract
Abstract Language policies and school practices in Pakistan continually perpetuate gaps between the traditionally less versus the traditionally more privileged languages. About 95% of students receive their primary and post-primary education in languages other than their L1. Drawing on the continua of biliteracy framework (Hornberger. 2003.Continua of biliteracy: An ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters), this paper uses teachers’ experiential insights from upscale English-medium schools to show how they employ their critical reflexivity to resist the English-only school policy, and assert their agency to transform pedagogies into meaningful, contextualized, and multilingual modes. Theoretically, such agency and policy-from-below signifies that teachers/actors can creatively negotiate institutional/organizational policies creating substantive ideological and implementational spaces for multiple languages/cultures. Such initiatives also demonstrate that power is not always fixed in the hands of the few; rather critically conscious individuals can generate power to their own advantage. Teachers’ agency can effectively dismantle linguistic discrimination and undo the English-centric monolingualism. The reported opening of spaces for meaningful multilingual and contextualized voices carries useful lessons for those actors who might find their work settings limiting their agency and power. The study concludes that however minor the degree of agency and resistance may be in a particular context, these initiatives have the potential to transform normative perspectives about English and native/indigenous languages.