This study explores how the diverse language resources that teachers and learners bring to the classroom can bolster the process of language learning. It uses a set of linguistic ethnographic data gathered from a French language course that was attended mainly by Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Luxembourg. Drawing on the assay of multilingual interactional practices, the paper elucidates some of the opportunities for learning that appeared as a result of translation, translanguaging and receptive multilingualism. It debates the relevance of these practices for building a repertoire of resources that permits forced migrants to communicate in multilingual contexts like Luxembourg.