Title: GUIDE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICIES IN EUROPE
1GUIDE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE EDUCATION
POLICIES IN EUROPE
- Chapter 5 Creating a culture of plurilingualism
ENSEMBLE workshop ECML, Graz, 14-17 December
2005 andrea.young_at_alsace.iufm.fr IUFM
dAlsace Groupe dEtudes sur le Plurilinguisme
Européen, Laboratoire LILPA (EA1339), Université
Marc Bloch, Strasbourg, France
2Why create a culture of plurilingualism?
- To manage cultural diversity
- To balance universalist standardisation and
identity-centred isolationism - To recognise the value of languages, despite
differences in status - To promote linguistic tolerance
3Creating a culture of plurilingualism
- How can we
- promote plurilingual education?
- show its political, social and educational
relevance? - make it feasible?
- No need to start from scratch
- But need to rethink teaching objectives
4Goals of plurilingual education
- Developing speaker awareness of own repertoire
- Education for plurilingual awareness, mutual
comprehension, increased motivation and curiosity
about language
5Developing a plurilingual repertoire
- Make speakers aware of their own repertoire
(mother tongue, standard, regional/standard
variety, foreign/second language etc.) - Demonstrate intrinsic equal dignity of all
varieties (appropriate to functions) - Demonstrate their changing nature
- Increase competences, levels of proficiency,
numbers of varieties known - Develop transversal competences
6Why education for plurilingual awareness
- Development of language skills -gt
- X change speakers attitudes
- X curious about languages
- X respectful of other communities
- lt possibility to develop plurilingual repertoire,
gt education for plurilingual awareness - gt dominant the language(s) taught, gt place of
language education in the curriculum
7Pluricultural awareness intercultural
communication
- Plurilingual /- pluricultural
- Move away from prejudice, stereotypes and
ethnocentrism - Need to develop
- education in cultural differences, accepting
other ways of behaving or doing things - capacity for critical distance, to decentre or
detach self from own culture - intercultural competence, being able to adapt to
other cultures - cross-curricular approach history, geography,
philosophy, literature, citizenship education
8Transforming curricula
- Decompartmentalise languages (mother tongues,
national, regional, minority, foreign other) - Concerted language policy, greater coordination,
in parallel - Structure according to competences proficiency
- Homogenous, diversified education on language
languages (cf educazione linguistica, Italy
Language Awareness, UK 1980s European EVLANG
project Education et Ouverture aux Langues à
lEcole, Switzerland, 2003) - Gradual process, transforming curricula
mentalities
9Explaining plurilingualism
- Not the dominant representation of language
education - Not the direct experience of many European
citizens (often monolingual vision) - Need to challenge common misconceptions such as
- one language hinders acquisition of another
- you have to be gifted to learn languages
- it takes a long time to learn a language
(perfection) - you have to learn language young
- Needs to be explained
10European citizenship education
- The formation of public space in which everyone
may play a part and be recognised as belonging to
this community of citizens - Rights and duties which are identical for
everyone, common values - Recognising and accepting the diversity of all
speakers - Common linguistic ideal, a shared culture of
languages
11Social cohesion
- Adapting language education to increasingly
multilingual multicultural European society - Enabling both majorities and minorities to have a
better understanding of the nature of their
relationships - Feeling of common belonging to a political
cultural space, inclusive - Combating racism, education for tolerance
12Raising awareness of stakeholders
- Identify opinions on language issues (teachers,
heads, parents associations, local government
representatives, members of municipal councils,
education authorities) - Convince them of validity of plurilingualism
- Recognise capitalise on linguistic varieties
learners already speak or hear around them (at
home, at school, in the local environment) - Show their roles in the formation of identity
- Introduce early language learning in primary
- Learn to think about language
13On the road to plurilingualism
- European language portfolio
- Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages - Increased student and teacher mobility thanks to
European programmes - The Guide
- State education establishments play a crucial
role in creating linguistic affiliation to a
community broader than national, regional or
ethnic community