GUIDE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICIES IN EUROPE

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GUIDE 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
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Why 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

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Creating 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

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Goals of plurilingual education

• Developing speaker awareness of own repertoire
• Education for plurilingual awareness, mutual
  comprehension, increased motivation and curiosity
  about language

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Developing 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

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Why 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

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Pluricultural 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

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Transforming 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

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Explaining 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

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European 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

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Social 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

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Raising 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

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On 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