Plurilingual And Intercultural

Understanding and experiencing the diversity of languages and cultures is both an aim of and a resource for quality education Plurilingual and intercultural education is a response to the needs and requirements of quality education, covering the acquisition of competences, knowledge and attitudes, diversity of learning experiences, and construction of individual and collective cultural identities. Its aim is to make teaching more effective and increase the contribution it makes both to school success for the most vulnerable learners and to social cohesion. This guide is intended to facilitate improved implementation of the values and principles of plurilingual and intercultural education in the teaching of all languages – foreign, regional or minority, classical and language(s) of schooling.

The contributions in this volume stem from different lines of research and represent both a continuation and an advancement of the European DYLAN project. The book addresses the meanings and implications of multilingualism and plurilingual repertoires as well as the ways in which cultural diversity is managed in companies and institutions in Switzerland. Characterised by official quadrilingualism, but also by new dimensions of multilingualism resulting from massive immigration, important workforce mobility and increasing globalisation, Switzerland offers an ideal laboratory for studying phenomena linked to multilingualism and cultural diversity. On the one hand, a special focus is put on the best practices of diversity management and language regimes with particular attention paid to the interplay between official languages and English, and to ways of leveraging diversity awareness, fostering cultural inclusiveness and enhancing intercultural learning in vocational education and training. On the other hand, the chapters examine at close range the way actors' plurilingual repertoires are developed and how their use is adapted to particular objectives and specific conditions. Being observed in several types of multilingual professional settings, the plurilingual strategies, including English as lingua franca, are particularly examined in terms of power relations and processes of inclusion or exclusion.

The efficient functioning of democracies depends on social inclusion and societal integration, and these in turn depend on an understanding of, respect for and engagement with linguistic and cultural diversity. The Council of Europe advocates plurilingual and intercultural education as a means of achieving these goals. Recommendation CM/Rec(2022)1 draws on previous Council of Europe documents to define the key concepts that underpin plurilingual and intercultural education and sets out a comprehensive list of measures that member states are invited to take. While acknowledging that full implementation of these measures is the work of many years, the Recommendation points out that much can be achieved in the short term within existing policy frameworks. Together with its explanatory memorandum, Recommendation CM/Rec(2022)1 is essential reading for policy makers, curriculum developers, teachers, teacher educators, textbook authors, examination agencies, parents’ organisations, educational associations and leaders of civil society.

This book is the first edited international volume focused on critical perspectives on plurilingualism in deaf education, which encompasses education in and out of schools and across the lifespan. The book provides a critical overview and snapshot of the use of sign languages in education for deaf children today and explores contemporary issues in education for deaf children such as bimodal bilingualism, translanguaging, teacher education, sign language interpreting and parent sign language learning. The research presented in this book marks a significant development in understanding deaf children's language use and provides insights into the flexibility and pragmatism of young deaf people and their families’ communicative practices. It incorporates the views of young deaf people and their parents regarding their language use that are rarely visible in the research to date.

Innovation has replaced stereotypical and old methods as an attempt to make English language teaching and learning appealing, effective, and simple. However, teaching a second language through literature may be a paramount tool to consolidate not only students’ lexical and grammatical competences, but also for the development of their cultural awareness and broadening of their knowledge through interaction and collaboration that foster collective learning. Despite past difficulties, literature’s position in relation to language teaching can be revendicated and revalued. Using Literature to Teach English as a Second Language is an essential research publication that exposes the current state of this methodological approach and observes its reverberations, usefulness, strengths, and weaknesses when used in a classroom where English is taught as a second language. In this way, this book will provide updated tools to explore teaching and learning through the most creative and enriching manifestations of one language – literature. Featuring a range of topics such as diversity, language learning, and plurilingualism, this book is ideal for academicians, curriculum designers, administrators, education professionals, researchers, and students.

The issue of intercultural learning has been tackled, amongst others, in the fields of education, language education and applied linguistics. In spite of the extensive literature on the subject, there is still much which needs to be done to address the ways in which linguistics itself can contribute to intercultural education. The 8 chapters by internationally-renowned scholars highlight different ways of using it both in the classroom and in researching intercultural education. The following approaches are covered: Critical Discourse Analysis, Énonciation, Conversation Analysis and Pragmatics. The introduction to the volume also offers a useful and comprehensive survey of the debates around the polysemic notion of the ‘intercultural’. The book will appeal to an international readership of students, scholars and professionals across a wide range of disciplines, interested in making intercultural education more effective.

The Routledge Handbook of Plurilingual Language Education is the first comprehensive publication on plurilingualism, offering a multidimensional reflection on the nature, scope, and potential of plurilingualism in language education and society. Authored by a range of internationally recognized experts, the Handbook provides an overview of key perspectives on plurilingualism in a complementary range of fields. After a comprehensive introduction to the concept itself, 24 chapters are organized in six parts, each examining plurilingualism through a different lens. The Handbook spans historical, philosophical, and sociological dimensions, examines cognitive and neuroscientific implications, and the limitations of boundaries before moving to a pragmatic perspective: How is plurilingual language education developing in different contexts around the world? How can it contribute to language revitalization? How can it be expected to develop in education, digital spaces, and society as a whole? Written for an international audience, this handbook is an indispensable reference tool for scholars in education and applied linguistics, educators, graduate and post-graduate students, and policy makers.