ECML
LEA:Presentation of ‘The Language Teacher Training Kit’ Presentation of the kit contents and presentation of the activities
LEA project aims and objectives
The Kit:The materials and the activities promoting the new model of language education
The new model of language education promotes the development of plurilingual and pluricultural competence, which refers to the ability to use language for communication and to take part in intercultural interaction.
Contrary to the old model of language education a learner is expected to use and develop a proficiency (of varying degrees) in several languages and the experience of several cultures. (Common European Framework for Languages, Council of Europe, 2001,68).
The materials and activities in ‘The Language Teacher Training Kit’, which aim at training and awareness-raising, are prepared for language teachers & trainees who traditionally focussed on the didactic procedures for teaching particular languages. The kit aims at enriching language teacher education by developing the abilities needed to promote linguistic and cultural diversity.
Table of Contents
Rationale Kit Orientations Activities – – – – – – –
Linguistic and Professional Biography Motivation, Attitudes and Beliefs Let’s Meet Diversity Incorporating Plurilingual and Pluri/Intercultural Awareness into English/Foreign Language Teacher Education Curricula Culture Awareness and the Development of the Pluricultural Competence Awareness of Portuguese Old and New Models of Language Education
Samples of the JaLing Project Bibliography
Rationale
The new linguistic policy (Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 2003) affirms the multilingual character of all the national entities characterised by linguistic and cultural diversity and redefines the role of language educators. In the light of these new orientations in language education the LEA project develops ‘a kit for language teacher educators’, taking advantage of the experience gathered during the JaLing project. The kit contains a set of teaching materials with the aim to promote awareness of plurilingualism and pluriculturalism among the participants. Further, it provides them with the appropriate tools to introduce it among language teachers/trainees and their learners.
The kit includes: a) Rationale. b) Procedures for motivating language teachers and trainees to work with language and culture diversity. c) Activities and materials designed to train language teachers and trainees in language and culture awareness. d) Sample activities and materials, which language teachers and trainees can use in their language classes, especially materials aimed at incorporating a plurilingual and pluricultural dimension into the learning of some specific languages.
Kit Orientations
ď Ź
This section of the KIT presents the TEMPLATE for the materials prepared for language teachers and trainees as well as guidelines and suggestions of content issues for building new activities.
ď Ź
All the new materials which will be prepared by the paricipants of the LEA workshop will have to be related to the aims of the KIT. The Rationale defines the new model of language education viewed from two different Perspectives/Orientations: Individual and Social on the one hand and Professional on the other.
Linguistic and Professional Biography
The activity:
This activity focuses on the self-reflection on one’s own abilities, knowledge, educational experience (linguistic and didactic) and attitudes as a language educator. It also reflects on the central concepts of language education.
The participants work individually, then in groups and decide on their piorities in defining the many characteristics of a language educator.The groups then engage in presentations. Developing instruments in order to design linguistic and professional biographies of the groups.
Motivation, Attitudes and Beliefs
The activities make language teachers and trainees observe to what extent they themselves can influence learners’ attitudes towards languages and cultures, arouse their curiosity about languages and strengthen the motivation to learn them. They are designed to make language teachers and trainees reflect on their new roles and on the significantly modified aims of language education.
The activities deal with the following topics:
Discussing in pairs and as a whole group the concepts of Motivation and Attitudes. Sharing experiences with the partner/partners and building up group conclusions as to what extent teachers can have an influence on students’ motivation and attitudes. Discussing the issues which may motivate and get class participants engaged in their learning process and to what extent they should be taken into account when planning a plurilingual/pluricultural curriculum.
Let’s Meet Linguistic Diversity
The activities included in this section aim to make language educators view linguistic and cultural diversity as a positive feature of groups and societies. It further develops awareness of the new aims of language education, which have to be modified, and should promote plurilingualism and pluriculturalism in language learning. They can serve as an example on how to develop and evaluate educational projects aiming to achieve plurilingual and pluricultural competence.
In particular:
The activities are based on recordings (and written transcriptions) of short dialogues on the same topic in different languages including rare, ‘exotic’ or unknown languages. They attempt to analyse language teacher educators’ individual reactions when they first listened to the dialogues and the strategies they used to understand the topic and the languages of the dialogues. They make the groups of language educators (composed of the teachers teaching about the same age group) reflect on whether it is possible to work with so many ‘exotic’ languages in a class and how to use those recordings in their own teaching context.
Incorporating Plurilingual and Pluri/Intercultural Awareness into English/Foreign Language Teacher Education Curricula
.
Both activities: Types of writing systems and Families of languages (for linguistics classes) aim at enriching students’ knowledge about languages in general. They are based on the fragments of an old Polish legend translated into 6 languages. The activity: Clause negation in English and in other languages (for English grammar and/or language classes) focuses on the development of students’ plurilingual syntactic competence. It is based on a sample of English negative clauses and a collection of the negative clauses from the text of an old Polish legend translated into 6 languages.
The other two activities serve the purpose of ‘Developing students’ plurilingual lexical competence’ and to show how one may try to comprehend the meaning in many languages without studying them. The activities are based on a text from the Internet and a certain number of selected words accompanied by their approximate translations in other languages using one of the electronic multilingual dictionaries. The activities are prepared for English language or methodology classes, but depending on the topic of a selected text, they can be used in any other classes within the language teacher education curricula.
Culture Awareness and the Development of Pluricultural Competence The activities explore the following topics:
The centre of attention here is linguistic and cultural diversity in a broader context and that of the individuals. They highlight the values of language and culture in the development of each individual, groups and societies. They raise awareness of the new aims of language education and aim for the development of a plurilingual and pluricultural competence.
The definition of culture. ‘Culture as an object’, ‘Culture as an enclosure’ and ‘Culture as the pluricultural identity of individuals’. The ‘transmission’ of culture. Can culture be transmitted? Identity and stereotypes. Who are individual people? What are their personal and social features? Examination of identity. Going through the multiple identifications which make up an individual’s identity. Developing pluricultural competence. Developing both the ‘General competences’ and ‘Communicative language competences’ of language learners. Awareness of culture and ‘rich socialization’ through contact with diversity as means of helping learners to become pluricultural through language learning.
Awareness of Portuguese
The activities develop awareness-raising and the need for introducing a new model of language education, promoting plurilingualism and pluriculturalism. They focus on observing, analysing and exploring linguistic and cultural diversity in language education. Exemplify the ways of how the motivation to learn languages can be increased and linguistic and cultural competence developed.
Activities: Building awareness of an unknown language An attempt to understand a poem in Potuguese (particular words, particular sentences etc.). Trying one’s best to understand the general idea of a poem using knowledge of other languages (e.g.Latin). Identifying verbs and their endings; forming one’s own sentences in Portuguese on the basis of the text and using the grammatical information included in the Annexes. Reflecting on what could have been learnt about Portuguese based on these activities and to what extent one’s experience in teaching linguistic and cultural diversity has been broadened .
Old and New Models of Language Education
The activities focus on raising language educators’ awareness and the need to give plurilingualism and pluriculturalism due consideration. There is argument for a new model of language education. This is to make language educators, hovewer different their contexts are, learn to stand up for the new language education policy.
In particular the activities deal with:
Pairing a number of opposite statements to illustrate old and new models of language education. Discussing the advantages and disadvantages that both models may have in one’s own country.
Discussing to what extent the following educational paradigms should be included in the curricula: Bilingual education, Plurilingual education, Pluricultural education, Intercultural education, Anti-racist education, Anti-sexist education.
Samples of the Ja-Ling project
Janua Linguarum – The gateway to languages – Project of the ECML (2000-2003) and Socrates Comenius (2001-2004)
The activities presented are a short selection extracted from materials for the classroom prepared by the partners in the different participating countries. The materials were composed from a booklet of activities for the pupils and guidelines for the teachers. All materials were built around a topic of interest and designed so that the experiences and knowledge of the children about languages can be used and be seen to be of value. The approach is based on asking children to gradually ‘solve’ problems related to languages through oral and written activities consisting of observing, analyzing and comparing words and sentences in different languages, encouraging reflection and cooperation among children.
Extract 1: UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW, Polish Project Group from University College of English Language Teacher Education. From ANIMALS SPEAK: Topic: Onomatopoeia for animal noises, adapted from ‘Les animaux prennent la parole’, Evlang, Paris V France, 2002, Level: Class 2nd or 3rd. Extract 2: UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA, Faculty of Education, Slovene Project Group. From CARNIVAL CELEBRATIONS. Topic:Raising awareness of the use of the article in English & in German, 2001-2004, Level: Class 4th or 5th. Extract 3:: UNIVERSITY OF AVEIRO, Department of Didactics and Educational Technology. Portuguese Project Group. From THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE, Coordinators: Ana Isabel Andrade, Filomena Martins and Isabel Bartolomeu, 2004, Level: Primary school. Extract 4 : UNIVERSITÉ DU MAINE ET INSTITUT DE FORMATION DES MAÎTRES D’ORLÉANS-TOURS, French Project Group. From: présentations autour du monde (enregistrement vidéo), coordinator: Michel Candelier, age group: 5-7
“…A polyglot Europe is not a Europe of people who are able to speak a lot of languages perfectly; but in the best case one of people who can communicate while everybody speaks their own language and understands the other without being fluent. Also while understanding it, even when with effort, its spirit – the cultural universe that is expressed when someone speaks the language of their ancestors and their tradition – should be understood as well.” Umberto Eco