Teachers’ Ideas to Develop Plurilingual and Intercultural Education as a Collaborative Project in Departments of Languages

Author(s):

Luciana Mesquita(presenting / submitting)Ana Sofia Pinho Ana Isabel Andrade

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

21. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES H 02, Education and Languages

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-10

11:00-12:30

Room:

A-102

Chair:

Wim Jochems

Contribution

In the light of the current human mobility in global space, plurilingualism stands as a remarkable policy in language teaching. The recognition and valorization of plurality of contexts, languages, cultures and identities either have been strengthening plurilingual and intercultural education as an agenda in teaching and teacher education (Breidenbach, Elsner & Young, 2010; Beacco & Byram, 2007; Coste, Moore & Zarate, 2009).

Taking into account this context, two standpoints seem to be fundamental to review discourses of teaching, teacher education and investigation in Didactics of Languages: a) the need to reorganize languages education in order to enable the (re)construction of linguistic repertories of learners and to promote their global development in an even more plural society (Beacco, Byram, Cavalli, Coste, Cuenat, Goullier & Panthier, 2010); b) the increased importance to develop transversal skills, besides specific skills of each language subject, which is enabled by an articulated work among the different languages of school in a flexible curriculum management (Andrade & Araújo e Sá, 2001). Both standpoints reinforce a more interdependent work among language teachers around shared didactic projects (Fourez, Mangain & Dufour, 2008) that can be supported, in schools, by the institutional structure of Department of Languages.

Within this framework, plurilingual and intercultural education can stand as a didactic project of curricular articulation supported by teacher collaboration in the context of schools’ Language Departments. This assumption is embodied by an on-going PhD project about teacher collaboration and possible contexts of curricular articulation in languages education in Portugal (SRFH/BD/72518/2010*).

Under this project, a teacher professional development program was conduced in 2012, “Teacher collaboration to a plural education through languages: which possibilities of professional development?”. The main objectives were: to raise reflection about current dynamics in Department of Languages in schools; and to support the conception and development of projects contextualized in the Department of Languages situated in the schools involved in the program.

After seven monthly sessions, teachers were asked to present a project in plurilingual and intercultural education that should answer a central question: “If you had to review your department in the light of teamwork and collaboration among languages what would you project?”.

Bearing this question in mind, the study has two aims. Firstly, looking at the ideas teachers presented, this study intends to analyze the assumptions behind the projects designed, specifically:

- interests / problems identified;

- objectives addressed;

- activities planned;

- actors and roles involved;

- perspectives on the concretization of the project.

Secondly, based on such analysis, this paper intends also to discuss the kind of professional collaboration and curricular articulation that was planned by the teachers to give their Departments a new dynamic.

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* Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT)

Method

Thirteen language teachers from ten different schools attended the whole professional development program. In this group, three teachers were also department coordinators. During the sessions, five groups involving teachers from the several schools were formed in order to collaboratively design a project which took into consideration the characteristics of each specific context and Department represented by the members. In a way to conduce this study, a qualitative content analysis of the five projects was carried out. In all projects, it was analyzed the kind of teacher collaboration and curricular articulation that was conceived and the way those issues were related. Through this analysis it was also possible to discuss how teachers could represent change in their contexts and how plurilingual and intercultural education could be possible in a teacher collaboration project.

Expected Outcomes

Results demonstrate that teachers’ concerns have given rise to: a) the conception of didactic scenarios that put peers together in the development of the current programs of languages; b) the establishment of collaborative reflection and co-supervision’s contexts within foreign teachers timetable; c) the planning of a sort of school-based events related to language diversity; d) the fostering of an online setting of sharing among foreign languages teachers and their students; and e) the development of a new subject in which language teachers and teachers of Special Education could work language awareness activities with students with special needs. According to teachers’ conceptions, those ideas could launch plurilingual and intercultural education as a shared enterprise in the contexts involved. In fact, the projects have planned a set of collaborative activities among teachers that could result in different interactions among languages taught. However, it is remarkable that curricular articulations covered mostly planning situations and kept the autonomy of each language class. In other words, teachers’ plans to review their Departments have barely challenged the current disciplinary-based organization of curriculum in a continuous basis. In advance, these results raise questions about limitations and potentialities to develop plurilingual and intercultural education as a collaborative project.

References

Andrade, A. I., & Araújo e Sá, M. H. (2001). Para um diálogo entre as línguas: da sala de aula à reflexão sobre a escola. Inovação, 1(1-2), 149-168. Breidenbach, S., Elsner, D., & Young, A. (2010). Language awareness in teacher education: cultural-political and socio-educational dimensions. Bern/Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Beacco, J.-C., & Byram, M. (2007). From linguistic diversity to plurilingual education: guide for development of language education policies in Europe. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, Language Policy Division. Beacco, J.-C., Byram, M., Cavalli, M., Coste, D., Cuenat, M. E., Goullier, F., & Panthier, J. (2010). Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, Language Policy Division. Coste, D., Moore, D., & Zarate, G. (2009). Plurilingual and Pluricultural competence. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, Language Policy Division. Fourez, G., Mangain, A., & Dufour, B. (2008). Abordagens didácticas da interdisciplinaridade. Lisboa: Instituto Piaget.

Author Information

Luciana Mesquita (presenting / submitting)

LALE / CIDTFF

Department of Education

Aveiro

Ana Sofia Pinho

University of Aveiro

Aveiro

Ana Isabel Andrade

CIDTFF (Research Center “Didactics and Technology in Education of Trainers”) / University of Aveiro, Portugal

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