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)

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.