Pluri/multi/flexilingual perspective in teaching and research at language centres

SEDLÁČKOVÁ, Kateřina, Beatriz CALVO MARTÍN and Katherine GUERTLER. Pluri/multi/flexilingual perspective in teaching and research at language centres. In XVI CercleS international conference: Language Centres at a Crossroads: Open Directions for New Generations of Learners. 2020.

Basic information

• Original name: Pluri/multi/flexilingual perspective in teaching and research at language centres
• Authors: SEDLÁČKOVÁ, Kateřina, Beatriz CALVO MARTÍN and Katherine GUERTLER.
• Edition: XVI CercleS international conference: Language Centres at a Crossroads: Open Directions for New Generations of Learners, 2020.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 50300 5.3 Education
• Country of publisher: Czech Republic
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Organization unit: Language Centre
• Keywords in English: plurilingualism; imultilingualism; flexilingualism; deal multiligual self; linguistic multicompetence

Abstract

The main purpose of this discussion hub is to bring the idea of pluri/multi/flexilingualism into serious discussion at the level of university language centres and to network amongst teachers and researchers of different languages so they join us in our Flexilingua project/initiative. Flexilingua is a resource dedicated to applied and theoretical concepts of multilingualism, plurilingualism and flexilingualism in language teaching. Our goal is to share information, promote academic discourse and create a network of researchers and language teachers interested in the inter-/multinational use of languages. We all live the plurilingual reconfiguration not only in the classroom but also at our workplace. Our students are not monolingual any more, which raises questions related to plurilingual (self-) concept, i.e. whether we take their plurilingualism into account while teaching; how we should face it and how to take advantage from it. The same happens in teacher’s rooms: we tend to stick to our fellow language colleagues (Spanish teachers amongst them, English teachers amongst them, etc.) and to focus our exchanges and discussions primarily to them. This proclivity is also flagrant at conferences: if there are several conference languages, there are sort out into different conference sections – which is to the detriment of everyone and especially of the main subject – language teaching and learning. Our idea is to remind the richness and benefit of pluriligualism at several levels: linguistic, cognitive, didactic and socio-cultural and to bring teachers of different languages to share their ideas, research, best practice and sources. Basic terminology and concepts: • Multilingualism (CEFR): The coexistence of different languages at the social or individual level. • Plurilingualism (CEFR): The dynamic and developing linguistic repertoire of an individual user/learner. Plurilingual competence as explained in the CEFR (Section 1.3) involves the ability to call flexibly upon an inter-related, uneven, plurilinguistic repertoire e.g. to switch from one language or dialect (or variety) to another; to express oneself in one language (or dialect, or variety) and understand a person speaking another; to call upon the knowledge of a number of languages (or dialects, or varieties) to make sense of a text; etc. • Flexilingualism (Byrne, 2014): A pragmatic approach to learning languages. It implies a realistic attitude whereby language choices and levels are defined by need, situation and context. It is a flexible and fluid process which responds to the specific yet changing needs of an increasingly mobile workforce in a globalised economy. • Plurilingual future self (Ushioda, 2017) • Ideal Multilingual Self (Henry, 2017, 2018) • Linguistic multi-competence (Cook, 2016)