Approach in a nutshell: Teacher's attitudes, knowledge and skills

The list below summarises the attitudes, knowledge and skills needed when adopting a plurilingual approach in the language of schooling classroom. The information presented is based on the work carried out in the projects 

1. I can promote the value and benefits of language learning and linguistic diversity to learners, parents and others in a globalized society. [K-2; K-4; K -9; K-10; K-11; A-7; A-13; A-18; S-1, S-2]

  • I can reflect on my attitudes towards language diversity and plurilingualism
  • I can reflect, from a historical perspective, on societal attitudes towards linguistic and cultural diversity and on the values underlying these
  • I can reflect on my specific role as a teacher of the language of schooling and as a staff member in a whole-school approach to language diversity

2. I can appreciate and draw on students’ knowledge of other languages and their diverse linguistic and cultural identities in the classroom in order to help all learners expand their linguistic repertoires. [K-6; K-14; K-15; A-5; A-6; A-8; A-10; A-12; A-14; A-16; S-3; S-4; S-5; S-6] 

  • I can reflect on my own language biography in order to help me understand how learners’ language biographies are the basis of learning new languages (in the case of monolingual language use: standard varieties, context-specific variation and dialect variance of the language of schooling)
  • I can analyse, visualise and document the plurilingualism of my students through:
    - language biographies
    - language awareness and intercomprehension activities
    - investigations of the linguistic landscape and data about multilingualism at school and in society
  • I can collaborate with other language teachers to support linguistic diversity at my school
  • I know key concepts concerning language assessment and testing in the context of plurilingualism
  • I can identify language competencies of my learners  and understand the importance of “errors” in the process of language learning.

3. I can draw on or adapt appropriate theories, methods, research findings, strategies and materials for learning languages and cultures to guide my teaching. [K-1; K-3; K-5; K-7; K-8; A-19; S-7]

  • I know the key concepts of plurilingualism (glossary)
  • I know different language acquisition and learning models 
  • I can use the checklists of the project MARILLE to reflect on my teaching practices

Abbreviations refer to the project CARAP: K - Knowledge, A - Attitudes and S - Skills