Nothing new under the sun?

Innovations Fair, Graz September 07

Innovation or change in fashions?

• Is it a new dawn?

• Or a swing of the

pendulum?

Mixing the variables? Or change of paradigm?

• Some changes are good ideas to change the “teaching / learning mix”

• Occasionally changes revolutionise the way we think about language education

What are the variables? • Where the learning takes place • The channels used to transmit

language • The people involved • The way time is organised • The approach to learning / teaching

What areas for innovation 1?

• Breaking down the boundaries, between: – different languages learnt – languages and other subject areas – foreign languages and “first” languages

What areas for innovation 2?

• Really applying the Framework of reference by extending the range of competences developed: – Strategic – Ability to learn – Pragmatic / inter-cultural

What areas for innovation 3

• Developing new attitudes towards diversity and plurilingualism.

Existing (19th century) model

New model

Focus on nation-state and national language as source of identity

Emphasis on European citizenship and linguistic diversity

Multilingualism is a problem for society

Multilingualism enriches society

Assumes learners start from monolingual base

Takes into account diverse language experiences outside the classroom

Bilingualism and diverse cultural backgrounds ‘silenced’

Bilingualism and diverse cultural backgrounds celebrated

Bilingual children’s education is seen as problematic – focus is on developing national language

Bilingualism welcomed – focus on developing ability in mother tongue as well as other languages

Speakers of other languages are ‘foreign’.

Speaking another language is the norm

Learning another language is difficult

Learning another language is natural

Near-native speaker competence is the ultimate goal

Even low levels of competence are valuable and add to communicative repertoire – to be built on throughout life

Language teaching focuses mainly on linguistic goals. Cultural element tends to be poor, or focused solely on ‘high’ culture

Language teaching has strong cultural element and includes intercultural awareness

Language learning focuses on one language at a time

Language learning focuses on links between languages, and on language awareness in general

Language learning tends to be élitist and problematic for the majority

Language learning can be successful for everyone

Some pathways to follow • Synergies among the teaching of different

languages • Pluralistic approaches to language

education • Whole school, whole person approaches

Look for ideas in Graz • The work of the 2nd medium-term

programme of the European Centre for Modern Languages in Graz explores a lot of these pathways.

• www.ecml.at