A framework of reference for pluralistic approaches

FREPA and pluralistic approaches

FREPA overview

What is it about? It is about a comprehensive description as well as the concrete implementation of plurilingual and intercultural competences and resources which can be best developed in teaching through so-called pluralistic approaches. Consequently FREPA contributes significantly to the attainment of the educative goals suggested by the Council of Europe in the domains of languages and cultures.

What are pluralistic approaches? The term Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures refers to didactic approaches which involve the use of several (or at least more than one) varieties of languages or cultures simultaneously during the teaching process. This is to be contrasted with… ..

Who should know about FREPA? Teachers of all subjects with an interest in plurilingual and intercultural education, Teacher trainers, Decision-makers, Curriculum and programme designers, Textbook writers.

FREPA offers:

  • a systematic description of competences and resources (Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes) which should be developed within the perspective of a plurilingual and intercultural education...
  • a database providing online teaching materials
  • an online training kit for teacher training (initial or in service)

Plural approaches to languages and cultures

The term “pluralistic approaches to languages and cultures” refers to didactic approaches which use teaching / learning activities involving several (i.e. more than one) varieties of languages or cultures.

This is to be contrasted with approaches which could be called “singular” in which the didactic approach takes account of only one language or a particular culture, considered in isolation. Singular approaches of this kind were particularly valued when structural and later “communicative” methods were developed and all translation and all resort to the first language was banished from the teaching process.

Language teaching methodology has seen the emergence of four pluralistic approaches over the past thirty years:

Awakening to languages

Several European projects have enabled awakening to languages movements to develop on a broader scale, defining it as follows: “awakening to language is used to describe approaches in which some of the learning activities are concerned with languages which the school generally does not intend to teach.” This does not mean that the approach is concerned just with such languages. The approach concerns the language(s) of education and any other language which is in the process of being learnt. But it is not limited to these “learnt” languages, and integrates all sorts of other linguistic varieties – from the environment, from families… and from all over the world, without exclusion of any kind... Because of the number of languages on which learners work – very often, several dozen – awakening to languages may seem to be the most extreme form of pluralistic approach. It was designed principally as a way of introducing schoolchildren to linguistic diversity (and the diversity of their own languages) at the beginning of school education, as a vector of fuller recognition of the languages “brought” by children with other home languages, as a kind of preparatory course developed at primary schools, but it can also be promoted as a support to language learning throughout the learners’ school career.

L’Eveil aux langues (Awakening to languages) as it has been developed specifically in the Evlang and Jaling programmes is explicitly linked to the Language Awareness movement initiated by E. Hawkins in the 1980s in the United Kingdom. However, the éveil aux langues nowadays is to be seen as a sub-category of the Language Awareness approach, which is also generating research which is more psycho-linguistic than pedagogic and which does not necessarily involve confronting the learner with a number of languages. For this reason those promoting éveil aux langues prefer to use another term in English – Awakening to languages – to describe this approach.
 

Awakening to languages today - a Powerpoint by Michel Candelier and Ildikó Lörincz (6th EDiLiC Conference, Györ, July 2016)

Intercomprehension between related languages

In the approach termed Intercomprehension between related languages the learner works on two or more languages of the same linguistic family (Romance, Germanic, Slavic languages, etc.) in parallel. One of these languages is already known, being either the learner’s mother tongue, or the language of education, or even another language having been learnt previously.

In this approach there is a systematic focus on receptive skills, as the development of comprehension is the most tangible way of using the knowledge of a related language to learn a new one. Of course, this does not exclude some added benefits for productive skills.

In the second half of the 1990s there was innovative work in this area with adult learners (including university students), in France and other countries speaking romance languages, as well as in Germany, Scandinavian and Slavophone countries. Many were supported at a European level in the programmes of the European Union. Examples of this approach are to be found in certain materials produced for awakening to language approaches, but in general there has been little development of intercomprehension in schools.

Intercultural approach

The intercultural approach has already had a clear influence on the methodology of language teaching and is therefore relatively well-known.

Its many variants are all based on didactic principles which recommend relying on phenomena from one or more cultural area(s) (conceived of as hybrid, open and dynamic) as a basis for understanding others from one or more other area(s).

They also advocate developing strategies to promote reflection about contact situations involving persons with different cultural background.

Integrated didactic approach

Integrated didactic approaches are directed towards helping learners to establish links between a limited number of languages, which are taught within the school curriculum. Integrated didactics work on the central principle advocated by pluralistic approaches of capitalising on what is already known in order to access what is less known : the language of schooling for accessing the first foreign language, which can then be used as a springboard to facilitate the acquisition of a second foreign language etc., keeping in mind that mutual support between languages goes in both directions. This approach does not neglect, either, the home languages of the learners, especially when they are explicitly taught. One can therefore have two (or even three or four) languages which are being “tackled” simultaneously.

This was an approach advocated as early as the beginning of the 1980s in the work of E. Roulet. It is also the direction taken by numerous projects exploring the idea of German after English when they are learnt as foreign languages (cf. the studies relating to Tertiary language learning). Other studies investigate ways of linking the language of schooling and other languages taught in an integrated perspective. It is also present in certain approaches to bilingual education, which seek to make learners identify similaries and differences between the languages used in teaching, irrespective of the subject being studied.
 

 “German after English”

  Some references

Competences and resources

Competences have to be understood as follows:

  • competences are linked to situations, to complex tasks which have social relevance; they are in this way “situated” and have a social function;
  • they are units with a degree of complexity;
  • they call on different internal "resources" (generally a mix of knowledge, attitudes and skills) and external resources (dictionaries, mediators, etc.).

The CARAP /  FREPA competences and resources describe essentially two levels of competences:

  1. The competence to manage linguistic and cultural communication within a context of otherness
  2. The competence of constructing and developing a pluralistic repertoire of languages and cultures

CARAP / FREPA identifies resources which are mobilised through these competences. These resources are presented in the form of descriptors.

Resources (knowledge, attitudes and skills):

The term "resources" is generally used in the CARAP for "internal resources". Resources are sometimes called abilities, sets of attitudes, knowledge... We have kept the term resources - although it is not common - as it is the one which has the fewest connotations.

Internal resources (as well as the use of external resources, but not competences) can be taught in situations/ tasks which are at least partly decontextualised.

Competences are viewed mainly in the domain of social usage / needs, while resources seem rather to belong to the domain of cognitive (and developmental) psychology. In this view it is indeed competences which come into play when one engages with a task.

However, it is probably the resources that one can – to a certain point – distinguish and list, defining them in terms of mastery and working on them in educational practice.

The database

The database FREPA – Online teaching materials, offers teaching activities which fall within the scope of pluralistic approaches to languages and cultures.

The purpose of this collection of materials, which include input in different languages, is to facilitate access to classroom activities which will help learners master the knowledge, skills and attitudes which the framework lists as resources and which can be developed by pluralistic approaches. All the materials proposed refer explicitly to descriptors of resources as they can be found in the FREPA framework. 

The database can be consulted either in English (tab Teaching materials at the top of the present page) or in French (tab Matériaux didactiques).

You will find below some examples of materials in LLL.

under development

The online training kit

The online training kit is available for teachers (and teacher trainers) who wish to train autonomously in pluralistic approaches and in the use of FREPA materials. The materials can be used by trainers in the preparation of, and during training sessions.

The training kit comprises 4 modules :

0. The Discovery module 

The aim of this module is to allow the participants to carry out an activity as learners themselves and to discover pluralistic approaches, their link to the notion of plurilingual and pluricultural competence, as well as the tools proposed by FREPA.

1. FREPA and educational language policies

The module allows language professionals to situate FREPA in today’s context of language teaching/learning at school, especially as far as educational goals are concerned.

2. I am having difficulty in my teaching … How can FREPA be of use to me ? 

This module supports teachers in organising a concrete use of the FREPA, as well as the pluralistic approaches, in view of certain difficulties concerning teaching and general pedagogical issues which teaching staff are likely to encounter in their everyday practice.

3. I wish to carry out a project with my students … How can FREPA be of use to me ? 

This module aims to support teachers in making use of the framework and pluralistic approaches in the design and implementation of class or school projects which involve other languages and other cultures.

The training kit can be accessed either in English (tab Teaching materials at the top of the present page) or in French (tab Matériaux didactiques).