Andrea YOUNG

andrea.young@espe.unistra.fr

Ecole Supérieur du Professorat et de l’Education de l’Académie de Strasbourg, Université de Strasbourg, France

A collaborative community approach to education in a

French primary school

ECML, Graz, 27 June 2014

•How can teaching professionals recogniserecognise and legitimiselegitimise the diversity of speakers’ plurilingual repertoiresplurilingual repertoires at school?• How can we motivate all the children in the class to learn learn about languages and culturesabout languages and cultures and to respect difference? •How can we open a window onto languages and cultures from inside the classroom? •Where can we find authentic, motivating resources which help to foster foster curiosity, tolerance and empathycuriosity, tolerance and empathy amongst ALLALL learners? •How can we promote common valuescommon values enriched by diversity in the classroom?• How can we develop a legitimatelegitimate culture of culture of plurilingualismplurilingualism within a predominantly monolingual institution?

Challenges

•WHY ?WHY ?–Lack of motivation to learn German

–Increase in the number of racist incidents at school

•HOW ?HOW ?–Regular Saturday morning sessions led by parents and prepared in collaboration with teachers.

–Cross-curricular approach.

–Participants: Pupils in the first 3 years of primary school, teachers, parents.

–Authorised school project 2000-2004,

–Researchers: weekly non-participant observations, notes, video, interviews, evaluations, publications, conferences…

Didenheim Project

• Didenheim small rural school (84 children) near Mulhouse (industrial town with large migrant population in southern Alsace, France).

• But 37% of children other than of French origin

Arabic: 10.7%Portuguese: 2.4%Turkish: 9.5% Italian: 2.4%Polish: 4.7% Other: 4.7%NB Plus Alsatian: 4.7%

Project context

“Il s’agit d’une sensibilisation, d’un contact avec une autre langue.

La dimension culturelle du projet : connaître l’autre (fêtes, traditions, géographie, costumes…)

Faire un pas vers l’autre : apprendre à le connaître, rectifier des idées fausses… .”

(Minutes from school project meeting, 7/10/00)

• According equal status to all languages and cultures at school

• Tackling racism at school• Encountering “otherness” (Roberts et al., 2001)

Objectives

Languages in Didenheim

In the project FrenchGerman English Arabic Polish

Turkish Alsatian Berber

Brazilian Italian Malay

MandarinSerbo-CroatVietnamese

FinnishJapanese Russian

French Sign LanguageSpanish

Spoken at homeFrench

German English Arabic Polish

Turkish Alsatian Berber

Brazilian Italian Malay

MandarinSerbo-CroatVietnamese

Taught at schoolFrench

German(English)

Moroccan ArabicPolish

Turkish

• Securing home/school collaborationSecuring home/school collaboration

• Communicating with & reassuring parentsCommunicating with & reassuring parents

• Educational partnership (mutual respect & Educational partnership (mutual respect & trust)trust)

• Teachers learning alongside pupilsTeachers learning alongside pupils

How does it work?

o Tasting specialities from different culinary traditionso Learning to sing short songs with actionso Reading traditional tales from bilingual bookso Some geography and history + personal historyo Talking about lifestyles and living conditions o Learning in context: to introduce oneself, greet, say

please and thank you + basic vocabulary o Listening to different sounds + learning to differentiate o Negotiating meaning from context or pictures o Looking at different scriptso Highlighting linguistic borrowings o Drawing parallels between languages

Classroom activities

o Identify linguistic regularitieso Compare and contrast languageso Understand cultural normso …

Budding linguists“Pourquoi est-ce que l’alsacien est un dialecte et pas

une langue?”“Est-ce que la langue des signes est la même partout

dans le monde?”

“Est-ce qu’on écrit le berbère comme l’arabe de droite à gauche?”

“Est-ce que le français est une langue?” 

Language awareness

•“Est-ce que c’est dur d’apprendre le français quand on est chinois?”

•Questions to deaf visitor through her French Sign Language interpreter (Répondre au téléphone?)

•“Pourquoi est-ce que les Vietnamiens n’ont pas la même couleur de peau?”

Empathy & curiosity

Plurilingual pride

Is NOT learning a multiplicity of languages BUT • learning ABOUT language and languages (Language Awareness, Hawkins)• works on pupils’ attitudes rather than linguistic abilities • is complementary to FLL = metalinguistic work• is based on all languages irrespective of their status • goes beyond FLL: includes citizenship education respect for others, solidarity…• helps to understand our multilingual/cultural world

Learning ABOUT Languages & Cultures

What the children liked most

« Le berbère parce qu'on a bu du thé »

« La langue des signes, le berbère parce qu'on bouge plus et il y avait de beaux habits et de belles danses »

« La langue des signes, parce que c'est pratique pour les sourds et c'est amusant »

« L'italien parce qu'on a fait des pizzas »

« L'alsacien parce que je suis alsacienne et que j'aime bien et ma mamie elle est alsacienne »

« Le polonais parce je sais déjà cette langue et mes grands parents parlent polonais, des fois je comprends »

« Le vietnamien parce que c'est la langue de ma maman ».

“What I get out of this project is the satisfaction of knowing that what I had for me all my life, I can share with other children… These children, once they have conscience of another languageconscience of another language, it will build up an interest for them to want to know more…. Because children are very curiouscurious and they want to go towards the others, but it is always the fact of not knowing not knowing that stops peoplethat stops people in general to go towards another person…and it removes a lot of prejudicesprejudices that they have heard themselves from other adults. This way it makes them open up their open up their mindsminds to learn more.”

(Malay parent)

A Parent’s remarks

“Je crois que là on essaie justement de prendre les différences, de les mettre en relief, mais les bons côtés de ces différences, et ce que cela peut avoir d’enrichissant … il y a la partie culturelle qui est différente de la nôtre, et puis il y a tout ce qu’on vit en commun en fait, on construit l’histoire de la classe en commun et ça les enfants sont riches de leurs expériences, de leur culture personnelle, mais tout est mis en commun pour construire une histoire commune à la classe.”

(Class teacher of 7 year olds)

Educationally Inclusive

o A plurilingual approach gives pedagogical means to acknowledge diversity

o Language & cultural awareness only model which is inclusive: • Languages + cultures = collective resource + all on an

equal footingo Bilingualism of minority language children can been

valued. Some children have found their voices in Didenheim

o The teachers in Didenheim have :• Found their own pedagogical solutions to intolerance• Reduced the distance between home and school

cultureso => beyond the strict framework of top down

curriculum • BUT aims of such approaches not always understood

Project Conclusions

Films

Hélot, Young & Delforge, 2005. La diversité linguistique et culturelle à l’école (version original en français).

Hélot, Young & Delforge, 2005. Windows on the World: A language awareness project in a French primary school. (version sous-titrée en anglais).

Feltin, Mariette, 2008. Raconte moi ta langue, V.F. Puybaret, Patrick : La Curieuse.

Released in 2008

o Newbury Park School website UKhttp://www.newburypark.redbridge.sch.uk/langofmonth/

o Thornwood public school website Canadahttp://www.thornwoodps.ca/dual/index.htm

o European day of Languages http://edl.ecml.at/ o The online encyclopedia of writing systems and

languages) http://www.omniglot.com/index.htmo Learning to read the world through other eyes, an open

access online study programme focusing on engagements with indigenous perceptions of global issues https://www.academia.edu/575387/Learning_to_Read_the_World_Through_Other_Eyes_2008_ Transnational, cultural and critical literacieshttp://

o Feltin, M. (2008) Tell me how you talk DVDhttp://www.lacurieuse.fr/catalogue/distribution/raconte-moi-ta-langue/

Web sites