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The Aquitaine Europe project : fostering mobility and intercultural
dialogue
Tita BeavenDepartment of Languages
The Open University, UK
Alix Creuzé, Institut Français,
Madrid
Eurocall 2010, Bordeaux
Itinéraires: language and culture for independent learning
Context and aims stated clearly
Context
Miroirs: Intercultural competence
Texts in L1 and L2: reflection, mediation.
But also exploring ways in which “strategies used in the reading and decoding of […] texts in the readers’ own native languages can facilitate the processing of similar texts in a foreign language
(Carter-Thomas 2009, reviewing
Lundquist: navigating in Foreign Language Texts, 2008)
Users?
Flexibility in the design, and flexibility in the use of the materials: monolingual, multilingual and plurilingual students and teachers.
• Monolingual classes
• Multilingual classes
• Plurilingual classes
- Independent learners
Plurilingualism
…”The Council of Europe and the European Commission promote plurilingualism and intercomprehension as central to European citizenship (Beacco & Byram, 2003; Council of Europe, 2001;European Commission, 1995). The concept of plurilingualism reaches beyond its primary and immediate aim of allowing for communication in multilingual environments: it comprehends the acknowledgement and positive appreciation of linguistic and cultural diversity. Plurilingual and pluricultural competences are defined by the Common European Framework of Reference as complex and composite competences, which allow individuals to participate as social agents in intercultural communicative interactions (Council of Europe, 2001: 168).”
Alves and Mendes (2006)
Plurilingualism and intercomprehension
Intercomprehesion: “A form of communication in which each person uses his or her own language and understands that of the other.”
Peter Doyé, Intercomprehension, 2005
Intercomprehension
Intercomprehension is defined as the process of developing the ability to coconstruct meaning in the context of the encounter of different languages, and to make pragmatic use of this in a concrete communicative situation (Capucho, 2004), thus involving the transfer of strategies and knowledge from known to unknown languages. This process is supported by awareness of cultural features.
Activating and training intercomprehension strategies comprises three levels: (1) the human ability to communicate meanings, (2) language learning (in a conscious or unconscious manner) as a process of strategies acquisition, and (3) the ongoing development of intercomprehension abilities and strategies (both in interpreting and producing discourse).
Alves and Mendes (2006)
Language learners as social agents
Language users can, therefore, be defined as social intermediaries or social agents (Zarate, 2002: 218219), with the capacity to overcome barriers and construct bridges and boundaries in plurilingual and pluricultural contexts.
Social intermediaries/agents, capable of constructing successful socio-communicative interactions based on intercomprehension, value the importance of otherness, manage knowledge, and are prepared to co-construct and define complex identities. Refusing monolingualism, they resist linguistic and cultural ethnocentrism and homogeneity.
Alves and Mendes (2006)
Learners and teachers
Learners have “considerable funds of useable knowledge which can be exploited”.
So teachers should make learners aware of this knowledge and enable them to use it by developing appropriate strategies.
Peter Doyé, Intercomprehension, 2005
ResearchResearch project 1: Autumn 2010: “4 teachers, 4 classes” UK/SP/IT/DE
Research project 2: Winter 2010: monolingual/plurilingual UK students
Research project 3: Narratives of living abroad: Brits in Aquitaine
