Training Foreign Language Teachers: A Reflective Approach

While communicative competence is characterized by the negotiation of intended meanings in authentic contexts of language use, intercultural competence has to do with far less negotiable discourse worlds, the ‘circulation of values and identities across cultures, the inversions, even inventions of meaning, often hidden behind a common illusion of effective communication’ (Kramsch, Levy & Zarate 2008: 15). The self that is engaged in intercultural communication is a symbolic self that is constituted by symbolic systems like language as well as by systems of thought and their symbolic power. This symbolic self is the most sacred part of our personal and social identity; it demands for its well-being careful positioning, delicate facework, and the ability to frame and re-frame events. The symbolic dimension of intercultural competence calls for an approach to research and teaching that is discourse-based, historically grounded, aesthetically sensitive, and that takes into account the actual, the imagined and the virtual worlds in which we live. With the help of concrete examples from the real world and foreign language classrooms, the paper attempts to redefine the notion of third place (Kramsch 1993) as symbolic competence.

/pdf/the-symbolic-dimensions-of-the-intercultural-1c2k6ei3xw.pdf

The symbolic dimensions of the intercultural

Ecological approaches to language learning and teaching have captured the interest of language educators as both native and non-native speakers find themselves operating in increasingly multilingual and multicultural environments. This paper builds on Kramsch & Whiteside (in press) to conceptualize what an ecological perspective on foreign language education, based on complexity theory, would look like. It first explains some of the major tenets of complexity theory, and analyzes transcriptions of exchanges taking place among multilingual individuals in multicultural settings using the ecological approach offered by complexity theory. Based on what these analyses reveal about the ability of these individuals to shape the very context in which language is learned and used, it discusses the notion of ‘symbolic competence’ recently proposed by Kramsch (2006) and explores how symbolic competence might be developed through foreign language education in institutional contexts.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0261444808005065

Ecological perspectives on foreign language education

While theoretical constructs and frames of reference advanced in French and English research share many points of communalities, Francophone research has contributed in original ways to issues of language learning and bilingual development in multilingual contexts. The Francophone contribution to contemporary thinking has, however, often been obscured by the fact that it has been published in French, or lost in translation when concepts are not interpreted the same way in English and French. At the intersection of educational sociolinguistics and sociodidactics (Dabene, 1994), this body of work is more narrowly defined in European Francophone research as ‘didactique du plurilinguisme et du pluriculturalisme’ (didactics of plurilingualism and pluriculturalism), a term difficult to translate adequately in English. The purpose of this special issue is to present readers with a range of papers that we believe to be significant and representative of French studies, and to provide a comprehensive exami...

Introduction – French voices on plurilingualism and pluriculturalism: theory, significance and perspectives

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is increasingly widespread in educational institutions of all levels and sectors across Europe. Thanks to a burgeoning research base and subsequent publications, we are now, more than ever, in a position to confidently testify to the benefits of CLIL as a successful educational approach for this day and age. However, the popularity of CLIL should not be mistaken for something that is easy to implement and deliver. As with many an innovation, demand or desire to jump on the bandwagon often outweigh resources, which in the case of CLIL means teachers who possess appropriate levels of linguistic competence in the foreign language and knowledge of the subject specialism. Equally important is the need to adapt teaching methodology to cater for the integrated learning of both content and language. This entails a change in perspective about the foreign language as a subject to that of a tool in content learning. This paper addresses teacher roles and methodology in CLIL contexts and highlights the importance of teacher education for CLIL.

/pdf/examining-teacher-roles-and-competences-in-content-and-19jmbm6lsw.pdf

Examining teacher roles and competences in content and language integrated learning (clil)

nissant la langue comme un instrument d’action et de pouvoir, cet ouvrage defi nit la pluralite comme un ensemble complexe, a contre-pied d’une perspective didactique classique qui se donne plutot comme objet de simplifi er pour rendre intelligible, un systeme coherent de relations, dont la description ne peut se reduire a des operations de denombrement, un objet socio-historique construit, observable selon plusieurs points de vue spatiotemporels simultanes, par exemple celui des interactions quotidiennes ou celui qui nourrit la force symbolique des institutions.

Précis du plurilinguisme et du pluriculturalisme

Handbook of multilingualism and multiculturalism

Valoriser toutes les langues à l'école: Un examen des dispositions en vigeur et à envisager

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Précis du plurilinguisme et du pluriculturalisme

Handbook of multilingualism and multiculturalism

Valoriser toutes les langues à l'école: Un examen des dispositions en vigeur et à envisager