Canadian Modern Language Review/ La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes
Volume 71, Number 4, November 2015
From second language pedagogy to the pedagogy of ‘plurilingualism’: a possible paradigm shift? / De la didactique des langues à la didactique du plurilinguisme
: un changement de paradigme possible ?
Introduction
Enrica Piccardo and Isabelle Capron Puozzo
Introduction
Enrica Piccardo and Isabelle Capron Puozzo
Laying Down Pale Memories:Learners Reflecting on Language, Self, and Other in the Middle-School Drama-Languages Classroom
Julia Rothwell
This article explores one teacher/researcher’s development of a drama–language unit and the learners’ responses to it. The work is underpinned by a model of intercultural
language learning which also acknowledges the pluricultural and plurilingual contexts in which foreign languages are taught in Australia. As part of a participatory-action-research doctoral study, process drama became the basis for planned language-learning
experiences undertaken with a class of 12-year-old beginner students of German. Challenges still remain when transferring theories of intercultural language learning to classroom practice, particularly in the face of learner disengagement with school language
learning. Therefore, the article enhances understandings of the potential benefits of process drama for middle-school languages pedagogy, particularly in relation to the challenging reciprocal aspect of intercultural work. The article is developed around a
Bakhtinian framework of language as referential social practice and demonstrates how the drama–languages model can extend traditional cognitive approaches to pedagogy into physical and affective worlds. The effects of this shift are explored from the perspectives
of unit planning, learner engagement with language, the development of cultural referents, and awareness of self and other. http://bit.ly/cmlr714c
Autonomous Pluralistic Learning Strategies Among Mexican Indigenous and Minority University Students Learning English
Colette Despagne
This critical ethnographic case study draws on Indigenous and minority students’ process of learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Mexico. The study specifically
focuses on students who enrolled in a program called A wager with the Future. The aim of the study is to identify and understand contributing factors in these students’ struggles with the process of
learning English by focusing on factors that influence their investment in EFL. The research is framed by (critical) applied linguistics and post-colonial theories that favour the integration of an understanding of these students’ socio historical context
in their learning of English, and question (unequal) power relationships between languages and cultures in Mexico. The methodology was designed to ensure trustworthiness by adopting multiple data collection techniques, and to decolonize the research process
by using participatory methods that featured researcher/participant co-analysis of the data. On a macro level, findings show that students enrolled in the program experience a relationship with English that is rooted in Mexico’s colonial legacies (as expressed
through discrimination in the EFL classroom), which has an impact on their subjectivities; specifically, they feel afraid and inferior in the EFL classroom. On a micro level, the programming adopted in the university’s Language Department does not draw on
diverse students’ multi-competences in other languages. Nonetheless, some Indigenous students manage to invest in EFL by creating imagined communities, and appropriating English through the creation of autonomous pluralistic language learning strategies. http://bit.ly/cmlr714d
A Comparison of L2 and L3 Learners’ Strategy Use in School Settings
Åsta Haukås
Research on third-language learning (L3) has documented that plurilingualism is an asset in many respects. Particularly relevant for this study is research showing that L3
learners use more strategies more frequently and efficiently than L2 learners. However, previous studies have mainly concentrated on L3 learners’ strategy use at the university level, whereas little attention has been given to L3 learners in a secondary school
context. This study investigated reports of strategy use by 127 L2-English and 104 L3-German learners who studied these two languages in Norwegian secondary schools. The results showed that L3-German school learners reported using significantly fewer strategies
and applying them less frequently than L2-English school learners. It is hypothesized (a) that L3 learners may be insufficiently aware of how to transfer knowledge from previous language-learning experiences and (b) that L3 learners use fewer strategies than
L2 learners due to lower motivation for learning L3 German than for learning L2 English. http://bit.ly/cmlr714e
Un code-switching inédit en classe de langue : la déromanisation graphique et morphosyntaxique de la L2
Manale Aref and Mohamed Aref
Dans cette étude empirique, nous avons relevé, analysé et évalué un phénomène linguistique nouveau qui prend curieusement une certaine ampleur dans le domaine de l’apprentissage
des langues. Il s’agit d’une forme singulière d’alternance codique (code-switching) qui consiste dans le recours à la déromanisation de la L2. L’étude a été menée auprès de 47 étudiantes saoudiennes arabophones apprenant le français à l’université.
Pour la collecte des données, nous avons relevé et analysé des interactions écrites lors de communications par l’entremise de l’application WhatsApp qui représente un moyen sécurisé de réseautage social à usage courant en Arabie saoudite. Nous avons pu constater
que la plupart des participantes ont eu recours à la déromanisation lors des échanges en transcrivant en arabe (L1) des mots français (L2). Nous avons identifié les raisons et les formes du code-switching avec
ou sans déromanisation et mesuré l’impact de ce phénomène sur l’apprentissage de la L2. http://bit.ly/cmlr714f
Language Choice Among Peers in Project-Based Learning: A Hong Kong Case Study of English Language Learners’ Plurilingual Practices in Out-of-Class Computer-Mediated Communication
Christoph A. Hafner, David C.S. Li, and Lindsay Miller
Recently there has been considerable interest in the role of first language use in second/foreign language learning, especially where students share a common first language.
However, most research has focused on in-class interaction between teachers and learners. Much less attention has been given to students’ out-of-class practices, for example, in collaborative project-based learning. To fill this gap, the article tracks the
out-of-class activities of 16 students (four project groups) involved in project work on a course in English for science students at an English-medium university in Hong Kong. An analysis of students’ computer-mediated interactions (Facebook, WhatsApp and
email) shows that these interactions are plurilingual, with students drawing on English, Chinese and mixed code to different extents as they go about their project work. Different languages are used strategically: whereas L2 is used more in the construction
of the final project product, L1 is used more to promote group cohesion. The findings suggest that, in plurilingual contexts like Hong Kong, it is necessary to develop an English language pedagogy that acknowledges the need for the constructive but judicious
use of translanguaging and plurilingual practices as students are engaged in L2-focused (e.g. EAP) project-based group work. http://bit.ly/cmlr714g
Didactique du plurilinguisme et alternance de codes : le cas de l’enseignement bilingue précoce
Laurent Gajo and Gabriela Steffen
La didactique du plurilinguisme constitue un paradigme récent dans la recherche éducative, à la fois en continuité, en rupture et en décalage avec la didactique des langues.
Nous en soulignons quelques aspects, à partir d’un terrain d’enseignement bilingue précoce se déclinant selon deux modèles : des classes où deux enseignants interviennent en se répartissant les langues (méthode une
personne – une langue) et des classes où le même enseignant gère les deux langues (méthode une personne – deux langues). L’analyse des pratiques discursives bilingues en classe nous aide à revenir,
plus particulièrement, sur la place de l’alternance de codes dans l’enseignement bilingue et, a fortiori, dans la didactique du plurilinguisme. Ces pratiques illustrent que l’intégration des apprentissages en et de L1
et L2 va au-delà de la simple articulation de deux espaces monolingues et tient à une posture bi-plurilingue des enseignants privilégiant des approches qui travaillent avec un répertoire plurilingue et qui normalisent et didactisent le plurilinguisme dans
l’enseignement/apprentissage des savoirs. Cette intégration est favorisée par la méso-alternance, réfléchie par rapport à la mise en complémentarité et en contraste des langues et à l’apport des ressources plurilingues pour l’élaboration des savoirs et qui
articule les pratiques en classe avec les enjeux curriculaires. http://bit.ly/cmlr714h
BOOK AND SOFTWARE REVIEWS / CRITIQUES DE LIVRES ET DE LOGICIELS
Plurilingual Education: Policies – Practices – Language Development
Enrica Piccardo
Processing Perspectives on Task Performance
Rika Tsushima and Martin Guardado
The CEFR in Practice
Larry Vandergrift
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