Students majoring in modern foreign languages (Bachelor degree) in the Netherlands can follow up to 90 ECTS of content classes in another language than their major language. Usually, these classes are given in English used as a lingua franca. As a result, the entire linguistic repertoire of the students present in the classroom is not used at all. Besides the lost opportunity that this represents, it also makes it difficult for students to reach a high level in their major language (usually C1 of the European Framework of Reference).
In addition, a critical attitude toward English as the sole means of communication in higher education aligns with growing concerns about the power of English in academia in particular and in internationalization in general (Michel et al., 2021; Finardi, 2014). While English as a lingua franca can be a successful way for people from different language backgrounds to communicate with each other, it is not the only solution. Moreover, it does not do justice to the European ideal of multilingualism and pluriculturalism that are high priorities for Europe.
In this presentation, we will present the results of an ongoing project which implements a multilingual approach in content classes usually given in English only. In this project, we used strategies from the "translanguaging" approach (Cenoz, 2017; Duarte, 2019), which is a didactic model that makes multilingual communication a success by applying a combination of theories on language awareness, multilingualism, language comparison, mutual understanding, mediation, Content Language Integrated Learning and immersion.
During the presentation, we will show how we engaged students to participate to the project, how we designed the activities and the learning outcomes and how we taught students a new set of strategies and skills to be able to work together multilingually and still work on the development of their major language. We will also show you the results of a survey and a panel discussion on the effects of this multilingual approach as perceived by the students and the teachers involved.
References
Cenoz, J. (2017). Translanguaging in school contexts: International perspectives. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 16(4), 193-198.
Duarte, J. (2019). Translanguaging in mainstream education: a sociocultural approach. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 22(2), 150-164.
Finardi, K. R. (2014). The slaughter of Kachru's five sacred cows in Brazil: affordances of the use of English as an international language. Studies in English language teaching, 2(4), 401-411.
Michel, M., Vidon, C., de Graaff, R., & Lowie, W. (2021). Language Learning beyond English in the Netherlands: A fragile future?. European Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(1), 159-182.
