The PE-LAL project: Plurilingual Education – Minority and Majority Students’ Language Awareness across Educational Levels

In recent years, plurilingual education has been subject to growing interest in educational research. The so-called pluralistic approach is based on students’ language resources and seeks to build bridges between languages (Danish, foreign languages, first languages, and other languages) in order to enhance all learners’ communicative competence and language awareness (LA). From our perspective, all foreign language learners are plurilingual because they learn more than one language as a result of schooling. 

The PE-LAL project’s research questions, hypotheses, design, and operationalization of LA in the context of plurilingual education are described in Daryai-Hansen, Drachmann & Krogager-Andersen (2022).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bildetema

Visit: Bildetema

Bildetema is part of the Norwegian online platform Tema Morsmål which contains resources and materials in a plethora oflanguages. Bildetema is a plurilingual, interactive visual dictionary with illustrations, text, sound and animations and contains around 1900 entries divided into 31 themes such as ”the weather” or ”sports.” Bildetema is run in cooperation between Norway, Sweden and Denmark and has Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Swedish, Danish and Enlish as primary languages. Many different minority languages such as Arabic and Somali can be chosen  - up to 10 languages at a time.

  • Target group: primary and pre-primary
  • Subjects: materials may be used across the curriculum

Norden i Skolen 

Visit Norden i Skolen

The platform Norden i Skolen, administrated by Foreningen Norden, consists of teaching materials within the field of inter-comprehension between Scandinavian languages and Nordic cultures. The material, available in Danish, Faroese, Islandic, Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk), Swedish and some minority languages, can be selected according to three main categories (‘language and culture’, ’history and society’, ‘climate and nature’), educational levels, language subjects, thematic areas, learning focuses and teaching activities.

  • Target group: Primary to upper secondary school
  • Subjects: Foreign language education and subjects across the school’s curriculum

Plurilingual Guide: Implementing Critical Plurilingual Pedagogy in Language Education

Visit Plurilingual Guide: Implementing Critical Plurilingual Pedagogy in Language Education

The publication Plurilingual Guide: Implementing Critical Plurilingual Pedagogy in Language Education, published by the Plurilingual Lab at McGill University, consists of 10 tasks based on an inclusive critical plurilingual and pluricultural approach. The tasks are detailly described in a step-by-step guide and contains texts, links, and worksheets.

  • Target group: Primary and upper secondary school
  • Subjects: Foreign language education

Signs of language

Visit Signs of language

The Danish longitude project Signs of Language has for 10 years followed minority students’ literacy development within plurilingual education. The project’s website contains inspiration to plurilingual activities focusing on second language and literacy development in plurilingual classrooms aiming for lower and upper primary school and lower secondary school.

  • Target group: Primary and lower secondary school
  • Subjects: Danish, Danish as Second Language and subjects across the school’s curriculum

The CONBAT+ project

Visit the CONBAT+ project

The CONBAT+ project has developed teaching materials within the field of plurilingual and intercultural education, which has an embedded CLIL approach and can be used with students aged 6-20. The material, available in English, French and Spanish, can be selected according to educational levels, thematic areas, subjects and language of instruction.

  • Target group: Primary to upper secondary school and beyond
  • Subjects: Foreign language education and subjects across the school’s curriculum

The EDiLiC Association

Visit the EDiLiC Association

The EDiLiC Association has collected teaching materials within the field of plurilingual education from different projects in e.g., Austria, Canada, England, France, Germany, Luxemburg, Spain and Switzerland. The collection contains online activities and references to books dealing with the subject.

  • Target group: Primary to upper secondary school and beyond
  • Subjects: Foreign language education and subjects across the school’s curriculum

The European Language Portfolio

Visit the European Language Portfolio

The European Language Portfolio, based on The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, translated from Norwegian into Danish. The portfolio consists of a language passport, a language biography and a language folder, and serves to enable the student (age 6-12) to visualize and reflect on his/her acquisition processes.

  • Target group: Primary school
  • Subjects: Danish as Second Language, English, French and German 

The FREPA database

Visit the FREPA database

The FREPA database, facilitated by the European Centre for Modern Languages, Council of Europe, consists of teaching materials within the field of plurilingual and intercultural education. The material, available in a wide range of languages, can be selected according to educational levels, thematic areas, type of pluralistic approach and language of instruction.

  • Target group: From pre-primary to upper secondary and beyond
  • Subjects: Foreign language education and subjects across the school’s curriculum

Tidligere sprogstart (early language learning)

Visit Tidligere sprogstart

Research-based and in practice tested teaching material for English, French and German, which takes into account plurilingual education. The material, available in Danish, focuses on early language learning and consists of a language passport, a language portfolio and individual activities integrated within the teaching descriptions. All plurilingual activities come with an answer key.

  • Target group: Primary school
  • Subjects: English, French and German

 

 

 

 

 

Researchers

Name Title Phone E-mail
Daryai-Hansen, Petra Associate Professor - Promotion Programme +4535334482 E-mail
Drachmann, Natascha PhD Fellow +4530237919 E-mail
Holmen, Anne Head of Centre, Professor +4535328174 E-mail

Other researchers

Line Krogager Andersen, postdoc, Department for the Study of CultureUniversity of Southern Denmark

Line Møller Daugaard, associated researcher, VIA University College

Tom Steffensen, associated researcher, University College Copenhagen

Funding

Independent research fund

Independent Research Fund Denmark, DFF-Research Project 2

Project period: 2020-2023
PI: Petra Daryai-Hansen

Teaching materials

Pupils

Do you need inspiration on how to integrate plurilingualism and plurilingual education in your teaching? See the plurilingual teaching material developed in the project for primary and secondary education or the project’s collection of existing plurilingual teaching materials for primary, secondary and tertiary education. The teaching materials are available for free.

Digital series of talks on plurilingualism and interculturality, spring and autumn 2021