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).

Based on findings from the PE-LAL project and discussions with stakeholders across the Danish educational system at a workshop in the project’s final phase, Daryai-Hansen, Drachmann & Krogager Andersen (2023) have set up Recommendations to strengthen plurilingual education in language subjects in primary and secondary education in Denmark.

 

Associate professor and PI Petra Daryai-Hansen, University of Copenhagen
Associate professor and project leader Petra Daryai-Hansen, University of Copenhagen
PhD fellow Natascha Drachmann, University of Copenhagen
PhD fellow
Natascha Drachmann, University of Copenhagen
Postdoc Line Krogager Andersen, University of Southern Denmark
Postdoc Line Krogager Andersen, University of Southern Denmark. Photo: David Binzer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The project will establish a collaboration with a National and an International Advisory Board representing leading national and international researchers within the field of plurilingual education:

Members of the national advisory board (NAB):

Members of the international advisory board (IAB):

  • Professor Nathalie Auger, Université Paul-Valéry
  • Professor Åsta Haukås, Universitetet i Bergen
  • Professor Britta Hufeisen, Technische Universität Darmstadt
  • Professor Ulrike Jessner-Schmid, Universität Innsbruck
  • Professor Beate Lindemann, UiT Norges arktiske universitet
  • Associate Professor Christine Erna Elisabeth Möller-Omrani, Høgskulen på Vestlandet 
  • Professor Danièle Moore, Simon Fraser University
  • Professor Anne Pitkänen-Huhta, Jyväskylän yliopisto
  • Professor Heike Speitz, Universitetet i Sørøst-Norge

The members of the NAB and IAB represent and will contribute to bring together several key theoretical approaches within the field and have curriculum expertise from different contexts.

 

 

 

 

Atlantbib

Visit Atlantbib

Atlantbib is a book project, developed in collaboration between schools in the Nordic and Baltic countries, consisting of online non-fiction books in Danish, Norwegian (Bokmål, Nynorsk), Swedish, Elvish, Icelandic, Finnish, Faroese, Greenlandic, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Frisian, German and different variants of Sami. On the site, students can write, translate and audio record books, but also read books written by other students. The site also contains various activities related to the non-fiction books.

  • Target group: Primary and lower secondary education
  • Subjects: All subjects across the school’s curriculum

Kulturbib

Visit Kulturbib

Kulturbib is a book project, developed in collaboration between schools on both sides of the Danish-German border, consisting of online e-books in Danish and German. All books are translated into both languages. The e-books focus on different topics within all school subjects, and several books have a special intercomprehension focus on Danish and German as neighboring languages.

  • Target group: Primary and lower secondary education
  • Subjects: All subjects across the school’s curriculum

Kulturakademi

Visit the teaching platform

Kulturakademi is a teaching platform in the Danish/German border region and contains teaching materials with a special focus on intercomprehension between related languages. The teaching materials are related to different themes dealing with Danish and German as neighboring languages.

  • Target group: From primary to secondary to tertiary education
  • Subjects: Danish and German

Knowledge bank on plurilingual education and translanguaging

Visit the knowledge bank (in Danish)

The National Centre for Foreign Languages has developed a knowledge bank with inspiration on how to work with plurilingual education and translanguaging in language teaching. The bank includes a theme booklet on plurilingualism and teaching materials for primary and lower secondary education as well as for teacher education.

  • Target group: From primary to lower secondary education and teacher education
  • Subjects: Danish, Danish as a second language, English, French, German and Spanish

Resource kit on plurilingualism in foreign language education

Visit the resource kit (in Danish)

The National Centre for Foreign Languages has developed resource kits on key topics within foreign language pedagogy and didactics, including a resource kit on plurilingualism. The kit consists of an introductory video on plurilingualism in the target languages, reflection questions, examples of tasks and activities for foreign language teaching as well as references to relevant literature.

  • Target group: From primary to lower secondary education and teacher education
  • Subjects: English, French, German and Spanish

Teaching material for the ‘General Language Awareness’ course

Visit the materials (in Danish)

As a result of a development project on plurilingual education in the ‘General Language Awareness’ course (Almen Sprogforståelse) in upper secondary school, the project’s teaching materials have been collected in a teaching material bank. The bank contains seven teaching modules, all based on pluralistic approaches to languages. The modules focus on different linguistic phenomena (e.g. morphology, syntax, language history) integrated in different themes (e.g. love, food, fairy tales and fables).

  • Target group: Upper secondary education
  • Subject: ‘General Language Awareness’ course 

Learning corner

Visit Learning corner

Learning corner is a database, managed by the European Union, consisting of teaching materials, games and quizzes in the 24 official languages of the EU. The materials can be selected based on the criteria: age group, topic, type of material. As the database contains texts translated into a wide range of languages, it is a good place to start to find texts that can be worked with in parallel in multiple languages.

  • Target group: From primary to tertiary education
  • Subjects: Danish, foreign languages and subjects across the school’s curriculum

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

 

 

Based on an abductive approach (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012) synthesizing existing theoretical conceptualizations within the field and empirical findings, the PE-LAL project has developed a conceptualization of students’ language awareness across educational levels in the context of plurilingual education.

Conceptualization of students’ language awareness across educational levels in the context of plurilingual education (Daryai-Hansen, Drachmann & Krogager Andersen, 2024)

The theoretically and empirically based conceptualization consists of:

  1. The context of plurilingual education
  2. The concept of students’ language awareness across educational levels

1. The context: Plurilingual education

Drawing on a further development of Candelier et al. (2010), plurilingual education reflects a continuum of three pluralistic approaches to languages and a transversal dimension:


2. The concept of students’ language awareness across educational levels

Drawing on van Lier (1998, 2004) and empirical findings from the PE-LAL project, language awareness can be manifested as:

  • Practical language awareness (PLA)
  • Metalinguistic awareness (MLA)
  • Critical language awareness (CLA)

The three dimensions of language awareness can be directed towards nine language levels. By further developing Daryai-Hansen, Drachmann & Meidell Sigsgaard (2019), the language levels cover the complex language system and distinguish between sociolinguistics at a micro and a macro level (Swann et al., 2004).

The conceptualization illustrates that students’ language awareness evolves becoming more complex. Thus, the conceptualization visualizes an age-related complexification of students’ language awareness.

See the following publication if you want to learn more about the PE-LAL project’s conceptualization:

Daryai-Hansen, P., Drachmann, N. & Krogager Andersen, L. (2024). Conceptualizing Students’ Language Awareness across Educational Levels in the Context of Plurilingual Education: Within- and Cross-Case Findings from Grades 1, 7 and 11. Language Awareness. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2023.2300268