Page 230 - Ana Kozina and Nora Wiium, eds. ▪︎ Positive Youth Development in Contexts. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2021. Digital Library, Dissertationes (Scientific Monographs), 42.
P. 230
positive youth development in contexts
foreign-language anxiety, as well as studies that investigated the role played
by emotions and feelings in (foreign) language learning, including the PP
perspective, we proposed some points of intersection with the PYD per-
spective as well. More attention to language context could extend the PYD
approach’s usefulness to help better understand the strengths of the young
people, especially those with an immigrant background.
In the first part of the article, we described the main aspects of mul-
tilingualism, the complexity of the concept on the levels of scope, termi-
nology and its successful integration with research in the social psychol-
ogy field. At the same time and via the concept of translanguaging and
plurilingualism, we also outlined multilingualism’s involvement in educa-
tion, chiefly as a basis for inclusive education. Although the school envi-
ronment, at least in Slovenia, is often still perceived as monoglossic with
Slovenian as both the language of schooling and the majority language, the
presence of different languages at school (as a learning content or means of
communication) and the growing number of students with an immigrant
background proves that we cannot speak of a monolingual environment.
Policies and practices that only aim to ensure optimised conditions for the
language of schooling and the language of the majority, while acknowledg-
ing other languages m erely at the level of elite multilingualism (i.e., lan-
guages that hold socio-cultural significance in the educational context),
will inevitably exclude a large share of the population for these speakers to
be able to mobilise their entire language repertoires to successfully acquire
knowledge and skills, interact better and positively contribute to civil so-
ciety – as interdisciplinary research on multilingualism’s benefits clearly
shows. Nevertheless, this paradigm shift can only happen when we recog-
nise and systematically support the existence of a plurilingual repertoire in
the school environment when we adopt the multilingual classroom as the
norm. From a global perspective, Christine Hélot and Muiris Ó Laoire ex-
plain what this means for language policy:
Adopting the multilingual classroom as the norm means ac-
knowledging diversity and changing identities in migration con-
texts, recognising the potential of the multilingual classroom
ecology in language education, transcending the traditional so-
cio-cultural barriers in the implementation of a multilingual cur-
riculum, defending the positioning of teachers’ policies, exploit-
ing students’ metalinguistic awareness at the pedagogical level
230
foreign-language anxiety, as well as studies that investigated the role played
by emotions and feelings in (foreign) language learning, including the PP
perspective, we proposed some points of intersection with the PYD per-
spective as well. More attention to language context could extend the PYD
approach’s usefulness to help better understand the strengths of the young
people, especially those with an immigrant background.
In the first part of the article, we described the main aspects of mul-
tilingualism, the complexity of the concept on the levels of scope, termi-
nology and its successful integration with research in the social psychol-
ogy field. At the same time and via the concept of translanguaging and
plurilingualism, we also outlined multilingualism’s involvement in educa-
tion, chiefly as a basis for inclusive education. Although the school envi-
ronment, at least in Slovenia, is often still perceived as monoglossic with
Slovenian as both the language of schooling and the majority language, the
presence of different languages at school (as a learning content or means of
communication) and the growing number of students with an immigrant
background proves that we cannot speak of a monolingual environment.
Policies and practices that only aim to ensure optimised conditions for the
language of schooling and the language of the majority, while acknowledg-
ing other languages m erely at the level of elite multilingualism (i.e., lan-
guages that hold socio-cultural significance in the educational context),
will inevitably exclude a large share of the population for these speakers to
be able to mobilise their entire language repertoires to successfully acquire
knowledge and skills, interact better and positively contribute to civil so-
ciety – as interdisciplinary research on multilingualism’s benefits clearly
shows. Nevertheless, this paradigm shift can only happen when we recog-
nise and systematically support the existence of a plurilingual repertoire in
the school environment when we adopt the multilingual classroom as the
norm. From a global perspective, Christine Hélot and Muiris Ó Laoire ex-
plain what this means for language policy:
Adopting the multilingual classroom as the norm means ac-
knowledging diversity and changing identities in migration con-
texts, recognising the potential of the multilingual classroom
ecology in language education, transcending the traditional so-
cio-cultural barriers in the implementation of a multilingual cur-
riculum, defending the positioning of teachers’ policies, exploit-
ing students’ metalinguistic awareness at the pedagogical level
230
