Language inclusion

Plurilingual education portal

Subject classification: this is an education resource.

Type classification: this resource is a course.

Initial activities

Activity 1

You are interested in professional mobility and will soon be moving to a new area (foreign country, overseas territory or cross-border region) where several languages are spoken. You are wondering how to adapt your teaching to include the specific linguistic features of the context in your teaching practices.

You will soon be welcoming Ömer, Mây, Hassan and Alida, all non-native speakers from different linguistic backgrounds. You are wondering how to include these learners in your class in order to value their first languages and facilitate their entry into the learning provided in the language of schooling...

List all the questions raised by these two situations, in relation to the multilingual and multicultural realities associated with them.

Activity 2

• Look at the following diagram (cf. Figure 1)

• What differences can you see between the terms ‘integration’ and ‘inclusion’? (You can start by analysing the other two representations, exclusion and segregation).

• What does the term ‘language inclusion’ mean in relation to this set of representations?

Objectives

By the end of this section, you should be able to...

• develop your teaching skills related to approaches to openness to linguistic diversity in a school context;
• better understand the importance of including your learners' first languages in your teaching and learning approaches;
• better understand concrete situations of language inclusion in the classroom through examples adapted to different socio-didactic contexts.

Keywords

Language and linguistic inclusion / First languages / Plural approaches / Comparative approaches to languages / Translanguaging practices.

Prerequisites

• Knowledge of language acquisition processes, particularly plurilingual acquisition;
• Teaching knowledge related to the specificities of second language teaching/learning.

Introduction: Language inclusion at the heart of teaching practices

Language inclusion refers to a teaching approach that aims to recognise and include the communication practices of plurilingual speakers, particularly in educational settings.

After briefly reviewing the evolution of this teaching concept, we will outline the different pedagogical approaches that teachers can use to better take into account the language practices of their learners within an inclusive approach. Finally, we will present the various challenges that educators and practitioners need to consider in order to optimize its implementation in the classroom.

Definition and history of the concept

The concept of language inclusion has gradually gained ground in the field of language teaching and, more broadly, in the field of education sciences: firstly, in line with the work carried out by Eddy Roulet in the 1980s, which encouraged teachers to make close links between pupils' mother tongues and the languages learned at school, and then in the wake of the work carried out by the Council of Europe on the development of plurilingual skills in the 2000s.

While the concept of linguistic inclusion focuses on the recognition of the plurality of languages within society (and ultimately within the school environment), the concept of language inclusion takes a broader view, taking into account the specific characteristics inherent in individuals' communication practices: when they use different language registers, resort to social and regional variations, and use other languages in the course of their exchanges. Language inclusion therefore focuses on how speakers/writers combine their different linguistic resources and skills to interact, both orally and in writing.

In education, this approach aims to value the diversity of learners' linguistic knowledge and language skills rather than limiting classroom interactions to a single reference model: communication exclusively in the language of schooling. In short, language inclusion seeks to make learning more equitable and enriching: it offers all learners, whether native or non-native speakers, an opening to linguistic and cultural diversity.

Implementation in the classroom

Language inclusion aims to adapt teaching approaches by valuing the language repertoire of all learners and allowing them to draw on their plurilingual skills in order to facilitate their access to subject knowledge. Several approaches can be used to achieve this:

• Plural approaches (CARAP, 2012):
  • language awareness (Balsiger, Bétrix Kölher & De Pietro, 2012), which enables learners, from an early age, to discover different cultural worlds and language systems (those of their classmates or from other geographical backgrounds);
  • intercomprehension between related languages (Castagne & Monneret, 2021), which encourages connections between users of the same language family (e.g. speakers/writers of Slavic languages);
  • the intercultural approach, which aims at making the classroom a place of exchange and learning enriched by cultural diversity (Causa, 2023);
  • integrated teaching (Candelier, Manno & Escudé, 2023), which seeks to create synergy between the different modern languages taught in a school (e.g. Italian, French and English in a secondary school in Italy);

• Translanguaging practices (Dall'Aglio and Pogranova, 2022), which promote the complementary use of several languages, enabling learners to use all the languages they know in different learning situations (e.g. to reformulate the course of a scientific experiment).

Didactic challenges

The implementation of language inclusion in educational practices raises several challenges and requires a number of adjustments:

• Increased training for teachers so that they can better understand the phenomena of plurlingual language acquisition and the foundations of plurilingual teaching, and so that they can gradually develop concrete teaching practices (Galligani & Vlad, 2020);
• A focus on teaching tools so that teachers can better include, during learning and assessment phases, the languages of first socialisation of learners and those they are learning concurrently in school (Penloup, Miguel Addisu & Kervyn, 2022);
• The involvement of the entire educational community and families in building strong partnerships (both inside and outside school), in order to show that the inclusion of linguistic and cultural identities is everyone's business (Auger & Le Pichon, 2021).

Take home messages

In a school context, language inclusion is a teaching approach that enables learners to use all their language skills to learn more effectively. It values language variation and plurilingual practices in order to make education more enriching and equitable.

Self-assessment

• Make sure you understand the nuances between the concepts of ‘linguistic inclusion’ and ‘language inclusion’. What is the difference between them?
  • Linguistic inclusion contributes to the identification and recognition of the languages of plurilingual learners through educational activities that engage and showcase them.
  • Language inclusion, on the other hand, emphasises the ability of students to use their pluilingual skills in a complementary and transferable way between languages, so that they feel included in all the tasks proposed, with a focus on accessibility to knowledge, particularly in a target language other than their first language of socialisation.

• What teaching approaches promote the inclusion of learners' first languages throughout the teaching and learning cycles?
  • integrated language teaching
  • intercomprehension
  • language awareness
  • the intercultural approach
  • support for translanguaging practices

• What challenges must the education sector address to ensure that teachers‘ teaching practices are increasingly inclusive of learners’ linguistic and cultural diversity?
  • Train teachers in approaches that enable the linguistic inclusion of all learners
  • Take into account the diverse multicultural and plurlingual contexts of classrooms
  • Involve parents and the entire educational community in this inclusive implementation

Resources for further reading

• Auger, N. &  Le Pichon, E. (2021). Défis et richesses des classes multilingues : Construire des ponts entre les cultures. ESF sciences humaines.
• Auger, N. (2020). Enseigner à des élèves plurilingues : vers une didactique inclusive. In C. Mendonça-Dias, B. Azaoui & F. Chnane-Davin (Eds.), Allophonie. Inclusion et langues des enfants migrants à l’école (pp. 171-183). Éditions Lambert-Lucas.
• Benavente Ferrera, S., Calvo del Olmo, F.,Frisan, E.H., Manole, V., Marielly Rocha da Cunha, K. & Sheeren, H. (2024). Voyage en langues romanes. Plurilinguisme, interculturel, intercompréhension. Didier.
• Blanchet, P. & Clerc Conan, S.  (2015). Passer de l’exclusion à l’inclusion : des expériences réussies d’éducation à et par la diversité linguistique à l’école. Migrations Société, 162(6), 49-70.
• Châteaureynaud M-A., & Piot, C. (2022). Penser la didactique du plurilinguisme : quel enjeu pour une école plus inclusive ? Dossier thématique. Revue Reliance, 1. INSPE Bordeaux.
• Mendonça-Diaz, C., Azzaoui, B., & Chnane-Davin, F. (Eds.) (2020). Allophone. Inclusion et langues des enfants migrants à l’école. Éditions Lambert-Lucas.
• Stratilaki-Klein, S., & Nicolas, Cl. (2020). Plurilinguisme et inclusion scolaire. GIP-FCIP de Paris.
• UNESCO. (1994). Déclaration de Salamanque et cadre d’action pour l’éducation et les besoins spéciaux. Unesco. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000098427_fre    

Bibliography

Balsiger, C., Bétrix Köhler, D. & De Pietro, J-F. (2012). Eveil aux langues et approches plurielles. De la formation des enseignants aux pratiques de classe. L’harmattan.

Candelier, M., Manno, G. & Escudé, P. (2023). La didactique intégrée des langues : Apprendre une langue avec d’autres langues ? ADEB. http://www.adeb-asso.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2023-La-didactique-Int%C3%A9gr%C3%A9e-des-langues.pdf

Candelier, M., Camilleri-Grima, A., Castellotti, V., de Pietro, J. F., Lörincz, I., Meissner, F. J., ... & Noguerol, A. (2007). Cadre de Référence pour les Approches Plurielles des Langues et des Cultures. Strasbourg: Centre Européen pour les Langues Vivantes/Conseil de l’Europe.

Castagne, E. & Monneret, P. (2021). Intercompréhension et analogie. De Boeck supérieur.

Causa, M. (2003). « Éducation plurilingue et interculturelle et transmission de/en langues : quel discours formatif ? », Didactique du FLES [Online], Hors-série 1 | 2023, Online since 20 juin 2023. https://www.ouvroir.fr/dfles/index.php?id=587  

Dall’Aglio, V. & Pogranova, S. (2022). Translanguaging. Constats et enjeux de terrain in Geiger-Jaillet, A; Fonseca Favre, M. Vaissière, S. & Verney, Y (dir.) (2022). Abécédaire des gestes professionnels dans l’enseignement bi/plurilingue. ADEB. https://www.adeb-asso.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Translanguaging.pdf

Galligani, S. & Vlad, M. (2020). Didactique du plurilinguisme et formation des enseignants : contextes, dispositifs et perspectives - Le Français dans le monde : Recherches et applications, n°67. CLE International.

Penloup, M-C., Miguel Addisu, V. & Kervyn,B. (dir.) (2022). Élèves plurilingues en classes ordinaires : outils et questions pour la didactique du français. Repères, n° 65, 2022, 252 p., Lyon, ENS Éditions.

Roulet, E. (1980). Langue maternelle et langues secondes : vers une pédagogie intégrée. Paris : Hatier : CREDIF.

Credits

This resource has been created by Projet PEP (discuss • contribs) (Erasmus+ project, co-financed by the European Commission) :

• Thierry Gaillat (université de La Réunion)
• Laura Uribe (université de La Réunion et université de Mayotte).