Students’ knowledge about the world of languages: contribution of an interdisciplinary project to plurilingual education

Abstract

For a clearer understanding and improvement of the language teaching and learning process, a detailed study concerning intervention projects, undertaken in collaboration with teachers and students, adopting plurilingual and intercultural framework is essential.

We will describe such type of a project, adopting an interdisciplinary approach, during one school year with a class of 9^th grade students and aiming to: (i) facilitate the contact with situations which could positively influence students’ representations concerning linguistic and cultural diversity, and (ii) create, implement and evaluate strategies aiming at the development of students’ plurilingual competence.

In this article we will focus on the students’ (mis?)understanding about the world of languages before, during and after the project. The data collected from this case study (also with action-research features) were: questionnaire to the students, drawings, video recording of classes and transcription; worksheets filled in by the students; interviews to the students and final questionnaire to the students.

The results allowed us to reflect upon the resistances and motivations revealed on students’ conceptions and teachers’ practices, and the role of these conceptions in the construction of students’ knowledge. We will present possible outlines of pedagogical action, namely in terms of some of the most successful principles undertaken when preparing curricula in different educational environments and school subjects.