Who is it for?
primary school pupils
primary school teachers
researchers in language
and education
policymakers
caregivers
Why is the project needed?
to draw on and support the growing linguistic diversity in European schools
to integrate pupils and all their languages into (language) learning processes
to trigger these processes in the primary years of schooling
to call for both professional development and practical materials for teachers
to raise awareness of the value of all languages
What is cross-linguistic mediation?
Practices that require a movement between two or more languages, as well as the meaning-making process that accompanies the decoding and/or relaying of a text (verbal or visual) in a given language
(Stathopoulou et al., 2023, p. 34).
Example of cross-linguistic mediation
oral
written
multimodal
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Learners may use their home language(s) to understand a message and then transfer it to the target language in writing or speaking.
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Retelling a fairy tale known to students in their home language(s) in the language they are learning, or vice versa.
Project aims
Overarching aim: To explore and compare, longitudinally, the ecologies of Icelandic and German teachers’ and learners’ plurilingual practices in the context of a cross-linguistic mediational intervention.
Teachers
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To explore the ecological affordances (situated resources and needs) of teachers in plurilingual educational contexts in Iceland and Germany
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To explore the dynamics of teachers’ attitudes towards, and engagement with, languages and plurilingual practices
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To foster collaboration with teachers to understand how to ecologically integrate cross-linguistic mediation to promote learners’ engagement with languages
Learners
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To explore the ecological affordances (situated resources and needs) of learners in plurilingual educational contexts in Iceland and Germany
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To explore the dynamics of learners’ attitudes towards, and engagement with, languages and plurilingual practices
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To support teacher–learner collaboration through exploratory practice regarding cross-linguistic mediation