Promoting plurilingualism in the majority language classroom - MARILLE

The text by Alto, Tatjana, Boeckmann and Lamb developes new ideas and approaches in the area of plurilingualism in the language classroom  and claims that this is an important issue for most teachers all around Europe.

MARILLE is a project and wants to develop the majority language classroom into a more plurilingual kind of. It  was, from the beginning, planned as a project that should collect the practical knowledge and the classroom experiences of teachers from different countries and provide structure to this knowledge.

Main Ideas:

- In many classrooms, the learners do not share a common linguistic base: Everyday more we live in a multicultural world plenty of different languages and we can share our own experiences and culture at class.

-  It is needed an environment in which learners can be proud of their own plurilingualism and an education which promotes plurilingualism concerns all learners and also all subjects.: Nowone must think it is better than the others.

- A multilingual group brings along both challenges and resources for majority language classrooms: the classroom requires inclusive, diferentiated practice and language diversity management in the classroom.

- Language teachers, rather than perceiving themselves as just teachers of one specfic language, should see themselves as general language experts prepared to promote all language development: Teachers must learn constantly not only on the language they are teachers but also in all the subjects they can be involve. It is desirable to know as much as you can.

8 Key Expressions:

1. Language of instruction.
2. More inclusive ‘majority’ language classroom environment,
3. Cultural backgrounds.
4. Plurilingualism.
5. Sense of esteem and respect.
6. Pedagogical thinking.
7. Language-oriented lessons.
8. Virtual networking opportunities.

Child-centered Education

The study from the Köck Private Fundation about Children-centered education gives us a general idea of why learning is intinctive for children and how they learn by playing, by being inquisitive using their own needs and desires and through discovering their own reality.

The article claims that the basic principle of this kind of education is to discover and potenciate the optimal development of a child's personality and education.

5 Principles of Child-centred education:

1. Orientation on the needs of the children.
2. Active self-regulated learning.
3. Well designed learning environment.
4. Social learning as a method and a goal.
5. Broad understanding of performance and ability.
6. Adressing performance assessments in an encouraging manner.
7. Conductive school comunity.

3 Main ideas of the article and why they are important for me:

1. Active self regulated learning: The child-centred education helps the children to develop their personality and competencies and also, his needs and individual requirements from theirselfs.
2. Social learning as a method and a goal: This is goog to learn how to share their ideas and how to learn asking help if needed when  doing an exercise in class.
3. Adressing performance assesment in an encouraging manner: If a kid know why he is doing something wrong and the way to solve it in a positive way he would not be afraid of trying.

5 Key Expression:

1. Capable of enabling independent.
2. Sensitive growth stages.
3. Class advisory board.
4. Development of independent and meaningful strategies instead of mechanic-receptive learning.
5. Judgmental evaluation.

During my years of education as a teacher and pupil, I could not see any child-centred learning. I think it is really a good way to envolve our classrooms and to teach English.