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.