Abstract
Resumo
Due to its geographical position, bordering Austria and Switzerland, South Tyrol has never been a linguistically homogeneous region. Since the early 1990s, however, its linguistic landscape has become increasingly heterogeneous. This evolving multilingual reality has significant implications for the educational institutions of the territory, which are increasingly called to respond to students’ diverse linguistic repertoires and to foster plurilingual competences.
In this context, the project “One School, Many Languages” (SMS 2.0) adresses students and teachers alike and aims at promoting acceptance of linguistic diversity, fostering interest in languages and cultures, enhancing lingustic awareness (Hélot et al., 2018), increasing metalinguistic awareness through exposure to and reflection on linguistic contact in South Tyrolean schools. The project also aligns with recent European policy recommendations advocating for the inclusion of both majority and heritage languages within formal education systems.
This contribution, aligned with the thematic area of Cross-border Didactics, presents a set of interactive, game-based didactic materials grounded in the principles of plurilingual education (Beacco et al., 2016) and draw on the Éveil aux langues pluralistic approach (Candelier et al., 2012). The didactic ressources are framed within the descriptors and competence areas defined in the Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures – FREPA (ibid.), which provides a systematic description of competences and resources which should be developed within the perspective of a plurilingual and intercultural education. These materials are mainly designed for lower secondary school students (aged 11 to 14) and aim to stimulate curiosity and appreciation for all languages, irrespective of their status or presence in the curriculum.
At the same time, they materials offer teachers flexible, creative tools to address linguistic diversity in an inclusive and playful manner, encouraging reflection on language proximity, on differences, and on the dynamic nature of linguistic contact —including local and distant languages. In this view, schools become places of linguistic encounter, where languages, varieties and dialects coexist, including those that are not institutionally recognized or formally taught and function as spaces for extreme linguistic awareness.
The materials address the topics of i.e. etymology, writing systems of the world, linguistic diversity in Europe and its lesser-used languages. The resources are available in German and Italian, but include references to more than 90 additional languages and will be published on the project website in September freely downloadable. Their design supports a more nuanced and appreciative understanding of the region’s linguistic complexity, and aims at contibuting to the development of a multilingual mindset among students and teachers alike.
Although the contribution does not present empirical data, the materials are based on a solid conceptual framework informed by plurilingual education, pluricultural competence, and comparative language didactics. While initially developed for the South Tyrolean context, the materials are adaptable to other cross-border and pluricultural contexts.