Emerging Multilingual Awareness in Educational Contexts: From Theory to Practice

• Published in: Canadian modern language review Vol. 71; no. 3; pp. 157 - 182
• Main Authors: Jessner, Ulrike, Allgäuer-Hackl, Elisabeth, Hofer, Barbara
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Toronto Press 01.08.2015
• Subjects: Children; Class Activities; Contrastive Linguistics; Foreign Countries; Geographic Regions; Metalinguistics; Multilingualism; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Teaching Methods; Theory Practice Relationship; Switzerland; Austria
• DOI: 10.3138/cmlr.2746
• ISSN: 0008-4506

The aim of this article is to stress the importance of a dynamic systems or complexity theory approach as a necessary prerequisite to understanding the development of multi-competence in multilingual learners. Selected results from a study on emergent multilingual awareness in children, carried out in South Tyrol, are outlined and discussed. The classroom activities described in the second part, which were developed mainly in an Austrian school context, focus on multilingual, i.e., metalinguistic and cross-linguistic, awareness and show that multilingual approaches to teaching and learning are linked to significant benefits at the linguistic and metalinguistic levels.