Conférence

Plurilingualism as an Anti-Discriminatory Pedagogical Approach for Learner Empowerment

Professeure Angelica Galante

Faculty of Education, Plurilingual Lab

McGill University

Professeure Galante peut comprendre vos questions en français.

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Recent research in language education and applied linguistics has repeatedly called for language pedagogy that responds to the needs of multilingual and multicultural societies, with a focus on social justice and anti-discrimination. One theoretical and pedagogical framework that has gained much attention is plurilingualism. In this presentation, I will explain what plurilingualism is, how it differs from other approaches (e.g., multilingual), and why it is important in language teaching and learning to overcome linguistic, cultural and racial discrimination. I will later present results of empirical studies conducted in English, French, and Spanish language classes to show how contextualized plurilingual pedagogy can empower learners. Results of these studies reveal that plurilingual pedagogy supported diversity of thinking and enhanced learner’s cognition, criticality, empathy, and language learning, among other factors. Teachers in these studies unanimously showed preference for plurilingual pedagogy compared to other approaches as it encouraged deep reflection of their own teaching, shifting their mindsets to embrace decoloniality and learner inclusion. Results also show that plurilingual pedagogy facilitated language development, allowing learners to take pride in their diverse identities and see themselves as empowered agents who flexibly use their repertoire depending on purpose, interlocutors, context, and emotional state. Finally, I argue that collectively language teachers can take small impactful steps in their classrooms to bring about social change for more inclusive societies.

Angelica Galante est professeure associée en enseignement des langues au Département d'études intégrées en éducation de l'Université McGill. Ses recherches portent sur la pédagogie des langues dans des contextes multilingues, les facteurs sociaux dans le développement du langage et les compétences plurilingues et pluriculturelles. Elle est la fondatrice et directrice du Laboratoire plurilingue, où elle mène des études et mobilise les résultats de la recherche, et le site web Breaking the Invisible Wall avec des tâches linguistiques disponibles utilisées dans ses recherches antérieures qui peuvent être adaptées et appliquées en classe de langue. Elle est récipiendaire du prestigieux prix Pat Clifford pour son leadership exceptionnel dans la recherche sur le développement professionnel des enseignants en pédagogie plurilingue. Son travail peut être trouvé, entre autres, dans des revues Applied Linguistics, TESOL Quarterly, International Journal of Multilinguism et Applied Linguistics Review.