Language Centres at a Crossroads

Globalization has led to a surge in language learning opportunities across the board, from bilingual elementary schools to multiple languages acquired in high school to English medium programs in higher education. While some critics bemoan the excessive focus on English or the drawback of pushing the child into a second or additional language before having acquired literacy in their first language, the increase in interconnectedness will continue to drive this process of internationalization. At the same time, a heightened degree of superdiversity (Blommaert & Rampton, 2012) poses challenges at the level of community organization and peaceful coexistence. Language Centers thus have a critical role to play by offering language and culture training in multiple languages to students, professionals and the wider community. They may do so from the perspective of developing plurilingual pluricultural competence (Council of Europe 2018), translingual transcultural competence (MLA; 2007) or intercultural communicative competence and intercultural citizenship (Byram 2014). This paper takes as its framework translingual transcultural competence, which not only reflects the current trend of transnationalism and diasporic communities, but also emphasizes the need to be critically aware, culturally reflective and socially sensitive. In order to better understand affordances and challenges in developing this competence, or set of competencies, the presenter collected data from students and teachers at one university affiliated language center offering 30 languages besides German as the main language of study. Whereas the student survey investigated awareness and attitude, identity and community as well as autonomy and agency of students in the program, teacher interviews provided insights into program parameters, classroom pedagogy and out-of-class projects. Students at all proficiency levels as well as native and non-native teachers of the language taught were included in the study. Findings from the study will be of interest to program directors and language teachers as well as researchers interested in mixed-methods design. The presentation will conclude by highlighting some key take-aways from the study, offering suggestions for incorporating translingual transcultural competence into both the curriculum and extra-curricular activities, and emphasizing the need for creating a multilingual multicultural multimodal community of practice on and off campus.

Translinguistische transkulturelle Kompetenz, die Fähigkeit, sich in mehr als einer Sprache und Kultur frei und bewußt bewegen zu können, wenn auch nicht in gleichem Maße, ist eine Kernkompetenz in unserer heutigen Zeit. Die Präsentation soll veranschaulichen, wie diese Kompetenz an einem universitären Sprachenzentrum, das neben der Hauptsprache Deutsch über 30 Fremdsprachen anbietet, verstanden, vermittelt und praktiziert wird. Basierend auf Daten aus einer Umfrage unter Studierenden und Interviews mit Lehrenden werden die Aspekte von Sprache, Kultur, Identität, Handlungsvermögen und Gemeinschaft behandelt. Teilnehmende erhalten Einblick in das Zusammenspiel von Programmbausteinen und deren Umsetzung, Unterrichtsphilosophie und Pädagogik, Vorgeschichte und Motivation der Studierenden im Zusammenhang mit der Entwicklung von Selbstsicherheit, Kompetenz und kritischem Bewußtsein unter den Sprachlernenden.

References:

• Blommaert, J. & Rampton, B. (2011). Language and Superdiversity. Diversities 13(2), 1-22.
• Byram, M. (2014). Twenty-five years on – from cultural studies to intercultural citizenship. Language, Culture and Curriculum 27(3): 209-225.
• Council of Europe (2018). CEFR Companion Volume with New Descriptors. Retrieved from https://rm.coe.int/cefr-companion-volume-with-new-descriptors-2018/1680787989
• MLA Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages. (2007). Foreign languages and higher education: New structures for a changed world. Retrieved from http://www.mla.org/pdf/forlang_news_pdf

KUNSCHAK, Claudia, PhD, is Professor at the College of International Relations at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. She received her MA in Interpreting from the University of Vienna (1992) and her PhD in Education from the University of Arizona (2003). Having taught at universities in Austria, China, Scotland, Spain, Ukraine and US, she is the recipient of two teaching awards from Universidad Europea de Madrid, Spain, and Shantou University, China. Her research interests include intercultural communication, multilingualism and English Lingua Franca.