Málfríður - 15.03.2005, Qupperneq 29
MÁLFRÍÐUR 29
us to be able to successfully interact with people with
other languages and cultures. In fact, that is what
language education is all about: making languages
a means of open communication, and providing
access to people from diverse linguistic and cultural
backgrounds. With this understanding, we see that
the slogan from the European Year of Languages
– LANGUAGES OPEN DOORS – can become a real-
ity in the future.
References
Cortazzi, M. and L. Jin. 1996. ‘Cultures of learning: language class-
rooms in China’ in Coleman, H. (ed.): Society and the Language
Classroom. Cambridge University Press.
Foreign Language Teaching in Schools in Europe. Eurydice, The
Information Network on Education in Europe, 2001.
Heyworth, F. 2003. ‘Introduction – A new paradigm for language
education’ in Facing the Future – Language Educators across Europe.
European Centre for Modern Languages, Council of Europe Publishing.
Tinsley, T. 2003. ‘Language policies for a multicultural society’ in
Facing the Future – Language Educators across Europe. European Centre
for Modern Languages, Council of Europe Publishing.
A new paradigm for language teaching
Old model New model
• Focus on nation-state and national
language as source of identity
• Emphasis on European citizenship and the
plurilingual individual
• Multilingualism is a problem for society • Multilingualism enriches society
• Assumes learners start from
monolingual base
• Takes into account diverse language
experiences outside the classroom as a basis
for continued learning
• Bilingualism and diverse cultural back-
grounds ‘silenced’
• Bilingualism and diverse cultural back-
grounds celebrated
• Bilingual children’s education is seen
as problematic – focus is on developing
national language
• Bilingualism welcomed – focus on developing
ability in mother tongue as well as other
languages
• Speakers of other languages are ‘foreign’ • Speaking another language is the norm
• Learning another language is difficult • Learning another language is the norm
• Near-native speaker competence is the
ultimate goal
• Even low levels of competence are valuable
and add to communicative repertoire – to be
built on throughout life
• Language teaching focuses mainly on
linguistic goals. Cultural element tends
to be weak, or focused solely on ‘high’
culture. Static view of culture
• Language teaching has strong cultural
element and includes intercultural awareness.
Dynamic view of culture
• Language learning focuses narrowly on
one language at a time
• Language learning focuses on links between
languages, and on developing language
awareness
• Language learning tends to be elitist and
problematic for the majority
• Language learning can be successful for
everyone
(Tinsley, 2003)