LFU:online

In this course students will study how languages are learnt in a multilingual context. 

The students will develop an understanding of critical pedagogy and of how decentering and decolonizing teaching practices feed into social justice. This course will present the language teaching practice as one that can cut across disciplines and is very well positioned to create teaching materials.

In this course students will arrive at an understanding of language learning as a dynamic and complex process and the foundations of multiple language learning and intercultural communication, in particular in heritage language learning contexts. They will become familiar with different theoretical concepts of language learning.

Students will familiarize themselves with a DMM-based language teaching and learning approach, the Five Building Blocks of Holistic Language Education/Learning, which visualises the relationship between linguistic and cognitive processes and enables teachers and learners to reflect on language acquisition and use in order to develop multilingual awareness.

The main focus of the course will be on awareness raising activities, in the area of language learning processes, language learning strategies and the teacher capacity to select themes and topics that facilitate and develop knowledge on and engagement with sustainability in several interdependent areas.

The methods which will be applied in the course range from discussions, group work and presentations which will involve learning groups from both universities within the framework of a COIL-approach of teaching and learning.

Students will be able to present their ideas and findings in presentations (this could include video-essays) and will have the opportunity to engage in collaborative work online with (other) students from a culturally and linguistically different university context. They will also be able to make their work visible to the wider community by having the opportunity to publish it in either Lingua Bytes or the Sustainable Teaching Network webpages. These websites were created with the aim to support diversity, inclusion and sustainability, and are very adequate platforms to engage students as partners in resource creation and in reflective teaching practices that can be easily shared with the wider community.

This course is a great opportunity to hone students’ teaching skills, but also their mentoring and presentation/communicative skills. The international collaborative dimension of the work will be framed under the COIL approach, which enhances intercultural student interaction through proven approaches to meaningful online engagement. It will help to identify similarities and differences in perspectives on the topics for discussion. It will also help the students articulate new insights gained as a result of working within an international team and evaluate the experience of working with peers in a partner university. This will cover aspects such as styles in communication and the impact and implications of communicating in an online context, negotiating misunderstandings, different opinions, peer support and reflecting on what collaboration meant in practice.

These Learning Outcomes have been formulated in alignment with the Aurora Competence Framework (LOUIS) which is based on the VALUE rubrics developed by the AAC&U. Those relevant to this course to a greater or lesser extent are Civic Engagement, Critical thinking, Ethical Reasoning, Global Learning, Intercultural knowledge.

Students are able to analyze knowledge (facts, theories, etc.) from one's own academic field an make relevant connections to civic engagement and to one's own participation in civic life, politics, and government. 

A COIL approach will enrich this partnership by bringing an internationalisation-at-home collaborative dimension to the teaching and learning. This is increasingly seen as a tool to enhance the graduate skills of students, alongside other 21st-century skills such as intercultural communication, critical thinking and conflict resolution.

The gains on general competences such as intercultural sensitivity, integrative/global learning, critical thinking, oral/written communication could be used beyond the context of the topics of multilingualism and sustainable teaching. These competences will not be content or discipline-bound.

permanent engagement in class, group work, presentations

Manan, S. A. (2020). "Teachers as agents of transformative pedagogy: Critical reflexivity, activism and multilingual spaces through a continua of biliteracy lens." Multilingua 39(6): 721-747.

Jessner, U. & E. Allgäuer-Hackl (2020) Multilingual awareness and metacognition in multilingually diverse classrooms. Journal of Multilingual Theories and Practices 1:1, 66-88. https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JMTP/article/view/17285/20409

Jessner, U., Allgaeuer-Hackl, E. and Hofer, B. (2016) Emerging multilingual awareness in educational contexts: From theory to practice. Canadian Modern Language Review 72:2, 157-182.

Hufeisen, B. and U. Jessner (2018) The psycholinguistics of multilingualism: Learning and teaching multiple languages (65-100). In Aronin, L. and D. Singleton (eds.) Twelve Lectures of Multilingualism. Bristol: Multilingual Matter

Positive completion of mandatoty module 10

regular attendance required; attendance first session obligatory