Page 34 - Linguistically Diverse Educational Contexts

LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS
tongue but have a highly developed plurilingual competence, and conversely, one can speak two foreign (prestigious) languages to an advanced degree and have low plurilingual competence (Kotarba- Kańczugowska, 2015, pp. 12–13). A plurilingual person has the following competences:
• linguistic;
• communicative;
• cultural;
• developed linguistic awareness; the purpose of developing linguistic awareness is to help
understand how language works, its functions and universal features.
In order to build plurilingual competence, learners' linguistic and cultural experiences need to be integrated into everyday educational practice. This could take the form of a platform that incorporates diversity-based pedagogy into our activities, through which we could broaden our view of cultural diversity and increase our acceptance of the outsider, since, as Hunfeld (1999, pp. 6–7) points out, the phenomenon of the "normality of the stranger" is possible but requires interculturally oriented educational programmes. However, as research conducted by N. Santoro and A. Allard (2005) and M. Hagan and C. Mc Glynn (2004) shows, teachers perceive deficiencies in their training and competences in working with linguistically and culturally diverse groups (my experience suggests that this is still a topical issue), and thus are not able to shape pluricultural competence in all students.
Article 5 of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and the aforementioned White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue "Living Together Equal in Dignity" (2001) states the following:
Cultural rights are an integral part of human beings, universal, indivisible and interdependent. The development of creative diversity requires the full realisation of cultural rights, as they are defined in Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 13 and 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Everyone should therefore be able to express themselves, to create and to disseminate their activities in any language, and especially in their mother tongue; everyone has the right to education and training of an appropriate standard which fully respects his cultural identity; everyone has the right to participate in cultural life as he chooses and to pursue his own cultural practices, within the limits imposed by respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Article 6 adds:
While ensuring the free circulation of ideas in word and image, it shall be ensured that all cultures have the possibility of expression and of their own presentation. Freedom of expression, pluralism of the media, multilingualism, equal access to the arts, to scientific and technological material – including in digital form – and the possibility for all cultures to have access to expression and dissemination are a guarantee of the existence of cultural diversity.
The Main Lines of the Action Plan for the implementation of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity outlines the following objectives:
(5.) Protect the linguistic heritage of humanity – while respecting the mother tongue – at all levels of education, wherever possible, and encourage the learning of multiple languages from an early age [...].
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