Page 41 - Linguistically Diverse Educational Contexts

thematic discourse, which in turn requires explicit instruction embedded in the specific contexts of the subjects concerned. Pluriliteracies can increase the potential for communication, knowledge, and understanding between learners because they address practices and values that are not equivalent or homogeneous across languages, but which are integrated, variable, and flexible. It therefore requires both the integration of unevenly developed linguistic competences in several languages and/or dialects and registers, as well as linguistic tolerance (Garcia et al., 2007, p. 2).
In Europe, two research groups working on CLIL and plurilingual education are the most active. These are the Graz Group research group at the European Centre for Modern Languages and the AILA CLIL REN (Research Network). Both of these research groups were initiated by Oliver Meyer.
The first concept developed by the research team of Oliver Meyer, Do Coyle, and Ana Halbach of the Graz Group in 2015 was A Pluriliteracies Approach to Teaching and Learning PTL. A pluriliteracies approach to learning-oriented teaching builds on the work of the New London Group (1996), Hornberger (2003), and Garcia et al. (2007). It develops the ability to read and write, understand, use, and engage with written texts in more than one language, thus contributing to deep learning and the development of transferable skills. This approach focuses on supporting learners in mastering subject content or topics and enabling them to understand them effectively through the lens of different cultures and languages (Meyer et al., 2015, p. 2). It is also acknowledged that learning subject content is about more than just passing on the content itself to students, since it is based on the idea that education should contribute to the development of learners. Therefore, subject content learning is not about listing facts, but about deepening students' conceptual understanding, which ultimately contributes to the acquisition and development of both universal skills and new ways of thinking. In this approach, language is recognised as the key to developing and increasing conceptual understanding. It is this focus on language that ultimately leads to deep learning, which can be described as the ability to take what has been learned in a given situation and apply it to another. Through deep learning, which often involves collaborative learning and interaction with other members of the learning community, learners expand their knowledge of a topic and master unique ways of creating and sharing knowledge. By supporting students in pluriliteracies, we can enable them to construct and communicate content purposefully and effectively across languages and cultures and prepare them to live and work in the modern world (Meyer et al., 2015, p. 3).
Central to this approach is the idea that all age groups can participate in the production of subject knowledge by doing, organising, explaining, and arguing. Below is a diagram of this process:
Figure 1: The process of doing, organising, explaining, and arguing
Arguing Doing
Explaining Organising
(Meyer et al., 2015, p. 4).
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