Glossary

Our definition includes people ranging from the migrant worker who speaks with some difficulty the host country's language (and who cannot read and write it) all the way to the professional interpreter who is totally fluent in two languages. In between we find the foreign spouse who interacts with friends in his first language, the scientist who reads and writes articles in a second language (but who rarely speaks it), the member of a linguistic minority who uses the minority language at home only and the majority language in all other domains of life, the Deaf person who uses sign language with her friends but a signed form of the spoken language with a hearing person, etc.  Despite the great diversity that exists between these people, all share a common feature: they lead their lives with two (or more) languages.

Bilinguals remind us that linguistic space is rather a continuum of Language (…) it is not only languages that cohabit in the same space but (…) also an accompanying process of (…) ‘mixing of cultures and world views’ that is inpenetrable to some, troubling to others’.

                                                                                                         (Brutt-Griffler & Varghese, 2004)

References

Brutt-Griffler, J. & Varghese M. (2004). Introduction. Special Issue: (Re)writing bilingualism and the bilingual educator’s knowledge base. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7(2) & 7(3): 93-101.

Grosjean, F. (1982) : Life with Two Languages – An Introduction to Bilingualism, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, Harvard University Press.

Grosjean, F. (1996) Living with two languages and two cultures.  In Parasnis, I. (Ed.). Cultural and Language Diversity and the Deaf Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Grosjean, F. (2010) : Bilingual – Life and Reality, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, Harvard University Press., p.276.

Grosjean, F. (2015) : Parler plusieurs langues – Le monde des bilingues, Paris, Albin Michel, p. 229.

• Code-switching is a not a rare and strange linguistic phenomenon. On the contrary, it is common within bilingual communities (but more common in informal exchanges such as communication between families and friends).

• Code-switching is not a sign of disorder in bilingual communities and it is not connected with inadequate linguistic skills but it has many communicative functions.

• Billinguals do not code-switch out of “pure laziness” and code-switching is never an incomprehensible mixture of languages-not for bilinguals themselves!

The society, the public, a social group

It is a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage. A social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists such as the business community; the community of scholars http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/community

A community is a social unit of any size that shares common values. Although embodied or face-to-face communities are usually small, larger or more extended communities such as a national community, international community and virtual community are also studied http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community

Complementary schools are schools that function after everyday schools and often teach the language of origin of the students attending it….

Critical pedagogy questions and interrogates the complex relationship between teaching and learning, as well as between teachers and learners. In this context, it relates to how students can be empowered by having their identities, languages and cultures recognised in their learning. Their multilingual stories become validated and valued across a range of contexts and educators and learners explore alternative modes of teaching, learning and imagining.

GIROUX, H. A. 2013. On Critical Pedagogy, New York and London, Bloomsbury Academic.

Dialogic learning is learning that takes place through dialogue. It is typically the result of egalitarian dialogue; in other words, the consequence of a dialogue in which different people provide arguments based on validity claims and not on power claims.

Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogic_learning

Dialogic thinking places a central importance on dialogue in stimulating thinking and learning. For example, in this project the act of composing a group multilingual digital story brought the varied perspectives and voices of studentsinto play. This creative process helps students learn how to structure their ideas and think dialogically.

‘Dialogic, as opposed to monologic, assumes that there is always more than one voice. More than this, dialogic assumes that meaning is never singular but always emerges in the play of different voices in dialogue together …. The point of dialogic education, is therefore, not so much transmission of representations, but drawing students into participation in dialogues in an ultimately unbounded context’ (Wegerif, 2013: 3).

Wegerif, R. (2013) Dialogic: Education for the Internet Age: London: Routledge

Dialogical literary gatherings are one of the successful actions in inclusive schools developed in the so called Learning Communities. They involve a process of collective and dialogic reading and interpretation of texts in a context where all participants are invited to provide arguments based on validity criteria and not on power claims (Translated from CONFAPEA).

CONFAPEA. (2012). Manual de Tertulia Literaria Dialógica. Web. 4 May 2014. <http://confapea.org/tertulias/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/manual.pdf>

An emergent bilingual learner is a learner who is in the process of becoming bilingual. Garcia et al. (2008) use this term to refer to children who speak a language other than the language of schooling at home and learn to function in a second language at school. 

García, Ofelia; Kleifgen, Jo Anne; Falchi, Lorraine (2008). From English Language Learners to Emergent Bilinguals. Equity Maters, research review N°1, Campaign for Educational Equity.

The products of children, creative works or performances, carried out within the pedagogical space orchestrated by the classroom teacher and which can be shared with a wide audience. Identity texts seem to hold up “a mirror to students in which their identities are reflected” in a positive way (Cummins & Early 2011: 3)

Cummins, J. & Early, M. (2011) Introduction. In: J. Cummins & M. Early (ed.), Identity TEXTS, the Collaborative Creation of Power in Multilingual Schools. UK & Sterling: Threntham Books.