Overcoming the myth of the native speaker

The monolingual disposition (Gogolin, 1994) of our societies and school systems is a big obstacle on the way to innovation in language education. In particular, it constitutes a filter that prevents appreciation of linguistic and cultural diversity and fails to acknowledge learners’ resources and funds of knowledge. However, a movement away from a linear vision of language education into a more dynamic and flexible one capable of dealing with multilingual classes and plurilingual individuals is in place.

Join Enrica Piccardo's (Associate Professor with the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at OISE/University of Toronto) talk. Her focus will be on the new CEFR Companion Volume (CEFR/CV) (Council of Europe, 2018; available at: https://rm.coe.int/cefr-companion-volume-with-new-descriptors-2018/1680787989), which produced new descriptors for mediation and plurilingual/pluricultural competence. In particular, we will discuss the shift away from the linear monolingual vision that the CEFR initiated and that the CEFR/CV brought to its completion as well as the implications of such shift for language education at a broader level.