ERIC Number: EJ870626
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Nov
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1470-8477
EISSN: N/A
Intercomprehension in Primary School: Discovering Languages and Constructing Knowledge
Barbeiro, Luis Filipe
Language and Intercultural Communication, v9 n4 p217-229 Nov 2009
This article discusses the potential value of developing pupils' intercomprehension skills at elementary school. This development construes Europe as a plurilingual and intercultural space in which the linguistic and cultural identity of each community finds its place. However, the construction of Europe also faces the challenges of assuring communication among people of different languages, promoting participation in an expanded community, and discovering other cultures in a perspective of mutual knowledge. The strategies of intercomprehension can serve the purposes of discovering plurilingualism and promoting comprehension skills among speakers of different languages, specifically among speakers of languages belonging to the same family. The proposals that are presented and discussed in this article originate from the "Euromania" project, a Socrates/Lingua project directed at the development of the intercomprehension skills of pupils within the group of Romance languages. The project's learning materials aim, on the one hand, at developing pupils' intercomprehension strategies in association with the learning of various school subjects; in this way, the mobilization of intercomprehension skills acquires an immediate purpose by serving the process of learning those subjects. On the other hand, the operations performed by pupils in order to reconstruct meaning convert their strategies into learning tools.
Descriptors: Learning Processes, Foreign Countries, Romance Languages, Elementary School Students, Computer Assisted Instruction, Multilingualism, Second Language Learning, Program Descriptions, Mutual Intelligibility, Intercultural Communication, Learning Strategies, Teacher Education
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Primary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A