I speak five languages’: fostering plurilingual competence through language awareness

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'I speak five languages': fostering plurilingual competence through languageawarenessAna Luísa Oliveira a; Maria Helena Ançã a

a Department of Didactics and Educational Technology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

Online Publication Date: 01 August 2009

To cite this Article Oliveira, Ana Luísa and Ançã, Maria Helena(2009)''I speak five languages': fostering plurilingual competencethrough language awareness',Language Awareness,18:3,403 — 421

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Language AwarenessVol. 18, No. 3–4, August–November 2009, 403–421

‘I speak five languages’: fostering plurilingual competence throughlanguage awareness

Ana Luısa Oliveira∗ and Maria Helena Anca

Department of Didactics and Educational Technology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

(Received 13 February 2009; final version received 9 July 2009)

When considering the extent to which plurilingualism nowadays shapes ‘every facetof human life’ (Aronin & Singleton, 2008, p. 8), especially within European memberstates, one understands the reason why individual plurilingualism has become a bench-mark in education, raising concerns in improving the quality of communication amongpeople from different contexts, in fostering mobility, and in conserving linguistic andcultural heterogeneity. Focusing on the discourses (life narratives) of two Ukrainianstudents attending the third cycle of the Portuguese education system in the light oftheir learning process of the shelter language, in this paper we aim at (1) reflectingupon the importance of all individuals becoming aware of the asset that their lifelongplurilingual identities represent, i.e. being aware of plurilingualism; (2) discussing therole of language awareness in fostering plurilingual identity, namely by promoting thedevelopment of an effective plurilingual competence. This is done by (1) describingstudents’ perception of their plurilingual identities and competences; (2) reconstructingthe processes which intervene in the development of subjects’ plurilingual identitiesand competences; (3) analysing how students perceive the contribution of their plurilin-gual repertoires in the process of learning the Portuguese language; and (4) presentingevidence of life narratives as a privileged space for raising language awareness.

Keywords: plurilingual identity; plurilingual competence; plurilingualism; languageawareness

Introduction

Although the coexistence between people of different origins (and therefore different lan-guages and cultures) is one of the main characteristics of the history of humankind and ofthe European continent in particular – especially as a result of the dynamics inherent inthe phenomena of population mobility (Aronin & Singleton, 2008, p. 4) – the experiencewith plurality has been managed in unequal ways and paces by different countries. Whilemost European countries have been coping with linguistic and cultural diversity for somedecades, or even centuries, Portugal, as well as other southern European countries, hasmaintained, until the early 1960s of the twentieth century, a certain homogeneous featurein both these spheres. However, in the last few decades, Portugal has become a countryin which languages, nationalities, and cultures coexist and interact, as a consequence ofa change in the migration tendencies. In fact, as a result of the combination of a numberof factors, both at an external level (the migratory pressure of the immigrants’ countryof origin – PALOP1, Brazil, and Eastern Europe) and at an internal level (the progressive

∗Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 0965-8416 print / ISSN 1747-7565 onlineC© 2009 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/09658410903197355http://www.informaworld.com

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lack of internal workforce in a context of economic growth), in 2007, there were already435,736 foreign citizens legally residing in Portugal, according to data from the ForeignOffice Affairs (SEF).

As in other countries, the presence of foreigners has a profound impact on severaldimensions of Portuguese society. This is particularly the case with the education system,where linguistic and cultural diversity have increased markedly because of the presenceof a significant number of students for whom the Portuguese language is a non-nativelanguage. For this reason, teachers in Portugal are now facing the challenge of deal-ing with new situations within classroom boundaries – where the growing number ofstudents with extremely varied sociocultural, linguistic, and learning profiles share thesame physical learning environment – which calls upon new approaches to the teach-ing and learning of languages in general and of the shelter language (Ludi & Py,1986)2 in particular.

The study discussed in this paper is part of a broader research-based PhD project,which has the main purpose of analysing the way in which immigrant students’ biographic,linguistic, and academic profiles, their representations3 of languages, cultures, and peo-ple, combined with their language awareness may be shaping the learning process of a‘shelter language’ (Portuguese). By providing a descriptive and heuristic analysis of thisphenomenon, we also intend to provide teachers with relevant information that can be usedto optimise teaching/learning practices and, consequently, contribute towards students’proficiency in the Portuguese language.

In this paper we focus specifically on the context of a ‘shelter language’ acquisitionprocess by immigrant students who, due to their transnational pathways, academic back-grounds, and personal experiences, claim to have plurilingual identities. Our analysis takesinto account the European policies regarding the teaching and learning of languages anddiscusses the instrumental role of language awareness in helping these students optimisepreviously acquired repertoires in the development of competences in a new language whilecontributing towards the enhancement of a (pro)active plurilingual competence. For thispurpose, we will analyse the discourses of two Ukrainian students attending the third cycleof the Portuguese education system4 from the following perspectives: (1) students’ percep-tion of their plurilingual identities and competences; (2) processes/factors which seem tobe underlying the construction of their linguistic repertoires and the development of theirplurilingual identities; and (3) students’ perception of their plurilingual repertoires consid-ering the appropriation of the Portuguese language. Last of all, we will present evidenceof how life narratives constitute a privileged space for raising awareness, explicating andco-constructing knowledge about languages.

Plurilingual identity, plurilingual competence, and language awareness

Considered an ‘intrinsic capacity of all speakers to use and learn, either alone or throughteaching, more than one language’ (Beacco & Byram, 2003, p. 15), Plurilingualism5 hasbeen claimed to be a ‘way of life in Europe’ (Beacco, 2005). In truth, as a result ofseveral factors and circumstances, the emergence of individual plurilingual identities hasnow become the rule rather than the exception as pointed out by, for example, Aronin andSingleton (2008, p. 3) and Jessner (2006).

Within the scope of this study, plurilingual identity is understood as a self-ascribedculturally and linguistically plural identification, resulting from an individual’s experiencesin different social, cultural, and linguistic arenas throughout a lifetime. Plurilingual identityis therefore based on a sense of belonging to a community of speakers characterised by

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pluralism and by the sharing of linguistic and cultural diversity. This identity becomes thepoint of reference in general contexts of communication and in learning environments.Moreover, as we understand it, plurilingual identity is very much intertwined with theindividual’s representation of him/herself as a plurilingual being and with the ability toenact that self-representation in communicative and learning situations as described byWozniak and Fisher (1993, p. xii). A plurilingual individual is therefore someone whoclaims to possess a plural linguistic and cultural repertoire, developed through a variety ofexperiences which promoted the development of different competences at various levels(cf. Beacco, 2005, p. 19).

Following on from the post-modern socio-constructivist, subjective, and non-essentialistperspectives concerning the notion of identity, plurilingual identity is perceived, accordingto Aronin and Singleton (2008, p. 7), as a compounded and multifaceted, negotiable andnegotiated, fluid and transitory concept which allows the individual to adopt different rolesand attitudes in discourse (cf. Hall, 1996) and interaction and thus cope with the challengesposed by our multilingual global society. As such, plurilingual identities are situated in time,discourse and are context-based, as well as enhanced by interactions with other people orin other dialogic processes like writing (Ball & Ellis, 2008, pp. 502–503), making thesedialogic processes possible spaces for the legitimisation of skills and competences as arguedby Dubar (1996).

Two questions, however, need to be addressed in the light of these considerations:(1) Does having a representation of oneself as a plurilingual being mean being a moresuccessful language learner or even more language aware? (2) What is the role of languageawareness in the development of plurilingual competence?

Considering the definition of Plurilingual Competence by the Council of Europe (coinedafter the definition by Coste, Moore, & Zarate, 1997, p. 129) – which we might consideras the practical and exponential manifestation of that genetic ability all human beingspossess as mentioned before – we notice that this concept goes far beyond the notion ofplurilingualism presented above:

Plurilingual and pluricultural competence refers to the ability to use languages for the purposesof communication and to take part in intercultural interaction, where a person, viewed as asocial agent, has proficiency, of varying degrees, in several languages and experience of severalcultures. This is not seen as the superposition or juxtaposition of distinct competences, butrather as the existence of a complex or even composite competence on which the user maydraw. (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 168)

According to the above definition, which emphasises the individual experience oflanguage in different contexts, being a plurilingual competent speaker means possessing aunique, complex, dynamic, composite, and uneven competence (Coste et al., 1997) whichenables the individual ‘to use different languages for different purposes with differentlevels of command’ (Beacco, 2005, p. 19). According to Araujo e Sa and Melo (2007, p.8), this integrated communicative competence implies the merging of different languagesand cultures into a more complete linguistic repertoire which will be updated and activatedaccording to the requirements of each circumstance and need.

Considering the four dimensions of plurilingual competence defined by Andrade et al.(2003, p. 489), plurilingual competence implies that the individual (1) is able to reflectupon and already reveals some degree of awareness of his/her own dispositions and mo-tivations regarding languages, cultures, and the communication/interaction with the Other(socio-affective dimension); (2) is capable of managing and updating his/her linguisticand communicative biography in new interaction/learning situations (management of lin-guistic and communicative repertoires dimension); (3) is able to manage several language

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acquisition processes (management of learning repertoires dimension); and (4) can re-flect upon the interactive processes which characterise language contact situations, such asinterpretation, translation, or codeswitching (management of interaction dimension).

Plurilingual competence thus implies a degree of control over plural repertoires whichmay, or may not, be developed naturally, depending, among other factors, on the individual’scharacteristics and on the opportunities he/she is given to develop his/her own understandingof the constitutive structures of his/her plurilingual identity. Encompassing a range ofattitudes, knowledge in action, and skills, plurilingual competence requires

l’emergence d’une conscience linguistique, d’une forme d’awareness, voire de strategiesmetacognitives qui permettent a l’acteur social de prendre connaissance et de garder controlede ses modes “spontanes” de gestion des taches et notamment de leur dimension langagiere[the emergence of linguistic consciousness, of a form of awareness, that is, of metacognitivestrategies which allow the social actor to become acquainted with and to have control overhis/her ‘spontaneous’ modes of task management and particularly over the linguistic dimensionof such tasks]. (Coste et al., 1997, p. 13; our translation)

From the point of view of language learning, this means that individuals should be ableto develop an integrated learning competence by reflecting explicitly and capitalising onthe different types of knowledge or skills acquired/developed through various linguisticexperiences (childhood learning, formal education, independent acquisition, interculturalinteractions, etc.). Therefore, when considering the teaching of a new language, one shouldtake into account not only students’ previous representations, linguistic acquisitions, knowl-edge, and experiences, but also, and especially, the need to make students aware and takeadvantage of their plurilingual repertoires. Such an approach has been advocated and dis-cussed by several studies, namely those carried out by Jessner on the complexity of thirdlanguage acquisition (2006, 2008) and, on the dynamics of multilingual proficiency (1999),by James (1996) on the need to promote cross-linguistic awareness, and by Ringbom(1987) on the role of the mother tongue in the learning of a foreign language. As arguedbefore, it is not just a matter of making individuals aware of what they know, but alsoof how they know (van Lier, 1998, p. 135) and of what is available in order to developlinguistic-communicative and learning competences.

This brings us to the concept of Language Awareness and its role in the development ofplurilingual competence. In this study, we understand language awareness as ‘a very widephenomenon, characteristic of speakers and learners of a language, [which] consists in theability they have to think about language (mother tongue or foreign language) and to ver-balise those considerations’ (Anca & Alegre, 2003, p. 31; our translation). This approachto language awareness, therefore, goes beyond the purely linguistic domain (reflectionabout the functional rules of language(s)). By arguing in favour of the implementation ofplural/cross-linguistic and holistic approaches, this perspective also embodies an explicitconsideration of the type of relationship that individuals establish with the different lan-guages of their repertoires, their use for different purposes, the way the learning/acquisitionprocess occurs, and the factors that underlie both the use and learning/acquisition processesof languages, among other aspects.

As such, this approach aims at covering the five interrelated domains of language aware-ness proposed by James and Garrett (1991, pp. 12–20): the affective domain, which impliesreflecting on individuals’ dispositions and motivations towards languages/cultures and thecommunication and interaction with the Other; the social domain, which emphasises thecrucial role of language awareness at the service of social harmony by making individualsaware of the origins and characteristics of their own language(s), as well as of languagevarieties, and the place they occupy on the linguistic world map; the power domain, which

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deals with the notion of language as an instrument of manipulation and which aims atdrawing attention to social power relationships and to the concealed meanings in discourse;the cognitive domain, which encompasses the positive effects of stimulating individuals’ability to analytically reflect upon different features of language; and finally the perfor-mance domain, which questions the (positive?) relationship between individuals’ analyticalability and communicative competence (performance).

Following recent trends that highlight the close relationship between language awarenessand multilingualism, as summed up by Svalberg (2007), we believe that a didactic approachbased on the above-mentioned principles should also take into account the following:

(1) The need to work on students’ representations of language(s), since they may (a)determine future motivation for learning a new language and, consequently, theamount of effort put into practice and the procedures activated for its learning asargued by Dabene (1997); (b) influence the choice of foreign languages through-out students’ schooling and, thus, shape students’ linguistic repertoires; and (c)influence students’ attitudes in situations of intercultural communication (eitherinhibiting or fostering interaction), as concluded, for instance, by Simoes (2006).

(2) The importance of helping students to reactivate their prior language knowledge aswell as learning strategies in the development of competences in a new languageas stated by Jessner (1999, 2006, 2008); we are thus focusing on a didactic ofinterlingualism, as proposed by Meissner (2008), which takes into account therelationships, circulations, and transfers that can be established between differentlanguages and cultures.

(3) The need to encourage students to reflect upon perceived and objective linguisticdistances between languages which might become obstacles in students’ activa-tion of previous language experiences in the learning of new languages and forcommunication purposes. Hence, students should be motivated to optimise theirrepertoires by focusing on similarities and differences between languages. Theimportance of this approach has been pointed out, for example, by Jessner (1999,2008) when discussing the importance of students’ perceptions about the degreeof similarity and distance between languages in transfer behaviour.

(4) The benefits of making students’ develop transverse competences which will enablethem to cope with the different languages of their repertoires as well as with newlanguages in different exolingue communicative settings6 as demonstrated by Cotsand Nussbaum (2008).

(5) The need to make students aware of the approach which is more effective for themin learning a language, namely by developing awareness of procedural knowledge,of the possibilities of transfer, and of the commonality of learning tasks, as pointedout by Doye (2003); ultimately, this implies that the students are able to monitortheir learning process and to acknowledge the purpose of the learning tasks.

(6) The relevance of developing greater self-confidence and a sense of greater controlin each of the students through empowerment strategies, as pointed out by Lindberg(2003), with regard to either the learning process or the linguistic-communicativeperformance. Concurrently, and as a result of the above-mentioned activities, it isalso desirable that students develop learner autonomy (cf. Council of Europe, 2001,and the definition of ‘autonomous pedagogy’ by Vieira, 1998).

Ideally, language awareness work would help to foster plurilingual identities and effec-tive plurilingual competence by making ‘individuals aware of their plurilingualism’, in the

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sense that they are able to show some ‘detachment, critical reflection, decision making andindependent action’ (Little, 1991, in Renou, 2001, p. 262) regarding not only their plurilin-gual repertoires, but also the learning/acquisition process of languages and their differentlinguistic-communicative needs. Along the lines of Coste, Moore, and Zarate (1997), thiswould enable plurilingual competent individuals to possess

une meilleure conscience, connaissance, confiance quant aux competences qu’ils possedentet quant aux capacites et aux moyens dont ils disposent, a l’interieur et en dehors de l’ecole,pour etendre et affiner ces competences et les mettre en œuvre activement dans des domainesparticulaires [a greater awareness, knowledge, confidence with regard to the competences theypossess and to the abilities and the means they have at their disposal, inside and outside school,in order to extend and refine these competences and actively put them into practice]. (1997, p.47; our translation)

We believe that this comprehensive approach to language awareness may indeed beconsidered a powerful resource and process for the development of individuals’ plurilingualcompetence, in the sense that it may help them become more autonomous when dealingwith the multifaceted communicative and learning needs they encounter.

Life narratives as a research and formative approach

Our research project adopted a qualitative, ethnographic, autobiographical, and narrativemethodology based on the construction of life narratives, considering that

il y a du recit de vie des lors qu’un sujet raconte a une autre personne, chercheur ou pas,un episode quelconque de son experience vecue [we are in the presence of a life narrativewhenever an individual narrates to another, researcher or other, some kind of episode of his/her(life) experience]. (Bertaux, 2001, p. 32; our translation)

Life narratives are often built in the form of a sequence of semi-structured interviews inwhich the individual is invited by the researcher – preferably using the form of a narrative– to consider (and express) past experiences through a filter (a series of topics that guidethe interviews). The analysis of life narratives is based on a plausible interpretation modelin which the knowledge to be acquired is ‘comprehensive, hermeneutical, deeply rooted innarrators’ speeches’ (Moita, 2000, p. 117; our translation). Here, the role of the researcherconsists of understanding the subjects’ discourses and organising them according to thetopics being analysed.

Considering that our research interest is to understand the process by which individualsbuild their plurilingual identities in general, and develop competences in the shelter countrylanguage in particular, we consider the above-mentioned narrative approach to be the mostadequate for our purposes because by encouraging individuals to describe, explain, andcomment on the events narrated (Bertaux, 2001), it is possible to extract from individuals’discourses pieces of information that may help us to understand the internal dynamics ofthe phenomena under analysis (cf. Deprez, 1997). Indeed, some studies have shown thatby giving voice to the main actors of events (in this case the teaching/learning process),narrative, autobiographical approaches provide a clearer insight into aspects which are notalways empirically observable, such as

(1) the complexity of the processes underlying the construction of individuals’ differ-ent identities (ethnic, national, group, cultural, linguistic, etc.), for example, theinteraction between language practices and identity (Gerin-Lajoie, 2002);

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(2) individuals’ representations about languages and cultures, as well as about thelearning process of a language and language learning strategies (Perregaux &Athlan, 2000);

(3) individuals’ plurilingual and learning profiles (Deprez, 1997) together with themotivations underlying their activation (Yelenevskaya & Fialkova, 2003); and

(4) individuals’ processes of socialisation (Deprez, 1997).

Moreover, considering that life narratives are built from the recovery of ‘memoriesnarrated from the point of view of those who evoke them’ (Pais, 2001, p. 107; our transla-tion), and that, therefore, the interviewed individual is simultaneously the subject and theobject of the hermeneutical-reflexive process put into practice, this research methodologyis also considered an important formative approach. In fact, as a dynamic and non-neutralrepresentation of the individuals’ life experiences (Pais, 2001), based on the selective andaffective memory of the individual, narrative has also been recognised as a privileged arenafor the individual to develop greater knowledge or awareness of him/herself. Indeed, by re-covering, synthesising, interpreting, and establishing a new meaning for the events narrated,the individual is already constructing him/herself as a simultaneously autobiographical andmeta-reflexive subject capable of searching for the understanding of the ecology of his/heractions (Morin, 2001, p. 198).

Such an awareness of one’s self will allow the individual to manage to a full extenthis/her (linguistic, cultural, learning, etc.) repertoire bearing in mind the achievement ofhis/her communicative and learning goals. This emphasises subjective appropriation asa key element in the construction process of life narratives both as a research and as aformative approach.

Bearing in mind the recognition of the individual as being central to the learning process(as highlighted by constructivist perspectives), life narratives can play an important role inlaying a foundation for and raising language awareness, particularly concerning linguisticself-awareness and re-signification of previous knowledge and learning strategies. As such,learners with a greater degree of self-knowledge would be individuals more capable ofcapitalising on and fostering their plurilinguality7 in terms of both identity and competence.

‘I speak five languages’: a case study

In this section, we present our empirical study which is based on an exploratory case studyconducted with two Ukrainian students attending the third cycle of the Portuguese basicschool system.

Corpus and methodology

Our students are MK and TM. MK is a 15-year-old girl who, at the time of the interviews,had been in Portugal for 5 years and was in the 9th grade. TM is a 13-year-old boy who, atthe time of the empirical study, had been in Portugal for only 9 months and was in the 7thgrade.

Given the exploratory nature of this study, we determined that the only criterion forthe selection of these subjects would be the fact that the students should be attending thethird cycle of the Portuguese basic education system and should be willing to participate inthis study. MK and TM were the first two students contacted and also the first to accept toparticipate in this pilot study.

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Students’ life narratives were built by conducting semi-structured individual interviewsof approximately one hour each. Taking into account that our research is focused on therecovery of the subjects’ memories and aims at understanding the processes underlying thefacts portrayed by them in their personal life narratives, we decided to conduct individualinterviews because we believed it would be the best way to enable the subjects’ points ofview to emerge without the interference of a third person’s opinion. In the case of MK, onlytwo interviews were carried out. With TM, in order to accomplish the established purposes,three sessions were carried out. All the interviews were conducted in an academic context (atthe University of Aveiro) according to students’ preference. The sessions focused primarilyon the following topics:

(1) Students’ sociolinguistic profiles: linguistic repertoires, learning contexts and con-texts of communication, immigration/linguistic experiences, and affective relation-ships with languages;

(2) Students’ representations about their country of origin and the shelter country, theirmother tongue and the shelter language, the learning of the Portuguese language,the learning systems of the country of origin and the shelter country;

(3) Awareness of the process of learning the Portuguese language: linguistic, soci-olinguistic, and learning competences, and role of the mother tongue (or otherlanguages of their linguistic repertoire) in the learning of a shelter language.

Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Field notes were also madeimmediately after each interview, where we registered not only aspects observed during theinterviews (such as students’ facial expressions), but also important issues mentioned bythe subjects before and after the interviews (when talking to us informally).

Before the interviews, students filled in a sociolinguistic questionnaire. The main pur-pose of this task was to unveil information about their biographic, sociocultural, and(socio)linguistic profiles.

In our analysis, we will follow a comprehensive, hermeneutical, emic perspective(Moita, 2000; Yelenevskaya & Fialkova, 2003) by emphasising individuals’ experiencesand perceptions about the phenomena under analysis. Given the exploratory nature of ourstudy, we have not established any hypothesis, allowing the categories to be naturally definedby the subjects’ narratives.

Data analysis

‘I speak five languages, that is, Portuguese, English, French, Russian, and Ukrainian’ –students’ perception of their plurilingual identities and competences

In this section, students’ perception of their plurilingual identities and competences isanalysed by considering students’ overview of their plurilingual identities, the relationshipsthey establish with the different languages of their repertoires, the self-assessment of theirrepertoires, students’ representations about acquisition/learning contexts, and their reportson contexts of language use.

Students’ overview of their plurilingual identities may be described as being positive.In fact, they proudly present themselves as possessing a plural linguistic repertoire (‘Ispeak five languages, that is, Portuguese, English, French, Russian, and Ukrainian’ ☺ –TM/int.1/58; ‘So, I speak Russian, Ukrainian – now with more difficulties, but I still speakit: Portuguese and English sort of’ – MK/int.1/40) which, as we may observe, involves

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a considerable number of languages with different typological/genetic affiliations. Addi-tionally, students’ narratives reveal the benefits they recognise in knowing those languageseither in personal or academic/professional terms. For example, when asked to talk about themost important languages within her repertoire, MK highlights the Portuguese language,considered critical for the accomplishment of her academic/professional goals, and Englishbecause it allows her to communicate with other people, to understand what people say intelevision programmes, to read magazines, and, eventually, to visit other countries. TM, onthe other hand, noted, when talking about languages in general, that ‘when you know manylanguages, you can go wherever you want’ (TM/int.1/310).

Students’ general descriptions of their plurilingual repertoires allow us to observea difference which might be relevant in the course of our analysis, which is the factthat MK does not mention French as being part of her repertoire when first questionedin the interviews. Indeed, being her second foreign language, having referred to it inthe questionnaire and recognising a reasonable performance in every domain (listening,speaking, reading, and writing) in this language, it appeared to us somehow surprisingthat she should not mention French at this point in her life narrative. This aspect will bediscussed further on in our paper.

Regarding the second topic, students claim simultaneous types and levels of relation-ships with the repertoire languages. In order to understand students’ multiple self-ascribedand changing identities, our analysis is based on Rampton’s (in Nero, 2005) proposal whichdistinguishes three types of relationships with languages: language expertise (the actualproficiency in a language), language affiliation (one’s attachment or identification to alanguage, regardless of belonging to the group typically affiliated with it or not), and lan-guage inheritance (language traditionally dominant in one’s family/community in relationto which one may, may not, claim affiliation or be more or less proficient).

When considering students’ language inheritance, we observe that the geographicalregion in which they lived and into which they were socialised in Ukraine shaped theiridentities at this level. In the case of TM Ukrainian is his heritage language, while forMK this role is ascribed to Russian. This indeed seems to be related to the political,historical, and social situation of Ukraine (cf. Pliassova, 2007), which also explains MK’snegative representation of the national language of her country: ‘No, I really don’t use it’(MK/int.1/154).

Simultaneously, while for MK Russian continues to play a central role not only asa heritage language, but also as a language of affiliation, for TM, this last role, onceoccupied by Ukrainian, has now been ascribed to two other languages: Russian and En-glish; to Russian because it allows him to interact with his stepfather and his EasternEuropean friends living in Portugal, and to English because it allows him to communi-cate with one of his Portuguese friends at school and also because of its prominent roleworldwide.

It is also interesting to notice students’ representations concerning their language ex-pertise. TM, who has been in Portugal for only 9 months, still claims Ukrainian as thelanguage in which he is more proficient. In MK’s case, we can observe interesting fluctua-tions which are characteristic of trilingual speakers (see Jessner, 2006, 2008). In Ukraine,MK considered Russian to be her expertise language, while nowadays she claims to possessan equal degree of proficiency in both Russian and Portuguese. However, MK also mentionsa change in role between English and the Portuguese language since her arrival in Portugal.While at the beginning she was more proficient in English than in the host communitylanguage, now it is the opposite: ‘Now, maybe it is more Portuguese [which helps me tolearn] English’ (MK/int.2/600).

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Table 1. Language learning/acquisition contexts.

MK TM

Naturalistic context UkrainianEnglishRussianPortuguese

Formal context French French

Both RussianUkrainianEnglishPortuguese

Thirdly, intrinsically related to our last point, is students’ self-evaluation of their reper-toires. Students are aware of their asymmetry either from the point of view of the proficiencythey have in the different languages (MK, for instance, recognises having become less com-petent in Ukrainian and claims to feel slightly uncomfortable with her English skills) or interms of the competences they possess within each language domain, as mentioned by TMwhen comparing his proficiency in the Portuguese language to that of his mother: ‘I don’ttalk well, but now I speak better than my mother. But she understands better, because shehas been here for 6 years’ (TM/int.1/534–536).

Another important aspect worth considering is students’ representations of the learn-ing/acquisition contexts of their repertoires of languages. Table 1 refers to informationgathered through questionnaires which aimed at understanding with whom and where theyhad learnt/acquired the languages. Information was categorised as follows: ‘naturalisticcontexts’, ‘formal contexts’, and ‘both’, meaning the accomplishment of the process oflanguage acquisition within the scope of individuals’ process of socialisation (with family,friends, neighbours, etc.), the accomplishment of the process of learning a language in aninstitutional context, and the merging of these two processes, respectively (see Jessner’stypology, 2006).

As indicated, students’ perceptions about the contexts which helped shape their lin-guistic repertoires differ quite significantly. While MK claims to have acquired most of herlanguages in both naturalistic and formal contexts, TM refers almost exclusively to natural-istic contexts. The only language to which students ascribed the same learning environmentwas French, which, for both students, was clearly learnt as a foreign language. If we lookmore deeply into TM’s life narrative and compare it to data presented in his sociolinguisticquestionnaire, we notice that some of the languages he claims to have acquired in natural-istic contexts were, in fact, acquired in both contexts. Does this mean that TM is not awareof the fact that he has developed (and is still developing) competences in Portuguese orEnglish at school? Or is the student only referring to the first input he received in thoselanguages? What does ‘acquiring/learning’ a language mean to him? These results compelus to consider that action may need to be taken in the language classroom in order to

(1) make students reflect upon how diverse contexts, that is, the exposure to/immersionin different learning/acquisition/communicative environments, provide importantand complementary contributions to the development of language competences; inother words, we argue that language teachers should help students to recover (inorder to become aware of) the contexts in which their communicative/linguistic

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experiences take place and the asset these represent for an evolving plurilingualcompetence, and

(2) work on students’ conceptions about what learning a language means, by makingthem aware of the lifelong and continuous nature of the process of developinglanguage competences.

Finally, another aspect worth highlighting is students’ account of contexts of languageusage. Their information on this topic is represented in Table 2.

With regard to this issue, some aspects need to be highlighted. Firstly, MK’s with-drawal from her home country’s national language: Ukrainian. Having been learnt ex-clusively as a second language at school, Ukrainian is not a language she appreciatesor uses in her daily life, except when speaking to other Ukrainian immigrants whorefuse to speak Russian. MK’s attitude is in conformity with her representation of thislanguage.

Secondly, TM’s use of English, both in formal and informal contexts. Impelled by anintegrative motivation (the interaction with colleagues) and by a very positive image ofEnglish as a global language, this student is eager to create learning and interactionalopportunities beyond classroom boundaries, which lead him to use the English languagequite regularly both in school and extra-scholar environments.

Thirdly, the non-reference to French. Learning this language at school does not seem tobe enough for these students to consider French even as part of their formal communicationprocedures (classroom talk).

‘Yes, I want to learn more languages, because when you know many languages, you can gowherever you want’ – processes/factors underlying the development of students’ plurilingualidentities and competences

Bearing in mind students’ overall description of their plurilingual identities and com-petences, we enunciate and briefly analyse some of the factors (social, sociolin-guistic, psycholinguistic, contextual, etc.) which seem to be determining (both pos-itively and negatively) their development, that is, fostering or inhibiting students’plurilinguality.

We start by focusing on the positive factors. The first of these is the contacts whichstudents often established, during childhood, with Ukraine’s neighbouring countries and,consequently, with languages which are genetically close to their mother tongues (spokenin countries that were part of or controlled by the former Soviet Union). Students not only

Table 2. Language use.

MK TM

Ukraine Russian (informal/formal) Ukrainian (informal/formal)Ukrainian (formal) Russian (informal)English (formal) English (formal)

Portugal Portuguese (informal/formal) Portuguese (informal/formal)Russian (informal) Russian (informal)English (formal) Ukrainian (informal)Ukrainian (informal – rarely) English (informal/formal)

French?

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developed some degree of awareness of the similarities between those languages, but also,at a different level, felt slightly more confident as successful intercultural communicators:‘in Poland it is like Ukrainian, but Poland is more or less the same; who knows Ukrainianwell, he/she can read’ (TM/int.2/408).

A second aspect to emphasise is students’ ‘transnational’ experience, which has ledto the development of skills in at least two additional languages: Portuguese and French.These results are substantiated by Nero in her study, where she states that the ‘transnationalchildhoods’ of some of her research subjects ‘facilitated their multilingual competence’(Nero, 2005, p. 199).

Furthermore, a point worth stressing is students’ personal motivations/predispositionsfor learning new languages. Indeed, recognising the importance of learning languages, thereare many references in students’ narratives to the integrative and instrumental oriented rea-sons (Gardner & Lambert, 1972) which make them want to further develop their repertoires.An example of this is the extract we selected as a title for this section: ‘Yes, I want to learnmore languages, because when you know many languages, you can go wherever you want’(TM/int.1/310).

Finally, family perception about the asset that learning languages represent also seems tobe a crucial positive factor. However, contrasting with students’ perspectives, their parents’standpoints are almost exclusively supported by instrumental motives, such as finding abetter job: ‘my mother told me “you should study the language, then you can understandtwo languages, English, oh, French and Portuguese, and that’s good and you study and yougo to a hotel; you can be a. . . *translate* (translator)” ’ (TM/int.1/682).

Moving on to the factors which may be preventing students from developing theirplurilingual identities and competences, we start by emphasising the political, historical,and social situation of Ukraine, which, as we have seen, connected to social/personalaffiliations, appears to be inhibiting MK from developing a positive representation ofthe Ukrainian language as well as from resorting to it for either learning or com-munication purposes. Indeed, having been socialised in a region of Ukraine (Kiev)where the Russian language still plays a prevailing role, this student seems to re-veal an intrinsic resistance to the language, which stops her from developing com-petences in her country’s national language and capitalising on previously acquiredknowledge.

Another important aspect in students’ narratives is the emergence of the ‘native speaker’myth as defined by Giles and Niedzielski (1998), that is, the idea that in order to be a goodlanguage learner one should be able to attain a native speaker level of competence. Infact, this representation is present in MK’s discourse and may justify, to some extent,her caution (and harsh self-assessment) with regard to her proficiency in some of thelanguages in her repertoire, such as the Portuguese language: ‘I don’t know, between goodand reasonable, because I can write more or less and I can read and “pronto” I alreadyunderstand everything. Maybe some parts of grammar, maybe I have more difficulties’(MK/int.2/4–8). Although she is an A-level student in Portuguese, the top of her class,and reveals very few ‘grammar problems’ in her performance, MK still presents a slightlytendentious depreciative portrait of herself as a Portuguese language speaker. Taking intoaccount the most recent trends both in the specific field of Second Language Acquisition(cf. Cook, 1993, 1999) and in the wider field of the Didactics of Languages (cf. Andradeet al., 2003; Council of Europe, 2001), which argue against this concept of the nativespeaker as the ultimate aim of foreign/second language learning, we consider that students(and teachers as well) should be led to reflect upon what it means to be a ‘good languagespeaker/learner’.

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Foreign languages offered by Ukrainian and Portuguese school systems may also beconsidered as a fundamental element in shaping students’ plurilingual identities and inpromoting the development of their plurilingual competences too. Indeed, by making En-glish and French compulsory foreign languages 1 and 2, respectively, students may beprevented from fulfilling their linguistic ambitions. For example, MK prefers German toFrench, but in her school the first of those languages was not a curricular option for a for-eign language 2. This data is supported by the results obtained in another research projectconducted in Portugal, on the topic Linguistic culture in scholar context: a study at theend of compulsory education, which indicates that a high percentage of the 7712 studentssurveyed at the end of compulsory Portuguese education (9th grade) would like to havechosen other foreign languages at school and, if they were given the chance, they wouldlike to be able to choose other foreign languages in the future (Simoes, 2006, pp. 184–187).

Finally, we would also like to refer to the pedagogic methodologies described by studentsconcerning the teaching and learning of the origin and shelter languages both in Ukraineand in Portugal. When asked to describe a typical Ukrainian lesson, students mentioned thefollowing:

[In Ukraine] It was separate, because it was Literature and Grammar separate; there were 3hours of each, of Literature and of Grammar. Well, in Literature we had, we analysed severaltexts and then we studied several ‘works’. We were told to read books which were for us toanalyse afterwards; then they asked us frequently to memorise texts, poems. For example, forhomework we had always to memorise a poem; then we had to tell it and several times we hadto re-tell. When we read, right afterwards, we were asked to re-tell. Grammar lessons weregrammar exercises only. (MK/int.1/60–72)

‘We wrote in the notebook, we read Ukrainian texts and we studied (them)’. (TM/int.1/98)

From the students’ discourses, we notice an emphasis on activities/strategies related tothe reading, memorisation, study, and repetition of (literary) texts as well as to the learningof grammar.

When referring to Portuguese lessons, the focus on grammar exercises also emerges:‘Int. – What did you do [in Portuguese lessons]? TM – It was also grammar, it was verbs, andit was just grammar’ (MK/int.1/85–88). In addition, we perceive the minimal role played byother languages of students’ (and teachers’) repertoires in the learning process of the shelterlanguage (cf. Section 4.2.3.): ‘Int. – And your Portuguese Language teacher? Did she useother languages to explain you things in Portuguese? TM – No, no’ (TM/int.1/133–134).

These results, based on students’ default representations of the teaching and learningprocess, appear to unveil some rigid and hermetic conceptions about languages, about whatit means to learn a language and how one learns a language: is it mostly a matter of learninggrammar or memorising texts? And should it exclude resorting to other languages? Thisdata compel us to question, to a certain degree, the methodologies used in both classroomsand to appeal to the implementation of broader teaching and learning approaches. To bemore precise, we argue in favour of (1) the development of activities which, by going beyondthe domains usually dealt with, also include a critical reflection about other dimensionsof language, namely the affective, social, and political (cf. James & Garrett, 1991) and(2) the implementation of cross-linguistic approaches which may highlight students’ pluralrepertoires and foster students’ plurilingual competence, by making them reflect upon theirown linguistic resources and about the possibility of transferring learning competences,among other aspects.

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‘I think it doesn’t help, because Russian doesn’t have many words in common with Por-tuguese’ – students’ perception of their plurilingual repertoires within the scope of theappropriation of the Portuguese language

In this section, we focus on students’ awareness of their plurilingual identities and compe-tences, i.e. the activation of previous knowledge and learning strategies, within the scopeof the development of competences in the Portuguese language.

One of the aspects analysed was the role of other languages in the process of learningPortuguese. Results reveal that, on the one hand, resorting to Russian or Ukrainian is seenas something unavoidable at the beginning but harmful as the learning process of thePortuguese language progresses (‘I think that, in the beginning, when it is really necessary,right? We need to resort [to Russian], but I think we need to try to think more in Portuguese’– MK/int.2/618). On the other hand, English is primarily seen as a facilitating element inthe learning of Portuguese, to which students resort, for example, to communicate withtheir teachers in specific situations or to solve other interaction problems outside theclassroom, such as conveying the message they want in the interviews (‘I want to study inthe *College*’ – TM/int.1/692). Again, French is not mentioned by students, despite itsclose genetic relationship with Portuguese and the potential cross-linguistic opportunitiesit could entail. If, in the case of TM, this may be considered natural, given his short periodof exposure to foreign language 2, in MK’s situation, it might be expected that she wouldhave established some connections between these two languages within her repertoire.

Another issue takes into account students’ awareness of the similarities and differencesbetween the languages of their repertoires. The students’ position highlighted the lack ofsimilarities between Russian/Ukrainian and Portuguese (‘I think it doesn’t help, becauseRussian doesn’t have many words in common with Portuguese’ – MK/int.2/602) – themain reason for not resorting to these languages – and the recognition of the existence ofsome (few) similarities between English and Portuguese, such as the alphabet: ‘the Englishalphabet helps, because letters are pretty much the same and I can read’ (TM/int.3/426).These conceptions present a limited perspective on students’ cross-linguistic skills giventheir diverse repertoires and the multiple potential possibilities of transfer they couldinvolve. Even between languages which are genetically more distant, there are alwayspossibilities for language transfer. We therefore argue that attention needs to be given toforms of raising students’ awareness of such aspects, namely by providing students with theopportunity to do some contrastive analysis work (between the languages of their repertoiresand the Portuguese language) in the language lessons.

Last of all, one other issue analysed relates to students’ learning profiles, more preciselyto the learning strategies used to learn the Portuguese language. An exhaustive identificationof the strategies mentioned by students allowed us to conclude that cognitive strategies (cf.the typology proposed by O’Malley & Chamot, 1990) prevailed over the metacognitive andaffective, possibly as a result of students’ previous academic backgrounds. We consider thatby focusing essentially on the strategies used during their learning process, such as takingnotes, researching reference materials, and memorisation, students risk not being exposedto learning experiences that promote cross-linguistic and reflective approaches crucial to amore self-aware learning.

Final considerations

Bearing in mind the didactic scenario presented above and the findings of our study, wewill now try to answer the questions which guided our study: Does having a representation

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of oneself as a plurilingual being mean being a more successful language learner or evenmore language aware? And what is the role of language awareness in the development ofa plurilingual competence?

With regard to the first question, and considering students’ life narratives of theirplurilingual identities, it is our belief that in spite of acknowledging the value of thoseidentities and fostering them to some extent, students do not seem to be aware of their fullpotential. Certainly, students seem to: (1) present a general positive perspective on theirplurilinguality; (2) be able to identify the languages of their repertoires, as well as the com-petences they have developed in each language; (3) establish some relationships betweenthose languages by identifying similarities and differences; (4) switch between (some of)their languages and do transfer work, especially as a consequence of perceived commu-nicative needs (as mentioned by Jessner, 1999, p 203). At the same time, however, thereare several other aspects concerning language awareness (the intervention areas discussedbelow) which need to be improved so that students might develop an effective plurilingualcompetence. We argue, in the light of our data, that although a positive representation ofoneself as a plurilingual being is indeed important for the development of plurilingual com-petence, this representation, in itself, may not be enough to meet the goals set nowadays forthe learning of languages as previously discussed, since these goals imply a more detaileddegree of awareness, which the subjects seem not to possess.

This leads us to the question of the role of language awareness in the development ofplurilingual competence. Taking into account our findings, some critical intervention areason this matter were identified:

(1) The need to lead students to reflect upon the driving forces exerted by political,social, and historical factors in relation to languages and language users, as theymay determine not only the use people make of their linguistic repertoires as wellas the effort put into learning a new language, but also their willingness to par-ticipate in intercultural encounters. As we have seen from MK’s life narrative, thepolitical-historical situation of Ukraine and the geographical area of her process ofsocialisation have not only shaped her relationship with the two most important lan-guages of her country of origin (Ukrainian and Russian), but, apparently, have alsodetermined her language learner profile. Consequently, these factors also influenceher current communicative choices. We thus believe that a better understandingof the concealed meanings behind the students’ linguistic representations, as wellas their underlying causes, could help her positively change her attitude towardsUkrainian.

(2) Closely related to the first point, the urgency of deconstructing some of the stu-dents’ representations about language(s) and the language learning process itself. Itbecame clear, for example, from the prevalence of the myth of the native speaker inthe students’ discourse that certain representations might be obstacles in the devel-opment of language competences. Leading students to deliberately and explicitlyreflect upon these issues in the classroom might make them optimise their linguisticrepertoires as well as the external options available to improve their linguistic andcommunicative competences for the purposes of learning and communicating.

(3) The importance of encouraging students to develop their awareness of the perceivedand objective linguistic distance between the languages of their repertoires or anyother languages students might know/have heard of through the implementationof cross-linguistic and contrastive approaches (see, for example, Jessner, 2006).We believe this would help students to change their preconceptions about some

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languages, on the one hand, and make them optimise previously acquired linguisticknowledge, on the other.

(4) Finally, the importance of questioning the teaching and learning methods referredto by the students and to re-evaluate, in a contextualised and meaningful manner,the role of teaching grammar. Although our data with regard to this point resultsexclusively from the default representation students have of their experience asUkrainian and Portuguese language learners, one might question the extreme em-phasis which appears to be given to grammar in both of the classrooms and tocertain teaching and learning strategies (such as reading, memorisation, study, andrepetition of texts) in the Ukrainian context. Despite considering these method-ologies as being extremely important, we believe that in order to make studentsdevelop the much desired plurilingual competence, teaching methodologies shouldalso give students the opportunity to focus on other language dimensions as well asto monitor their language learning process. This implies, among other things, giv-ing greater emphasis to other fields of language awareness, such as meta-proceduralknowledge.

To sum up, we argue that language awareness work should focus on an integrated,transversal, and explicit/open discussion about language forms and functions, linguisticdiversity, similarities/differences between languages, identity/cultural affiliations, power,representations, attitude, and learning processes (activities/strategies).

In this context, a narrative approach to language learning (through portfolios, diaries,linguistic biographies, or life narratives) can be constructive in enabling students to (re)buildtheir plurilingual autobiographical trajectories and in developing their plurilingual aware-ness, as our study demonstrates. Despite not being our primary purpose, we observed agrowth in students’ awareness of their plurilingual identities during the interviews. Whiledescribing their experiences, students became more aware of (1) similarities and differencesbetween their mother tongues and Portuguese (‘[in Ukrainian] We don’t say “estar” [tobe]; we just “Ivan na praia” [Ivan at the beach]’ – TM/int.2/680), as well as betweenthese and other languages; (2) the contexts in which skills in the various languages of theirrepertoires were developed; and (3) students’ representations about languages and theirpositive/negative effects on their linguistic-communicative and learning profiles.

AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank Ana Sofia Pinho and Sılvia Melo for earlier discussions on thispaper and the two anonymous LA reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions regardingthis paper.

Notes1. PALOP is the acronym for the Portuguese-speaking African countries, which comprise Angola,

Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome e Prıncipe.2. In this paper, the term ‘shelter language’ (translated from Ludi’s expression ‘langue d’accueil’)

is used to refer to the official/native language of the immigrants’ country.3. The concept of representations, as we understand it in this study, is at the crossroad (Pinto, 2005)

of different theoretical and methodological perspectives as a result of merging the contributionsof different disciplinary areas of Human Sciences such as Anthropology, Philosophy, Linguistics,Social Psychology, Sociology, Sociolinguistics, and, more recently, Didactics of Languages. Inspite of being difficult to objectively and concisely define this concept (due to its nomad andcrossroad nature), there are some features which are consensually attributed to representations:

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they may be positive, negative, or neutrally oriented; they are socially shared and constructed(Jodelet, 1989) besides being cognitive; they play an important role in the individual’s mental(re)construction of the world, i.e. in how individuals organise concepts (Mannoni, 1998) andsocial phenomena (Abric, 1994; Jodelet, 1989); they explain and orient individual behaviour(Moscovici, 1961) and social relationships; and they are changeable in and by the means ofinteraction (Castellotti, Coste, & Moore, 2001). Within the scope of this study, representationsfunction especially as an hermeneutical (but also functional) concept which allows us to accountfor subjects’ relationships to languages and to the processes underlying their acquisition.

4. The ages of the students attending the third cycle of the Portuguese education system (from the7th to the 9th grade) vary between the ages of 13 and 15.

5. In this paper, we adopt the term ‘plurilingualism’ as defined by the Common European Frameworkof Reference for Languages, understood as an individual’s ability to use several languages,distinguishing this concept from ‘multilingualism’, which refers to the multilingual nature of agiven society (Council of Europe, 2001, pp. 23–24). However, we will respect other authors’terminology whenever the English term ‘multilingualism’ encompasses the same meaning as theconcept of ‘plurilingualism’ here defined.

6. By ‘exolingue communicative settings’ we mean the communicative situations in which theinterlocutors do not share the same mother tongue and therefore need to use (and adjust) theirsocio-affective, cultural, linguistic, and strategic repertoires in order to communicate (see Melo,2006, for a synthesis).

7. Within the scope of this study, ‘plurilinguality’ is understood as the evolving state of be(com)ingplurilingual (Stegmann, 2007, p. 80).

Notes on contributorsAna Luısa Oliveira is a PhD student at the University of Aveiro (Portugal). She is funded by FCT(Foundation fo Science and Technology). Her academic interests include Portuguese as a non–mothertongue, linguistic/cultural diversity, language awareness, and life narratives.

Maria Helena Anca is an Associate Professor at the Department of Didactics and Education Technol-ogy and a member of Research Centre ‘Didactics and Technology in Teacher Education’ (CIDTFF).Her main research interests are related to Portuguese as a non–mother tongue, immigration, namelythat concerning Portuguese-speaking African countries, language awareness, and metalinguisticrepresentations.

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