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Fostering the plurilingual wellbeing of language teachers

Teachers' plurilingual wellbeing supports successful plurilingual education. Teachers’ plurilingual wellbeing is described as recognising and valuing the potential of one’s own language repertoire and feeling comfortable with using it in a variety of personal and professional contexts. This project is for teachers interested in using resources to develop their own plurilingual wellbeing.

How to get involved

Team and partners

Related resources

Working languages of the project: English, French
Project term: 2024-2026
Shortcut: www.ecml.at/pluriwell
Administration: view page

Why this project is needed

Teachers' relationships to their languages and cultures shape their approach to linguistic and cultural teaching and learning in the classroom. While plurilingualism has become official policy, the success of plurilingual education relies on teachers' language well-being. This concept is often overlooked, but it must be defined in light of Europe's sociolinguistic diversity, characterized, for example, by the presence of co-official, minoritized, and migrant or home languages. These specificities influence teachers' language identity. Teachers often navigate contradictions between their own beliefs or attitudes and the task of fostering pupils' plurilingual competencies. Moreover, the Council of Europe member states share a commitment to diversity and democracy through language education.

The project addresses this issue by defining the concept of teachers' plurilingual wellbeing as recognising and valuing the potential of one’s own language repertoire and feeling comfortable with using it in a variety of personal and professional contexts.

Envisaged project results

	Guiding principles for teachers’ plurilingual wellbeing The guiding principles of this project illustrate what plurilingual wellbeing is, and why it can support teachers and contribute to plurilingual education. They will be used to demonstrate how plurilingual wellbeing can be fostered through reflection, based on challenging teachers’ perceptions and beliefs with regard to their own languages and language teaching.
	Toolkit for teachers’ plurilingual wellbeing This toolkit is a collection of adaptable and hands-on resources designed by teachers for fostering plurilingual wellbeing among teachers.
	Video and audiotestimonials The video and audio testimonials will portray the experiences of teachers who have participated in the project. The aim is to highlight links between teachers’ plurilingual wellbeing and their teaching practices.

Forthcoming events

1-2

Oct 2024

Network meeting
View details

Target groups

Teachers and teacher educators

Educational levels concerned

All levels

Latest news items

27.03.2024
The project "Fostering plurilingual wellbeing among language teachers" is underway!

What is plurilingual wellbeing? Are teachers fully aware of their own languages? What relationship do teachers have with their own languages? Does this relationship affect how they then teach languages?

Our project “Fostering the plurilingual wellbeing of language teachers” will help teachers develop their own plurilingual wellbeing which we describe as recognising and valuing the potential of each person’s own language repertoire and how we use our languages to interact positively within our personal and professional contexts. By doing this we shall be generating linguistically and culturally ‘safe’ collaborative spaces which enable language awareness and visibility through recognition and valorisation of all languages. We shall also be contributing towards a more positive plurilingual approach to learning and teaching by understanding that language competence is dynamic and that all languages can be beneficial pedagogical tools for learning languages. By acknowledging and redefining our own emotions with regard to language learning experiences and language teaching, we shall be working on language awakening and sensitivity and ultimately on the teacher’s ability to take action towards developing her own plurilingual repertoire and competence.

And how will we do this?

By designing tools and resources with teachers and for teachers that can help them develop their own plurilingual wellbeing. Our next step is to bring in-service teachers on board and together we shall start working!

Caterina Sugranyes (project coordinator), Kaaren Aaroe, Gerit Jaritz, Mary Latisha

The project "Fostering the plurilingual wellbeing of language teachers" (2024-2026) is one of the eight projects conducted within the framework of the& ECML Programme 2024-2027 "Language education at the heart of democracy". The current programme focuses primarily on activities to support and further develop the wellbeing, resilience and competences of all those working in the field, so that they in turn can empower their learners. In this way, it aims to transform language education into a vibrant force at the core of democratic ideals.

How to get involved

Workshop

The aims of the workshop are to:

understand how plurilingual wellbeing can support plurilingual education.
explore the draft plurilingual wellbeing toolkit
learn from teachers who participated in reflective activities and have designed and used the plurilingual wellbeing toolkit in different contexts
pilot and give feedback on the draft toolkit.

Do you wish to participate?

Individuals with a special interest and professional background in the topic of this particular project are invited to take up contact with the ECML National Nominating Authority in their country so that they can be considered for participation in the corresponding project workshop.

Project team and partners

	Caterina SUGRANYES Coordinator Spain FPCEE Blanquerna University Ramon Llull CaterinaSEblanquerna.url.edu
	Latisha MARY Website correspondent France University of Strasbourg, School of Education and Lifelong Learning latisha.maryinspe.unistra.fr

	Gerit JARITZ Second language documentalist Switzerland Thurgau University of Teacher Education gerit.jaritzphtg.ch
	Karen AARØE Communications officer Denmark UCSYD kmaaucsyd.dk

Associate partners

Josep Ballarin Garoña
FPCEE Blanquerna, University Ramon Llull, Spain
josepmanelbgblanquerna.url.edu

Kaitlin Balthasar
University of Strasbourg, School of Education and Lifelong Learning, France
kaitlin.balthasarunistra.fr

Will Bromberg
FPCEE Blanquerna, University Ramon Llull, Spain
williamandrewbblanquerna.url.edu

Camilla F. Hansen
UCSYD, Institut for Pædagogik og Skole. Pædagoguddannelsen, Campus Aabenraa, Denmark
cfhaucsyd.dk

Elisabeth I. Kaalund
UCSYD, Institut for Skole, Læreruddannelsen, Campus Haderslev, Denmark
eiksucsyd.dk

Related resources

Council of Europe resources

The ECML project Building blocks for planning language-sensitive teacher education (plurilingual wellbeing as a language -sensitive teacher)
FREPA is our framework reference for pluralistic approaches to languages and cultures, as FREPA connects and complements other instruments of the Council of Europe and designs materials for teachers which are similar to the kind of materials and activities that our project aims to produce.
Developing teacher competences for pluralistic approaches: Tools for teacher education, as this project focuses on the teacher competences needed for developing pluralistic approaches. We understand fostering plurilingual wellbeing to be one of these competencies.
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: learning, teaching, assessment, companion volume. Language Policy Programme, Education Policy Division, Education Department, Council of Europe

Related thematic portal

	New Media in Language Education
	Teacher and learner competences
	Sign languages
	Plurilingual and intercultural education
	Migrant education and employment
	Curricula and evaluation
	Early language learning
	Content and Language Integrated Learning
	Languages of schooling

Other resources

Mary, L. and Young, A. (2020). Teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards home languages maintenance and their effects. In A.C. Schalley and S. Eisenchlas (eds.), Handbook of home language maintenance and development. Social and affective factors. De Gruyter, pp. 444-463. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510175-022
Mercer, S. (2021). ‘An Agenda for Wellbeing in ELT: An Ecological Perspective.’ ELT Journal, 75/1: 14–21..
Soler, D. and Sugranyes, C. (2022), Understanding the plurilingual research in context. Fremdsprachen Lehren und Lernen. 51. 53-67. 10.24053/FLuL-2022-0019.ç
Sugranyes, C. Soler, D. Bromberg, W. & Ballarin, W. (2024) Understanding teachers’ plurilingual well-being in context. APAC ELT Journal, Issue 94, pages 8-16.
Sugranyes, C. (2021), Promoting Plurilingual Competences in Primary Schools in Barcelona: A Dominant Language Constellation Approach to Teaching and Learning Languages. In: Aronin, L., Vetter, E. (eds) Dominant Language Constellations Approach in Education and Language Acquisition. Educational Linguistics, vol 51. Springer, Cham.
Young, A. and Mary, L. (2021), Blurring the borders between research and practice: video as a tool to develop knowledge about language and empower (student) teachers in multilingual pre-school classrooms, European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 29:3, 351-362.

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