Towards cultivating plurilingual selves in early-years foreign language learning

Abstract

Although plurilingualism has been extensively researched in the area of foreign-language education and identity formation, no such effort has been equally documented outside the European context. In view of this disparity, the present article focuses on this research area in a context where the mainstream language learning experience ascribes only peripheral importance to the transformational value accentuated by pluringual pedagogies. It is accordingly believed that these alternative pedagogical initiatives, such as the awakening to languages approach, language learning is a space where youngsters undergo intellectual, affective, and attitudinal transformations. The article reports on three studies with different methodological courses, yet all subsumed under the framework of awakening 5-to 8-year-old children to foreign languages. Both quantitative and qualitative results, reported from this experimental triad, attested to the emergence and development of the plurilingual self as a form of identity that is well receptive to intercultural diversity. Aside from the empirical substance accentuating the plurilingual self as a researchable concept, the present findings would give substance to the voices for reshuffling priorities in the early foreign language learning agenda.