cohesion - European Centre for Modern Languages

conclusion generalising the lessons to be learnt from the case studies for developing
whole school approaches.
The case studies cover a great variety of different situations – among them a
description of how a school in Alsace with a large migrant population improved both
attitudes and results through involving parents of all the communities in intercultural
activities; an exploration of the whole-school issues raised when school subjects are
taught in a foreign language; ways of enriching teacher development; involving the
community in the preservation of minority languages and cultures (Sorbian in
Germany, for example).
The case studies focus on different stakeholders involved in the educational process:
head teachers, teachers, parents, the community at large. Their great strength lies in the
way the experiences are specific and practical – although recipes are avoided, the
different initiatives described will prompt similar ground-based approaches.
LDL – Linguistic diversity and literacy in a global perspective
At first sight this project is outside the Eurocentric scope of the ECML’s activities; it is
the result of collaboration between African and European linguists and educationalists.
The project explored ways in which minority languages – in this case mainly languages
of southern Africa – can be promoted so that they become the languages of education
and of social and political life.
The first part of the project publication makes a trenchant case for the development of
education in indigenous languages rather than the ex-colonial languages – English,
Portuguese, French. If these remain the dominant languages with high prestige and as
the best pathways to professional and social success, this harms the development of
local, regional and national identity. The rest of the book explores ways in which this
can be done. It included the translation of folk tales into a number of Nguni languages,
since one of the problems of educational development is the lack of sufficient locallybased
reading material.
The project also looked at different ways in which African languages could be
promoted through publications, broadcasting, conferences and associations. A happy
by-product of the book was the organisation of a Year of African Languages (not an
African Year of Languages, but drawing on the experiences of the European Year in
2001). The methodological approaches described show how a general development of
language awareness and awakening to languages is an important stepping stone to
establishing African languages in education; since all the environments are multilingual
and most of the learners plurilingual, it has particular relevance to Europe as well.
And this relevance to Europe is true of the project as a whole. The emphasis on the fact
that plurilingualism is not simply the co-existence of several languages side-by-side,
but that creating linguistic identity needs to take account of the prestige and status of
50