The article aims to address major  developments in professional teachers’ training from a European perspective, regarding plurilingualism and the diversity of languages as valuable assets in the education, culture, politics and economics of twenty-first century societies

Дуплійчук, О. М.

Дуплійчук О. М.

Zhytomyr State University Library

Olga DuplichukPhD studentZhytomyr Ivan Franko State UniversityPLURILINGUALISM AS A VALUABLE ASSET OFPROFESSIONAL PHILOLOGISTS' TRAININGThe article aims to address major  developments in professional teachers’training from a European perspective, regarding plurilingualism and the diversityof languages as valuable assets in the education, culture, politics and economicsof twenty-first century societies.Over the past few decades Ukrainian society has been confronted withsubstantial social, cultural, economic and technological changes and challenges.There seems to be widespread agreement that education and training will have toplay a key role in order to meet these changes and challenges adequately andpro-actively.Since the early nineties education and training  have become policypriorities in most Member States of the European Union. Ukraine withoutexception accumulates all-round efforts of foreign and domestic policy to aspire tothe European Union and to create the necessary prerequisites for membership inEU in the future. By focusing on human capital theories, which stress the relevance of bothcomprehensive and coherent human resource development for the economic andsocial prosperity of post-industrial information societies, education hasincreasingly become an integral part of economic and social society. Within thiscontext of change language becomes increasingly important. As a tool forcommunication it is a crucial element in professional teacher’s training. In Ukraine much of the effort made in recent years to increase the linguisticreadiness of the country to join European ‘space’ that requires from its citizens thecompetence of multilateral communication and cultural correctness. Relying onthis fact we consider the plurilinguistic approach to be the indispensable andleading component in professional philologists’ training. Proficiency in several Community languages has become a precondition ifcitizens of the European Union are to benefit from the occupational and personalopportunities open to them in the border-free Single Market. This languageproficiency must be backed up by the ability to adapt to working and livingenvironments characterised by different cultures.The following points are particularly noteworthy for agitation of aplurilinguistic approach in the professional pedagogical training :(i) The learning of other languages is to serve the aim of acquiring theability to communicate in those languages.(ii) Proficiency in at least two foreign languages is regarded as a must foreveryone –in other words, the principle of equity applies. (iii) The learning of one foreign language is not enough; the goal ismultilingual, not bilingual proficiency.(iv) Learning other languages is relevant to personal development.(v) Language proficiency is linked to occupational opportunities – in otherwords, to employability.(vi) Although the 1+>2 formula makes a distinction between mother tongueand foreign languages, the White Paper first and foremost speaks of “proficiencyin three Community languages”, thereby highlighting the importance ofconsidering a person’s linguistic repertoire in its entirety [4, p.2].The European Commission believes that languages are also the key toknowing other people. Proficiency in languages helps to build up the feeling ofbeing European with all its cultural wealth and diversity and of understandingbetween the citizens of Europe.Learning languages also has another important effect: experience shows thatwhen undertaken during the education, it is an important factor in doing well atstudy. Contact with another language is not only compatible with becomingproficient in one's mother tongue, it also makes it easier. It opens the mind,stimulates intellectual agility and, of course, expands people's cultural horizon.Plurilingualism is part and parcel of both European identity/citizenship and thelearning society.Thus, in line with the resolution of the Council of Education Ministers of 31March 1995, it is becoming necessary for everyone, irrespective of training andeducation routes chosen, to be able to acquire and keep up their ability tocommunicate in at least two Community languages in addition to their mothertongue [2, p.47].In this connection the profession of a teacher-philologist assumed a uniquestatus: in the constantly changing world the educational policy needs permanentregulations and reconstructions, and a teacher in its turn has to be the agent ofthese changes to meet the needs of a multilingual and multicultural Europe byappreciably developing the ability of pupils to communicate with each otheracross linguistic and cultural boundaries.In the light of these objectives, the Committee of Ministers stressed ‘thepolitical importance at the present time and in the future of developing specificfields of action, such as strategies for diversifying and intensifying languagelearning in order to promote plurilingualism in a pan-European context’ and drewattention to the value of further developing educational links and exchanges and ofexploiting the full potential of new communication and information technologies[5].The concept of plurilingualism of the Council of Europe’s approach tolanguage learning is explained in the first chapter of The Common EuropeanFramework of Reference in the following way: “Plurilingualism differs frommultilingualism,which is the knowledge of a number of languages, or theco-existence of different languages in a given society. Multilingualism may beattained by simply diversifying the languages on offer in a particular school oreducational system, or by encouraging pupils to learn more than one foreignlanguage, or reducing the dominant position of English in internationalcommunication. Beyond this, the plurilingual approach emphasises the fact that asan individual person’s experience of language in its cultural contexts expands,from the language of the home to that of society at large and then to the languagesof other people (whether learnt at school or college, or by direct experience), heor she does not keep these languages and cultures in strictly separated mentalcompartments, but rather builds up a communicative competence to which allknowledge and experience of language contributes and in which languagesinterrelate and interact. In different situations, a person can call flexibly upondifferent parts of this competence to achieve effective communication with aparticular interlocutor” [1, p.4-6].From this perspective, the aim of language education is profoundlymodified. It is no longer seen as simply to achieve ‘mastery’ of one or two, or eventhree languages, each taken in isolation, with the ‘ideal native speaker’ as theultimate model. Instead, the aim is to develop a linguistic repertory, in which alllinguistic abilities have a place. This implies, of course, that the languages offeredin educational institutions should be diversified and students given the opportunityto develop a plurilingual competence.Furthermore, once it is recognised that language learning is a lifelong task,the development of a young person’s motivation, skill and confidence in facingnew language experience out of school comes to be of central importance. That’swhy, one of the most important philologist’s task is to provide the richest possiblelinguistic environment in which learning can take place without formal teaching.What is more, the plurilingual competence of a teacher-philologist shouldbe fully developed just before the beginning of his pedagogical activity in order tomould it in his potential pupils. A teacher-philologist should not only call flexibly upon different parts ofhis communicative competence to achieve effective contact with a particularinterlocutor but also be a generator of innovative cultural processes, a recipientand a retransmitter of foreign cultural impulses and phenomena because languageis not only a major aspect of culture, but also a means of access to culturalmanifestations. That’s why plurilingualism has itself to be seen in the context ofpluriculturalism. Being the interpreter of national culture, a philologist becomesthe creator of a lively process of students' involvement in foreign culture pavingthe way for greater mobility, more effective international communicationcombined with respect for identity and cultural diversity, better access toinformation, more intensive personal interaction, improved working relations anda deeper mutual understanding. In philologist’s  cultural competence, the variouscultures (national, regional, social) to which this teacher has gained access do notsimply co-exist side by side; they are compared, contrasted and actively interact toproduce an enriched, integrated pluricultural competence, of which plurilingualcompetence is one component, again interacting with other components.It follows from this that pluricultural paradigm favours better features'understanding of philologists' professional training where languages and literaturecome as main generalized activity objects.  Interconnection of education andculture takes place in the pluricultural environment of higher educationinstitutions and in particular philology department through generalization, keepingand revival of national cultural and educational traditions.Therefore, a plurilingual approach acquires the special meaning inprofessional pedagogical training of different areas’ experts and futureteacher-philologists in particular; as being the key figure of the educational systema philologist is called to provide the solution of above-stated problems that is toprepare future and present experts to the living in multicultural societies of theXXI century.The given approach is the theoretical and methodological strategy ofplurilingual and pluricultural forming of future teachers’ pedagogical competence.It is also the method to reveal complex interconnections and interdependences ofstructural elements of the object under study, in our case of professionalpedagogical training of future teachers-philologists that leads to its successfulforming in the context of pluricultural pedagogical education, providing theorganization of study process in the spirit of intercultural dialogue, humanizationof educational aims and content from positions of tolerant perception of foreignculture.The changing role of languages in general and the growing importance ofplurilingualism for European integration in all fields in particular should lead toinnovative approaches in teaching programmes and in researches.Thereby,teacher’s training on plurilingualism is crucially important and effective. The basicpurpose of plurilingualism in the professional pedagogical activity is the futureteacher's training to plurilingual communication and formation of pluriculturalprofessional competence.References1. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages:Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.2. European Commission (1995) White paper on Education and Training– Тeaching and Learning – Towards the Learning Society. COM (95)590.[Електронний ресурс] / Council of Europe, (1998) Recommendation 98(6) of theCommittee of Ministers on Linguistic Diversity. Режим доступу:http://ec.europa.eu/languages/documents/doc409_en.pdf3. Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and the promotion ofplurilingualism, 2 July 2008. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2008.4.  Multilingual Competences for Professional and Social Success inEurope (Warsaw, 28-29 September 2011) [Електронний ресурс]. Режимдоступу: http://www.celelc.org/docs/mackiewicz__warsaw_0.pdf5. Recommendation CM / Rec (2008)7 of the Committee of Ministers tomember States on the use of the Council of Europe’s Common EuropeanFramework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and the promotion ofplurilingualism, 2 July 2008. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2008.

PLURILINGUALISM AS A VALUABLE ASSET OF PROFESSIONAL PHILOLOGISTS' TRAINING

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