Page 26 - Diversity in Action

Silva Bratož, Anja Pirih, Anita Sila, and Mojca Žefran

children from diverse backgrounds, ensuring they feel included and valued
in the classroom. This is also emphasised by the DivCon model, which will be
presented in the fifth section. DivCon is an innovative framework designed
to nurture children’s linguistic and cultural awareness in a structured and en-
gaging way. The model is based on a set of activities through which children
are systematically exposed to different languages and cultures.

Plurilingual Competence
Multilingualism is often used as an umbrella term which encompasses any
situation where multiple languages are used. However, it makes sense to dis-
tinguish between the use of different languages in a society or community
and the way multiple languages are used by an individual. This is why the
term plurilingualism was introduced, i.e. to emphasise the dynamic interplay
of multiple languages within an individual. It views language as a resource
and recognises that individuals can draw upon different languages and lan-
guage varieties in flexible and creative ways. The focus is not on knowing
multiple languages, but on how these languages interact and shape an in-
dividual’s linguistic identity and communication strategies. In fact, the intro-
duction of the concept of plurilingualism has shifted the perspective from
understanding linguistic diversity in terms of the coexistence of different lan-
guages in a given society to the individual and the languages at his or her
disposal. As highlighted in the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 4):

the plurilingual approach emphasises the fact that as an individual per-
son’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 lan-
guages of other peoples (whether learnt at school or college, or by di-
rect experience), he or she does not keep these languages and cultures
in strictly separated mental compartments, but rather builds up a com-
municative competence to which all knowledge and experience of lan-
guage contributes and in which languages interrelate and interact.

Inmorepracticalterms,inordertocommunicateeffectivelywithconversa-
tional partners, people might switch between languages or dialects, express-
ingthemselvesinonelanguagewhileunderstandingtheother.Alternatively,
someonemight usetheir knowledgeofmultiplelanguages to decode atext
or spoken content in a previously unfamiliar language, such as by recognis-
ing shared international vocabulary in a new form. Even minimal language
knowledge can be leveraged to assist successful communication by mediat-
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