Bilingualism, multilingualism, plurilingualism

Nowadays, knowing several languages is indispensable in university education, culture, and social life. It is also becoming a condition of employment. According to EU documents, a modern European should be multilingual. What does that actually mean? We will learn more about it during courses related to language acquisition, learning, and teaching.

Who is a bilingual and multilingual person?

A bilingual person is not someone who has mastered two languages at the same level because such persons are rare. Rather, bilingualism is defined as the ability to produce understandable utterances in any of the known languages. Therefore, we also include learners of a given language in the group of bilingual and multilingual individuals.

It is assumed that multilingualism is the ability to use (not necessarily perfectly) several languages by a given person. It also means the mutual interactions of these languages in the user's mind and the entire linguistic and cultural experience of their user making up his / her communicative competence. Multilingualism understood in this way leads to the concept of plurilingualism used in EU documents. Multilingualism does not mean perfect knowledge of several languages but an attempt to use your linguistic knowledge and skills to communicate with other people in many life situations. In practice, it means the ability to operate effectively in a multinational and multicultural community through a certain sensitivity to the similarities and differences between languages and cultures.

Psycholinguistics – science across two fields

Is it possible to measure and describe children's learning of the mother tongue? How to measure foreign language learning? These questions will be answered by courses in psycholinguistics. It is a field of science on the cross-section of psychology and linguistics. It deals with the psychological foundations of language functioning, that is, how languages are acquired, processed, and used in the human mind.

So, a short quiz:

Is it possible that a child with a normal IQ may never learn their mother tongue?

Yes, if they do not start at the right moment – when they are isolated from language stimuli until adolescence.

Do bilingual children, which is those who learn two languages simultaneously, develop similarly to their monolingual peers?

Yes, they reach similar milestones, but in the in the first years of life bilinguals may develop slower than monolinguals in each of the languages. They have a double task to do so they need more time to learn.

Do bilinguals and multilinguals confuse the languages in their heads?

Yes, because languages are not stored in separate "boxes" in the brain. But multilingual people can control these languages to a great extent and actively inhibit the use of a language that is not needed at the moment. Such "mixing" of languages also affects the ease of learning other languages.

So, are bilinguals and multilinguals different from monolinguals?

Yes, knowledge of languages affects our mental flexibility (e.g. inhibition processes) and our cognitive abilities.

Does bilingualism affect our perception of the world?

Yes, knowledge of languages changes the way we call objects, colours, and even space perception!

Do we acquire our mother tongue differently than a foreign language?

It depends on our age and the conditions of learning – how old we are and whether we study the language in or outside the classroom.

Is it just as easy for a Polish language speaker to learn any language?

No, it is easier to learn typologically related languages, for example Slovak, rather than Norwegian!

Have you found it interesting? These are the topics discussed in psycholinguistics and language acquisition courses. We offer courses on:

The acquisition of languages, language systems, and language skills
Individual differences between language learners
Influence of the mother tongue on second-language acquisition
Psychology of communication
Methodology of teaching foreign languages

If you are bilingual or multilingual, you can teach other languages! If you want to know:

Why is it not worth explaining grammar to children?
How to cope with the class of eight-year-olds?
What to entertain teenagers with?
Should a good language teacher also know other foreign languages?
Where to find teaching materials?

We offer many methodology courses, including:

modern methods of teaching English
analysis and creation of teaching materials
language assessment

Having completed these courses, you can obtain pedagogical qualifications, NECESSARY if you wish to work as a language teacher.

CLIL

CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is an educational approach to language learning promoted by the European Commission as a way to develop multilingualism in Europe. CLIL is an umbrella term for various forms of bilingual education. It can mean both teaching a given subject in a foreign language and introducing elements of other subjects from the school curriculum to teaching a foreign language. In other words: CLIL is two in one, that is, language and subject learning together.

The CLIL approach is developing in various forms in Europe, mainly thanks to teachers. That is why our courses aimed at prospective teachers show how CLIL can be introduced at different stages of education – at the primary, secondary, and university levels. The courses focus mainly on important questions surrounding the teacher and current issues that may be of interest to teachers both in Poland and in many European countries:

Why to teach a language and a subject at the same time?
Doesn't that slow down the process?
What are the advantages of CLIL?
Does CLIL always work?
How is CLIL different from learning the language itself?
What forms should it take considering the age and proficiency level of students?
Where to find teaching materials?
How to create your own materials that will support language acquisition while learning the subject?
What basic mistakes do teachers make when creating CLIL materials and programmes?

In Poland, the demand for bilingual education continues to increase, so experience with CLIL teaching may soon become necessary in the profession of a foreign language teacher. Our courses, conducted by experienced educators cooperating with schools, provide future teachers with unique knowledge.