DEVELOPING FUNCTIONAL MULTILINGUALISM IN STUDENT AUDIENCES WITH BELARUSIAN MAJORITY: PRACTICAL PROPOSAL

Abstract

The proposal contained in the title is linked to the development of multilingualism in student audiences with a Belarusian majority, regardless of the students’ main (first, native, etc.) language. The advantageousness of multilingualism in the educational process is a matter of wide consensus in the thematic literature. The idea of perceiving the entire linguistic repertoire of students as a valuable resource is developed based on approaches such as systemic functional linguistics, translanguaging and linguistic anthropology in education. The text considers the specifics of the application of these approaches in the Belarusian context. Multilingualism in Belarusian education is rather a declared condition than the real one, despite a high social need for it in society. The recommendations formulated in this paper deal with the main aspects of the organization of teaching aimed at the development of multilingual skills in Belarusian students. It is suggested that, in the first place, the practical level of language proficiency must be identified at university, since the school marks often fall short of indicating the actual ability to use the language. The proposals then elaborate on the formulation, together with students, of motivations for learning languages – and in particular, the Belarusian language. It is argued that young people often find such motivations beyond identitarian discourses of preserving the culture, history, or traditions, increasingly focusing instead on access to social capital, technology, mobility, artworks, and popular culture. The principle of multimodality in educational process is proposed, which can bring multilingualism into the new media dominated routine of young people. The capacity of the Belarusian language to serve for intercultural communication is discussed. It is argued that both the theory and empiric data should be multilingual to avoid hierarchical diglossia. Development of multilingualism among students also requires that teachers acquire and improve the necessary skills.