The Integrated Plurilingual Approach

Abstract

This paper presents a formative research project that is still being carried out and which aims to provide guidance to Spanish schools for adopting a new approach in teaching additional languages from a plurilingual, communicative and conceptual perspective (Cummins, 2007; Negueruela, 2008, 2013). To this purpose, a didactic model has been developed, the so-called Integrated Plurilingual Approach, which is to serve as a comprehensible scientific orienting basis for helping teachers to move informedly towards plurilingual education. Furthermore, the resulting formative intervention is based on a sociocultural perspective of teacher development and is carried out through external dialogic mediation (Johnson, 2009). Accordingly, teachers participating in the project find their own conceptions about additional language teaching confronted with the scientific concepts of the new model. As a result, they engage in a reconceptualization process that empowers them to transform their teaching practice, as significantly supported by the data of an exemplary analysis.