Language & Democracy

Inequality due to assymetric linguistic skills

Belfast, Northern Ireland, August 23-27, 1999

The subject of the meeting was to explore educational concepts and methods dealing with inequality caused by the asymmetries of linguistic skills. (i.e. foreign language, dominant language, certain codes, multilingual situations).
The Network meeting provided the participating educators with a forum for an extensive exchange of methods and exercises such as

• Methods which focus on cooperation

• Methods acknowledging and visualizing linguistic diversity

• Methods recognizing of linguistic differences

• Methods creating a learning environment, where linguistic diversity is a principle

• Methods experimenting with body language

• Methods which include working with drawing (symbols, "artwork")

• Methods exploring the dimensions of affective learning

• Methods of non-verbal feedback and evaluation

The reflection of the exercises brought up the necessity to differentiate the national and cultural contexts in which certain methods are applied. Therefore the importance of developing, collecting and working with case studies was pointed out. In small groups the linkages and connections of the discussed methodology with themes of democracy and tolerance education were discussed. On that basis the following priorities and work interests were defined:

• Teacher training: Concepts, methods and activities of raising the awareness of linguistic diversity, Creating a study book for teacher training on linguistic diversity in democracy and tolerance education (target group: teachers, educators in general)

• Creating a data-base of the International Network (resources for educators)

• Collecting, developing and designing case studies with regard to language and equality

• Collecting case studies on language and inequality