Pluralistic approaches in foreign language education : examples of implementation from Malta

Abstract

Foreign language pedagogy is witnessing a paradigm shift. During the last decades of the twentieth century, the native-speaker-hearer was retained as the ultimate proficiency target that the foreign language learner was obliged to aim for. Eventually, not only was the notion of native-speaker challenged, but fresh perspectives like those emerging from sociocultural theory, the appreciation of the learner’s first language in the classroom, and learner autonomy, brought to the fore a re-consideration of the beliefs about foreign language teaching and learning. Nowadays, the majority of learners arrive in language classrooms already equipped with knowledge of two or more languages and with an experience of cultures different from their own. Given the needs of today’s plurilingual learners and societies, and in line with postmodernist theory, there is an appropriate shift toward pluralistic approaches in the foreign language classroom. In this chapter, pluralistic approaches are illustrated with examples from the teaching of Maltese as a foreign language.