Page 65 - Compétences plurilingues : perspectives et actions / Plurilingual competencies: perspectives and actions

Discussion

The thematic analysis of the data further revealed a salient aspect emphasized within the lit-
erature on tandem language learning – interculturality. This component manifested in the
participants’ exchanges spontaneously. They harnessed resources such as videos and tra-
ditional narratives, including the French rendition of Snow White, the Czech literary canon’s
work Svatební košile, Czech animated series for children, and cartoon series on Czech his-
tory. Hence, this tandem serves as an illustration of intercultural exploration, showcasing
facets of the plurilingual approach.
The data also unveiled indications of plurilingual teaching strategies adopted by the partic-
ipants in the teacher’s role. While the participants’ central responsibility within the tandem
is to provide context for using the target language, the inherent nature of the exchange ne-
cessitates deploying speci ic strategies to facilitate the language learning. These strategies
encompass the selection of language input, the strategies to process it during the session,
and potentially devising exercises or tasks. These instances draw from the learners’ past
language learning experiences and, at the same time, direct to the plurilingual strategies in
the tandem exchange: translations of stories, watching a ilm in the target language, dis-
cussing historical events, or translanguaging (Garcı́a & Otheguy, 2020).

Discussion

The study’s qualitative design yielded ample data via interviews, re lections, learner diaries,
and a lesson recording to answer the research questions. Exploring the participants’ multi-
lingual motivational pro ile has illuminated motivational speci ic in luences contributing to
their language learning journey. However, while speci ic motivational sources emerged—
such as parents for Ella and language teachers for Aneta—other factors remain unexplored,
resulting in a partial depiction of the ideal multilingual selves. Further research should ex-
amine additional sources that play a role in shaping the multilingual motivational pro iles
of participants. Future interviews should focus more directly on aspects of the ideal mul-
tilingual self, complemented by questionnaires covering various multilingual motivational
self system factors.
The participants’ perceptions of language interaction unveiled a subtle and complex inter-
play. Ella established meaningful links between languages, adeptly connecting languages by
identifying patterns in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. On the other hand, Aneta
struggled to identify positive interactions between her acquired languages. Nevertheless,
she intuitively employed learning strategies without external prompting. Therefore, the
plurilingual approach should bene it from intentional prompting, potentially yielding pro-
ductive outcomes. Such intervention should be empirically tested to validate the role of
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external guidance as observed by Porn and Hansel (2020).
In the tandem context, participants demonstrated plurilingual strategies aimed at enhanc-
ing communication and learning, including translation, translanguaging, and intercultural
comparison. Simultaneously, the indings highlighted the necessity for guided utilization
of students’ plurilingual abilities in language acquisition. This gives rise to two fundamen-
tal questions pertaining to plurilingual pedagogy. Firstly, it became evident that despite
possessing a comprehensive linguistic background, language instructors might face chal-
lenges in effectively imparting plurilingual learning strategies to their students – as illus-

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