Discover InterComprehension

Unique languages, universal patterns

Redinter Discovery — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:24:04 +0000

Case, Argument Structure and Word Order (Routledge) is a new book by MIT linguist Shigeru Miyagawa, showing that there are quite a few similarities between far-flung languages such as English and Japanese. This underscores a larger point about human language, in Miyagawa’s view: all its varieties seem to exist within a relatively structured framework. Languages are different, but not radically different. Although their evolution may have gone in opposite directions in certain respects — as is the case for Japanese and English — they cannot just change into anything.

This may be yet another reason why learning one or two more distant languages should immediately give us a headstart for more general intercomprehension: besides sharing general cultural practices and international vocabularies, we partially also share general linguistic structures, to some degree facilitating interpretation of any human language.

CINCO – Training Intercomprehension for Cooperation

Redinter Discovery — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:48:12 +0000

Today various European organizations of social and educational volunteers are gathered in international cooperation networks. Communication between partners is often faced with problems of linguistic diversity so that English is often used as a lingua franca. However, this might make it difficult for partners to speak with precision, depth and clarity, and misunderstandings might easily result. Associations of Romance language partners face similar challenges and are looking for new solutions.

CINCO aims to integrate IC in the vocational training of workers in these organizations. It brings together a network of IC specialists and a network of educational associations and will adapt existing IC materials to their specific professional needs. This will be done through creating training modules for blended learning.

The products will be available online, and consist of structured sets of materials organized in different scripts of activities, and a collaborative platform. These scripts, including both face-to-face sessions and online individual tutorials, will be tested in the context of a training course for people employed by the associations. Scripts that will have proved their worth will be made freely accessible to a wider audience !

Early language learning and learner autonomy

Redinter Discovery — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:11:35 +0000

Early education in more than one language is not only beneficial for the child’s development and its educational advantage, but also prepares better for later language awareness and additional learning, for instance through intercomprehension: a strategy of learning languages progressively and autonomously, on the basis of the languages that one already knows.

In the course of 2010 and 2011 several new books appeared by Peter Doyé, the pioneering and prolific teacher, researcher and writer on language education and intercomprehension. Having researched and taught in teacher training for over thirty years at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, he recently studied and academically coached experiments in bilingual preschool education in Wolfsburg and Berlin.

The theoretical underpinnings for these studies can be found in Didaktik der bilingualen Vorschulerziehung Dargestellt am Beispiel der vorschulischen Einrichtungen in Berlin und Wolfsburg (Gunter Narr). Teaching materials for preschoolers in German/English, German/Italian and German/Spanish are now also available in a series of Praxismaterialien für die bilinguale Vorschulerziehung (OLMS, Perfect Paperback) and through online booksellers.

Peter Doyé & Bettina King (2011) Kindergarten goes bilingual. Partnersprache Englisch.
Peter Doyé & Angela Manazza (2011) Vivere due lingue: Italienisch im bilingualen Kindergarten.
Peter Doyé & Cecilia Hausmann (2011) Educación Bilingüe: Spanish im bilingualen Kindergarten.

With Franz Joseph Meissner he edited a volume of papers (2010) entitled Lernerautonomie durch Interkomprehension: Projekte und Perspektiven. Promoting Learner Autonomy through intercomprehension: projects and perspectives (Gunter Narr).

IC2012 conference, Grenoble June 2012

Redinter Discovery — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:36:52 +0000

The Université Stendhal – Grenoble 3 is hosting an international conference on Intercomprehension, which will take place on 21-23 June 2012. After twenty years of research activity, teaching and publications on Intercomprehension, this third international conference (following those of Lisbon 2007 and Augsburg 2010) aims to contribute to the study and dissemination of the concept of Intercomprehension in language education, research and practice.

The conference will focus on three themes:

the development of multiple competences and their evaluation
the construction and exploitation of corpora leading up to and including situations of intercomprehension
the integration of intercomprehension initiatives, courses and practices.

Abstracts and proposals for presentations (max. 2 pages including bibliographical references) are accepted until 20 December 2011. Abstracts and proposals will have to state their link to one of the conference themes and will be accepted in any of these languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese. Presentations in one of these languages will have to be accompanied by a visual presentation in another language.

More information and submission of abstracts at http://ic2012.u-grenoble3.fr under “submission”.

Intercomprehension for seafarers

Redinter Discovery — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 22:42:02 +0000

Work at sea includes frequent contacts with people speaking different languages and coming from diverse cultures, either on-board or ashore. Communication is ensured by the use of both general and specialized English (SMCP, as well as VHF procedures accepted worldwide). Yet, double synergies may be developed between the learning of Maritime English and the construction of IC competences paving the way to learning other languages through IC specific activities and tasks.

The EU project Intermar is creating a European community of maritime and naval institutions that share an IC approach to foreign languages. Starting from existing materials it will build adapted products to create an effective course tool box, available online on a learning platform. On this platform, teachers and learners will find custom-designed modules for IC and Maritime English, containing learning materials, concrete scripts for collaborative tasks and assessment tools.

Intermar will thus promote innovative practices in foreign language acquisition for maritime professionals in Europe, in the context of initial or in-service training activities offered to navy personnel and seafarers.

IC language training for professionals

Redinter Discovery — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:59:27 +0000

The PREFIC project, funded by the European Grundtvig scheme and coordinated by Mondes Parallèles, constitutes a network of intercomprehension specialists who work on language training for adults in professional multinational contexts, in order to encourage mobility and exchange. The languages involved are French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. More information at mparall.association@laposte.net .

Administration and support staff go multilingual

Redinter Discovery — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:29:14 +0000

The Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona has recently provided a 30-hour course in multilingual comprehension for its administrative and support staff, to enable them to deal with the multilingual documents, forms and other writing they come across every day. Teaching staff from the university’s Language Service, UAB Idiomes, used intercomprehension tools to train the support staff in diverse Romance languages.

Language for youth mobility through intercomprehension

Redinter Discovery — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:28:40 +0000

The Majic Project was devised by the French government to help young adults who find it difficult to integrate in the job market. The project encourages mobility and language learning was seen as a tool to enhance that mobility. The language component was taken care of by Mondes Parallèles, an organisation that has been active since 1999. It aims to promote language diversity and intercultural understanding as well as innovation in language teaching. In that spirit, it has supported intercomprehension as a tool for language training in the Romance languages.

Languages for Illiterate Adults

Redinter Discovery — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 23:23:30 +0000

ILLIAD, the European project to promote Intercultural Language Learning among Illiterate Adults has very recently held a Good Practices Conference in Berlin. The ILLIAD project aims to make language learning more inclusive for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Berlin conference included contributions about intercomprehension trainings in Spanish prisons, Swedish for Arabic-speaking immigrants, workplace Norwegian for immigrants, Turkish for refugees in Turkish refugee camps, game-based training for illiterate adults, food literacy, Italian for immigrants, the use of drama in teaching and much more.

Intercomprehension in Lithuania

Redinter Discovery — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:48:56 +0000

The Language Teacher’s Association of Lithuania was founded in 2006 and is active in many different fields, with several European projects in their portfolio. As the protection and promotion of Lithuanian as well as multilingualism are part of their mission, they have been open to several presentations on intercomprehension and opportunities for language teachers in subsequent meetings and conferences .