This paper aims to inform about the research project in Intercomprehension in Germanic Languages (IGL) at the School of Languages of the National University of Cordoba and to explore the main challenges involved in teaching IGL to Spanish speaking students online. The article presents the theoretical framework underlying intercomprehension in related languages and online teaching. Concepts such as intercomprehension, transfer and the Seven Sieves, as well as principles of online education that have been taken into account in the design of the online course called Interger: el viaje, are discussed. Reference is made to the background to research on intercomprehension in Europe and Latin America and then to the course design phases. Finally, we report on the main aspects of the course whose design is underway, with particular emphasis on the challenges involved in this work.

In this chapter, we analyse the co-construction of meaning by university students in romance language (RL) chat rooms, in an online platform focused on multilingual language practice and learning. This communicative situation can best be described through the concept of ‘intercomprehension’, i.e. a multilingual and multisemiotic communicative practice between speakers of different languages (in this case, typologically related languages), and will be analysed using a translanguaging lens, which is embedded in a heteroglossic perspective. Such an analysis invites us to perceive fluidity in the borders between languages and inside individuals’ repertoires. In this particular multilingual learning situation, where participants communicate to learn and learn to communicate in RL chat rooms, we will observe speakers’ double orientation towards translanguaging, i.e. the interconnection between ‘translanguaging to learn’ and ‘learning to translanguage’. The results demonstrate a strategic use of translanguaging skills (with specific affective, cognitive and social goals), together with the subjects’ explicit agency when engaged in intercomprehensive communicative practices.

Louise Dabène a été l’une des pionnières dans la recherche en intercompréhension (IC), influençant depuis sa genèse le développement de la didactique du plurilinguisme. S’inscrivant dans la continuité de ses travaux, un groupe international de chercheurs-formateurs vit le jour et développa ses recherches sur l’IC. Le travail de ce groupe s’est étendu de l’IC écrite entre paires de langues (projet de départ avec Galatea), à la formation des enseignants à l’IC (avec Galapro), en passant par des études sur l’IC écrite et orale, réceptive et interactive (de Galanet à Miriadi) et par d’autres thématiques, avec des équipes plus élargies, comme l’évaluation des compétences en IC (avec le projet EVAL-IC). Prenant appui sur l’ouvrage-phare de Louise Dabène, « Repères sociolinguistiques pour l’enseignement de langues » publié en 1994, nous nous attacherons ici à analyser les conditions qui ont favorisé, au sein de ce groupe, l’émergence de l’IC comme approche didactique capable de répondre aux défis de « situations linguistiques complexes », aussi bien du point de vue sociétal qu’individuel. Nous nous pencherons à la suite sur la façon dont l’IC peut contribuer à une « didactique des situations plurilingues », de par la façon provocatrice dont elle interroge les désignations des langues et de leurs statuts, ainsi que leurs rôles et hiérarchies.

Teacher education is a complex field, as it mobilises different knowledge domains, intervention contexts and multiple actors. The intervention in this field and the identification of the most adequate pathways to adopt, is perceived as difficult. With the purpose of providing support to tackle with such challenge, a teacher education framework for didactics of intercomprehension (REFDIC) was designed. In this chapter, we search to identify its research potential, based on the analysis of texts on the topic of intercomprehension in education processes written by school teachers in the context of pre- and in-service courses, which took place in Higher Education institutions in Portugal.

This framework aims to contribute to the development of teacher educators in order to be able to integrate Intercomprehension in their educational activities in presence and online. This document is therefore an instrument for designing and putting into practice intercomprehension courses in contexts of teacher education and evaluation (including self-assessment) of professional competencies (knowledge, attitudes and skills) for the introduction of intercomprehension in situations of language contact and intercultural communication.

In the paper, we e examine the concept of mediation, through an analysis of an on-line, multilingual teacher education environment. In particular, we analyse the exchanges of the participants during an on-line session aimed at teacher development in Intercomprehension theories and practices. Due to the pluralistic approach to teacher education adopted in the session, linguistic diversity is accepted by the participant as a natural ingredient of communication, so that clashes are usually absent or not directly thematised. We have adopted a socioconstructivist approach to mediation, anchored in the detailed presentation of the collaborative communicative scenario. We intend to describe how mediation, and especially cognitive and relational mediation, works in such an educational environment. Mediation is understood by participants as a shared responsibility, deployed collaboratively and, therefore, as a communicative process and strategic educational tool supporting collaborative professional development. Hence, mediation closely relates to and depends on shared and co-constructed linguistic, cognitive and emotional dispositions.

Intercomprehension (IC) is based on the ability of the subject, in plurilingual and intercultural communication, to understand the language(s) of Others and to be understood in their language(s). Virtual mobility has motivated a set of studies on virtual interactive IC which we aim to analyse in order to identify the competences developed in this context of communication. We conducted a literature review with a systematic approach of 30 studies which shows that participants develop plurilingual and intercultural competences, as well as general ones. Besides, the dispersion between theoretical frameworks and methodological instruments makes it difficult to build a coherent body of knowledge.

Following our previous studies in the field of student teachers’ representations about the four pluralistic approaches, we shall focus, in this contribution, on this target audience’s representations about one particular approach: intercomprehension. We will analyse student teachers’ perceptions concerning the advantages and the possibilities of integrating intercomprehension in the school curriculum. We will therefore analyse the educational, social and affective, pedagogical and organizstional and learning arguments student teachers put forward to justify their perceptions. This study aims at contributing to the planning and implementation of specific training initiatives in the field of intercomprehension didactics for language student teachers.

Intercomprehension (IC) is often presented as the result of learning receptive skills in one or more languages, through the transfer of knowledge and strategies previously acquired or developed. However, the different existing approaches do not exploit all the synergies made possible by an inter-linguistic and inter-textual systematic and simultaneous comparison. Therefore, the IC course certainly becomes, by its structure, a multilingual course, but seldom a plurilingual one. This article tries to show how language learning can effectively benefit from the synergies provided by a real plurilingual approach to IC. This statement will be illustrated through examples provided to the learners by a multinational team of researchers, in the context of the Intermar course.

Esta investigação surge dada a nossa motivação profissional, como docente do Ensino Português no Estrangeiro - EPE, em França, na modalidade Ensino Internacional de Língua Estrangeira - EILE, e visa desenvolver uma reflexão sobre o modo como têm sido tratadas as questões do plurilinguismo e da intercultura pelo sistema educativo Francês. França é um país multicultural onde coabitam várias culturas, ouvem-se falar vários idiomas, e existem infraestruturas que contemplam todas essas culturas. A nível educacional é um país que continua a demonstrar uma aparente harmonia intercultural nas escolas, com a implementação de políticas linguísticas que continuam a fomentar e a valorizar o plurilinguismo, mesmo após os ataques terroristas que se iniciaram em 2015. Neste sentido, esta investigação parte, também, da necessidade de verificarmos se existem práticas implementadas quanto ao desenvolvimento das competências interculturais (CI) e à promoção do plurilinguismo no ensino em França, uma vez que entendemos que a escola, enquanto instituição responsável por formar cidadãos aptos a interagir num mundo cada vez mais globalizado, deverá implementar projetos e desenvolver práticas pedagógicas que fomentem tais competências. Tendo em conta a problemática em estudo, o nosso trabalho de campo, incide na análise de um corpus constituído em primeiro lugar pelos projetos observados e pela observação realizada na formação dos docentes dos cursos EILE e Ensino de Língua e cultura de Origem (ELCO), e em segundo lugar pelos inquéritos por questionário recolhidos face à formação destes docentes e à sua opinião em geral face à temática. Este estudo pretende contribuir para uma maior valorização da importância do desenvolvimento das CI no ensino das línguas assim como contribuir para uma maior consciencialização face à promoção do plurilinguismo nas sociedades em geral, nomeadamente através da implementação de projetos e parcerias com outros organismos que deem uma imagem positiva e moderna do ensino mostrando as vantagens de aprender várias línguas.