Plurilingual competence as defined by the Education Policy Division of the Council of Europe (2016) describes the ability to critically reflect and strategically use linguistic resources and knowledge across languages in order to manage successful communication as well as life-long (language) learning. The underlying assumption is that learned and acquired languages of an individual speaker are not distinctly compartmentalized but form an interdependent linguistic repertoire which can and should be meaningfully implemented into language teaching and learning. This requires to revisit and re-assess traditional monolingually biased concepts and approaches to (English) language teaching in favor of a plurilingual perspective on (English) language learning.
Adopting this plurilingual perspective we will discuss ways in which concepts such as Translanguaging or Linguistic Landscaping can be implemented into English as a Foreign Language (ELF) classrooms and lesson planing; operationalize plurilingual competence in reference to curricula and competence descriptors such as the FREPA; question principles such as functional monolingualism and explore what it means for future teachers of English to enable learners to become plurilingually competent.

This course’s assessment requirement and formats will be discussed in the first session.

Key Words: translanguaging, English as lingua franca, Linguistic Landscaping, plurilingualism, diversity, communicative competence, language teaching, lesson planning, plurilingual competence