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Dominant Language Constellations: Teaching and Learning Languages in a Multilingual World

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Policy Development in TESOL and Multilingualism

Abstract

In a globalized world, teaching English to speakers of other languages is indivisible from multilingualism. Due to the transformation of language practices, the linguistic “unit of circulation” is neither a single language, nor the entire linguistic repertoire. Instead, sets of languages perform the essential functions of communication, cognition and identity for individuals, institutions and communities. This chapter describes the concept of Dominant Language Constellation (DLC), a group of vehicle languages, enabling individuals and institutions to meet all their needs in a multilingual environment. DLC includes only the most expedient languages for a person or a group. It is an active fraction of one’s linguistic repertoire and normally (but not always) consists of three languages, e.g., Spanish/Catalan/English. The DLC perspective reflects current multilingual practices and deals with multiple language acquisition and the administrative and language policy-related issues in multilingual education. The absence of an arbitrarily inbuilt hierarchy from “big” to “small” or “better” or “worse” in a DLC makes the approach useful for multilingual countries with an especially challenging choice of languages for education. The non-hierarchical structure of a DLC, where languages are unordered from social and cultural points of view, does not mean that each language has an equal role, time of use or proficiency; rather, different languages play different roles and have various “weights.” The DLC concept allows teachers and researchers to take into account the impact of multilingualism on education and organize the target language teaching accordingly. This chapter describes how to accomplish a multilingual paradigm in teaching English.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oranim Academic College of Education, Kiryat Tiv’on, Israel

    Larissa Aronin

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  1. Larissa Aronin
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Correspondence to Larissa Aronin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, Foundation Program, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

    Kashif Raza

  2. Dubai Men’s College, Higher Colleges of Technology, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Christine Coombe

  3. Carnegie Mellon University Qatar, Doha, Qatar

    Dudley Reynolds

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Aronin, L. (2021). Dominant Language Constellations: Teaching and Learning Languages in a Multilingual World. In: Raza, K., Coombe, C., Reynolds, D. (eds) Policy Development in TESOL and Multilingualism. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3603-5_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3603-5_22

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-16-3602-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-16-3603-5

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