Company. Faced with the problem of the language barrier in certain schools, several volunteers from the Reading and Reading program of the Teaching League participated on Tuesday, May 7 in a workshop on multilingualism, at the Maison des associations.
What is multilingualism? The concept was discussed at length by some volunteers from the Ligue de l’enseignement’s Read and Make People Read program. Their mission: to share with children a taste for reading and literature. But volunteers face an increasingly frequent problem… “Volunteers read a lot in schools in Chaumont and the surrounding area. In several schools, they are increasingly faced with students who do not speak French,” explains Leïla Aba, education coordinator for the Education League in Haute-Marne.
So, how can we successfully transmit the passion for reading to an audience who does not understand what is being said? This is all the thinking that was carried out by eight volunteers from Chaumont. But before finding solutions, we need to know what this “multilingualism” is all about. During the workshop, Leïla Aba tried to guide her group of volunteers by asking everyone to give their vision of multilingualism via images and key words.
An opportunity and a hindrance
After a few minutes of reflection, the eight participants shared their thoughts. “Diversity”, “stigmatize”, “meet”, “exclude”, “integration”, “fragility”… There were numerous concepts to try to fit into everyone’s idea of multilingualism. “For me, it’s both an opportunity and a hindrance,” begins Martine, a volunteer. It’s a chance to speak several languages to travel and meet people. But it is also a hindrance because to learn a new language, you have to make much more effort than others. For some, it’s a hard, but educational, path. »
This moment of exchange is also an opportunity for volunteers to share their experiences in the field. “At Robert-Pillon school, there was a child who was often in the clouds. It was when we saw her brother come to pick her up one day that we understood that she didn’t speak French. But her teacher did not warn us that she did not speak the language,” reports Yolande.
Solutions to avoid exclusion
For nearly an hour and a half, workshop participants addressed multiple topics related to multilingualism – such as immigration, culture and poverty – but without discrimination or racism. The aim of this meeting is to enrich reflection to understand the issues, advantages and disadvantages of dealing with children who do not always understand the world around them.
Ultimately, the objective of this workshop is to imagine ideas on how to approach reading with all audiences of children. “You have to stay in communication and see how to bring things about in a positive way. We have a role to play in the future of children by showing them that they are considered,” explains Leïla Aba. If the miracle solution does not exist, the group imagines, for example, using more picture books so as not to exclude any child and to make reading a vector of integration.
Chloé Frelat
