Welcome Remarks, followed by Keynote Address: The Importance of a Plurilingual Approach in English-Speaking Higher Education for Language Vitality and Identity Validation

Welcome remarks:

Lorraine O'Donnell, Research Associate, QUESCREN; Affiliate Assistant Professor, School of Community and Public Affairs, Concordia University

William Floch, Assistant Secretary, Secrétariat aux relations avec les Québécois d'expression anglaise 

Opening Keynote Address

Moderator: Brian Lewis, Professor, Communication Studies, Concordia University 

Angelica Galante, Assistant Professor, Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University

The Importance of a Plurilingual Approach in English-Speaking Higher Education for Language Vitality and Identity Validation

This keynote presentation introduces concepts and research related to the field of plurilingualism. Speakers of two or more languages develop a repertoire, and I have found through my research that, when drawing on their repertoires, speakers do not use their languages entirely separately. Instead, they use the full repertoire flexibly, depending on interlocutors, sociocultural context, and emotional state. In higher education, my research results show that a plurilingual approach in education offers benefits that a monolingual approach may not, since it enhances cognition, criticality, and empathy, among other factors. These research results are significant, as they show the importance of the repertoire among plurilingual speakers and of a plurilingual approach for academic learning. The findings discussed in this presentation are based on two mixed methods studies that I conducted in English-speaking universities: the first study collected data from 250 students in a university in Montréal to examine the relationship between language and identity, and language use. The second study gathered data from 129 students in a university in Toronto and examined students’ perceptions of monolingual and plurilingual approaches to teaching and learning.            

English to French simultaneous translation will be provided during this session.

Speaker bio: 

Angelica Galante is an Assistant Professor in Language Education and TESOL at McGill University, Canada. Her research focuses on social factors that impact language learning, innovative language pedagogy, and the effects of plurilingual and translingual approaches on student learning. She is the recipient of the 2019 Pat Clifford Award awarded by EdCan Network for excellence in educational research. At McGill, Dr. Galante is Director of the Plurilingual Lab where she and her team mobilize research knowledge and teaching resources. She has published in journals such as Applied Linguistics, International Journal of Multilingualism and TESOL Quarterly.

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