ADVISING IN A MULTILINGUAL SETTING: NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR THE ROLE OF THE ADVISOR

in LAMB, T. et REINDERS, H. (2006), Supporting Independent Language Learning : Issues and Options , Bayreuth Contributi ons to Glottodidactics, Peter Lang, Berne, pp. 21 -35 ADVISING IN A MULTILINGUAL SETTING: NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR THE ROLE OF THE ADVISOR Marie -Jose Gremmo and E. Desiree Castillo Introduction In the past fifteen years, there has been an increase in the number of self -access centers around the world. By u sing new technologies that allow access to up -to-date materials in different languages, they have become centers for multilingual learning. Many of these centers are based on a self -directed system, meaning that an advising service is provided. In the lit erature on self -directed language learning, the advisor is considered to be the keystone in a self -DFFHVVFHQWHU,Q*UHPPRVHWRXWWRGHILQHWKHDGYLVRU¶VUROHOne of the aspects she mentions is that the advisor can advise in and for different lang uages without being a specialist in those languages. Thus we are confronted with WKH³SOXULOLQJXDOLVP´RIWKHDGYLVRUDERXWZKLFKDOPRVWQRUHVHDUFKKDVEHHQGRQH Here, we need to explain an important distinction between the two terms which we will be u VLQJ7KHILUVWLVWKHWHUP³PXOWLOLQJXDO´ZKLFKGHVFULEHVDQHQYLURQPHQWRUmilieu where two or more languages are spoken or expressed. It refers to the nature of the environment, such as a society that uses different languages, learning material present ed in different languages, language centers that afford access to different ODQJXDJHVHWF7KHVHFRQGLVWKH)UHQFKWHUP³SOXULOLQJXDO´DVLWLVXVHGE\WKH&RXQFLORI(XURSH³$SHUVRQZKRLVFDSDEOHRIXVLQJDGYLVHGO\VHYHUDOOLQJXLVWLFYDULHWLHV´ LV SO urilingual (Riley 2003:13). This distinction is discussed in Riley (2003). With the purpose of deepening our knowledge of the plurilingualism of the advisor, we investigated the following questions: 1. Does the multilingualism of the technology and materia ls found in self -access language centers promote a pedagogical plurilingualism? 2. What factors promote plurilingual advising? 3. What training would advisors need to be able to do plurilingual advising in a multilingual setting? 4. What are the advantages to offer ing plurilingual advising? The first step toward answering these questions is to recognize the nature of the environment in which an advisor must function competently: that is to say the multilingualism that occurs in a self -access language centre. In thi s context, multilingualism is present in two different ways: x First, in the different languages available to be learned as represented by the various materials. halshs-00614983, version 1 - 17 Aug 2011