Linguistic heritage and cultural horizons that meet. An intercultural education experience for children hosted by a host educational community

Abstract

The research questions that give rise to the contribution are essentially two: what happens in childhood when a new language becomes part of a child's linguistic heritage, due to a migratory phenomenon that was directly experienced or that, in the past, had affected the child's family (Favaro, 2013)? In what way can the mutual linguistic knowledge and the coexistence of children from different migratory backgrounds, included in a host educational community, be facilitated? The community can be thought of as the ideal place for a multilingual immersion, in which children, through frequent, natural and spontaneous interactions typical of everyday life, can familiarize with a second language, becoming aware not only of different sounds, but also of different cultural meanings. The contribution, in its first part, outlines a theoretical reference framework about the interaction between culture and linguistic variable; in the second part, describes the planning and execution, albeit in the initial phase, of an intercultural education intervention designed for children of other cultural origins, who live in an educational community, to enhance the linguistic and relational aspect of the dialogue among different cultures.

Keywords

• host educational community
• childhood
• daily linguistic practices
• migratory background
• intercultural dialogue