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CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND MULTILINGUALISM IN THE TEACHING OFENGLISH
Juan Ignacio OlivaProvided that language learning takes place at a global scale, it involves not onlyspecific curricular abilities or skills in a limited space of knowledge, but quite on thecontrary, it needs an ever-increasing capacity of continuous development in multiplelearning strategies, from phonetics to syntactical structures and the immersion in thelexicon of a language. As Teun A. van Dijk proclaims for the socio-cognitive school of criticism, there needs to be an interaction between mental and environmental values andactions to comprehend and apprehend the socio-linguistic dimensions of knowledge.
1 
The interdisciplinary and multilateral approach will help to understand, relate and copewith such a complicate task. The use of literary texts and other artistic disciplines (suchas music, painting, theatre or creative writing) in the language classrooms will prove avery important tool to develop learning strategies. Not only can it be used as asecondary source to spread one’s ability in the knowledge of languages, but also as ameans of broadening other linguistic aspects, such as vocabulary, idiomatic expressions,fluency and other skills. The main value of these interdisciplinary approaches resides inletting them act by using subjective and personal perspectives, thus implicating studentsin the task of teaching as well as in the task of learning for themselves. These artistictools have to do with the students’ own wishes as well as with the interaction betweenstudents among themselves and their teachers. Although it is necessarily a time-consuming effort, it can be used in practical classes and specific sessions in which themain focus lies in the oral, reading and writing skills.On the other hand, living in multilingual Europe makes it absolutely important for would-be professionals to acquire a certain solvency in at least two, three, or morelanguages of the European scene. Notwithstanding the supremacy of English as a
lingua franca
in the world nowadays, it seems not to be enough for future specialized professionals to compete with high standards, without the learning of a second, third,and other languages to interact. The ideal situation could indeed be a capacity tocommunicate in one well-spread language and in a minority one, apart from the mother tongue and English, as a sort of Esperanto-like language. This focusing helps us withour proposal to follow multicultural and multilingual designs in the teaching of languages.Finally, although these strategies would of course be accessory and supplementary tothe main syllabus in language sessions, we shouldn’t diminish their importance in thesubtle development of passive learning and continuous intellectual inputs. As CatherineBelsey points out, when talking about criticism in literature:Common sense urges that ‘man’ is the origin and source of meaning, of actionand of history (humanism). Our concepts and our knowledge are held to be the product of experience (empiricism), and this experience is preceded andinterpreted by the mind, reason or thought, the property of a transcendent humannature whose essence is the attribute of each individual (idealism).
2
In effect, the empirical quality of this procedure brings about the possibility of interconnecting, in a practical way, what has been more theoretically imparted in class.
1
Teun A. van Dijk,
 Discourse, Racism and Ideology
, La Laguna: Monografias
 RCEI 
ediciones, 1996.
2
Catherine Belsey,
Critical Practice,
London: Methuen, 1980: 7.
 
Following brain systems every usage can have semantic adjoining and conjunct whichwill amplify and multiply the process of learning. Also, through interdisciplinary skills,curiosity is aroused in the learner and linguistic subtleties can be implemented moreeasily. It establishes a dialogue between languages, between arts, between audiences, between teacher and learners and, most of all, in the language itself, which shows assomething rich, complex but also apprehensible and recognizable. The Russianformalist, Mikhail Bakhtin refers to the importance of dialogism for literature,something which can apply here to the function of language: “There is neither a first nor a last word and there are no limits to the dialogic context (it extends into the boundless past and the boundless future). Even past meanings, that is, those born in this dialogueof past centuries, can never be stable (finalized, ended once and for all) –they willalways change (be renewed) in the process of subsequent development of thedialogue”.
3
Let us see how this brief theoretical approach can be implemented in practicalsessions. Having into account the intimate interconnection between poetry and music, projects like the Socrates/Lingua 1 inspired by the Institute of Foreign Languages atVilnius University, “Open to Every Citizen”, show how learning languages could spreadmultilaterally through the interaction of languages and music. We will, thus, use themain ideas of this project to implement language sessions at a more ambitious andglobal scale. A Three-year project (2004-2007) interrelate six languages through choirsrepresenting Lithuania
,
Estonia
,
Latvia
,
Italy
,
Great
 
Britain
 
and
 
Spain. The choir singerswill act as language promoters themselves with the help of leaflets made in this project:one for each song, to a total of 18, and 1 booklet including five main lessons (called asmusical notes, DO-RE-MI.-FA-SOL). The six target languages will be tasted and sungthrough three songs in each language. Languages will be introduced not only in concerts but in other kind of performances, such as class visiting in schools, academies and other institutions. In addition, there will be bilateral visits among choir singers who willexperience “other” languages, some of which are very different to their culturalenvironment. They will see themselves as absolute beginners in these “exotic” scenariosand meet people from very different cultural educations. Through the implementation of thematic language activating sessions in these contexts of the class, the stages and other extra-curricular spaces of the country visited, language awareness in real-life conditionswill be proved and, what is most important, the culture of each country will be shown.The intercultural and interdisciplinary approach is the basis of the following example proposed. Through the form of quizzes, vocabulary plays and other entertainments,music and texts go together in a didactic, but also ludicrous, way. Take, for instance, thelyrics of a famous traditional English song: “O No John!”, one of those included in the project, that goes as follows:On yonder hill there stands a creature;Who she is I do not know,I’ll go and court her for her beauty;She must answer Yes or No.[O no John! No John! No John! No!] (
refrain
)My father was a Spanish captain— Went to sea a month ago.First he kissed me, then he left me— Bid me always answer No.
3
Mikhail Bakhtin, in Pam Morris (ed.),
The Bakhtin Reader 
, London: Arnold: top cover.
 
[O no John!...]O Madam, in your face is beauty,On your lips red roses grow.Will you take me for your lover?Madam, answer Yes or No.[O no John!...]O Madam, I will give you jewels;I will make you rich and free;I will give you silken dresses,Madam, will you marry me?[O no John!...]O Madam, since you are so cruel,And that you do scorn me so,If I may not be your lover,Madam, will you let me go?[O no John!...]Then I will stay with you for ever,If you will not be unkind.Madam, I have vowed to love you;Would you have me change my mind?[O no John!...]O hark! I hear the church bells ringing;Will you come and be my wife?Or, dear Madam, have you settledTo live single all your life?[O no John!...]
4
This piece of lyrics has a lot of grammar, vocabulary, rhythmic patterns, and other items to get the most out of it:
1.
Take the beginning of the second stanza and fill in the gap with nationalnames:
My father was a ........................ captain
(German, Italian, Estonian,Latvian, Lithuanian, Swiss, Norwegian, Irish, Welsh, etc.) Let them chooseand sing in rows. Derive to the name of the nations, or to Local and Regionalnames, as well (Spanish: Canarian, Castilian, Galician; or Italian: Tuscan,Roman, Parmesan...) Use the map to locate places of interest and talk abouttheir habits, identities, artistic manifestations, sports, etc. Also, family namescan be played, as well:
my ............ was a Spanish captain
(
my
mother 
was a Latvian lady
/
my
brother 
was a
German soldier...)
2.
Plays with grammatical structures: there are lines which will definitely helpto the study of English verbs (in comparison with other languages, do notforget that the Spanish references and the sailing topic invite us tomultinational shores): a)
 First he kissed me, then he left me
(skill:
 first he........, then he .......... me
/
 first he
 played with
me, then he
became a friend
4
English BBC,
 English Traditional Songs
, Madrid: Alhambra, 1973: 18-19.
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