An active language learning scenario in a multicultural

and multilingual environment with the support of

educational technology

Ricardo Cruz

Agrupamento de Escolas da Moita, Portugal

professor@ricardocruz.eu

Abstract. An active learning paradigm improves students’ learning and provides a

mean to acquired knowledge (Bonwell & Eison, 1991). Students combine new
information with their perceived conceptions of the world, knowledge, and
experiences, building new knowledge (Cherney, 2011) according to their
sociocultural and geographical matrix (Martins et al., 2017), favoring the building-
up of a contextualized input (Leite, 2012), and setting ground to meaningful
learning contexts (Perrenoud, 2005). Active learning is also directly correlated to a
learner-centered classroom environment (Cherney, 2011), in opposition to a
teacher-centered paradigm (Pedersen & Liu, 2003). Furthermore, by keeping
students engaged in learning activities, they achieve high cognitive levels or higher-
order thinking (Anderson et al., 2001; Armstrong, n.d.; Engelhart, 1956) which
promotes long-term knowledge retention (Strobel & van Barneveld, 2009).
The active learning scenario described in this study is one where Portuguese is
learned as L2 in a Portuguese high school, and it is characterized by a remarkable
linguistic diversity in the classroom, opening an opportunity to pedagogical
activities that take advantage of L1 spoken by students (Hélot, 2012).
Besides the linguistic diversity, the multicultural environment provides a
multicultural education framework (MCE) as a favorable setting for L2 learning
(Parker, 2019), thus promoting a positive school environment, where equity and
diversity drive pedagogy in the classroom. School environment in this context
includes school policy and politics; school culture and hidden curriculum; teaching
styles and strategies; the languages used in school; community input; the formal
curricula; assessment procedures; instructional materials (including textbooks) and
the attitudes, perceptions beliefs and actions of the school staff (Banks, 2019). MCE
is characterized by the value given to students’ culture of origin, promotion of
inclusion, diversity, equity and democracy (Parker, 2019), content integration,
promoting a multiple perspective on a specific theme, and most importantly, the
setting of an intercultural citizenship (Byram, 2019; Wagner & Byram, 2017) as
well as the development of an intercultural communicate competence (Byram,
2020), which includes two dimensions: intercultural communicative competence,
encompassing linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence and discourse
competence, and intercultural competence, which comprehends skills of
interpreting and relating, an attitude of curiosity and openness, a critical cultural
awareness, cultural knowledge and skills of discovery and interaction.
Furthermore, the Portuguese Education Office national curricula of the school
subject where this active learning scenario took place – Português Língua Não
Materna (PLNM) – define the establishment of intercultural relations between the
culture of origin and the Portuguese culture. One specific dimension is cultural
interaction where classroom activities and students’ outcomes must integrate
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 elements of the students’ culture of origin as well as other cultures present in
classroom and school, as well as de Portuguese culture. Similarities and contrasts
are expected to be noted, considering the respect for different ways of interpreting
the world (Ministério da Educação, 2018).
Students of PLNM, during the school year of 2021 / 2022 at Escola Secundária da
Moita, in Portugal, created a school newspaper where they wrote texts in
Portuguese about different aspects of their culture. The support where students
created their texts is computer-based – Padlet (written texts) and Anchor (oral
texts). Recent reviews confirm even more that information technology motivates
students and provides a mean for cognitive engagement (Schindler et al., 2017).
There is also a strong correlation between educational technology (EdTech) and
active learning environments (Laird & Kuh, 2005). As far creating different texts
with specific didactic purposes, Padlet promotes the active construction of
knowledge, students’ autonomy, and easiness of use (Fisher, 2017; Park, 2013). It
also provides a channel for creating culture-related texts in L2, and even foster some
sort of cultural self-analysis (Godwin-Jones, 2016). As for oral interaction, the
software Anchor was used to create a podcast channel with students-generated
content.
The language-learning paradigm used in this learning environment was the natural
approach (Krashen & Terrell, 1983), favoring students’ input with a communicative
purpose and prioritizing language acquisition – an unconscious development of the
target language by using the language for real communication – under the
communicative approach perspective (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). A total of 42
articles were produced by students in class (text and audio) and submitted to the
Padlet platform under 6 different previously defined categories.
Finally, the evaluation of the impact of this project was indirectly determined by
the analysis of students’ output in a controlled environment (written assessment
tests) and by an anonymous form filled by students, where they contributed with
their perspective on the classroom activities carried out during the school year.

Keywords: active learning; multilingualism; multicultural education; foreign

language education, PLNM

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