Graduation Congratulations: Celine Fompudie

In the context of global connections, there has been a widespread recognition of the potential of language learning to promote intercultural skills. However, current language teaching practices seem to promote a fixed notion of culture by focussing on teaching cultural achievements and celebrations. In order to recognise the complexity of cultural practices engendered by globalisation, this thesis argues that the teaching of intercultural skills in language education might be best conceived within a cosmopolitan paradigm.

This thesis adopts a view of cosmopolitanism as a cultural attitude towards others based on our dialogic imagination. What makes a cosmopolitan attitude possible is our imagination, our capacity to explore and incorporate other ways of living and thinking. The thesis develops a view of cosmopolitan learning as a teaching approach aimed at fostering students’ dialogic imagination by providing them with the necessary conditions to develop a cosmopolitan attitude. The thesis articulates the idea that to be cosmopolitan, learning needs to be dialogic, transformative and ethical.

To explore how intercultural competence and understanding might be better developed from a cosmopolitan lens, this study examines the potential of the Content and Language Integrated Leaning (CLIL) approach to foster students’ dialogic imagination. CLIL emerged in transnational Europe in the mid-1990s as an innovative approach to language learning whose key principle is to teach content in an additional language. A case study of a year 9 class studying history in French was conducted and data was generated from classroom discourse and students’ interviews.

Findings shows that by creating transnational and translingual spaces, CLIL promotes an interactive learning space where students critically engage and dialogue with a multiplicity of voices, suggesting that the CLIL approach has the potential to promote cosmopolitan ideals. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that adopting a cosmopolitan lens to the teaching of intercultural understanding and competence allows us to articulate a dynamic view of culture that recognises the cultural complexity brought about by globalisation.

Well done on such a well-deserved achievement, Celine.