Language Teachers Thinging Through Dominant Language Constellations: The Materialization of Beliefs About Languages and Multilingualism
摘要
In this chapter, we address the situated and collaborative materialization of language teachers’ beliefs about languages and individual multilingualism during the crafting of Dominant Language Constellations (DLCs) models, using different available materials. We focus on the cognitive, emotional, and pedagogical affordances provided by that collaborative and creative work. We approach the manual elaboration of DLC models by language teachers in terms of collaborative thinging and DLC as emergent objects of material culture, with specific social and professional value. In the process of creating their individual language models, the teachers discuss the choice of raw materials available to them, highlighting how the discursive and visual materialization of beliefs about languages and cultures is made possible by the sensory characteristics of the materials and materialities accessible during the act of creation. In this sense, the present study expands the available studies on the use of DLC by studying, among other aspects, how material affordances are constitutive of the emergence of beliefs about languages and individual multilingualism.