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In this paper we present the analysis and interpretation of data collected during an intercultural virtual exchange undertaken in 2020 in which students from Argentina and the USA explored how trauma and suffering associated with COVID-19 can be channeled through collaborative artistic multimodal creations, and how approaching this in a productive way can lead to self-transformation in terms of intercultural and civic growth. To obtain unbiased data, we did not give the students information on the Council of Europe's Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC; 2018) which was fundamental to our conceptualization. Here, we apply an ex post facto research method to explore which of the 20 competences for democratic culture included in the RFCDC were mobilized and deployed by our students during this project. We do so by analyzing their multimodal artistic creations, social actions, and their civic statements from the perspective of the RFCDC definitions and descriptors. Findings indicate that the virtual exchange project contributed to the cultivation of 'democratically and interculturally competent citizens' as conceptualized in the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture.

In this article we discuss how the design of a higher education language course can challenge the power of sentimentality in the classroom. In particular, the paper analyses the role of literature in intercultural language education through the lens of affect theory, while focusing on minimizing sentimentality in the classroom, especially when the literary texts used confront students with trauma-related content involving human rights abuse, death and suffering, and trigger discomforting emotions in students such as sadness, anguish, fear and more. We suggest that it is important for educators and students in higher education to recognize the affective and biopolitical dimensions of literature teaching in intercultural language education. This is illustrated through the design of an English language course syllabus in an Argentinian higher education setting. The paper concludes with a discussion of the curricular and pedagogical implications for intercultural language education.

This article describes the trajectories of collaboration experienced by three individuals in three different roles (informant, research assistant, and supervisor) in two research projects about English as a foreign language reading in a higher education context in Argentina. Data come from reflection logs and retrospective narratives written by them from 2009 to 2016 which were analyzed using content analysis, focusing on a continuum of collaboration. The article aligns with the critique of the discourse of "newer researcher" as a linear developmental trajectory as it illustrates the participants' fluid, critical, complex, and personally relevant pathways. Placed within the debate regarding the affordances, complexities and challenges of the measured university, this research contributes perspectives from a peripheral setting generally underrepresented in the literature.

In this article we argue, in the context of the current dominance of the performative and instrumental drives characterizing the accountable university, that language and intercultural communication education in universities should also be humanistic, addressing 'discomforting themes' to sensitize students to issues of human suffering and engage them in constructive and creative responses to that suffering. We suggest that arts-based methods can be used and illustrate this with an intercultural telecollaboration project created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. In this way language and intercultural communication education can become a site of personal and social transformation albeit modest and piecemeal as part of a longer process. Through arts-based methodologies and pedagogies of discomfort, Argentinian and US undergraduates explored how the theme of the COVID-19 crisis has been expressed artistically in their countries, and then communicated online, using English as their lingua franca, to design in mixed international groups artistic multimodal creations collaboratively to channel their suffering and trauma associated with the pandemic. This article analyses and evaluates the project. Data comprise the students' artistic multimodal creations, their written statements describing their creations, and pre and post online surveys. Our findings indicate that students began a process of transformation of disturbing affective responses by creating artwork and engaging in therapeutic social and civic participation transnationally, sharing their artistic creations using social media. We highlight the powerful humanistic role of education involving artistic expression, movement, performativity, and community engagement in order to channel discomforting feelings productively at personal and social levels.

This article reports a service learning experience carried out by volunteer university student teachers of English during 2017-2018 in a non-governmental organisation in Argentina. In collaboration with their university teachers, they taught workshops using intercultural literature in English for underserved children aged 8-12. Drawing on intercultural citizenship theory and intercultural service learning, which both combine language learning with citizenship goals and social justice and human rights foundations, the aim of the service learning experience was to challenge the conditions of possibility for the children involved. Designed as a case study in combination with action research, varied data types were collected (reflection logs, workshop plans, teacher field notes, artefacts created by the children, photographs and video-recordings of workshops). Qualitative data analysis involved three phases (holistic, inductive and deductive). Findings are presented in a vignette with glimpses of an ethnographic description of the context and a narrative account of the first workshop intended to portray the 'conditions of possibility' in the setting. The study shows that language learning was transformatory as the children took small actions in their social milieu using varied semiotic resources to convey their messages. Implications for language education with a social justice basis are discussed.

Framed within the theory and practice of social justice in English language teacher education (ELTE), the aim of this study was to foster pre-service teachers' awareness of social justice principles, issues and practices by taking part in a service learning experience during their higher education studies in a non-governmental organisation located on the outskirts of La Plata city in Argentina. In collaboration with their university tutors, three pre-service teachers taught workshops using intercultural literature in English during 2017-2018 for underserved children in the NGO. Data comprise four reflection logs written by each teacher candidate during 2017-2020, analysed using content analysis. Findings show the significance of providing an experientially grounded sense of social justice education. The study illustrates pre-service teachers' journeys toward social justice grounded in field work beyond the level of rhetoric. It also tests current perspectives on social justice in a South American setting, as work done on this basis has focused almost exclusively on Africa. Implications for ELTE and education in general are discussed.

This article reports a service learning experience carried out by university student tour-guides and pre-service teachers of English during 2017-2018 in a rural multi-grade primary school in northern Argentinian Patagonia. With their university English language teachers, participants taught workshops using intercultural literature in English to 6-14 year olds from the native Mapuche communities with no prior contact with English. They also designed and delivered two guided tours of heritage sites in the area. Theoretically, the study is grounded in a conceptualisation of social justice language education beyond redistribution, with a focus on recognition, inclusive language ideologies and practices, and transformative learning. Designed as a case study, data comprise reflection logs, workshop and tour plans, field notes, children's artefacts, photographs and video-recordings of the experiences. Qualitative data analysis involves holistic, inductive and deductive phases. Findings indicate that the children engaged in multilingual, multimodal, creative and embodied forms of expression combining their affective and semiotic resources through literature, music, movement and embodiment, the creative arts and outdoor learning experiences. These resources became the means for initiating transformation of their selves and their social milieu focused on the local environment. Implications for language education in multilingual contexts are discussed.

Recent articles on the problems of 'locus of enunciation' have focused on research and publication as well as on theoretical development of the concept. It is an issue in teaching and learning too, and this is the focus of this article which argues that to reject teaching approaches in 'the South' because they come from 'the North' is, first, counter to the principles of academic freedom upheld as much in the South as the North, second, prevents learners from having access to important knowledge and third, ignores the ways in which learners in 'the South' can 're-enunciate' what they have learned from 'the North'. Our argument has its origins in our own experience of censorship in the name of 'locus of enunciation'. As language teachers, we demonstrate that internationalist and pluralist ways of thinking can and should lead to cultural, intellectual humility and that this is a better basis for making judgements than a preference for 'our' locus of enunciation over 'theirs'. We illustrate our argument with the pedagogic project that gave rise to the use of 'locus of enunciation' as the basis for rejection of our teaching, to show how the project can be read 'otherwise'.

This article aims to contribute to recent discussions on pedagogy of pain in world language education. Drawing on the limitations of language to represent and express trauma and pain, we foreground the value of pedagogies at the intersection of language, art, and trauma. It is our contention that a linguistic perspective in and of itself is insufficient and needs to be supported by artistic and multimodal forms of expression as those reinforced by the arts. We describe a study that addressed trauma in a language education context and show how linguistic and nonlinguistic representations of trauma and pain can be productively engaged in formal educational settings using the notion of pedagogy of discomfort. We conclude by highlighting that engaging with the limits of the (un)sayable linked to traumatic and painful events and experiences complementing linguistic with nonlinguistic means can benefit applied linguistics and world language education by bringing attention to the embodied and affective complexities emerging from engagement with trauma.

The aim of this article is to review five years (2014-2018) of research in English language teaching (ELT) in Argentina. In this overview, 115 publications (conference proceedings, journal articles, and edited collections) were analysed in terms of topic and research methodologies to map out the major areas of interest and developments in ELT in Argentina. The publications are reviewed according to nine topics: (1) interculturality and citizenship, (2) language teacher education and professional development, (3) technology-enhanced language learning, (4) learner differences, (5) language skills development, (6) language systems, (7) English for academic and specific purposes, (8) assessment, and (9) language curriculum development. The review discusses trends in research practices identified in the 2014-2018 period and suggests implications and further areas of inquiry to advance research skills as well as knowledge of ELT.

In this article I argue that the theory of intercultural citizenship in language education developed by Michael Byram can contribute to broadening CLIL's theoretical outlook and pedagogy -- two needs for CLIL identified in the literature. I do so by showing that Coyle's 4Cs framework and Marsh, Maljers and Hartiala's five dimensions of CLIL coincide with the point of departure of intercultural citizenship theory, which is the notion of intercultural communicative competence. I argue that intercultural citizenship can inform CLIL in theoretical terms as it bridges the 4Cs framework with the recent pluriliteracies CLIL model proposed by Meyer, Coyle, Halbach, Schuck and Ting. It can also inform CLIL pedagogically because it is a recent curricular development that has been tested empirically in language classrooms in 11 countries. Finally, I illustrate my argument with a case study of intercultural citizenship-based CLIL about the Malvinas war carried out in Argentina and Britain in 2012 in the foreign language classroom in higher education, in a type B CLIL language course.

This study reports on the evaluation of long-term impact of four intercultural citizenship projects undertaken in university foreign language classrooms. Curricular developments based on Byram's intercultural citizenship theory have demonstrated the immediate impact including the development of self and intercultural awareness, criticality, social justice responsibility and language learning as well as the emergence of a sense of community and bonding among transnational peers. However, the long-term effects have not been investigated. This study sets out to analyse Argentinian students' recollections -- between two and four years after the event -- of experiences in four intercultural citizenship projects undertaken over several years with students in the UK and in Italy. These one-year projects combined language teaching and citizenship/human rights education. Students' retrospective reflection logs were analysed using content analysis, and findings show that the students remembered and valued their emotional engagement with critical content and with their transnational peers; they had varied and conflicting views about how the projects had contributed to their language learning; and mid- and long-term civic engagement occurred mostly at what Michael Byram refers to as the 'pre-political' level, involving thought, awareness and personal development, rather than action at the 'political' level.

This article draws on the Language Learning Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence Program 2012 thanks to which Dr. Suresh Canagarajah from Pennsylvania State University lectured at Universidad de La Plata in Argentina in May of that year. He delivered a talk open to language teachers, students and the community in general and also taught a postgraduate seminar at the School of Humanities and Sciences of Education. He kindly agreed to be interviewed by me after the event was over and this article presents this interview.

This study investigates the complementarity between linguistic and non-linguistic modes of expression in reading in Higher Education and how this combination can counterbalance the accountability that characterises the measured university in current times. Participants are Argentine college students aged 21–22 at the time of data collection. They read a literary narrative text in Spanish about a culturally familiar theme – a regional Christmas celebration. The hypothesis that the native language and the familiar topic would facilitate cultural understanding was not confirmed. The case is innovative because cultural understanding is generally investigated using research instruments and measures of analysis that focus on memory and recall. By contrast, here participants completed a reading response task and a visual reformulation, which enabled the combination of linguistic and non-linguistic modes of expression – the latter not usually favoured by schools and universities. Content analysis shows the complexity and fluidity of cultural understanding in Higher Education even when students read about familiar cultural content in their native language. The article is of interest to educators and researchers involved with reading-mediated courses, activities and tasks in Higher Education. Implications for pedagogy are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how trauma and affective injustice permeate the school life trajectory of a female student (Sofia) in Argentina. The study is theoretically grounded in the field of trauma studies in education and contributes to this literature by attending to affective injustice, a concept that has not received much attention yet. This study foregrounds Sofia's experience of affective injustice and demonstrates that this concept is crucial in further understanding students' experiences of affective trauma in school. Assembling rich materials (report cards, interviews, psychologists' reports, social media posts, autobiographical texts) that span over a period of 17 years, the study uses qualitative perspectives to show how Sofia understands and experiences affective injustice in various phases of her school life. In particular, these experiences are presented in the form of an assemblage of expressions showing how Sofia communicates her claims of affective injustice using varied means and resources ranging from linguistic, behavioural, biographical, creative, emotional, bodily, and artistic expression. The paper concludes with a discussion of the educational implications of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes public primary English language education in Argentina. I begin with background information about the country and a brief historical overview of education in general, accompanied by a portrait of primary schooling in particular. This overview involves local, political and economic considerations but also international influences that have played a key role in shaping the direction of language policies in primary education at the provincial and national levels in the country. I describe the national curriculum guidelines ("Núcleos de aprendizaje prioritario," NAP) for foreign language education, contextualising them within the national education policies for primary school in force since 2003 and the new National Education Act ("Ley Nacional de Educación 26.206"). These guidelines and policies adopt an intercultural and plurilingual approach in the teaching of foreign languages, including English, at all levels of education and embrace a social justice conceptualisation of education in all cases. This approach has been materialised in ELT curriculum developments and programs in several of the 24 jurisdictions of the country with different degrees of development. I illustrate with the cases of the provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Entre Ríos and Chubut using interview data collected in 2015. Program leaders in these provinces describe their local initiatives. The article closes with a brief account of the affordances observed and the challenges ahead.

In this article we depart from a conceptualisation of foreign language teaching as intercultural citizenship in schools and universities. We extend this conceptualisation by suggesting that foreign language teaching can and should also sensitise students about issues of human suffering and cultivate empathy, solidarity, hospitality and inclusion. In this way language education can create spaces for fostering political, ethical, and social justice responsibilities for changing socially unjust societies. We show how this suggestion was enacted in a higher education setting in Argentina with student teachers and student translators of English using pedagogies of discomfort and pedagogies of empathy and solidarity to deal with difficult issues through arts and literature.

This paper reports a bilateral university project designed to promote intercultural citizenship and foreign language development simultaneously. It is concerned with developing active and responsible citizenship through content-language integrated learning within an ordinary foreign language classroom. The need and rationale for broadening the scope of language courses and combining them with intercultural citizenship or human rights education has been explained elsewhere and empirical studies reporting on classroom practice are recently available. These studies have connected both types of education (language and citizenship/human rights) and have demonstrated growth in self and intercultural awareness, in criticality and social justice responsibility, as well as the emergence of a sense of community of international peers during the projects. However, the concern remains as to whether this combination leads to language learning and this article addresses this issue. The article describes one transnational intercultural citizenship project in the foreign language classroom in Argentina and the UK and focuses on the research question: Does an intercultural citizenship project lead to language learning? Findings -- taken from the Argentinean data -- show that students developed procedural knowledge by using the foreign language with a genuine need, engaged in multiliteracies practices and developed their plurilingual competence within a translingual orientation.

This article explores the intercultural and citizenship dimensions of foreign language teaching and discusses, in particular, the implications for foreign language teaching and teacher education. The work (1) extends the fundamental concepts that were developed by Byram and Wagner (2018) in this journal--that foreign language education has instrumental purposes but also educational aims that constitute the development of the individual and of societies by fostering democratic competences and values and linking the language learning that takes place in classrooms with the community, whether local, regional, or global; and (2) links language education and community engagement in the form of service-learning, which was also addressed in this journal by Palpacuer Lee, Curtis, and Curran (2018). An intercultural citizenship project carried out in Argentina serves as illustration. Pedagogical implications are offered.

This article shows the potential of the Council of Europe's Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters and Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters through Visual Media to develop quality education in the (foreign) language classroom in Higher Education. Whereas the literature focuses on their contributions to fostering intercultural awareness and reflection as one step to develop intercultural communicative competence in language education, the purpose of this paper is to show that they have a broader significance in terms of the development of three capacities leading to quality education according to Nussbaum, namely critical thinking, imaginative understanding and world citizenship.pro

This article describes an online project in the foreign-language classroom in which Argentinian and British university students communicated across the globe to address a topic of human rights violations. The aim of the article is to answer the question of whether there is a place in language education for forgiveness and discomforting pedagogies. This focus is new in the field. It begins with an overview of intercultural citizenship education in language pedagogy, followed by an outline of the pedagogical intervention and case study. It continues with a description of theoretical developments in forgiveness and discomforting pedagogies as the framework of the study and provides an analysis of the data from the project with these lenses. Findings indicate that students displayed varying affective, physical and intellectual forms of emotional investment as they mediated interculturally with their interlocutors and the ghosts of those who suffered from human rights abuse in the past. To do this, they engaged in what we call critical remembering, i.e. remembering wrongdoings through a decolonising human rights educational approach. It is concluded that it is possible for language teaching in the higher education sector to meet the educational aim of developing learners' democratic competences by combining intercultural citizenship with forgiveness and discomforting pedagogies.

The purpose of this article is to examine the ethical tensions and considerations that arise in the world language classroom from using pedagogies of discomfort. Although pedagogies of discomfort have mostly been seen through a positive lens in the literature for engaging students with difficult issues in the classroom, there are ethical concerns, particularly in relation to the harm that students might experience. To illustrate these ethical concerns and their implications in the world language classroom, we draw on data from a number of projects in which pedagogies of discomfort have been used in university classrooms. The analysis of examples shows that while some sort of ethical violence is inevitable, there are pedagogical ways to minimize the harm on students. The article concludes by raising further ethical and pedagogical questions for exploration in the context of using pedagogies of discomfort in the world language classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]