Call for papers

Call for papers 2025 PAAS

Artistic Practices and Approaches via the Sensible in Language Didactics and Culture

Contexts & Appropriations

14th -15th -16th May 2025

Illustration © Isla Nové

The PAAS symposium is one of a number of scientific events organized by an Association of Researchers and Teachers in Foreign Language Didactics (Acedle). Members of the association organize symposiums and thematic study days called NEQ (Questioned Notions, a format inaugurated by CREDIF), as well as other events. To mention only the most recent, the NEQ 2023 day, held in Aix-en-Provence, the 2022   "Didactics, Plurilingualism(s), Globalization(s)" symposium in Aveiro (Portugal), the NEQ 2021 "Autonomy/Developing Autonomy" day in Nancy, and the 2019 DILAPLU symposium in Grenoble. Following on from previous events, the PAAS symposium will explore approaches, stimulate exchanges and pursue collective theoretical reflections.

Call for papers

In recent decades, a wealth of approaches have developed in the field of Language Didactics and Culture that we have grouped together under the term "approaches via the sensible". By "approaches via the sensible" in Language Didactics and Culture (LDC), we refer to "the means and approaches that mobilise learners' sensible experiences in relation to their plurilingualism, together with the artistic or creative expressive practices that bring it to light. These approaches combine aesthetic experience and imagination and may or may not entail the collaboration of artists or actors from outside the field of education itself. The approaches should be sensitive to the plurilingualism of subjects and to societal multilingualism and should aim to support the project of a multiple and plural society in the educational field where everyone can find their place" (Dompmartin-Normand, 2023: 32).

A number of recent scientific events in France and elsewhere are an indicator of the development of approaches via the sensible with regard to language teaching; that is to say, language teaching conceptualized in relation to societal concerns and artistic practices. For example: Forum FLE 2021, Enseigner le FLE à travers les arts (Grenoble); the first symposium of the Réseau Plurilinguisme, Arts, didactique et sociétés (PArDIS!); The study day Plurilinguismes, transculturalités et créativités in Marseille in June 2022; Dialogues autour de pratiques éducatives (June 2022, Paris 8), as well as issue 2/2023 of Langues Modernes, entitled "Enseigner par les arts de la scène" (Abdelkader, 2023). The LEEL colloquium "Lire et Écrire entre les langues" (Reading and Writing between Languages) took place in June 2023 in Aix en Provence, which led to several publications including the forthcoming Reading and Writing (In-)Between Languages in the English Speaking World (e-Rea, Autumn, 2024). Also, in June 2023 was ARIC's most recent congress held in Laval, which included artistic proposals under the heading "Luttes artistiques et arts vivants contre le racisme anti-migrants" ("Artistic Struggles and Performing Arts against Anti-Migrant Racism"). The forthcoming colloquium in Liège in April 2024 entitled "[Retour] du Sujet et du Sens en Didactique des langues étrangères" ([Return] of the Subject and of Meaning in the Didactics of Foreign Languages) and the colloquium "Espaces sensibles: approches performatives pour une éducation inclusive de l'école à l'université" (Places of the Sensible: Performative Approaches for Inclusive Education from school to university), held in Aix-en-Provence from June 5 to 7, 2024, also bear witness to the vitality of this and other initiatives.
A range of research projects and/or interventions are described and analysed in different settings, both within and beyond the classroom, in a variety of contexts and for a variety of social groups. It includes research in France and its overseas regions, as well as other parts of the world. Some projects focus on theatre (Irubetagoyena, 2016; Nowak (drameducation); Abdelkader and Bazile 2013; Rollinat-Levasseur 2015) and different forms of work with poetic texts (Cosnier-Laffage, 2019; Fabulet and Vorger, 2021; Fontana (http://fofana.free.fr/wp/); Martin, 2002; Mouginot, 2018, 2020; Vorger, 2021, 2023). Others rely on autobiographical or experiential creative writing (Dompmartin, 2019, 2023; Mathis, 2016). Photography and the visual arts (reflective drawings, collages) are also mustered (Alvir, 2015; Fillol, Geneix-Rabaul & Dinvaut, 2018; Fillol, Razafimandimbimanana & Geneix-Rabault, 2019; Farmer and Prasad 2014; Razafimandimbimanana, 2022), as is literature, including children's literature and the creation of multilingual albums (Bourhis and Deschoux, 2021; Gosselin-Lavoie, Maynard & Armand, 2021; Bouhris and Laroque 2021; Gobbé-Mévellec, 2019, 2021).
In our view, what is at stake has less to do with the artistic forms explored in didactic designs, than with how they relate to the shift in linguistic and cultural positioning that might result; that is to say, linguistic and cultural positioning resulting from the resonance between sensible experience and the plurilingual, pluricultural experience of the subjects. Thus, one of the main aims of this conference is to focus as much on people's experiences as on the forms and means used to elicit them.
Are these approaches a promising "new frontier", a possible "enrichment of the soul, of dynamism and of an interweaving" of didactic designs as we mentioned in 2018 (Dompmartin and Thamin, 2018)? More than an enrichment of the soul, we believe they can represent a potential space for transformation, even a "space of potentiation" (Aden, 2012). This is because they offer pathways in the sensible reception of artistic artifacts or experiences, together with the logic of making a work of art through interaction and relation (Valery, 1957) where processes count more than productions. In this way, pathways are explored to not only teach/learn language(s), but also to invite a subject to revisit their relationship with the language objects to be learned or taught. This means that alongside linguistic skills, freer and more resonant places of learning and ways of being in the world are acquired (Rosa, 2018), or new ways of experiencing otherness; this includes a resistant otherness due to the opacity of a language, misunderstandings, difficulty of expression, or of making oneself understood and of being understood.

Ultimately these open didactic approaches involve shifting focus, by "considering language and languages primarily as poesis, i.e. as a necessarily creative experience of the world", which "overturn the priorities of didactics by directing its questioning towards reception and comprehension [... ] rather than production; towards the kinds of relating that can develop there rather than the effectiveness of the means used; towards a cultural and historical apprehension of the human [...]" (Huver and Lorilleux, 2018).

The notion of appropriation (Castellotti, 2017) is pivotal here in that it subsumes the notions of acquisition and learning; it gives the learner an embodied position as a person who lives and experiences language(s). It invites us to contextualize learning by making the sociolinguistic aspects of situations, and the related relationships to languages, essential. The notion of empowerment emerges, as well as those of inclusion, emancipation, agency, destabilisation, transformation and alteration, amongst others. This brings to the fore psychological, sociological, sociolinguistic, philosophical, political and aesthetic issues involved in a subject’s appropriation of language(s). In a complex world, marked by mobility, multiple reconfigurations of identity, and at times abrasive confrontations with otherness, we may all be brought to reflect on our place in the world. Finding one's place is intrinsically linked to one's capacity for relationships and reflexivity. Do all these notions fit together? In what ways might they be commonly mustered to refine the contours of a revisited DDLC paradigm? How do they relate to teaching, learning and research contexts? What do the arts and these approaches via the sensible contribute to the appropriation of linguistics and language? How do the notions of empowerment, emancipation and growth of autonomy relate to each other? What issues are highlighted or displaced by these approaches? As regards each context, with which trends are they in conflict? Conflicts and synergies need to be explored, for example in communicational or action-based approaches, including project-based, or those based on technology-mediated support systems, or other approaches mobilising diverse theoretical frameworks (neuroscience, empirical and qualitative approaches etc.). This colloquium will provide an opportunity to step back, take stock and question the theoretical backgrounds and epistemological implications involved in this field. In what ways do these approaches renew, question (or not), our understanding of teaching and research in language didactics? Do the diverse range of contexts involved converge or differ? In an overseas context, for example, where linguistic revitalisation or socio-political dissymmetry of the languages is involved (diglossia/glottophagy), how would an ethno- didactic based on this type of approach be developed? In a post-colonial environment in a context of considerable linguistic diversity, including the weight of history and the domination of certain narratives over others, how would these approaches enable the expression of various ways of relating to languages?
In teacher training, can we hope that approaches via the sensible, particularly through the arts, will shed more light on sociolinguistic and didactic content from a reflective and critical perspective, essential for today's language teachers? What added value can these approaches bring to language training with people undergoing forced mobility (exiles, refugees, migrants)? What problems might they pose? If there is a transformation, how might it appear? How can this transformation be rendered visible and comprehended?
Also, how might the collaboration and relations between the various players involved in these procedures (artists, teachers, learners) be developed, particularly around learning issues?

We look forward to receiving contributions on experiences involving the approach to the sensible in a variety of fields: reception classes for newly-arrived allophone pupils, as well as other pupils in ordinary primary or secondary school classes; international students including exiled students; bilingual classes, immersive or otherwise; language training for adult migrants, and any other context from nursery to university etc. If field research is presented, we expect the situation and aims of the schemes to be explained, along with the research approach adopted and an interpretation of their implementation.

Non-empirical proposals (i.e. notional or epistemological, for example) are also encouraged. We have chosen to focus on several areas:

1. At the level of working with language learners in and out of school

2. At the level of teacher training

3. At the epistemological level with an open-ended questioning of key concepts such as "experience", "reflexivity", "language", "culture", "plurilingualism" and the theories underlying the research carried out; this can be combined with a reflection on research methodologies, including action-research-creation.

4. Varia: Acedle symposiums are designed as forums for debate and contact, where all tendencies can find a place for expression and confrontation, and where researchers can exchange views on their current work in the light of advances in related sectors. No theme is excluded a priori.

Possible Formats

1. Symposium: 1:30

(including exchanges, minimum of three speakers)

For scientific projects, this format may be preferred by teams involved in a joint project and wishing to present the context, issues, implementation and analyses. In this case, a single abstract of 800 words maximum will be expected, with a common bibliography of 10 titles maximum (not included in the count). The proposal should mention the title, up to 5 keywords, and the thematic focus of the symposium. The names of the speakers, their respective affiliations (university and/or place of practice, and laboratory if researchers), together with their emails. Their presentations will be kept to a maximum of 60 minutes to allow time for discussion.
More traditional symposia of 3 successive 20-minute presentations may be proposed, with a clearly defined guiding theme in the introduction. The proposal should include a generic title and a summary of the main theme (approx. 100 words), showing the coherence of the entire symposia, its thematic focus and up to 5 key words. Also state the names of the speakers, their respective affiliations, their emails, the titles of the three papers and their 300-word abstracts (with a 10-entry bibliography not included in the count). Presentations will be kept to 60 minutes to allow time for discussion.

2. Workshop: 1:30 (including discussion)

This format is for research-action-creations or other projects (artists, researchers, practitioners...).

Workshops will be interactive with symposium participants. The following information will be included in the proposal: the title, the names of the speakers, their respective affiliations (university and/or place of practice, laboratory if researchers), and emails. Also, a summary of the workshop's objectives, methodology and content. The summary should be a maximum of 800 words (with a bibliography of up to 10 references, not included in the count) and up to 5 keywords.

3. Presentations: 20 mins (+ 10 mins reserved for discussion)

The proposal should include the title of the paper, the thematic focus, the name of the speaker(s), their respective affiliations (university and/or place of practice, laboratory if researchers), and their email addresses. An abstract of no more than 500 words, with a bibliography of no more than 10 references (not included in the count) and up to 5 keywords.

4. In addition, we would like to welcome artistic performances or lectures related to language(s). Projects that might fit into this category are invited to contact the organizers. We are exploring funding possibilities for the artists involved. An exhibition would be particularly welcome.

Submission procedures

Proposals should be submitted in PDF format via the https://paas.sciencesconf. org platform (under construction), in two versions, one complete and one blinded. The files will be named as follows NAME_symp/workshop/comm_PAAS25

Languages of communication: French, English, Spanish, Portuguese etc. Interventions may be multilingual, with communication modes designed to facilitate inter-comprehension.

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