Epilogue: Intercultural dialogue, the arts, and (im)possibilities

Abstract

I Opening commentsWe thank the editors for inviting us to make this final comment on the special issue, which represents an important opening-up of the language education field to consider, and make more prominent, the links between language and intercultural education, the arts and social engagement. We warmly welcome this move and are delighted to see this special issue published. We hope that the special issue contributes to more communicatively and culturally holistic, and more just, language education. In this short epilogue we offer some thoughts on how and where these ideas might develop in the future.

Pedagogies of discomfort in the world language classroom: Ethical tensions and considerations for educators

“…3. It uses a multiliteracies, multimodal, arts-based, and translingual approach (Harvey & Bradley, 2023). 4.…”

“…The course has the following characteristics (Porto & Zembylas, 2022b): It addresses writing as a process using genre‐based pedagogies. It embeds intercultural perspectives. It uses a multiliteracies, multimodal, arts‐based, and translingual approach (Harvey & Bradley, 2023). It incorporates a pluriliteracies content‐and‐language‐integrated‐learning (CLIL) framework using literature as a basis to address citizenship and human rights concerns (Meyer et al., 2015).…”

Introduction: Arts integration and community engagement for intercultural dialogue through language education

“…Finally, in their epilogue, Harvey and Bradley (2021, this issue) address the theme of engagement at the intersection of language and the arts when engagement is understood ‘as the creation of connections between disparate groups in order to enable and advance intercultural understanding’. They suggest future developments that might arise for research in intercultural and arts-based engagement beyond the examples included in this special issue.…”

“…• Last but by no means least, the creation of spaces in classrooms, schools and universities to raise awareness of and sensitize students to the ontological and epistemological dimensions of concepts such as language, understanding, dialogue, and identity, so that they can de-centre their thinking and begin to welcome the impossibilities and uncertainties involved (see Harvey & Bradley, 2021, this issue). In this way, they can discover a sense of direction and motivation that will be inspiring and challenging enough to encourage them to find creative ways of inquiring, and working towards, the utopia of a better, democratic, just and sustainable world.…”