CTL3000 Week 8 - Towards a Repertoire Building Approach

Joaquin just moved to Italy. Whenever he finds himself conversing with his new Italian friends, he uses the French he learned in elementary school and the Castilian he speaks at home in order to follow the conversation whenever they start using Italian terms instead of English.

Rima and her family now reside in Luxembourg after a traumatic experience in her home country of Syria. She goes to school where the languages of instruction are in French, Luxembourgish or German. She wants to make new friends, but she is afraid they will not understand her. She is confused as to which language she should learn since all of them seem important and she thinks she is running out of time before she can fully adapt to this new culture.

In class, Marie, the instructor, is teaching French weather expressions to her students. Ram doesn't understand a particular word and so he asks his friend Mannan what the word means in Arabic. Mannan checks with the English teacher, Marianne, if the word he's thinking of has the same meaning in English and in French. He then confirms with Ram and the rest of the class that he is correct in matching the Arabic term with the French term.

Patrick confirms an interview with his instructor by using English to confirm the meeeting, French to request that the instructor message him when he is nearby, and German to confirm once again that the instructor has arrived.

Marianne is trying to teach her students to say please in French. Ram, her student, forgets the term in French and says the word "por favor" (a Portuguese term he learned from his neighbours), as well as another word, "repetir", then explains it to his friend Patrick in Arabic. Patrick uses these terms to make himself understood to Marianne, even though they are not part of his repertoire initially. Marianne understands that they want her to repeat how to say "please" in French.