Myself, my language and my culture. Who am I? Identity, language and culture through NLP and Multiple Intelligences

The present article describes a practical activity carried out in class as part of a joint project. MIs and NLP principles were applied to learning a foreign language and culture with the aim of raising both the teacher’s and the learners’ awareness to their personal filters, reflecting on the way these filters affect each individual’s perception of their ‘self’, of their own language and culture, and of the ‘other’ language and culture, and ultimately developing sensitivity to differences. As individuals we all learn in different ways – this is a reflection of our way of experiencing things. The fact that we each perceive things in different ways and focus on different details affects our ideas and thoughts, including our opinions of ourselves as individuals and as representatives of our language, our people, our culture, but also our opinions and feelings towards what is new to us and what we (decide to) learn. However, whenever we learn, or more broadly, approach something new, we inevitably experience some kind of change. This change is often unconscious, yet at the same time it is affected by and acts on our attitude towards novelty and diversity. As teachers of a foreign language, we are interested in how this is linked to both teaching and learning, and to approaching the different culture (C2) which is expressed by the other language (L2). By using practical activities in three languages the workshop aims at raising awareness of this interaction. The final objective is to develop the learners’ sensitivity as to their own personal learning style(s) in order to identify what shapes their opinions concerning, on the one hand, their own language, culture, people, and on the other hand, other languages, cultures, peoples. In an age in which migration and integration are key features, this self-awareness is a way of reflecting on what and who we each are. At the same time, knowing what kind of ‘channels’ learners function best in will favour not only their Life Long Learning processes, but also personal development.