Engaging the symbolic self in intercultural language education: A multilingual poetic intervention

This chapter explores the didactic and pedagogical possibilities of the symbolic and ecological framework, by conducting an action scenario involving Year 8 students in a Danish classroom context. The primary objective is to foster students’ symbolic competence, a term defined by Kramsch as the ability to manipulate language, or rather discourse, as symbolic system (Kramsch, 2011). The focus centers on students’ linguistic interactions with and creations of multilingual poetry, a genre that intertwines diverse languages and linguistic codes, entailing a cross-cultural effect and serving a symbolic, aesthetic and ethical function. This genre not only transcends the confines of specific language boundaries but also challenges the limitations of monolingual readings of texts and narrow understandings of the world (Jacobsen, 2018; 2021). Through this didactic intervention, we contribute empirical evidence of young students’ manifestations of their symbolic competence, while underscoring the imperative for further advancements in this field within the Danish school system.