The PACK checklist : a proposed pedagogical tool for multicultural foreign language learning settings

Abstract

This chapter initially presents the findings of a recent study (Cremona, 2015) collecting the views and responses of 11-year old Maltese students of German as a Foreign Language [GFL]. Reacting about these findings, the author takes the initial letter of the four most recurring points (i.e. Perspectives, Attitudes, Changes and Knowledge) and formed the acronym PACK. The chapter focuses on the PACK checklist aimed as a tool through which curricular change may be effected and/or facilitated in similar learning contexts which still need to acknowledge and discuss critically these predominant multicultural trends. The last part of the chapter discusses further possible ways and measures through which curricular change - encompassing diversities and multiculturalism - may be gradually initiated and facilitated. This last part looks at four levels, namely the classroom level, the school (wide) level, the policy-making level and the teacher education level in Malta. The chapter presents also a set of practical initiatives and examples of curricular change which might result as an effect of the use of the PACK checklist and the questions it includes.