ABSTRACT
For over a decade now, the Critical Connections project (2012–ongoing) has brought together students from mainstream, independent and community-based complementary schools across a growing number of countries. The project has enabled students learning the main school language(s), foreign languages and community/heritage languages to create and share digital stories around a broad theme in bilingual/multilingual version. In this chapter, we look back on the project and the unified and democratic/pluralist view of language and literacy education it has embraced. We situate our project by examining how the effects of globalisation and developments in digital technology have affected language and literacy education and the situation of heritage languages within this. We consider how the Critical Connections project has responded to these changes and to perceived weaknesses in official policy on language and literacy education in the UK and beyond. In reflecting on the vision of our project, we address the following questions:
What pedagogical principles is the Critical Connections project based on and how do they address the distinctive needs of heritage language learners?
How successful has the project been in developing young people’s multilingual literacy and promoting activist citizenship?
How have the professional development needs of teachers been catered for?
In this chapter, we think critically about the challenges we have encountered in carrying out the project and how they have been addressed. We look closely at the impact the project has had on policy and research, how it relates to the trend towards bottom-up educator agency in Language Planning and Policy research and how it connects with other international initiatives in language and literacy. Finally, we consider the significance of adopting arts-based methods within the project and building an international network of schools, teachers and researchers with a look to future plans and directions.