CoN-FL Hub: Development of Narrative Competence in a Foreign Language

The CoN-FL Hub project aims to activate workshops for the development of narrative and communication competence in a Foreign Language (FL). Narrative competence is understood as "the capacity to skillfully receive the accounts that people give of themselves – to recognise, absorb, interpret, and be moved to action by the stories of others" (Charon et al., 2017: 1). It is thus the ability to communicate effectively in interlinguistic and intercultural contexts, to listen without judgement, to tell and talk about oneself, and to establish meaningful relationships with others in a foreign language.

The approach is particularly innovative: the project applies the key practices of narrative medicine (developed by Columbia University) to foreign language learning contexts. The objective is to develop the ability to adopt the perspective of the other in a non-judgemental way and to understand the complexity of others' stories. It also aims to strengthen the ability to express oneself and interact in the FL. These competences are considered "life skills" and are increasingly required in both professional and research fields.

Main Actions:

• Activation of narrative competence hubs in foreign languages (French, Italian for foreigners, English, Spanish, and German) addressed to the student community. In these workshops, participants will interact with artistic and multimodal texts (poems, prose texts, paintings, photographs, films, songs, etc.) and with their peers.
• Activation of a pilot narrative competence workshop in Italian for the CLA staff, to reinforce belonging and cohesion and improve workplace well-being.
• Offering practical training activities to the Language Expert Collaborators (CEL)-tutors to reflect on the role of facilitator and to practice techniques for managing the narrative competence workshops.
• Assignment of a Digital Badge to students who complete the programme.
• Organisation of "community building" events (e.g., mindfulness pathways, museum visits, European Day of Languages) with the participation of students and staff involved in the different hubs.