Cordée de la Réussite "Languages and Cultures of the World"

An educational and cultural program through and between languages

For the past three years, Inalco has been running an educational program for secondary school students, from the fourth to the twelfth grades, as part of the national Cordées de la Réussite program. Called Languages and Cultures of the World, the Cordée of Inalco offers a whole range of activities where languages and cultures rhyme with knowledge and discovery. Creative and multilingual workshops, cultural visits and activities, meetings with researchers, linguistics and creative writing competitions, introductory workshops in languages taught at Inalco... all these complementary activities are designed, by putting languages to work, to support secondary school students, particularly those in priority education zones and urban political neighborhoods, in their academic, personal and civic journey. Students who often experience linguistic and cultural diversity on a daily basis, and to whom Inalco offers a space and an approach enabling them to explore this diversity critically, practically, and creatively.

Objectives of the Cordée "Languages and Cultures of the World"

• Enable students to discover their potential and develop their personal skills, particularly linguistic ones, to give them self-confidence and self-esteem. Make them aware of their ability to learn foreign languages, whose mastery is a determining factor in professional integration, and help them value their first and family languages, which are too often downplayed.
• Foster students' cultural and scientific openness, introduce them to the human and social sciences approach, contribute to the development of their critical thinking, and prepare them for further schooling and higher education.
• Foster students' personal expression, enabling them to develop their imagination and assert their individual outlook, their subjectivity, within a group and as part of projects. Build students' self-confidence, their ability to say and do things with a critical and sensitive eye.
• Help students overcome certain barriers, notably psychological, cultural and spatial, that prevent them from projecting themselves into an imaginary world of academic and professional success, to enable them to build an ambitious career plan. Introduce them to careers and training related to foreign languages and cultures, as well as to the university environment and the expectations of higher education establishments.

La Cordée program and actions

The Cordée of Inalco is deployed through three types of action:

• Grouping highlights at Inalco, where a variety of activities are offered to roped-in students: language discovery workshops, cultural shows, lectures, discovery of the university, meetings with students and researchers, participation in scientific or cultural meetings organized at Inalco.
• Cycles of thematic workshops in small groups on a variety of themes (creative writing and plurilingual theater, investigation of migratory heritage, languages and linguistics, shared cultures, etc.), organized throughout the year.These include the "Déchiffreurs de Langues" linguistics competition (second edition this year) and the "Æntrelangues" creative writing competition (first edition), as well as a mentoring program for around 20 middle-school students, and specific initiatives to support students in their career planning.

Gathering highlights at Inalco

Welcome days are organized throughout the year at both the Maison de la recherche and the Pôle des langues et civilisations. They provide an opportunity to bring together roped-off students from different establishments, enabling them to discover the Institut, its history, its courses and the opportunities they offer, and thus to push open the door to higher education. They include guided tours of partner cultural establishments (Musée du Quai Branly, Institut du Monde Arabe, etc.), introductory workshops in languages taught at Inalco, and meetings with students, teachers and alumni.

Closing days are organized in early June. The program includes cultural visits and workshops in the morning, as well as - and above all - a festive program of cultural and leisure activities in the afternoon. This closing event is also designed as a time of restitution: an opportunity for students to share with their peers what they have done and discovered throughout the year. Poster displays, small exhibitions, oral presentations and other creative restitutions punctuate the day.

Linguistic, reflective and creative workshop cycles

Our pedagogical approach

The Cordées method and approach are inspired by so-called "non-formal" pedagogies and are embodied in a variety of proposals, where discovery and reflection are accompanied by a sensitive, practical and creative approach. The wide variety of activities on offer have one thing in common: they are designed to ensure that all students are put in a position to succeed. The idea is not to teach students knowledge, but to enable them to make discoveries by themselves, to make them aware of their ability to learn and understand independently. Group work will have its rightful place in these resolutely lively and playful workshops.

Audience and organization

Our workshops are designed for small groups of 8 to 14 student volunteers, to encourage students to speak up, and the quality of exchanges and listening. No prerequisites or prior knowledge are expected, and we often have good results with students in academic difficulty, both in terms of framework and results. We also have speakers who can offer workshops for UPE2A students. While the general spirit remains the same, the emphasis for this group is often on the practice of French as a foreign language.

Our workshops generally take place in partner establishments throughout the year, but we also offer "stage" formats, outside the school walls (in Paris or at Inalco) during the February and April school vacations. In this way, La Cordée offers registered students, who participate independently, a program of visits and workshops that provide a time to breathe and discover.

Presentation of themed cycles

The cycles offered as part of La Cordée, lasting around ten to twenty hours, enable students to explore unknown languages and scripts, to practice the power of the plurilingual verb, both written and spoken, to explore the intricacies of linguistics, or to conduct a small field survey. The emphasis here, as elsewhere, is on decentering, and on linguistic and cultural spaces that are too often neglected in secondary education.

The presentations below (unfold them by clicking on the arrow next to each summary)are brief and open-ended, weaving directions but not directives: the actual content of the cycles depends on the audience, the investment of the teacher-referent, or the skills and ideas of the speaker. So we build a tailor-made proposal for each roped-off group, in line with La Cordée's objectives and our own pedagogical approach. Quite often, we'll mix and match teaching proposals from several cycles, working together to trace the coherence and progression.

Déchiffreurs de Langues": an educational linguistics competition

Destined for high school students, the "Déchiffreurs de Langues" competition is designed to enable the discovery of unknown language facts and linguistic systems. Inspired by the Olympiad of Linguistics, the aim is to deduce linguistic facts, grammatical rules or the functioning of an unknown script by observing short corpora and using logic. 
The way in which the topics are designed (progressive difficulty of questions, clues to which students may or may not have recourse) gives it an educational dimension: all participants should be able to find a certain number of answers on their own, and be amazed at the discoveries they have made, drawing on their thinking and collaborative skills. The competition is held in teams of three or four: cooperation is the means and the condition for student success.

The competition is organized in two stages: an initial round during Language Week (March 2025), which selects a number of finalist teams. These teams then take part in a second round in May, either at Inalco or at their own school, depending on their school and availability. The finalists are then invited to the prize-giving ceremony in June, which is also an opportunity to meet linguists and researchers in the field, or to learn about a language taught at Inalco.

The documents below will enable you to find out more about the spirit of the competition, its rules and organization, and, if you wish, to register your school now. Subjects and answers for the 2023-2024 competition will be posted online in the autumn.

"Æntrelangues": a multilingual creative writing competition

In 2024-2025, as part of the Cordée "Languages and Cultures of the World", Inalco will organize the first "Æntrelangues" competition for secondary school students. A multilingual writing competition to get students reading and listening to the diversity of languages that resonate around the world and thrill their classrooms, be they "native", "dialectal" or "dialectal". 
This plurilingual dimension is the main feature of this competition: the texts will be written in French, but blended, mixed, associated with other languages, in a thousand and one ways. This is hardly surprising, when you consider that Inalco offers the opportunity to study over a hundred different languages and civilizations!

Discover university, research and careers

Meeting with students and alumni

During group days, or during specific meetings organized at Inalco, we will endeavor to enable high school students to ask their questions about orientation, studying in higher education, the courses and opportunities that Inalco can offer, and humanities studies at university more generally. We'll be doing all we can to give high-school students, especially those in their final year, the opportunity to meet Inalco graduates: by sharing their professional and personal experiences, they'll be able to show students that a career and professional orientation are also built through encounters and opportunities. And that, with a good university education, it is possible to learn new skills in the field... Finally, it's a way of inviting students to imagine careers that are open to foreign and international horizons.

Actions in support of career guidance

As part of La Cordée, we're offering all high schools the opportunity to have students speak at the career guidance days they organize, giving all students in these establishments, and not just the roped-in students, the chance to discover Inalco and its courses. Through our intervention, we will also raise students' awareness of the requirements and methods of studying languages and humanities at university: indeed, their lack of understanding all too often puts new first-year students in difficulty.
Specific support, based on voluntary participation, will be offered to roped high school students during the "Portes Ouvertes" organized by Inalco at the beginning of 2025, in order to best support their orientation project.

Experimentarium program

Initiated at the University of Burgundy, the Experimentarium program will enable roped-up students, both middle and high school, to meet Inalco doctoral students. The aim, in terms of cultural openness and critical thinking, is both to raise students' awareness of what university research is all about, the production of scientific discourse and truth, and to awaken their interest in often little-known humanities disciplines.
PhD students will undergo specific training to enable them to share their research topics in a fun and interactive way, and make science accessible and captivating for all. The workshops on offer are thus designed to be studious but also engaging and dynamic.

One-to-one mentoring

In collaboration with AFEV (Association de la Fondation Étudiante pour la Ville), mentoring is "a support and learning program between a student volunteer and a young person experiencing difficulties in their educational path. Each week, the student volunteer devotes two hours of his or her time to support the young person in his or her studies, restoring his or her confidence and desire to learn. Beyond homework, they work together on cultural openness, mobility, projection towards post-bac training, etc." (AFEV brochure).
In 2024-2025, mentoring will be offered at the Thomas Mann middle school, next door to Inalco, and will be provided throughout the year by around twenty Inalco students. Their volunteer commitment is recognized and valued as part of their university course (UE Engagement).

Partner establishments in 2024-2025

In 2024-2025, around 600 secondary school students from twenty establishments in three académies (Ile-de-France, Nouvelle Aquitaine and Orléans-Tours) will take part in the Inalco-sponsored Cordée. Some 40 students from the Cité éducative in Limay will also take part in a program similar to the Cordée during the school vacations.

Find here the interactive map with all our partner establishments for the year 2024-2025.

Organize workshops or training courses in partnership with Inalco

Are you a teacher or head of a school, college or university? Do you work in a cultural center, youth center or cultural institution, an association or a foundation? If you've heard about our pedagogical proposal and our approach, and you'd like to ask us to intervene directly with your audience or organize a training session for your teams, we invite you to write to us with details of your project, so that together we can build an action program that's as close as possible to your needs and wishes. As far as schools are concerned, we plan to register Inalco on the PassCulture scheme at the start of the 2024-2025 school year. Our activities will then be bookable directly through the Adage platform.

The Cordée of Inalco teaching team