SHARED LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES AND COMMUNICATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS

Leadership for learning has recently become one of the most important issues and research area in the field of education sciences and pedagogies. This strong linkage between effective leadership and school improvement as well as students’ learning and success is well documented in the literature on educational theory, research, and practice. This connection between leadership and education holds that effective leadership can boost quality education and make the difference in the lives of children and youth. Shared leadership is a practice and attitude that requires some personal commitment and some social and linguistic interactional competencies and skills. These include the abilities to change one’s behavior, attitudes and actions as well as those of others, that is, to be open to change and to play the role of a change agent through open structures of communication, power, social organization and interaction in an affectionate and social environment positive for all members to fully express and be themselves. The present paper addresses the issue of how foreign language classrooms can best contribute to the development of learners’ shared leadership competencies and skills with a particular emphasis on the importance of their classroom communicative competence and the nature of the classroom environment and communication. To this end, it provides a brief overview of some of the major defining principles of shared leadership theory and practice. Then, it presents some of the major competencies for effective and successful practice of shared leadership. Finally, it suggests and discusses some implications of shared leadership for language classroom communication. In this respect, it highlights the importance of open classroom communication and environment, and students’ classroom communicative competence for enhancing their active and creative participation in interactive classroom communication and practicing and promoting their interactional and social leadership competencies and skills, necessary for them to handle successful communication in different multi-cultural and multi-functional interactions and contexts.