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Foreign Language Education in Multilingual Classrooms
Edited by Andreas Bonnet and Peter Siemund
[Hamburg Studies on Linguistic Diversity 7] 2018
► pp. 33–56

Language education in and for a multilingual Europe

| University of Durham, United Kingdom

As Europe becomes ever more heterogeneous in population and languages, education systems have to change and the teaching of languages has to evolve in terms of policies and methodologies. The specific nature of the European situation includes the presence of European organisations – notably the European Union and the Council of Europe – which impact on policy and methodology at state level, leading to a degree of similarity and harmonisation. The analysis here focuses first on policies and to what extent they take account of changes in societies, and second on changes in the aims and purposes of teaching, and the consequent changes in didactics. Some language policy-making is static and takes little note of change but there is some which takes account of the fluidity of contemporary societies and in particular the ways in which they respond to migration and the languages of migrants. Future directions might give language teaching a role in citizenship education as education systems strive to help create inclusive multilingual societies.

Keywords: language policy, multilingualism, plurilingualism, migration, teaching methods
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language policy in Europe – changes over time
  • 3.Two approaches to policy making – the ‘fluid’ and the ‘static’
  • 4.‘Modern’ and ‘classical’ (foreign) language teaching aims
  • 5.Language education policy and migration – analysing ideologies
  • 6.Language education policy, globalisation and internationalisation
  • 7.Next steps – multilingualism and citizenship
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 October 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hsld.7.02byr
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