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In:Foreign Language Education in Multilingual Classrooms
Edited by Andreas Bonnet and Peter Siemund
[Hamburg Studies on Linguistic Diversity 7] 2018
► pp. 191–212

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The multilingual turn in foreign language education

Facts and fallacies

 | University of Hamburg, Germany
Published online: 24 October 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/hsld.7.09mel
The multilingual turn in language education has been frequently referred to in recent research. However, the meaning of ‘multilingualism’ is far from being unequivocally understood, which points to a multiplicity of perceptions about what multilingual individuals, multilingual education, multilingual competence and policies to promote multilingualism are. I suggest that a line can be drawn to distinguish between social and individual multilingualism (the latter is also called ‘plurilingualism’) and that, if individual multilingualism is to be achieved, namely by frequenting a school system, the offer of several foreign languages in the school curriculum or the generalization of CLIL approaches are steps forward but not enough to ensure a plurilingual competence. Instead, it is a change of the teaching and learning habitus and paradigms that is needed, namely through the spread of pluralistic approaches to languages and cultures. Furthermore, I claim that English, because it is being taught and learnt globally as the first foreign language, has a pivotal role to play in the development of learners’ plurilingual competence. By encouraging, from the very beginning, the establishment of relationships between languages and varieties, a certain way of teaching English could prepare an integrated learning of subsequent languages. Finally, I discuss the consequences of “Teaching Other Languages to Speakers of English” (TOLSE) instead of the more commonly used “Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages” (TESOL) and the open questions it points to, that can inspire further research.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The multilingual turn in language education: turning or spinning around? Some considerations
  • 3.Revisiting multilingual turns in language education
    • 3.1Pluralistic approaches to languages and cultures
    • 3.2L3/Ln learning
  • 4.The multilingual turn between tensions
    • 4.1English vs. multilingualism?
    • 4.2Monoglossic and heteroglossic perspectives
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
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