Plurilingual education in Europe

Today due to globalization and internationalization more and more countries, especially European continent are facing rapid change. The increasing mobility of people in Europe creates new challenges for its educational system that requires the immediate development of new approaches, particularly to language education. Accordingly, a new concept of education is concentrated on the needs of plurilingual people to enhance their interpersonal skills across cultures. 

The European Union is a multilingual and multicultural state with 175 ethnicities that recognizes 24 official languages. The European Commission, in the initial action plan on promoting multilingualism, concentrates on the necessity of a broad policy which aims at maintaining linguistic and cultural diversity in Europe. More specifically, the Council of Europe advocates the concept of plurilingualism as a significant human value. The priority which the Council of Europe accords to education is reflected in reference documents and language education tools, such as the Guide for the development of language education policies in Europe, the Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the European Language Portfolio and the Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters (Martyniuk, 2011). The main foci of these documents are: preservation of ethnic and cultural identity of the person through the native language and culture with the culture of world; development of individual’s ability to have a dialogue with other cultures, and the ability to live in peace and harmony with people of different nationalities.

Language skills are considered as essential ability that enables individuals to take part in intercultural action, and in the social and political life of the multilingual societies. Correspondingly, the policy makers set a goal to provide the harmonious development of learners’ plurilingual competence and to promote their consciousness and potential which help them to enhance and adapt their repertoires to changing circumstances (Martyniuk, 2011). 

Plurilingual education has become a topical issue in the time when European society goes from multilingualism to plurilingualism. Having considered EU language policy and its benefits for EU citizens, one could see that plurilingualism is not only important for the development of a democratic state, but also for the whole continent to be one global community.  The reference documents mentioned above are of great importance in pursuing the goals of plurilingual education.   

Day by day, little by little every society in the world is becoming multilingual and the individuals are becoming plurilingual. The age of global informatization also gives great opportunities for the development of multilingual and plurilingual competencies. One can watch a shift in people’s life worldwide, in understanding the role of languages in today's world. Hence, the development and implementation of language education instruments could be beneficial for other multiethnic countries as well (for instance, for Kazakhstan). They cover all the elements of the educational process starting from curricula and ending with individual portfolios. On the one hand it is an assiduous action; on the other hand it is a necessity of time.   

References

Martyniuk, W. (2011). In support of plurilingual people living in multilingual societies: Policies and frameworks of European language education. OLBI Working Papers, 2.