Thursday, March 4, 3:30pm, Tuttleman 301 AB
Dr. Jasone Cenoz and Dr. Durk Gorter, University of the Basque Country

Multilingualism and minority languages in education in Europe -

This presentation focuses on the use of different languages in education in a number of European regions where a minority language is spoken with particular attention to multilingualism in Basque education.

The first part of the lecture will focus on provisions for multilingualism and multilingual education in order to highlight the similarities and differences between different regions by looking at the ways in which different languages in education are combined. Education can contribute to the development of proficiency in minority languages by teaching these languages and through these languages, but the schools also reflect the demography and status of minority languages in society. Multilingual education faces important challenges for the maintenance and development of minority languages and the achievement of competence in several languages.

The second part of the lecture focuses on multilingual education in the Basque Country where two or even three languages are used as medium of instruction in education: Basque, Spanish and English. The different types of multilingual education will be discussed as related to the ‘Continua of Multilingual Education’ which highlight the relationship between schools and their sociolinguistic context. The last part of the lecture will focus on the different challenges the Basque educational model faces nowadays. These challenges include the use of the Basque language, teacher education and increasing language diversity resulting from immigration.

Dr. Jasone Cenoz and Dr. Durk Gorter, University of the Basque Country