Page 20 - Linguistically Diverse Educational Contexts

LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS
which affects the lives and experiences of their students. Language education is a political act, just like any other kind of education (Giroux, 2010). Power is also exercised through the language system and the use of language (Stańczyk, 2021, p. 6). As Z. Kwieciński (2016) writes, postmodernity requires implementation of dialogical learning, respect for everyone’s differences, and constant reinterpretation of cultures and other people's needs (Aviram, 2010, pp. 203–207). Therefore, it is worth focusing on education to a certain universal minimum across humanity, one that is common to all worldviews and religious and ethical orientations (Kwieciński, 2016).
1.2 Bilingual education
Nowadays, language education is moving towards the development of bilingual and plurilingual education programmes, in which the principal aim is not to reach native speaker level, but rather a level of linguistic competence that enables one to communicate freely in a given language, both orally and in writing, and to navigate between languages and cultures (Dailey-O'Cain & Liebscher, 2009, p. 131). This kind of language education requires teachers to think separately about receptive and productive language competences (Kasper, 1998). A common view is that as receivers of a language we need to be able to understand what native speakers of that language mean (receptive competence). If, on the other hand, we treat a foreign language, for example English, as a lingua franca, then we do not need to take native speakers as examples, but people from different countries who speak the language. In such a situation we may also not want to behave in the same way as native speakers of that language (Liddicoat, 2004, p. 19). Naturally, if representatives of a language are not present in the learning process, the culture of the target language and thus the opportunities for deep cultural learning are limited.
In Poland, when talking about bilingual education, we usually mean education through a prestigious foreign language, such as English, German, Spanish, or French. What is needed is a reflection on curriculum solutions in the context of bilingual (plurilingual) education, which could contribute to the improvement of the quality of education and the situation of students from other countries (e.g. Ukraine or Belarus) studying in Poland. If we decided to look for an appropriate form of education for them, bilingual, or rather plurilingual, education conducted in Polish as a second language and in their mother tongue may seem appropriate. Let us therefore look at several types of bilingual education programmes originating from the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American traditions. In Poland, the most frequently used model of bilingual education is Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), created for European conditions under the initiative of the European Commission (European Commission, 2006). When this type of bilingual education was created in Europe, it was intended to be egalitarian and to include all learners and different languages, from prestigious to minority ones. In practice, however, in many European countries elite classes were created to educate pupils in a prestigious foreign language.
The creation of language education programmes is accompanied by various educational and political objectives, such as:
• assimilation of individuals or groups into mainstream society; socialisation of people into full participation in the community;
• unifying a multilingual society; to bring about the unity of a multiethnic or multinational, linguistically diverse state;
• enabling people to communicate with the outside world; 5