Page 33 - Linguistically Diverse Educational Contexts

• Conclusions of the European Council (22 May 2008) on multilingualism, which called on Member States to act together to strengthen European cooperation on multilingualism and to take appropriate steps to improve the effectiveness of language teaching.
• Conclusions of the European Council (21 November 2008) on the Strategy for Multilingualism, which invites the countries of the European Union to promote multilingualism in order to foster competitiveness and employability as a means of strengthening intercultural dialogue.
• Conclusions of the European Council (12 May 2009) on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training ("ET 2020"), which stresses the importance of strengthening language competences.
• Conclusions of the European Council (28–29 November 2001) on language competences to enhance mobility, which stressed the importance of a good command of foreign languages as a key competence for finding one's way in the modern world and labour market.
• Regulation (EU) No 1288/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 establishing the Erasmus+ programme, which aims, inter alia, to improve the teaching and learning of languages (Council of the European Union, 2014).
However, in practice, the idea of plurilingualism is replaced by the dominance of an unofficial monolingual paradigm in which English is most often privileged (Kotarba-Kańczugowska, 2015, p. 15). English as a lingua franca has become a vehicle for linguistic imperialism, as it generates inequality, benefits communities and nations by accepting only the standard version of English and rejecting non- standard dialects and accents (Phillipson, 1992). Busse (2017) surveyed adolescents about their attitudes towards learning English and other European languages. The study involved 2255 individuals from Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain. These individuals were asked to complete a questionnaire. The study showed that despite the differences between language education in the respective countries, all the students surveyed showed a high awareness of the global status of English, which may be a positive stimulus to learn English, but at the same time may negatively affect their attitudes towards learning other languages, as they may be perceived as less valuable. Opponents of English exclusivity, such as Phillipson, Joseph, and Ramani, seek to promote multilingualism and increasing accessibility to other languages and discourses with mainstream social and economic power. In the 1990s, the metaphor of the ecology of language26 gained popularity as it showed language in a new light, in the changing postmodern reality, from a broader perspective using cultural studies, psychology, sociology, anthropology, as well as theories of mind and culture (Steciąg, 2014, p. 54). Ecolinguists draw attention to the need to protect minority languages in order to maintain linguistic diversity as part of an ecosystem balance (Denison, 2001). The ecology of language is part of the activity of multilingualism, because as the linguistic repertoire expands, learners acquire additional skills and cognitive and social abilities (Steciąg, 2014, p. 55). In Poland, only a few studies on multilingual education are available, often not translated into Polish. There is also a lack of recognition of the situation in our country in terms of multilingualism (Kotarba-Kańczugowska, 2015, p. 16).
The term "plurilingualism" has various associations to the mother tongue, including minority language, migrant pupils, foreign language, second language, communication psychology, intercultural pedagogy, sociolinguistics, and philosophy. This shows its multidisciplinary nature. This term is used to describe the linguistic competence of a specific individual who has a high awareness of why and how they learn languages (King et al., 2011, p. 17). It is assumed that one can be fluent only in one's mother
26 Einar Haugnen introduced this concept in the 1970s. 18