Abstract

This article deals with the current educational trends in multilingual education and the challenges they pose. It presents the current linguistic portrait in most of the educational centres where several languages coexist both inside and outside the classroom. Different educational trends related to the promotion of multilingualism are explained, such as the importance of the maintenance of first languages, the early introduction of English, and new language teaching approaches, like CLIL and EMI. We also describe an emerging new paradigm, known as translanguaging, which adopts a real multilingual perspective and includes recent research on the acquisition of additional languages and multilingual competence. Finally, some notes about multilingual didactics and future lines of research are proposed.

Abstract

Given the increase of mobility and migration phenomena, around 244 million people around the world are migrants. This trend has turned diversity into one of the main characteristics of contemporary societies. In this context, multilingualism has become highly valued and, consequently, language learning is amply promoted. We will specifically focus on heritage languages (HLs). A HL can be defined as a language spoken at home which, crucially, is not the dominant language of the community at large. In this article, we will basically focus on HLs in educational settings and take also into account the new languages to which migrant students are exposed to, in addition to maintenance and promotion (or lack thereof) of HLs in the host community. Additionally, we will refer to different HL teaching programmes, considering their characteristics and efficiency, and we will focus mostly on Catalan-speaking territories as well as on the connection between LHs and identity. Finally, we will mention some future challenges in these areas from a pedagogical viewpoint and provide some concluding remarks.