Attitudes towards plurilingualism among English language students
ENSince the beginning of the 21st century, the Council of Europe has promoted pluriculturalism and plurilingualism, focusing on language learning as a priority for Europe’s competitiveness. The Council of Europe’s language policy calls for mastery of two other languages in addition to the first language (L1). Furthermore, the Common European Framework of Languages (CERF) continues to promote methodological innovations and new approaches to teaching languages due to the growing need for plurilingual and pluricultural perspectives. Nevertheless, even these political decisions are not enough to combat the status of English as a global lingua franca, and more measures need to be taken to give equal status to minority languages. Higher education institutions are those places where such awareness needs to be raised. Therefore, the authors of this article aim to identify student attitudes towards plurilingualism and pluriculturalism in an English classroom. Specifically, student attitudes about the English curriculum, textbooks, teaching strategies used in the classroom are examined through a plurilingual lens. In this context, students’ attitudes towards plurilingual practices are analysed based on the students’ answers to a questionnaire that addresses features of a multicultural curriculum. The results reveal that students are very open to different cultures and languages and positively value pluriculturalism in the English classroom, yet the motivation to learn English is much higher than the motivation to learn other languages. Keywords: Plurilingualism; perception; language; classroom; English. [From the publication]
