Hugo BAETENS BEARDSMORE Established trilingual education programmes in Europe: Practice and Challenges. Hugo BAETENS BEARDSMORE

Luxembourg Total population almost 100% trilingual: Luxembourgish, German, French 98% know 2 languages, 84% know 3 languagess, 61% know 4 languages. 33% of population immigrant other language speakers

School trajectory (since 1912) Luxembourgish (age 3-5) - oral  German (age 6 ) oral  written  French (age 7) oral  written  English, Latin, Greek, Spanish, etc. (age 12)

No of contact hours per language Primary Secondary Total Lux. subject 125 ? 125? Lux. medium German subject 1224 720-990 1944-2214 German medium 1331-2159 French subject 1080 954-1350 2034-2430 French medium - 2106-3744

Problems Severe selection process at age 11 PISA tests taken through L2 or L3 and for immigrants through L4 PISA = Programme for International Student Assessment

European Schools (Schola Europaea) Founded 1958 for European civil servant children ( ± 25000 pupils kindergarten to university entrance) Collective control by 28 member governments 14 schools in 7 countries: Belgium (5), England (1), Germany (3), Italy (1), Luxembourg (2), Spain (2), The Netherlands (1) 11 Accredited schools, Belgium (1), Denmark (1), England (1) Estonia (1), Finland (1), France (2), Greece (1), Ireland (1) Italy (1), The Netherlands (1) Each school has up to 8 parallel language sub-sections Specific final exam: European Baccalaureate

Guiding principles Maintain distinct national, cultural & L1 linguistic identity Build competence in an L2 and L3 for all & optional L4 The older the learner the fewer lessons in L1 All programmes the same, irrespective of L1 All teachers are native-speakers of their teaching language Final exams (European Baccalaureate) through 2 languages.

L1 in the curriculum Multilingual environment Basic language of instruction in primary school Particular attention paid to quality of L1 Initial reading & writing in L1

L2 in primary education All children must select an L2 from English, French or German L3 introduced in last 2 years of primary Focus on spoken language Greeks & Bulgarians learn Cyrillic & Latin alphabet

Upper secondary programme Limited n° of compulsory subjects One third of programme through L1 medium: Two thirds through other languages Great individual variation for L2, L3, L4, depending on electives Complex organisation of individual pupil time-tables

Tests not significant until Grade 8 Final Examinations Tests not significant until Grade 8 European Baccalaureate at 18+ Same exams and same criteria irrespective of language 5 written and 3 oral components L2 marked on same criteria as for L1 European Baccalaureate results 2015 Pass rate 2015: 98.3% Fail rate 1.7%

Problems Complex & expensive schools Materials & testing budgets high Materials & methods must be duplicated in many languages SWALS (Students without a language section, e. g. Slovenes, Slovaks) Dropouts at 16

Problems Highly intellectual programme European Baccalaureate a tough exam Less intellectual pupils leave at 16 English & French sections submerged by non-native speakers Elitist image through restricted entry Demanding & articulate parents

Research on Canadian immersion, European Schools & Luxembourg Canadian tests for French Classroom contact hours at age 13 Reading comprehension (0/22) Listening comprehension (0/22) Cloze (grammar) (0/41) Canada L2 N= 80 ± 4400 14.8 14.95 19.9 Eur School L2 N=102 ±1300 14.6 18.8 22.2 Eur School L3 N=58 ±250 12.15 14.85 18.0 Lux (L3 or L4) N=179 ±1450 15.26 14.84 21.3

La Région Autonome de la Vallée d’Aoste

Val d’Aoste (Italy) Plurilingual education non-elitist for all Begins in kindergarten Initial reading & writing in Italian & French English introduced at age 5 Aims at cognitive and didactic efficiency Code-switching fequent in lessons

Examples of teaching strategies React in Italian (L1) to a maths problem given in French (L2) Extract orally or in writing in one language the main arguments given in the other language Provide commentary in one language on a graph presented in the other language

Problems Expensive: 2 teachers per class, a language teacher & a subject teacher Schools vary considerably because of great autonomy Insufficient continuity in upper classes

Research Val d’Aoste Much research on social identity, classroom methodology, code-switching in the classroom, cognitive aspects, mathematics in a bilingual system, English as an L3, etc., etc.

Scores for reading in French & mathematics in the Val d’Aoste and French schools in Belgium, Canada and Switzerland (PISA 2009).

PISA results in plurilingual systems 2006 PISA mean score for mathematics: 498 Luxembourg: 490 European Schools: 583 Val d’Aoste: 502

European School PISA 2006 & 2003 comparison between maths results in L1 or L2 Average 2006 498 2003 German 560 563 496 584 L1 English 583 600 L2 545 567 French 577 562 541 573