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

2. 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

3. 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)

4. No of contact hours per language
Primary
Secondary
Total
Lux. subject
125 ?
125?
Lux. medium
German subject
1224
German
medium
French subject
1080
French medium -

5. 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

6. European Schools (Schola Europaea)
Founded 1958 for European civil servant children
( ± 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

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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%

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. La Région Autonome de la Vallée d’Aoste

16. 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

17. 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

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

19. 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.

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

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

22. 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