Insights into Language Education Policies

The main purpose of the present book is to provide the reader with critical insights into language education policies in different countries around the world: the United States, China, Portugal and Spain. The different chapters included in this book analyse what is done (or not) in these settings to promote (foreign) language learning from different perspectives (for example, the preservation of indigenous languages at schools, the promotion of CLIL [Content and Language Integrated Learning] instruction in education, or the situation of migration and minority languages in curriculum policies), underlining their merits and flaws as well as suggesting future avenues and courses of action to be adopted in order to enhance plurilingual education in these contexts. We therefore believe that, although modest in its scope, this book will be of particular interest to policymakers, academic researchers and teaching professionals concerned with language education.

Overview of the book

The next three chapters of the book analyse the language education policies of three different Spanish contexts. The chapter by María Luisa Pérez Cañado provides a detailed rendering of the plurilingual education model developed in Andalusia, officially a monolingual community in the south of Spain. It answers a series of wh-questions which aim to canvass the past, present and future of the two main plans enacting this model: the Andalusian Plan for the Promotion of Plurilingualism (APPP) and the Plan Estratégico de Desarrollo de las Lenguas en Andalucía (PEDLA). The chapter begins by expounding on why the APPP and the PEDLA have been developed. It then describes how they are being implemented in practice, mapping how their overarching guidelines are reflected in on-the-ground practice. The chapter analyses the outcomes of the APPP and the PEDLA, focusing on who has done stocktaking on the way in which these plans are working and what results have been yielded by the research conducted thus far. It concludes by exploring where those outcomes lead, identifying the main challenges to be addressed and setting an agenda for the future.

José Manuel Vez Jeremías examines the language policies developed in a Spanish bilingual community: Galicia. The chapter begins by analysing the Galician linguistic landscape in which Galician, once a linguistic variety of low prestige, has gained more social status through different political measures. These measures, however, have not prevented the drastic decline of L1 Galician speakers among adolescents. To reduce this language deficit, the Galician Government has enacted various educational measures, which are reviewed in the chapter. These measures have aimed to promote the learning of Galician through its incorporation into the school curriculum, both as a subject and as a language of instruction. In recent years, however, Galicia has experienced a shift towards a trilingual model in education (based on teaching a third of the school subjects in Galician, Spanish and English respectively). While supporters of this model regard it as a promising tool for increasing learners’ foreign language skills, detractors argue that its development is a potential threat to the revitalisation of the regional language.

Next, the focus shifts to language policy in the United States. Using the Hesitation Waltz as a metaphor, François Victor Tochon describes the back and forth movements that characterise language education policies in the United States. These policies have shifted, in varying degrees in the different states, from tolerance to repression, from restriction to expediency, and from absence of support to promotion or indeed the reverse. The chapter thus begins by discussing two examples of the current situation of the United States regarding language education policies targeted at the Native American population and the Ebonics controversy, illustrated with the case of the Oakland California School Board. Next, it focuses on analysing modern language education policies after 9/11, the progressive opening to measures helping Hispanic heritage learners, the detrimental effect of the No Child Left Behind Act on foreign language education, and the ‘Hesitation Waltz’ experienced in higher education. The chapter concludes by expounding on the influence of dialectical and cultural substrates on language education policies.