Linguistic diversity is a challenge for Europe, but, in our view, a rewarding challenge
(AminMaalouf, Group of Intellectuals for Intercultural Dialogue)
Today in European schools studying languages is taken for granted, but in the past it wasn’t.
At the moment, all over Europe, the English language is the most studied and it is used for professional, political, economic purposes, but multilingualism remains at the very the heart of European identity.
Published in 2017, the Eurydice report points out that in 2014 97.3% of European students studied English in middle school, while the percentage is lower if we look at primary school (79.8%) and high school (85.2%). According to the report, German and Spanish are very common among learners, while French remains the second studied language after English.
Within the European Union, there are 66 languages labelled as official, from which 26 are official state languages.
In most countries, pupils begin to learn a first foreign language as a compulsory subject between the ages of 6 and 7, namely at the beginning of primary education. In Italy, under Law 53/2003, learning English as a foreign language became compulsory from the first year of elementary school (source: eurydice).
In 2017 the European Commission published a communication addressed to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions on “Strengthening European Identity through Education and Culture”, stating that “Multilingualism represents one of the greatest assets in terms of cultural diversity in Europe and, at the same time, one of the most substantial challenges (p. 7)”. Therefore, learning foreign languages still remains one of the very needs for UE citizens.
From the ‘90s, other important measures were taken to boost the importance of foreign language learning. In 1995, the European Union launched the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) on improving and diversifying language learning and teaching within the education systems of the European Union. As proclaimed by the Council of Europe in 2001, the European Day of Languages is celebrated every year on 26th September and this year marks the 20th anniversary of its establishment. At the same time, the Council of Europe published the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, one of the most best-known and most used policy instruments to provide a transparent, coherent and comprehensive basis for the elaboration of language syllabuses and curriculum guidelines, the design of teaching and learning materials, and the assessment of foreign language proficiency.
Following, in 2002 the Barcelona European Council set objectives on “The development of childcare facilities for young children in Europe with a view to sustainable and inclusive growth” (Barcelona Objectives) and, connected to such goals, in 2005 the European Commission published an important communication (“Multilingualism: an asset for Europe and a shared commitment”), stressing the value of linguistic diversity in the EU and presenting the steps to be taken to ensure multilingualism recognition with the EU policies. In the same year, another communication was published, outlining the importance of measuring the linguistic competences for all member states of Europe.
In 2018, the European Parliament adopted a resolution that is based on a research to identify the best tools and methodologies to ensure the language equality in the digital age.
