Multilingualism and the language education landscape: challenges for teacher training in Europe

摘要

Europe is at the forefront of the development of policies that promote multilingualism in its member states, both on the social and the institutional level, as well as plurilingualism on the individual level. As Europe faces the challenge of multilingual education and diversity on various and exceedingly heterogeneous levels with regard to plurilinguals’ realities, stakeholders and key decision-makers have developed visions of the situation of language teacher education and its structures. This paper presents these visions and provides insights from a recent critical evaluation of the policy instrument “European profile for language teacher education” (first published in 2004). Based on the study results obtained from a hundred decision-makers and language teacher trainers who participated in a European study on language teacher education, we discuss their perspectives relative to the current training infrastructure available in Europe. This study highlights key problematic issues, especially in light of the increasingly diverse student bodies, and highlights potential solutions for the European language context.