Multilingualism in Belgium: a Clash Between Politics and Cognition

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Multilingualism in Belgium a Clash Between
Politics and Cognition

• Piet Van de Craen, Katja Lochtman, Katrien Mondt,
  Evy Ceuleers, Laure Allain Barbara De Groot

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Multilingualism in Belgium

• The Context
• The political context
• A bit of history and a bit of law
• Education as a regional matter
• The Research Project
• Linguistic aspects
• Language pedagogical aspects
• Social psychological aspects
• Neurolinguistic and neurocognitive aspects
• Economic aspects

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The Context

• Politically Belgium is a near federal state with
  
• three communities (one German-speaking, one
  French-speaking and one Dutch-speaking)
• three regions (Wallonia, Flanders, Brussels)
• four language areas (one German, one French, one
  Dutch, one officially bilingual)
• seven governments...

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A Bit of History...

• In 19th century Belgium, according to the
  Constitution, language use was free in practice
  this meant that French was the sole language that
  mattered.
• Between 1840-1950 the Flemish Movement undertook
  actions to dutchify higher education, the army
  and administration in Dutch-speaking Belgium.
• In 1963 a number of language laws were voted...

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and a bit of law

• Belgian language laws relating to language
  learning and teaching
• in Wallonia and Flanders second language
  learning starts in grade 5, age 11
• in Brussels it starts in grade 3, age 9.
• Since 1963 no changes have taken place. But
• 1998 in Wallonia le Décret Onkelinx, allowing
  primary schools to organize enseignement du type
  immersif
• 2004 in Flanders a decree on language
  initiation that makes the law of 1963 compulsory.
  

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Education as a regional matter

• Wallonia enseignement du type immersif (50 -80
  of the curriculum), 51 primary schools in
  2004-2005, popular success, high social demand,
  yet schools keep low profile results are good,
  problems with teachers and teaching material.
  Languages Dutch, English, German.
• Brussels 3 CLIL oriented primary Dutch-speaking
  schools with mixed population started in 2001
  results are good, different subject-matter is
  taught in French for /- 20 of the curriculum.
  Languages Dutch and French.

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The Research Project Introduction 1

• General hypotheses CLIL will positively affect
• language proficiency in both Dutch and French but
  other languages will also be affected...
• language pedagogical thinking and, hopefully,
  this approach will entail new ways of teaching
  foreign languages
• social psychological aspects of both teachers and
  pupils such as attitudes and motivation
• neurocognitive aspects of the brain in the sense
  that multilingual brains are considered better
  brains
• economic aspects such as well-being and job
  market success since multilingualism is a core
  value in Belgian society albeit not officially
  supported by educational authorities.

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The Research Project Introduction 2

• Studies in Wallona and Brussels
• Wallonia homogeneous group of French-speaking
  pupils
• Brussels three groups can be distinguished
• Dutch-speakers usually the minority
• French-speakers usually the majority
• other language speakers traditional migrant
  languages, Moroccan, Berber, Turkish but also
  African languages, Kurdish, Spanish,
• remark some are false French speakers, some are
  bilingual (Dutch-French) or have other
  combinations of languages some are trilingual,
  in other words heterogeneous groups...

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The Research Project Introduction 3

• The sociolinguistic context of Wallonia
• French-speaking
• in the past less attention was paid to foreign
  language learning
• relatively small cities and municipalities
• The sociolinguistic context of Brussels
• officially a French-Dutch bilingual city
• dominantly French-speaking
• in fact, largest French-speaking city of Belgium
• capital of Europe enormous amount of languages
  around

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Conclusion...

• Politically there is a lot apprehensiveness
  towards CLIL or CLIL like initiatives.
• Yet, there is a lot of social demand.
• There are some signs that the situation will
  improve
• the existence of a parents organization (TIBEM)
• the debate has finally started
• as research results are coming in time is on our
  side.

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