How Can Multilingualism be Supported through Language Education in Europe?

This paper focuses on educational policy and language learning in compulsory education in the European context, and suggests how multilingualism can be addressed more effectively. The wider policy landscape has influenced language education in Europe over the past 25 years, in particular through the policies of the Council of Europe and the European Union (EU). However, research conducted in the past decade shows that, despite numerous policy initiatives, it has proved difficult to develop multilingual language skills to the necessary proficiency levels through formal education. Part of the challenge is in aligning the macro and micro aspects of policy, and to address this problem, I argue that we need to approach language education from an ecological perspective, with emphasis on plurilingual repertoires, and taking into account new perspectives on multilingualism covered in this special issue. Language professionals need to reimagine the ecology of language learning to reflect heteroglossic realities in society and to link macro and micro contexts more effectively. To achieve this, language learning and assessment need to change to provide a theory of action, and it is suggested that the adoption of Learning Oriented Assessment supported by digital technology provides new opportunities to put this approach into practice.