Teachers’ beliefs in multilingual education in the Basque country and in Friesland

Abstract

In this article we analyze teachers’ beliefs about learning different languages in multilingual education, which include forms of immersion in the minority and the majority languages. In this study interviews were held with 51 primary school teachers from the Basque Country (Spain), and Friesland (The Netherlands). In both regions three languages are taught: majority, minority and English. Based on the teachers’ views we obtain interesting insights into the native speaker ideal, pupils as multilingual speakers, and the proficiency levels for each language. The teachers also expressed their ideas on teaching through the minority language and through English, as well as their beliefs on cross-linguistic use of languages and how that is related to the multilingual repertoire. The social context is believed to have an important influence through the parents, the media, and the status of the languages in society. The article concludes that beliefs are still largely monolingual and seem to only gradually change to more multilingual views.