Bilingual Education From Learner Perspectives

Introduction

The European Commission call to promote early foreign language learning among citizens in member states has led to a major paradigm shift in national and regional educational systems across Europe. Learning one or more foreign languages, within a framework of bilingual education, represented changes regarding curricular contents, syllabus design, school schedule and structure. The most extended option to make this shift effective has been applying bilingual education models that involve teaching academic subjects in foreign languages. Among those models, the so-called Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach has been largely implemented in several countries and regions such as Madrid.

Bilingual Education and CLIL Programs in Europe have been widely investigated in the last decade as the result of the interest in implementing early foreign language learning, mainly English, across Europe (Dalton-Puffer, 2007; Lasagabaster & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010; Nikula, Dalton-Puffer, & Llinares, 2013). This has represented a significant paradigm shift in the European educational system since it demanded curriculum changes affecting language and core academic subjects in primary and secondary education and, to a lesser degree, in tertiary education as well. English as a foreign language (EFL) is taught through specific subject areas, such as social and natural sciences, music, art, or physical education. Based on the Council of Europe Framework (Council of Europe, 2007, 2005), the main methodology applied to develop full competence in English and early bilingualism is through CLIL, which infuses English into the core curriculum.

Within this context, the scope of this study was to investigate students’ perceptions and attitudes toward learning in a bilingual setting in order to gather first-person feedback to help plan and promote future bilingual programs. As the major stakeholders in the shift from monolingualism to bilingualism, student perspectives were considered to be critical and significant variables in bilingual program development and sustainability. Through survey questionnaires and extended guided interviews, secondary school students who had participated in bilingual education programs over a 6-10-year time span, from primary school into secondary school, shared their attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs and recounted their experiences, successes, and challenges. The information gathered from the perspectives of the students would be used to help teachers and future program planners infuse the values of the major stakeholders, the students themselves. The goal was to identify what was working well and what students believed were the crucial and most important aspects of studying in a bilingual setting, as well as the benefits of such a program. It was to establish parameters of what should be infused into both current and future program development.