Promoting the Minority Language Through Integrated Plurilingual Language Planning: The Case of the Ikastolas

• Published in: Language, culture, and curriculum culture, and curriculum, 2008-01, Vol.21 (1), p.85-101
• Main Authors: Elorza, Itziar, Muñoa, Inmaculada
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Basque; Classroom Techniques; Communicative Competence (Languages); curriculum; Foreign Countries; Indo European Languages; Language Minorities; Language of Instruction; Language Planning; Language Teachers; Multilingualism; plurilingualism; Second Language Instruction; Spain (Basque Provinces)
• ISSN: 0790-8318; 1747-7573
• DOI: 10.2167/lcc345.0

In this paper we will present the main principles behind language planning in the Ikastolas (Basque medium Schools), where a plurilingual school model has been developed as a way of promoting minority languages in a globalised world. We will start by contextualising the Ikastolas' language policy, briefly tracing their history from their beginnings as schools which ensured the right to education in the minority mother tongue (forbidden at that time), to the current Integrated Plurilingual School model, which involves the teaching and use of four languages. This model started as an Integrated Language Curriculum for language teaching, and it is now facing the challenge of creating a global framework - the School Language Project - which considers the various domains of language use within the school context (i.e. classroom management, break times, administration, school-family relations, etc) as active factors in the development of the communicative competence of the students, and therefore subject to a comprehensive school language planning policy.