Promoting Linguistic Diversity and Whole-school Development

Book excerpt: The Council of Europe stresses the importance of multilingualism in society and of individual plurilingual competence as means to social cohesion. Ultimately, it is within the school that the necessary innovations need to take place. The case studies presented in this publication are an authentic illustration of how this is being realised in different contexts and what successes and challenges it presents. By bringing these innovative language education programmes and school profiles to the fore, its participating in the creation of a new paradigm of school leadership whereby pupils, parents and the local community, instead of being excluded, controlled and forgotten become actively involved in language endeavours. Similarly, teachers can move on from being simply the executors of education programmes to becoming participants in drawing up, implementing and evaluating school policies.