Plurilingual Education in the Valencian Community

Abstract

In 2018, a new educational law known as Decree for Plurilingualism was passed. One of the most immediate consequences was the introduction of the plurilingual program known as PEPLI (Programa d’Educació Plurilingüe i Intercultural). This program took the place of previous bilingual programs (i.e., PIP, PEV and PIL) aimed at promoting the plurilingual competence of Valencian students. To this end, the law promotes both the teaching of English and teaching through English. In other words, it calls for the incorporation of English as a language of instruction and specifies that the three main languages taught in schools in Valencia (Catalan, Spanish and English) should be equally distributed in terms of teaching hours, thus laying the foundation for the trilingual educational system in the Valencian Community. The aim of this report is to describe the current situation with regard to plurilingual education in the Valencian Community by focusing on specific schools and classrooms. Bearing this aim in mind, the first section deals with the linguistic situation of the Valencian Community in terms of the legal decrees established over time to regulate the region’s education system. The second part reports on the data obtained from a series of interviews with teachers in both primary and secondary educational settings. Finally, the third section focuses more specifically on the plurilingual practices that occur in the classroom