English in multilingual education programs: some cases and perspectives

With reference to the multilingual turn and the spread of English as a lingua franca, this article discusses the pressures for multilingual education programs and the educative nation plans based on language learning as a tool for democracy. The idea of a sustainable development of new language learning strategies will be studied in light of its complexity and its pertinence to language studies. The investigation will begin with some introductory remarks about how much complexity the idea of “multilingual education” involves, reflecting on how language matters can become language issues because they involve values, usage domains, geographical variations, and many historical processes which may be irregular. The study will then focus on the “Philippines case”, still considered as a complex multilingual scenario despite the widespread presence of English in the country. Then, the challenge of English in multilingual education will be discussed in the context of CLIL programs and their effectiveness in new language policies even beyond the European borders.