“Superdiverse” school populations in Southern Europe : reflections on language use and suggestions for learning strategies

Abstract

MERIDIUM is an EU-funded Lifelong Learning Project, which involved primary schools in six countries in Southern Europe: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Malta. In this paper we present some results of this project, and we put forward suggestions in order to adopt strategies in language teaching which may suit the language use and needs of increasingly diverse students’ populations, favouring interlinguistic and intercultural awareness. Such an issue is particularly relevant in Southern Europe, where a “homoglottic habitus” often hinders educational systems from building on the multi- and plurilingual potential of families and social contexts which pupils live in.