Foreign language policy addressed to Greek primary and secondary education: Teachers' viewpoints and students' attitudes towards plurilingualism

Abstract

This study examines foreign language policy as addressed to Greek primary and secondary education, aiming to: i) record primary and lower secondary education students' plurilingual skills; ii) identify their attitudes to learning European languages; and iii) explore the extent to which Greek foreign language (FL) teachers are informed and the degree to which they agree with central issues of European Language Policy. This is to be achieved through: a) a brief overview of the situation of FL teaching in Greek education for the last 20 years (by presenting some curricula and official documents on FL teaching); and b) the development of a research project, conducted during the academic year 2008–2009, in which 863 primary school students and 400 students from secondary schools participated. The research project utilised two versions of a questionnaire as a means to collect information from primary and secondary education students. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 FL teachers to ...