ORGANIZING FOREIGN LANGUAGES LEARNING CONTINUITY WITHIN LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN THE SWISS CONFEDERATION

Abstract

The article reveals the problem of foreign languages learning continuity within language education in Switzerland. The model of school Swiss plurilingual school curriculum as a result of reforms undertaken to harmonize the language education in officially quadrilingual country is analyzed. Its aim is to increase the language repertoire and integrate the English language as a contemporary lingua franca in school curriculum. The key issues of foreign language education are stressed, namely to foster learning of mother tongue and the language of instruction, early foreign languages learning, horizontal and vertical consistency within the language education in Switzerland. The ways of their implementation are named. They include learning of the content of non-language subjects by means of foreign languages through bilingual programmes (CLIL-method, immersive forms of learning). There has been defined the necessity to integrate the accredited models of European language portfolio into school language education and to develop educational standards for foreign languages learning based on European framework of reference for languages. It stipulates the mobility of schoolchildren and acceptance of lingual competencies in and outside the school, in and outside the cantons and the country. Besides, it requires the ability of foreign language teachers to use new forms of tests and new system of assessment that are based on educational standards. These requirements result in transformational processes on meta-, meso- and macro-levels of education. It is stated that the principal of language awareness has to be considered in the process of school foreign languages learning. It is defined as a basis to form multilingual and multicultural personality that is capable of self-dependent life-long learning of foreign languages. It also fosters the development of secondary linguistic personality that is able to hold dialogue between cultures in different lingual situations. It implies the combination of own linguistic and cultural experience with the integration of different lingual code and different norms of social behavior, which positively influences the development of tolerant society in modern interconnected globalized world.