On 24 November 2016, Luxembourg’s Minister for National Education, Children and Youth, Claude Meisch, discussed the Grand Duchy’s multilingual education system at the Chamber of Deputies.
Prior to the discussions at the Chamber of Deputies, Minister Claude Meisch answered some frequent questions on the multilingual aspect of Luxembourg’s education system and, more specifically, the question of coherent and progressive language learning in nurseries.
Firstly, the Minister for Education highlighted the importance of children learning other languages from an early age, which allows them to achieve success later in school and life in general.
Minister Claude Meisch also dealt with the accusations that too much French and not enough Luxembourgish is being spoken in nurseries. He stated that an increased use of French in early education does not mean that Luxembourgish will be less important, and that the exposure to several different languages taught to a high quality is beneficial for children in many ways. This is especially helpful when trying to learn more languages in the future.
Claude Meisch went onto reiterate that multilingualism has been an important part of Luxembourgish culture with Luxembourgish being the national language and French and German being the main foreign languages.
In regard to the worry that multilingualism in nurseries risks overwhelming young children, the Minister for Education has countered that language learning at a young age aids the brain’s ability to adapt and learn more quickly. He also referred to psycholinguistic studies to highlight that learning a second or third language does not hinder the development of a child's mother tongue.
Moreover, Claude Meisch denied that the use of several languages will turn nurseries into ‘mini-schools’, saying that the teaching of French and Luxembourgish will be made fun and adapted to the children’s age.
He added that multilingual education benefits all children, Luxembourgish and non-Luxembourgish alike, and that those who do not attend nurseries will not be disadvantaged when going to primary school, as this will also adopt a multilingual approach.
Finally, Minister Claude Meisch assured that German will remain the language for literacy in the second school phase with non-linguistic modules also still being taught through German.
