The challenge of plurilingual education: Promoting transfer across the language curriculum

(Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy - Vol. XXXV, No. 1, Spring 2008, pp. 7-21)

A plurilingual curriculum is responsible for promoting the transfer of knowledge, beliefs/attitudes and skills across languages, so that learners can both profit from their previous L1 and L2 experiences in learning an L3, and, conversely, feedback their new L3 competence into their L1 and L2. This means (re)discovering the potential of cross-curricular language education, and, for teachers of English in particular, highlight transferable elements in the areas of language awareness and learning awareness.