Curriculum decision-making in a multilingual context

The educational system in a multilingual society needs to reflect the authentic patterns of language use by the individuals in that society. A person who knows three or more languages presumably uses each of these languages in different contexts, for different purposes and at varying levels of proficiency. The school curriculum should aim at ensuring the learners' ability to make linguistic choices in the future, while strengthening their proficiency in the dominant language–the language of social, economic and occupational mobility. This paper presents the sociocultural features of a multilingual community and describes the elements of the school curriculum, which can be developed and adjusted to the special needs of students coming from such a community. The emphasis is on the definition of threshold knowledge in each language and on representative discourse worlds that reflect the different language groups. Practical implications focus on teacher awareness and adjustment of teaching materials to a plurilingual classroom.