Presentation issue 13º

We dedicate this issue to José Manuel Esteve Zaragoza, who died in Malaga on May 22. Professor of Theory of Education at the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the University of Malaga, he was a member of the Scientific Council of this magazine, of which he has been an adviser and assiduous collaborator. Carmen Sanchidrián Blanco, Director of the Department of Theory and History of Education of the UM and Julio Vera Vila, from the same Department, sent us a paper on the magnificent professional example that José Manuel had always been.

PRESENTATION

Once again the magazine Advances in Educational Supervision delves into issues of concern and occupy the attention of society, especially parents, teachers and experts in education. Because plurilingualism, the subject of this monographic issue, is the driving force of learning. It is because literacy in new linguistic codes is a demand of families and is part of the agenda of public education policies, as well as a requirement in the global society we live in, with a multiplying effect on cultural exchange. Spanish society, which has left behind its years of uprooting, has begun to deploy a multilingual concept overcoming the previous scheme of a single language (Castilian), elective linguistic separation or imposition of a language. The Spain of today feels like an unavoidable necessity to configure a plurilingual education, because only this one creates the conditions of possibility of opening to the world, extending an essential part of the human being: the communicative one. Today the school, and the works that make up this monographic issue show it, has begun to look at the universe through the mediation of other languages ​​besides its own, and in order to expand the essential process of intersubjectivity among men.

The works that make up this issue, whose authors thank their generous collaboration, go out of step with the state of the matter in the teaching of languages ​​from different perspectives. The work of Ignasi Vila starts from a revealing title of its content: what can bilingual education bring to the linguistic education of the 21st century. An interesting reflection on the immediate future, without forgetting the past, about bilingual education and the guidelines that are being drawn in Europe and in Spain at the moment. María Luisa García Gurrutxaga addresses, as a derivation of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ​​published by the Council of Europe in the year 2001, the multilingual linguistic competence. It clarifies his concept and especially invites us to walk a path: we must walk, he says, of the learning of languages ​​to the use of them. Message that should be strengthened from the educational policy and in educational centers.

Once the aforementioned articles expose us the framework and historical context in which we move, then we specifically attend to the Spanish territories that add a singularity: besides the Spanish and a foreign language, the educational centers have to teach a third language, that of the territory or co-official language. Josep Vallcorba, without losing sight of the global nature of this world, opts for the center's linguistic project as an institutional element to achieve an innovative linguistic model. Rosa Aliaga tells us how multilingual education is articulated in the Basque Country through various projects such as the early introduction of English, curricular content delivery projects in English and the multilingual project of trilingual education, as well as other interesting initiatives . Another community with its own language is Galicia, to which Carlos Callón dedicates his work, in which he tells us how the Galician language has been incorporated, from 1995 to the present. And to close the number, a language that seeks to open its way: the sign language. Language that has a solid history and whose models, in the context of bilingual education, deals with the article by Alfredo Alcina Madueño. The agreement, among all the authors, is unanimous: it is useless to integrate into the global society if the students, the citizens, are not trained and educated in a multilingual context.

Because of the subject dealt with, the problems posed and the way of treating them, which flee from the erudition and academicism that often scare away the profane and the expert, this issue is offered to all those who are interested in building a multilingual society, as well as those from the Administration and politics have to guide the future of the society that we have lived. Because the subject and the works that we present not only speak of the subject, of his need to be trained in different languages, but also of the ideals to build a society of dialogue and open to the other thanks to a new experience: the learning of different languages. Several languages that, with their richness in meanings, will enrich the life experiences of the new citizens. It is the bet of the current educational policies.

The editorial board.