Eleaniztasun goiztiarrari bai, baina ez edonola

Abstract

In the "ikastolas" (Basque schools), after over 30 years of experience, we have been able to prove the viability of bilingual teaching (Basque - Castilian Spanish) and, from the 1991-92 school year onwards, we have begun the experience of early multilingualism with the introduction of English as foreign language as of age 4. In the first part of this motion, the author introduces some aspects of this experience, such as its general proposals, objectives, organisation, elaboration of materials, training approach and teacher follow-up, and student evaluation. In the second part, starting from our experience and taking into account the positive aspects and difficulties that are encountered, the author describes those requisites that, from an organisational perspective and that of project management, seem to be important to accomplish an experiment like ours. The general idea is that the approach towards an early introduction of a foreign language may be adequate, but that the way such an approach is put in practice is more important.