ABSTRACT
This chapter will consider how successful the European monolinguist approach to language education has been, particularly in light of the fact that English has become the de facto vehicular language of the European institutions themselves. As a result, even the more widely spoken European languages now share some of the minoritised features of the lesser used languages. The chapter will examine the challenges posed by the ‘Mother Tongue Plus Two’ approach, with a particular focus on countries or regions with populations of speakers of lesser-used languages such as Finnish, Catalan, Welsh and Irish where the issues are in sharper focus. It will argue that these cannot be addressed in the absence of European recognition of the implications of the particular status and impact of English on language learning in Europe.
