ABSTRACT
The resurgence of interest in teaching foreign languages in primary schools, which took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s among educational policymakers at national level in a number of European countries, can largely be attributed to the opportunities which an emerging new Europe presented. For some countries, such as Scotland, the main impetus was the advent of the single market in 1992 and the economic benefits which it was anticipated would ensue to those able to do business in more than one European language. For others, such as France and Italy, there was the added incentive of developing and promoting a growing sense of European identity based on cultural and linguistic diversity. For countries from the former Soviet bloc in eastern Europe such as Hungary and Croatia there was the desire to look westwards in both a cultural and economic sense.
