Multilingual Perspective in Language Teaching

This study aims to reconsider the prevalent strategies used for teaching more than one language in the context of multi-lingualism and to introduce new approaches in the light of developments in the literature. Thus, the current condition in the interdisciplinary area of language education and related approaches required to be developed will be discussed. The study is a descriptive one and is based on literatute review. Using a traditional literature review, an examination of a complex set of up-to-date studies published by academically reliable and competent specialists has been conducted. Some specialists suggest focusing on multilingualism as an alternative to conventional approaches that emphasize the separation of languages in learning more than one language. This suggestion is a result of a holistic approach based on the research and developments in the field of bilingualism. Accordingly, the integration of new knowledge to the existing cognitive structures of an individual is crucial, as old information is the basis of interpreting new information. Interlingual connections combining different languages and a curriculum presenting course contents in different languages constitute a basic framework of this approach. As a result, using of worldwide bilingual-/multilingual educational practices and disclosing the effectiveness of the multilingual approach to develop programs for teaching of multiple languages in Turkey is suggested.