Developing Plurilingual Children: Parents’ Beliefs and Attitudes towards English Language Learning and Multilingual Learning

Abstract

The present study was conducted with the aim to provide an account of parents’ beliefs on issues related to their
children’s EFL and multilingual learning in the Greek educational context. The stimulus for conducting the study can be identified in the spread of English world-wide and the changing status of English within Europe along with the
crucial role of parental attitudes to their children’s foreign language learning. In total, the views of 50 parents of
primary school children were surveyed. Semi-structured interviews were used as the basic research instrument. It
should be noted that although the parents acknowledged the influential role and dominance of English as a lingua
franca, they highlighted the need for students to acquire multilingual competence in a variety of foreign languages.