Trilingual Education in Switzerland

The Swiss Confederation is known for its historical multilingualism. The four national languages are, however, unequally distributed among its inhabitants. Individual foreign-language competence, including English, also varies strongly. The educational system reflects cantonal differences. The article distinguishes between strong, intermediate, and weak forms of trilingual education. The strong form can be found at university level, the intermediate form includes all bilingual models with a course in one additional language, and the weak form is found frequently, in particular, in secondary education. A new model of multilingualism emerges with two national languages, plus English. Research has thus far dealt mainly with the outcomes of bilingual education, but in the near future will focus more on the differences between second- and third-language learning and the outcomes of trilingual education