Multilingual classrooms

Across the EU, migrant children bring many new languages and language skills into the classroom – alongside the EU official languages and any regional and minority languages already present.

Between 2010 and 2020, the share of foreign-born children and native-born children of immigrants in the EU grew from 12% to 16%. According to 2025 data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), 15.5% of 15-year-olds in the EU speak a different language at home than the one used at school.

Why multilingual classrooms matter

Children of immigrants continue to face challenges in school. For example, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Migration Data Brief on the integration of children of immigrants in OECD countries:

• at age 15, 45% of foreign-born students in the EU lack basic reading skills
• they score around 61 PISA points lower in reading than their peers
• this gap is roughly equivalent to 1.5 years of schooling

To tackle this, schools need to adapt to diversity in the classroom, building on children's linguistic and cultural backgrounds in a positive manner, and use linguistic diversity as a resource for learning, communication and cultural exchange. Yet only 30% of teachers felt their training had prepared them to teach in linguistically diverse classrooms, according to the OECD's 2024 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS).

EU support for multilingual classrooms

The EU supports multilingual classrooms through policy cooperation, practical resources and EU-funded projects that help teachers, school leaders and education systems respond to growing linguistic diversity.

EU policy

EU policy encourages countries to recognise multilingualism as an asset for learning and inclusion while strengthening learners' skills in the language(s) used at school.

Projects and partnerships

The European Commission supports multilingual education through cooperation with European organisations and EU-funded projects that provide research, teacher training and practical classroom resources.

The Commission works with the Council of Europe's European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) to support multilingual classrooms, including training for teachers, teacher-trainers and school leaders in EU countries.

The Commission also funds a number of projects that support multilingual education:

• SIRIUS 3.0  ("Impactful and sustainable policy change for migrant education action"), which has produced

  • a Knowledge Pill on embracing multilingualism in education, covering multilingual teaching strategies, support for teachers and school leaders, EU policy priorities, and examples of good practice

  • the SIRIUS Watch 2026 report Bridging the Gap: Strengthening Language Support and Multilingual Education – this examines language support and teacher preparation policies across 16 European countries, with particular attention to policies that strengthen both the language of instruction and learners' first or family languages

• LISTIAC (Linguistically Sensitive Teaching in All Classrooms) – develops recommendations for policymakers, education providers and teachers to support language-sensitive teaching, and has produced resources including the LISTIAC Toolkit for Reflection Tasks (to support teachers in reflecting on and developing language-sensitive approaches to multilingual classrooms)
• ALTA (Erasmus+ Teacher Academy) – develops teacher-training pathways for welcoming allophone learners (whose home language differs from the language of instruction) and plurilingual learners (who speak several languages)
• EDINA – supports schools working with newly arrived pupils through resources on translanguaging (using more than one language together in the classroom), assessment, inclusion and multilingual classroom practice
• VirtuLApp – provides digital tools to support multilingual teaching and learning
• ENRICH – promotes inclusive, intercultural multilingual teaching through English in multilingual classrooms

Related links

• Languages in schools (publications)
• Raising multilingual children: the benefits of early language learning (article)
• Schools join the Language Friendly School Network to support students’ identities (article)
• Language awareness in schools – Part of strengthening inclusive education (article)
• Language awareness in multilingual learning environments (article)
• eTwinning languages-related projects 
• Resources for language teachers and educators
• Linguistic diversity in the EU
• Europeans’ language skills