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 Acquisition Planning
GABRIELLE HOGAN-BRUN, CLINTON ROBINSON,
AND INGO THONHAUSER

Acquisition Planning (AP) is concerned with the range of language users and the distribu-
tion of literacy. As a form of language management (Spolsky, 2004) it complements and
interacts with status planning (which is about the social role or function of a language)
and corpus planning (used to modify the structure of a language). This interconnection is
particularly evident in multilingual contexts, where (monolingual and bilingual) AP often
involves status-linked and ideology-driven language aspects of public legitimization and
institutionalization (May, 2001, p. 153). AP can be activated in formal and informal settings,
at the macro or micro levels of society, and may involve top-down or bottom-up approaches
(Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). This chapter provides a brief overview of approaches to AP and
highlights issues arising in postcolonial, post-Soviet, and European settings, exemplified
by some current European frameworks which are particularly active in AP.
The term “AP” goes back to Robert Cooper, who conceived it as being “directed towards
increasing the number of users—speakers, listeners, writers, or readers” (1989, p. 33). In
expanding on Kloss’s (1969) earlier distinctions between status and corpus planning, his
preliminary framework for AP considered foreign language acquisition, reacquisition,
and language maintenance of users as overt goals, and opportunities and incentives to
learn as means employed to attain this (Cooper, 1989, p. 160). Hornberger’s integrative
framework (1994, p. 78) of language planning goals combines approaches taken by Cooper
(above), Haugen (1972), and Neustupny (1974) in a matrix that distinguishes between
language planning types (i.e., status, acquisition, and corpus planning) and approaches
(i.e., policy and cultivation). As AP goals at the (macro) societal language policy level she
lists the group, education/school, literature, religion, mass media, and work; at the (micro)
level of cultivation planning her focus is on reacquisition, language maintenance, foreign/
second language, and shift. Kaplan and Baldauf (1997, pp. 122ff.) use the term “language-
in-education planning,” with literacy planning as a subset, to extend mother-tongue
knowledge to its written forms through schooling. In their model they list curriculum,
personnel, materials, community, and evaluation as key education policy development
and implementation areas. Spolsky demonstrates through his language policy paradigm
(2004, pp. 39f.) how language education (or acquisition) policy as part of language man-
agement impacts on language practices and beliefs.
In educational settings AP is primarily concerned with access and literacy. The main
tasks are choosing the language of instruction (LoI) as well as the range of second/foreign
languages to be offered in the curriculum. Such decisions frequently involve economic
(Grin & Vaillancourt, 1997) and language ideological considerations that reflect the per-
ceived market value of language(s) (Bourdieu, 1991). Often AP choices form part of the
politics of difference, echoing (changing) relations of power in terms of shifts in the use
of formerly dominant and native languages. In many cases policy pressures over struggles
for mother-tongue rights for indigenous or immigrant students can engender conflicts with
ethnonational ideologies. Overall, AP decisions that pursue the dual objectives of facilitat-
ing education in the mother tongue of children from marginalized language communities
as well as in the officially sanctioned language of a polity have been proven to have

The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, Edited by Carol A. Chapelle.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0007
2 acquisition planning

positive effects on the learners’ sense of empowerment and educational outcomes (Tsui
& Tollefson, 2004). Skutnabb-Kangas (2008) has pointed to the human rights aspect of
diversity in education, which will be further dealt with below. Of pedagogical importance
for AP considerations is research that points to the cognitive benefits of continued instruc-
tion in the mother tongue through bilingual programs (Cummins & Swain, 1986).
We now move our focus to issues arising for AP in countries in sociopolitical transition,
taking as our starting point postcolonial settings in Africa, and then consider applications
in the post-Soviet context.

Postcolonial Settings

In a postcolonial context AP is inextricably intertwined with the historical development

of the linguistic situation, and in particular with the imposed dominance of the language
of the former colonial power. At the time of independence in Africa, educational systems
were in place in which the colonial languages were almost unchallenged as media of
instruction. While French and British policies differed with regard to language use in their
colonies (Robinson, 1996), the desire to replace colonial administrators at all levels with
local personnel, one of the principal aims of education at the time, meant a concentrated
focus on the language by which the administration functioned. A concern at that time for
nation building, national (rather than ethnic) identity, and the overhang of the European
idea of “one nation, one language” provided the underlying principles for AP. It is thus
clear that the basis for planning was not the role and functions of language in facilitating
communication, development, or education—planning was driven rather by the perceived
political interests of the newly independent nation-state.
This is not to say that there was no concern for the use, development, and cultural value
of African languages—some colonial functions (such as agricultural extension), some
missionary schools, and some local communities had long advocated and adopted the
communicative and educational advantages of using the mother tongue. Achieving func-
tional levels of literacy—whether in formal or nonformal programs, for children or adults—
provided strong arguments for an initial use of the mother tongue and the subsequent
introduction of other languages. These arguments have regained currency in recent years
(UNESCO, 2003) and have reshaped policies on language use, particularly in education.
An increasing number of African countries have passed legislation, adopted educational
reforms, or even amended the constitution so that African languages are recognized as
viable and necessary languages of instruction (Djité, 2008). However, the implementation
of such changes and the practice of mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MLE)
lags behind, and one reason for this is the lack of planning on how to deal with the
implications of the new policies.
Political, social, cultural, and educational reasons predominate as the basis for these
policies, and the arguments drawn from all these perspectives are both valid and com-
pelling, finding part of their justification in a rights-based approach to governance and
development (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2008). However, this has not been followed by adequate
planning, particularly in education. As the European Framework, cited below, noted, AP
affects more than simply levels and standards; it affects also “the elaboration of language
syllabuses, curriculum guidelines, examinations, textbooks . . . ,” as well as teacher training,
school governance, and management of the system.
Nevertheless, whether the approach is based on an understanding of AP or on the need
to offer quality education and viable literacy, MLE is gradually gaining ground, with the
debate shifting away from whether to adopt MLE to questions of the best models to adopt.
The meeting of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) in
January 2010 addressed questions of the optimum integration of mother tongues and other
 acquisition planning 3

languages (such as official or national languages) over the course of primary and second-
ary educational cycles (ADEA, 2010). One of the key questions is how far educational
considerations—that is, improving the quality of learning outcomes—will predominate
in governments’ motivation for planning multilingual education. Ager (2001, p. 195) argued
that “ideals of social cohesion, elitism or social mosaicity” are likely to prevail as the state’s
motivation for determining language policy, rather than functional concerns or the per-
spectives of local communities. Attitudes to the functional aspects of language use as well
as the relative neglect of local community perspectives can be understood as manifestations
of power—its promotion, imposition, or preservation—with the consequent neglect of
how language policy may affect learning in particular communities.
A striking example of the opposite situation was documented in the 1990s in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaïre), where, in the relative absence of government
influence or control, a nongovernmental initiative modeled adult literacy acquisition on
the patterns of actual language use in the community (Robinson and Gfeller, 1997). As
described at the time, the program adopted a three-language approach:

• the local language (Ngbaka) as the language of initial literacy learning and medium
of instruction throughout the program;
• the regional language (Lingala), already spoken by adults in the region, with literacy
skills extended to Lingala;
• the official language (French), of which adults in the program had no prior knowledge.
Literacy in French enabled access to vast amounts of development and other literature.
Learners typically accessed a French development handbook, but discussed and applied
the knowledge they gained in the local language.

While such a multilingual approach appears to some planners as cumbersome, expensive,

and unnecessarily complex to implement and manage, it is in fact the most appropriate and
fitting way to use languages in learning, from the perspective of the local people. In terms
of AP, it demonstrates the principle that the “plurilingual and pluricultural competence”
(from the Common European Framework of Reference, CEFR—cited below) advocated
for other settings must start, in postcolonial contexts, not with foreign or official languages,
but with the language(s) people actually speak. It is, on the one hand, astonishing that
such a principle, taken for granted in European contexts, should have to be argued and
demonstrated elsewhere, but, on the other hand, it is also predictable, given the frequent
manipulation of language as both an instrument and a symbol of power, particularly during
the colonial era.

Post-Soviet Settings

In contrast to the context introduced above, language planning in newly independent

post-Soviet settings has aimed since the early 1990s at the substitution of the former
“colonial” language (Russian) with the legally reinstituted titular (or state) languages
in the public sphere: in official administration, communication, media, and signage in
townscapes. The main tendency in language management has been to strengthen the posi-
tion and raise the prestige of the state language in all domains, particularly in education.
In order to increase the number of users of the national languages, governments have
prioritized a reduction or elimination of teaching in Russian (for details see Pavlenko, 2008,
pp. 282ff.). In the new curricula the national language is a compulsory subject by law, and
the status of Russian has been changed from that of a second to a foreign language. National
language testing measures have been introduced for school leavers, university entrants,
and for job seekers in the public service or in local government, where a good command
4 acquisition planning

of the titular language is required. This has entailed publishing redesigned textbooks,
facilitating teacher training and free language courses, and providing translation services.
At the same time, and to reverse the previous Russification of other minorities, particular
emphasis has been placed on providing elementary education in a number of non-Russian
minority languages. This has led to the development of a variety of bilingual, immersion,
and minority-language-medium models of schooling. These achievements have occurred
in a context of extreme economic hardship, the need to alter radically many aspects of
the Soviet heritage, and incessant pressure from Russia and from various international
players. Yet, as can be observed elsewhere in the world, many parents in their pragmatic
and instrumental orientation encourage their children to study in the majority language
(and English) rather than the one spoken at home (see Hogan-Brun, 2010, p. 8). In terms
of Russian itself, in some regions (for instance in the northeastern Ida Varumaa region of
Estonia, in eastern and southern Ukraine, or in the Moldovian breakaway republic
Transnistria) there has been a continuation of a broad Russian linguistic environment with
high language maintenance through the system of schooling as well as appropriate media
and cultural institutions.
Apart from substituting Russian in the school curricula with the national language as a
compulsory subject and introducing the languages of national minorities as academic
subjects, the main focus of AP has been to increase study of foreign languages education.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the political drive to join the European Union (EU)
in 2004 had entailed rapid changes of the sociopolitical and linguistic reality. The new era
was also marked by new types of migration leading to diverging language behaviors
across the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Hence the need arose to learn
different foreign languages, with textbooks often in short supply. Increasing westward
orientation means that the teaching of English is constantly expanding, and it predominates
in most instances. At the same time, as is shown below, challenges in the West have led
to new AP developments.

(Western) European Settings

In a culturally and linguistically diversifying Europe, AP approaches have generally started

to focus more on supporting multilingualism. Here, the promotion of plurilingual and
pluricultural competence increasingly forms part of the remit of AP and is influenced by
frameworks (see below). The fostering of individual plurilingualism is now considered a
fundamental principle generally, as in education. As language education policies are being
adapted to accommodate the multilingual needs, the idea in education of language as a
resource (Ruiz, 1984) is being put into practice through multilingual schooling. This can
include the promotion of (two-way) immersion programs (Budach, Erfurt, & Kunkel, 2008).
In acknowledging the cognitive, social, and cultural advantages of multilingualism, such
models support practices that aim to mobilize children’s own linguistic and cultural
resources in a flexible educational setting.
Prompted by the EU’s promotion of multilingualism, foreign language learning at an
early age has been introduced in many member states, usually from the primary level
onward. It is compulsory to learn two languages at that stage in Estonia, Latvia, Luxemburg,
Sweden, Iceland, and Greece (Key Data, 2008). In several countries (Estonia, Italy, Finland,
Sweden, and Norway) students are obliged to choose their first (out of two) foreign lan-
guage in their initial school year. Whilst this trend represents a less marked change in
Eastern European member states where children have had to start learning Russian rela-
tively early up to the late 1980s, such reforms there can entail local positionings ranging
from an essentially ethnocentric and nationalist to a multilingualist rhetoric. The positive
 acquisition planning 5

political and social trade-offs of early foreign language learning, however, are largely
undisputed. Among the claimed social advantages of an early start are that introducing
young learners to other cultures equips them better for democratic citizenship and for
future professional mobility, and that it helps them overcome narrow-mindedness and
ethnocentric thinking.
In the final part we present AP in the context of European frameworks and consider
didactic implications.

The Common European Framework of Reference

for Languages (CEFR)

In Europe, the Council of Europe’s publication of the Common European Framework of

Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (2001) marks a significant develop-
ment in AP. This goes back to an agreement made in 1991 that a “Common European
Framework” should be established in order to “promote and facilitate cooperation among
educational institutions in different countries” and to “provide a sound basis for the mutual
recognition of language qualifications” as well as “assisting learners, teachers, course
designers, examining bodies and educational administrators to situate and coordinate their
efforts” (Council of Europe, 1992, p. 37). The focus in this section is on the current appli-
cation of, and issues for, AP of the framework (reviewed in Little, 2006), which has been
translated into more than 30 languages.
In the area of AP the CEFR has initially mainly been used as an instrument to set and
describe standards of language qualifications (Council of Europe, 2005). However, the
intended focus was a more comprehensive description of “what learners have to do in
order to use a language for communication and what knowledge and skills they have to
develop so as to be able to act effectively” (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 1). While the
Framework is influencing curriculum planning in Europe and parts of Asia, its impact on
language teaching and learning is more difficult to assess. For AP, the core contribution
of the framework is its action-oriented approach with a strong emphasis on plurilingual
and pluricultural competence, “to which all knowledge and experience of language con-
tributes and in which languages interrelate and interact” (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 4).
Drawing on work by Coste, Moore, and Zarate (1997), the CEFR describes communicative
language competence as dynamic and varied, thereby abandoning the idealized monolingual
native speaker as a model. This has to be seen in the context of the two main challenges
in educational policy making that have arisen within the EU: the pragmatic need to achieve
high levels of proficiency in the context of increasing personal and professional cross-border
mobility in Europe and, as a consequence, the construction of plurilingual and pluricultural
identities that no longer follows the “one nation, one language” paradigm. The introduction
of the European Language Portfolio (ELP) is perhaps the most tangible effort to create an
instrument that documents learners’ plurilingual competences and promotes self-assessment
and autonomy in language learning. For current ELP-related documentation see the Council
of Europe’s ELP-website (www.coe.int/portfolio). The European Centre for Modern Lan-
guages, which is part of the Council of Europe, conducts numerous ELP-related projects
(www.ecml.at).
The plurilingual approach adopted by the CEFR has generally been welcomed by the
research community in language teaching and learning. There has, however, been sub-
stantial criticism in areas that concern AP (Byrnes, 2007). Some fear that the application
of the CEFR might lead to disproportionate influence of language testing agencies in cur-
riculum design (e.g., Little, 2007) and produce a backwash on teaching practices (Krumm, in
Bausch, Christ, & Königs, 2003, pp. 120ff.). Others have pointed out that generic descriptions
6 acquisition planning

of language use and related competences in the CEFR do not take into account the variety
of important target groups in language teaching and learning across Europe. The
prototypical learner in the framework appears to be adult, with an interest in tourism or
professional language use (see the numerous contributions in Bausch et al., 2003). Krumm,
in highlighting this issue, states that the “very heterogeneous groups of migrants are,
however, totally different from the learners originally targeted by the CEFR” (2007). Other
criticisms concern the validity of underlying theories of second language learning and the
fact that the plurilingual approach is rarely visible in the descriptors that illustrate aspects
of communicative language competence in the framework. Bilingual or plurilingual ways of
communicating are not at the center of descriptions of linguistic competences or domains
of usage.
The following section discusses two current developments as efforts to put the plurilingual
approach into practice. The first is a “platform of resources and references for plurilingual
and intercultural education,” set up by the Language Policy Division of the Council of
Europe (2009) as an instrument for the purposes of AP in the school context. The second
is an effort to create integrated approaches to language teaching and learning in the school
context.

Council of Europe: Platform of Resources and References

for Plurilingual and Intercultural Education
The platform is introduced on the Web site as a new instrument in AP that enables users
to reflect on the complex roles of languages present in educational contexts, possibly as a
response to criticisms leveled at the CEFR. The “Common European Framework of Reference
for the Languages of Education” is integrated into this new resource, which offers hyper-
linked access to the different areas relevant to AP (see Figure 1). This chart illustrates the
centrality of language proficiency in all learning contexts, as is reflected in literacy research
(Thonhauser, 2008). The hyperlinks lead to collections of documents (e.g., reports, working
papers, pilot studies) related to the core themes of the chart. It remains to be seen if this
tool, which has been designed to avoid the (perceived) prescriptive nature of frameworks,
will replace the CEFR and other frameworks relevant to AP in the work of the Council of
Europe.

The learner and the

languages present in
school

Regional, minority Foreign

LANGUAGE(S) OF
and migration languages—modern
SCHOOLING
languages and classical

Language as a Language(s)
subject in other subjects

Figure 1 The complex roles of languages present in educational contexts. Reprinted with
permission from Council of Europe (2009) © Council of Europe
 acquisition planning 7

Mehrsprachigkeitsdidaktik—Didactique intégrée—
Integrated Language Learning
The notion of “pluriligual and pluricultural competence” has led to new didactic approaches.
Francophone research uses the term “didactique du plurilinguisme,” stressing the socio-
political aspect of plurilingual education as a right (Moore & Gajo, 2009) and focusing
mainly on immersion programs. In the German-speaking community research has mainly
been on Third Language Acquisition (Hufeisen & Marx, 2004), and “Mehrsprachigkeitsdidaktik”
focuses on developing integrated curricula in the area of language learning (Hufeisen &
Lutjeharms, 2005). Jessner (2008) presents an overview of different theoretical approaches
to plurilingualism and relates these to issues of AP.
In Switzerland, integrated approaches to language learning form part of official AP
policies, as highlighted in a key document of the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers
of Education (CDIP, 2004, chap. 4.7). Efforts are under way to implement this in various
educational contexts nationally. As pointed out above, the promotion of content and lan-
guage integrated learning (CLIL) constitutes one of the main strategies in AP on a European
level (see European Commission Web site: http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/
language-teaching/doc236_en.htm).

Final Remarks

As this entry suggests, the main issues currently pertaining to AP are: access to literacy
and achieving functional levels of literacy (in postcolonial settings); (the facilitation of)
mother-tongue-based multilingual education; a focus in planning on the role and functions
of language in facilitating communication; adequate planning that goes beyond levels and
standards; promotion of plurilingual and pluricultural competence through multilingual
schooling in a flexible educational setting; fostering self-assessment and autonomy in
language learning; creating integrated approaches to language teaching and learning in
the school context.
Concerns at the macrolevel are: a lack of vitality in minority language learning; conflicts
between the political and social arenas as a result of shifting ideologies as attempts are
made in transitional settings to put policy into practice; the negotiation of language use
at the micro level; diverging educational policies and practices to cater for the needs of
pluralist societies. Further research is needed to provide knowledge in these areas of
application.

SEE ALSO: Bilingual Education; Common European Framework of Reference; Council of

Europe Language Policy and Planning; Empowerment and Bilingual Education; Language
Policy and Multilingualism; Minority Languages in Education; Mother-Tongue-Medium
Education; Multilingualism and Language Rights

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Suggested Readings

Beacco, J.-C., & Byram, M. (2007). From linguistic diversity to plurilingual education. Guide for the
development of language and education policies in Europe. Main version. Strasbourg, France.
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Multilingual Matters.
Spolsky, B. (Ed.). (in press). The Cambridge handbook of language policy. Oxford, England: Wiley-
Blackwell.

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