I absolutely share that view that multilingualism is not a problem but an asset—and that particularly when learners are nurtured and supported through inclusive policies and pedagogies which acknowledge their language and culture identity. We must distinguish, however, between such encouragement of multilingual identity and forced teaching of second or third languages in a manner that discourages the learners due to lack of understanding.

In most developing countries, foreigners language (English or French) is the main medium of instruction is justified on basis of necessity to global integration and access to international knowledge. Yet this tradition can ignore the linguistic, cognitive, real obstacles to comprehension and learning for students.

A relevant example comes from Jordan, where academic accounts indicate that the University of Jordan experimented in the 1980s with teaching the biology major in Arabic, the students’ mother tongue. Reports from that time noted a significant improvement in students’ academic performance and engagement. However, the experiment was later discontinued due to institutional or administrative reasons.

The case reflects the tug between wanting to be open to the world and needing to have the language to understand complex scientific concepts in one’s mother tongue. There is research to prove that students learn concepts when they are introduced to them in a language that they are fully fluent in.

So, if we want to support our multilingual learners, we must show respect to their linguistic history and make sure that the language “medium of instruction” is not a barrier to knowledge. Maintaining a balanced and situationally appropriate approach that values both the mother tongue and global languages is a way to develop deeper learning and equity.

Well. it is all good and innovative. But let me offer my observations based on my personal expereience. I am bilingual with Ukrainian and Russian acquired simultaneously. English is my third language (started learning when I was 7 years old). Now I am a PhD in Germanic languages. I know some German as my second foreing language.

My feelings: I am under pressure of all the said languages when I switch codes. This pressure is present at all language levels. Even syntactic (interference of word order patterns). I feel the need for English Perfect tenses speaking Ukrainian and sometimes I use archaic and dialectal Old Past (давньоминулий) for that reason. Which sounds strange. And I never noticed that. I've got a remark from my close colleague professor as to this strange usage.

I found it difficult to carry out simultaneous translation from English into Ukrainian and automatically even subconsciously did it into Russian (all my teachers of English at secondary and tertiary schools were Russian speaking and I didn't have the ready Ukrainian equivalent on the surface of my memory). During simultaneous translation, every fraction of a second matters and what I initially did in my mind was translation from English into Russian then into Ukrainian. I did it at incredible speed to keep up with the speaker. This is how it is felt.

Before taking any steps in the direction of multilingualism, we should ask some questions and find answers to them: How about language interference? How about language contamination, mixing? Multilingualism triggers borrowig, language pidginization > simplification > an uncontrollable flow of borrowings at the expense of reduction of native vocabulary and simplification of grammar. In the long run we are going to have a patchwork of a language with indistinct borders between languages and uncertain "bone structure" (morphology and syntax). We are going to observe a lot of replacements in contacting languages.

We have a very eloquent example of multiligualism at work: English (11-16 centuries). It was a homogenious synthetic type Germanic language before 11c. The landslide of French, Latin and to a lesser extent other languages (like Greek) in 11c.- 14c dramatically transforms English, which as a result drifted from synthetic to analytic type with eroded morphology, overburdened syntax and bloated vocabulary with an immence number of French borrowings.

In conclusion. Care should be taken.