| The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to assess multilingual models of education by investigating how and when to incorporate second and third languages into the curriculum to improve language acquisition. Research indicates that L3 enhances and reinforces L2 and L1. The stratified systematic grounded theory study explored the perspectives of neurolinguists, psycholinguists, sociolinguists, and interdisciplinary multilingual education researchers to derive variables for constructing a multilingual model of education. The outcome of the Internet survey revealed that 100% of the participants agreed that multilingual education must change and that teacher training must improve. Variables from the cross-disciplinary data contributed to the construction of an integrated model of multilingual education consisting of four models. The first model emerged from the data to offer the principles of multilingual education. The other three models are macro, meso, and micro models. The macro model represents schools, instruction, and the curriculum cycle. The meso model depicts the developmental domains of the individual learner and includes a cyclical equation. The micro model delineates multilingual processing in the brain based on neurolinguistic research and variables from the current study. For educational leaders and investigators, the integrated multilingual model of education includes tools for contextual evaluation and future research using notional-functional aesthetic-pragmatic concepts. |
