An investigation into the plurilingual profile of the newly arrived students at the Melilla Campus of the University of Granada

Abstract

University students need to have ability in more than one language in order to foster the transmission of knowledge and research, and so consolidating a multilingual Higher Education. In the context of Melilla (University of Granada), this requirement is added to the plurilingualism in the city (a large majority of the population is bilingual in Spanish and Tamazight). This investigation aims at describing the plurilingual reality of first-year students, as well as the different socio-linguistic variables that could account for results. Data obtained in several tests and questionnaires, with 206 subjects, determine that a clearly plurilingual profile exists among the participants, although the great challenge is centred on reaching communicative competence in a foreign language sufficient to become independent users.