The Canale Valley stands at the crossroads between three countries (Italy, Slovenia, and Austria) and four languages (Italian, German, Slovenian, and Friulian). Although it is part of the Slovenian settlement area in Italy, due to its historical development it has not established a continuous education system with Slovenian as a language of instruction. In the 2017/18 school year, a pilot multilingual Italian–Slovenian–German–Friulian education model was implemented for the first time. At present, this experimental multilingual education model is used in all preschools and in the first five grades of primary schools in the area. This article presents the advantages and disadvantages of the established model and prospects for further development, with a special focus on Slovenian.
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