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As cities attract immigrants, urban education has to face the challenges of multilingualism and multiculturalism.

Language is a very complex issue involving many different fields of study, ranging from linguistics, psychology, neurosciences, cognitive science to social sciences and cultural and gender studies. In fact, language is connected to the self, but it also connects to others; it has to do with personal acquisition and development, but it also represents the main social link to others. Moreover, language as mother tongue speaks about -and from- one’s own roots and culture.

And language, and its acquisition, is of course also a matter of concern for Educational Studies.

From these very basic considerations, it is clear that, only considering the language issue, multicultural classes face multileveled challenges.

Due to globalisation and to the cultural and economical changes of late XX- early XXI century, English language has progressively lost its national and cultural connotations, and it has become to be considered the only post-national and post-cultural language, at least in the European context. (I’m quite aware, in fact, that UK English for India, for example, or American English for Central and South America are not at all post-cultural languages, as they are still marked with the brand of colonialism and power).

In Europe, though, the evidence of English as post-national and post-cultural language can serve in Education as an effective tool able to favour communication and exchange within multicultural classes.

My point is that English as L2 acquisition in multicultural classes can act as a neutral tool able to elicit neutral communication released from previous cultural references and memories connected to L1, in particular when L1 triggers negative emotions related to painful experiences or memories linked to one’s own mother tongue.

English as L2 can thus represent a sort of no man’s land from where the self and the others can be experienced exploring new ways and paths: the self, without any previous references to roles or memories, and the others without any previous references to prejudices.

In multicultural classes, thus, English as L2 does not simply play the instrumental role of a lingua franca, but the rather multifaceted role of lingua neutra (neutral language).

In fact, immigrant students who have just arrived from foreign countries can have problems in many subjects (national L2 included) and can be considered a bit slow by the native students. But they can enjoy a brand new opportunity during the English lessons: this language literally stands between their own L1 and the L2 they have to learn, as it refers neither to the country they had to leave, nor to the country they had to move in.

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