The goal of continuous language teaching is to reduce language deficiencies and subsume them under the requirements of teaching and education. It is a well-known fact that the vocabulary we acquire expands continuously and represents the part of language acquisition which is never fully completed. Namely, one of the fundamental competencies associated with success in learning is language competence. World-wide, there is already a significant amount of discourse about “language-aware teaching”, or “language-sensitive teaching”. It has been observed that students have increasingly poor language competences, and especially weak speaking competences. In addition, a growing gap has been perceived between everyday speech and the speech used in education, in teaching, the so-called language of education. The scietificalt based method that can support this process of gaining, among others, the language competences is called scaffolding. Scaffolding is an English term that literally means “a supporting framework”, and it refers to the concept of using language in interaction with students. It is not used as a specific “instrument” or a tool for stimulating learning, but as a concept which provides assistance to students when solving tasks which they are not yet able to master independently.The aim of this paper is to lay the foundations, based on relevant scientific and professional research and achievements, of new work modes in multilingual classes in Croatian schools, or in classes attended by children who are, for whatever reason, in an unfavourable linguistic position, in order to contribute to the reduction of functional illiteracy.

Keywords: Language, teaching, acquisition, scaffolding.