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Bilingual Education: International Perspectives
Abstract
The article deals with the objectives and types of bilingual education, from traditional models such as immersion, submersion, and dual language curricula to current initiatives. Among the goals, assimilation of linguistic minorities, heritage-language maintenance, and linguistic empowerment are prominent. Reasons for the success or failure of various approaches are discussed, and it is shown how controversies and attitudes reflect dominant ideologies. It is argued that evidence from research on bilingualism/multilingualism in general and, in particular, on bilingualism in early childhood underscores the superb human ability to deal with more than one language at a time and, therefore, encourages efforts of implementing bilingual language programs throughout the educational system.
... In fact, a good percentage of those writers also highlight a failing by teaching institutions to sufficiently engage with the wider communityespecially where those communities tended to be predominantly Māori. Many of these writers cite an imbalance of control and power leading to a dominant Pākehā education structure that fostered expectations that Māori, as subordinates, should respond by having aspirations to achieve within a one-size-fits-all approach to formal education in New Zealand (Smith, 1991;Bishop & Glynn, 1998;Pihama, Cram & Walker, 2002). Caccioppoli & Cullen (2006) comment: ...
... An historical pattern of dominance and subordination, and its constituent interaction patterns in education environments, has served to undermine the participation of many Maori in the benefits that successful education can offer (Smith, 1991;Pihama, Cram & Walker, 2002;Bishop, 2003). Bishop & Glynn (1998) The education reforms during the late 1980s were aimed at improving Māori attainment and narrowing the gap between Māori and non-Māori achievement. ...
... Bishop (2003) further suggests "the solutions to marginalisation do not lie in the culture that marginalises" (p.223). Bishop & Glynn (1998) comment further on Māori selfdetermination: ...
The development of electronic language learning resources, founded on digital library technology, is a capability that, to date, is largely unrealised. The Flexible Language Acquisition (FLAX) project is a digital library initiative at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. The current FLAX activities provide practice for students who are learning English as an additional language. The prospect of extending this resource to include te reo Māori is as exciting as it is groundbreaking. The outcomes of this research inform the issues and possibilities involved in creating such resources. The World Wide Web has allowed an everyday access to the Internet, but finding and retrieving pertinent information is often a convoluted and time-consuming exercise. The normal outcome is that users are unable to take full advantage of the available resources. Digital libraries have an unprecedented power in terms of organising and storing vast amounts of information and, with built-in retrieval functionality, serve as ideal repositories. The ability to focus the information within these repositories is extremely significant because there is no longer the chaff that normally results from Internet searches. Purposeful learning activities can be presented exploiting an assortment of media and drawing on stored information that can be assembled in a range of formats. Such capacity, flexibility and diversity is normally only encountered at traditional, physical libraries. The research includes an overview of digital libraries and some of the language learning resources that are currently available on the Internet. Since the target language is te reo Māori, a critical review on the features of kaupapa Māori theory, pedagogy and Māori pedagogy is undertaken. Using the concepts discussed in this review, the language learning activities associated with the FLAX project are analysed to determine their suitability for learning te reo Māori. Further feedback was provided by a sample group following their testing of a selection of activities that were based on text written in te reo Māori. The analysis suggests the current range of FLAX activities have more benefit to students as tools that allow practice of the learning that has been delivered in face-to-face classroom settings, rather than as a standalone language learning resource. In their present form, the main benefits of the activities predominantly rest in the way they were performed rather than in the activities themselves. Furthermore, commentary from the testing group regarded the activities as more beneficial for practicing sentence structures, grammar and punctuation, rather than actual language learning. The group generally agreed, however, that combining the activities with methods of oral and aural transmission, in te reo Māori, would certainly result in more effective language learning outcomes. The legitimacy of digital library-based language learning activities lies in designs that promote learner-centred interaction that is consistent with best practice communicative learning theory. When the target language is te reo Māori, it is of the utmost importance that the activities are tailored to embrace a Māori world view in ways that promote the learning rather than the activity or the content.
... The modern "multiliteracies" view, which rethinks the nature of texts, has also considered issues of diversity where individuals know or use more than one language system even if they do not live in a multilingual community [23,24]. Bilingual education and biliteracy research [25][26][27] indicate that bilinguals vary considerably in their command and usage of their two languages [28]. In addition to language usage, bilinguals may also vary in their cultural identity and various social variables. ...
Background
Caregivers’ oral health literacy (OHL) assessment results have been found to be related to their children’s oral health status. A further aspect of this relationship may be the role of caregivers’ reading habits.
Objective
Our goal was to describe the relationship between caregivers’ multimodal (digital and print) and multilingual (English and Chinese) reading habits, their OHL, and their child’s oral health status in Hong Kong.
MethodsA random sample of 301 child-caregiver dyads was recruited from kindergartens in Hong Kong. Data included sociodemographic information and caregivers’ self-reported digital print and reading habits across two languages (Chinese and English). Caregivers’ OHL levels were assessed by two locally developed and validated oral health literacy assessment tasks: Hong Kong Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Dentistry-30 (HKREALD-30) and the Hong Kong Oral Health Literacy Assessment Task for Pediatric Dentistry (HKOHLAT-P). Children’s oral health status was assessed using two measures: dental caries experience (number of decayed, missing, and filled teeth) and oral hygiene status (Visible Plaque Index).
ResultsBivariate variations revealed significant differences in mean OHL scores between caregivers with different reading habits (P
The Covid‐19 pandemic has not only led to medical conundrums and uncharted scientific territories but has also engendered new educational challenges and opportunities that need to be considered in order to reconceptualise, recalibrate and reconfigure higher education in terms of its inclusive foundations and orientations. While current research has highlighted the role of digital teaching methodologies in creating the ‘new normal’ in higher education in the post‐Covid‐19 era, the ‘new normal’ must be concomitantly envisaged in terms of the role of higher education in fostering more inclusive e‐learning spaces. This article discusses the ways in which the tenets of an inclusive pedagogical discourse can be conceptualized and enacted in virtual learning environments in terms of teaching methodologies, learner‐centred content delivery and formative assessment implementation. The pedagogical triptych should be underpinned by an inclusive and equity‐based ‘cyberculture’ that constitutes a sine qua non element in developing all students' sense of belonging and learning in higher education.
In retrospect, the experience of a Finnish-Russian bilingual day care center in Helsinki shows that educational policy, political situation, and composition of the children’s groups and staff are factors influencing the flexible linguistic strategies of the teachers and their attitudes toward children with various family linguistic backgrounds (Finnish-speaking, Russian-speaking, bilingual, or multilingual). From the very beginning (in 1990), there have been three linguistic roles among the staff: Finnish-speaking, Russian-speaking, and bilingual. This enables the staff to switch between languages without mixing them, and to intervene in the language appropriate to each situation. Bilingual adults serve as examples for children who acquire both languages simultaneously. The strategies of the staff include languaging and translanguaging. Encounters during routines, organized activities, and spontaneous play happen in different languages and contribute to enhance their use and to enlarge vocabulary and understanding. Children who continue to study at the nearby Finnish-Russian school show good results in both languages.
Cette enquête visait à savoir si l'attention portée à l'audience amenait des élèves de cinquième secondaire à modifier leurs textes sur le plan formel en termes de nombre de mots, de phrases et de paragraphes--et à vérifier si l'attention amenait les élèves à modifier le sens de leurs textes. Les 35 élèves ont d'abord produit un texte s'adressant à des adultes responsables de programmes de français. Un mois plus tard, un sous-groupe (A) a effectué la révision de ce texte en fonction d'élèves de 6e année du primaire; l'autre sous-groupe (B), en fonction d'interlocuteurs adultes, lecteurs d'un quotidien. Les résultats indiquent que l'attention portée à l'audience affecte peu l'aspect formel du texte. Quant au sens du texte, les résultats du sous-groupe A sont significatifs, ce qui indiquerait que l'effort d'adaptation du texte à des élèves plus jeunes a suscité un plus grand nombre de transformations des idées. /// This research asked if senior high school students of writing would, once they became aware of a new audience, write differently--either changing their wording, phrasing, and paragraphing, or adopting ideas similar to or different from those with which they began. Thirty-five pupils wrote a text intended for their French teachers. One month later, sub-group A revised with a grade 6 audience in mind, and sub-group B wrote with adult newspaper readers in mind. A change of audience did not lead group B students to change the form of their writing. However, students in sub-group A did try out more new ideas in adapting their text to a younger readership.
After identifying points of divergence between bilingual education programs for minority language children and second language immersion programs for majority language children, the author examines points of mutual relevance between these two educational approaches. In particular, three pedagogical features of immersion programs are discussed as exemplary characteristics of effective second language learning environments: (1) integration of language and academic instruction; (2) negotiated interactional language use; and (3) an intrinsically motivating curriculum of instruction. The implications of each feature for teaching and learning English in bilingual education programs is considered.
Second-language “Immersion” school programs that have been developed in Canada and the United States during the last two decades are described and the results of evaluative research pertaining to them are reviewed. Major Immersion program alternatives (i.e., Early, Delayed, and Late variants) along with their theoretical bases and pedagogical characteristics are described first. Research findings are then discussed with respect to the impact of participation in an Immersion program on the students' native-language development, academic achievement, second-language proficiency, and on their attitudes and second-language use. Also, the suitability of Immersion in different geographical/social settings and for students with distinctive, potentially handicapping characteristics is considered. It is concluded that second-language Immersion programs are feasible and effective forms of education for majority-language children with diverse characteristics.
IntroductionIssues in Bilingual Education for Majority-language StudentsLanguage Development and Academic AchievementFocus on Form or MeaningAgeTimeStudents at RiskLanguage TypologyMultilingual EducationNext Steps and Conclusions
Acknowledgment