Bilingual education
Encyclopedia
Bilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model.
Dual Language programs are less common in US schools, although research indicates they are extremely effective in helping students learn English well and aiding the long-term performance of English learners in school. Native English speakers benefit by learning a second language. English language learners (ELLs) are not segregated from their peers.
, some schools teach bilingual programs which cater to children speaking languages other than English. Baldauf explains that these programs are now beginning to benefit from more government support. Bilingual education for Indigenous students, however, has only received intermittent official backing. In the Northern Territory, for example, bilingual programs for Indigenous students were begun with Federal Government support in the early 1970s but by December 1998 the Northern Territory Government had announced its decision to shift $3 million away from the 21 bilingual programs to a Territory-wide program teaching English as a second language. Within 12 months though the government had softened its position. Most bilingual programs were allowed to continue under the guise of two-way education. Then on 24 August 2005, the Minister for Employment, Education and Training announced that the government would be "revitalizing bi-lingual education" at 15 Community Education Centres: Alekerange, Angurugu
, Borroloola
, Gapuwiyak
, Gunbalunya, Kalkaringi, Lajamanu
, Maningrida
, Milingimbi
, Ramingining
, Ngkurr, Shepherdson College, Numbulwar
, Yirrkala
and Yuendumu. This revitalisation is conceived as part of an effort aimed at "providing effective education from pre-school through to senior secondary at each of the Territory's 15 Community Education Centres". As Harris & Devlin (1986) observe, "Aboriginal bilingual education in Australia represents much more than a range of education programs. It has been a measure of non-Aboriginal commitment to either assimilation or cultural pluralism". In 2008 it again shifted with the government attempting to force the nine remaining bilingual schools to teach the first four hours of classes in English.
, education is under provincial jurisdiction. However, the federal government has been a strong supporter of establishing Canada as a bilingual country and has helped pioneer the French immersion
programs in the public education systems throughout Canada. In French-immersion, students with no previous French language training, usually beginning in Kindergarten or grade 1, do all of their school work in French. Depending on provincial jurisdiction, some provinces also offer an Extended French program that begins in grade 5 which offers relatively more courses in French. In this case the student takes French immersion until grade nine but may continue throughout their high school education. Similar English-immersion programmes also exist for Francophone children.
Currently, education is generally monolingual in either English or French according to the majority population within which a school is located. The second official language is introduced with a minimal amount of allocated time provided each week in the form of just one single subject.
(1) In Quebec, a child may be educated in English only if at least one parent or a sibling was educated in Canada in English.
(2) In the rest of Canada, a child may be educated in French if at least one parent or a sibling was educated in Canada in French, or if at least one parent has French as his or her mother tongue (defined in section 23 as "first language learned and still understood").
One practical consequence of this asymmetry is that all migrants who arrive in Quebec from foreign countries are required to place their children in French-language schools. This includes immigrants whose mother tongue is English and immigrants who received their schooling in English.
On the other hand, Section 23 provides a nearly universal right to English-language schooling for the children of Canadian-born anglophones living in Quebec.
Section 23 also provides, in theory, a nearly universal right to French-language schooling for the children of all francophones living outside Quebec, including immigrants from French-speaking countries who settle outside Quebec, and who are Canadian citizens.
Another element of asymmetry between Quebec and most anglophone provinces is that while Quebec provides public English-language primary and secondary education throughout the province, most other provinces provide French-language education only "where numbers warrant."
' languages on numerous Canadian aboriginal
reservations in combination with either English, French, or both. Some programmes are gradually being established, whilst others are already long established. Most notable bilingual programmes that exist include Inuktitut
, Inuinnaqtun
, Cree
, Blackfoot
, Ojibwe, Mohawk
, Mi'kmaq
, and pacific coast Salish languages.
Many of these programmes were initially set up in the late 1980s and early 1990s by academic linguists wishing to preserve the languages, respectively - especially in areas where there either is a healthy speaking base, or an endangerment of as low as two remaining speakers of a language. Prior to this, as late as the 1970s and early 80s, First Nations
and Inuit
in Canada, as Native Americans in the United States, were forced into residential schools imposed on them by the Canadian government to integrate indigenous cultures into European-Canadian society. This came with the dramatic loss of the languages, religious beliefs, and cultures themselves due to widespread use of corporal punishment and mental abuse. As of 2010, new programmes are mushrooming across Canada to try and save what is left, but are often met with mixed success and funding challenges at federal, provincial, and reservation levels.
, the city of Vancouver
since 2002 has established a new bilingual Mandarin Chinese-English immersion programme at the elementary school level in order accommodate Vancouver's both historic and present strong ties to the Chinese-speaking world, already in itself having a very sizeable Chinese population local to the city. Six Vancouver schools have thusfar adopted the programme, and a secondary school track to continue thereupon is presently being designed. Other suburbs within what is referred to as the Greater Vancouver Regional District
are also considering adopting the programme into a small number of schools. Similar programmes are being developed for both Hindi
and Punjabi
to serve in representing the large South Asian cultural community and its interests in the City of Surrey. By default, most schools in British Columbia teach through English, with French immersion options available. In both English and French-medium schools, one can study and take government exams in Japanese
, Punjabi
, Mandarin Chinese, French
, Spanish
, and German
at the secondary level.
In Manitoba
, Ukrainian
communities have played an extensive role in the development and history of the province. Bilingual Ukrainian-English education programmes have therefore long been established, alongside smaller programmes introducing and implementing French
, Icelandic
in the town of Gimli
, and First Nations
' languages.
Private Islamic and Jewish schools across Canada also have bilingual and trilingual programmes that include Arabic or Hebrew, respectively.
In Cape Breton
and other parts of Nova Scotia
, a number of secondary schools now offer the option of taking introductory courses in Scottish Gaelic, as reflecting upon the province's both intimate and dark history with the Gaelic language and Highland Scottish diaspora.
many children of the country's major ethnic minorities attend public schools where the medium of instructions is the local language, such as e.g. Uyghur
or Tibetan
. Traditionally, the textbooks there were little different from merely a translated version of the books used in the Chinese schools throughout the country; however, as of 2001, a move was on foot to create more teaching materials with locally-based content.
Classes of Mandarin as second language are also offered in these minority schools, and the central government makes increasing efforts to make them more effective. A law passed in February 2001 provided for the Mandarin-as-second-language classes in the ethnic-minority schools to start in the early years of elementary school whenever local conditions permit, rather than in the senior years of elementary school, as it was practiced before.
On the other hand, it has been reported that Chinese has been used as the medium of instructions in some autonomous counties
even though less than 50% of the population "spoke and understood some Chinese"; this mismatch was though to have contributed to the low grades earned by the students on the math and Chinese exams. Presumably, the state's failure to offer instruction in the language of the county's titular ethnic group
was due to the ethnic group in question being too small and/or remote to possess qualified teachers or instruction materials in their language.
where both English
and Cantonese
are official, both languages are taught in school and are mandatory subjects. Either English or Cantonese is used as the medium of instruction for other subjects. Increasingly, there are a large number of Mandarin Chinese-speaking schools in operation throughout Hong Kong as well since 1996. Study of Mandarin is mandatory in junior years (from Grade 1 to Grade 9).
institution sites, European School
s have been created to allow staff to have their children receive their education in their mother tongue, and at the same time to foster European spirit by (among other things) teaching at least two other European languages.
Basic instruction is given in the eleven official languages of the European Union: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. In the expansion of the Union with 10 countries in 2004 and two more in 2007, the new official languages of the EU are added. The pupil's mother tongue (L I) therefore remains his/her first language throughout the School.
Consequently, each school comprises several language sections. The curricula and syllabuses (except in the case of mother tongue) are the same in all sections.
In the Schools where the creation of a separate language section cannot be justified based on the number of students, teaching of the mother tongue and possibly mathematics is provided.
To foster the unity of the School and encourage genuine multicultural education, there is a strong emphasis on the learning, understanding and use of foreign languages. This is developed in a variety of ways:
The study of a first foreign language (English, French, or German, known as L II) is compulsory throughout the school, from first year primary up to the Baccalaureate. In secondary school, some classes will be taught in L II.
All pupils must study a second foreign language (L III), starting in the second year of secondary school. Any language available in the School may be chosen.
Pupils may choose to study a third foreign language (L IV) from the fourth year of secondary school.
Language classes are composed of mixed nationalities and taught by a native speaker.
A weekly "European Hour" in the primary school brings together children from all sections for cultural and artistic activities and games.
In the secondary school, classes in art, music and sport are always composed of mixed nationalities.
From the third year of secondary school, history and geography are studied in the pupil's first foreign language, also called the "working language" (English, French, or German). Economics, which may be taken as an option from the fourth year of the secondary school, is also studied in a working language. From the third year, therefore, all social science subjects are taught to groups of mixed nationalities.
has three official languages, Dutch
, French
and German
. Belgian children are constitutionally protected with the right to receive their education through any of the three official languages. Belgian education, like that of Canada, is taught in the medium that represents the majority language of a given population, i.e. schools in Flanders teach through Dutch, schools in Waloonia teach through French.
Even though Belgium has two major languages (i.e. Dutch in Flanders, and French in Wallonia), bilingual instruction does not occur since Belgian law only permits education in one official language. in Flanders, bilingual instruction is only allowed as a short-term project.
has one sole official language, French
. However, regional provincial languages such as Corsican
, Occitan, and Breton
do have charter protection, and respectively there are bilingual education programmes and regional language course electives established. However, due to the strict French-language policy imposed by national government, there is no centrally-allocated funding towards any of these programmes. All funding is done at the municipal level, with more often than not regional languages themselves facing extreme endangerment.
and English
. With the Irish language
facing endangerment, as well as the presence of regions where Irish is still spoken as native (referred to as the Gaeltacht
), the Irish constitution protects and reserves the right for education to be established through the medium of either official language, and it thus is.
An Irish-medium school is referred to as Gaelscoil
(plural, Gaelscoileanna) This movement has been met with some success in that 10% of the schooling in Ireland is conducted in Irish. The movement has also been successful in setting up schools in both urban and rural areas, ranging from Dublin and Cork, to the traditional Gaeltacht regions.
, there are around 100 bilingual schools. In these schools, the first language (L1) is Dutch, whereas the second language (L2) is usually English and occasionally German. In the province of Friesland
, which has its own official language (West Frisian language
), some trilingual primary schools exist. In those schools, the children are taught in Dutch, Frisian, and English. Most bilingual secondary schools are TVWO (Tweetalig Voorbereidend Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs or Bilingual Preparatory Scientific Education), but there is THAVO (Tweetalig Hoger Algemeen Voorbereidend Onderwijs or Bilingual Higher General Secondary Education), too. The following subjects are taught in English: arts, chemistry, physics, biology, geography, economics, physical education, drama, English, mathematics, history, music, social sciences and religious studies, but some variation may exist among schools.
In Andalusia
(Spain's southernmost region), things have changed drastically concerning bilingual education since the introduction of the Plurilingualism Promotion Plan by the autonomous government. The plan was born as the realization for the Andalusian territory of the European language policies regarding the teaching and learning of languages. With special strength in the past ten years bilingual education has worked at most elementary schools.
In addition to this new European scene, the Scheme for the Promotion of Plurilingualism has learned a lot from the first experimental bilingual sections set up in some schools by the Andalusian government in 1998. Following the content-based approach, French and German were used to partly teach other subjects. This successful experience, as show the international tests that the students have been given, is the starting point for a more ambitious scene, where 400 schools will be involved in the next four years, more languages, especially English, will take part, and a lot of investigation and implementation of the Integrated Curriculum of languages must be carried out.
Being aware of the necessity of the Andalusian people to adapt to the new scenario, a major government plan, called "strategies for the second modernization of Andalusia", was designed in 2003. The document also underlined language diversity as a source of richness and a valuable heritage of humankind which needs to be looked after.
It was then clear that a scheme was needed to carry out this new language policy in our territory, especially affecting education, with clear goals, timing and funding.
The scheme is to be developed through 5 major programmes and also an organization and assessment plan.
The programmes are:
Full version in English of the Plurilingualism Promotion Plan
In addition to Castilian Spanish
being the primary official language
of Spain
, the kingdom also has several co-official regional languages which enjoy equal and unbiased constitutional protection and promotion: Catalan/Valencian
(in Catalonia
, Valencia
and the Balearic Islands
), Galician
(in Galicia), Basque
(in the Basque Country
and Navarre
) and Aranese (in Val d'Aran
, Catalonia
).
Many schools are bilingual in the regional language as well as Castilian at both the elementary and secondary levels. Regional universities also often provide programmes through the regional medium. Education in all co-official languages uses to receive both national and regional funding. Currently in Catalonia
the education has become monolingual in Catalan
only.
Unlike France
in which regional languages face incredible endangerment and possible extinction, Spain's long-established approach to making regional bilingual education mandatory has served often as a model for both the survival and thriving state of the languages indigenous to the country.
has several languages indigenous to the territory aside English
, which include Welsh
(official in Wales), Manx Gaelic, Cornish
, Scottish Gaelic, and the Scots language
.
Scotland
, Wales
, Cornwall
, and the Isle of Mann, respectively, have established bilingual programmes through which one can receive their education through the medium of that regional language. Most often, except for the cases of Manx and Cornish, these programmes exist where the language is spoken communally as a first language.
Roughly a quarter of schoolchildren in Wales now receive their education through the medium of Welsh, and children wishing to join a Welsh medium school do not have to speak Welsh to go to one if they are young enough to learn the language quickly. Welsh has been met with great success across Wales with the first Welsh medium schools opening in the 1940s and have since grown on a phenomenal rate. There are current plans to extend further provision in urban centres such as Cardiff, Newport, Swansea and Llanelli to cater for growing Welsh medium demand, this has caused controversy in some areas.
Respectively, traditional Welsh-speaking areas implement the use of Welsh-medium education almost exclusively. Parents have a legal right for their children to receive education in Welsh and each local authority have provisions to cater these needs. In the Western flank of Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Gwynedd, and Anglesey most primary and secondary schools are Welsh medium or have bilingual streams. Some 75-80% of all pupils in Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion receive their education through the medium of Welsh, with this figure increasing in Gwynedd to around 90%.
In English-medium education schools, the study of Welsh is compulsory and must be taught from the age of 5 - 16 in all state funded schools.
As Northern Ireland
is British territory, English is recognised as the de facto
official
language
of the country, however, both Irish
and Ulster Scots have been recognised as regional languages and are protected under the constitution.
Ulster Scots is often treated as a dialect of English, and as a result no education is provided through it. However, the Irish language is enjoying a vibrant resurgence, especially in the city of Belfast
. Northern Ireland also borders County Donegal
, which is home to a number of the Irish Republic's traditional Gaeltacht
(Irish-speaking) communities. With that, Northern Ireland has happily adopted and established numerous Irish-medium education programmes as seen in mainland Ireland. Children can complete their entire base education through the medium of either Irish or English.
The study of Irish as a second language is compulsory up until the end of tenth year in all Catholic grammar and secondary schools. This does not apply to Protestant schools.
has only one official language, Hindi
, with English as the language for official communication till 1965.There are a web of recognized regional languages which also hold official status including: Assamese
, Bengali
, Bodo
, Dogri, Gujarati
, Kannada, Kashmiri
, Konkani
, Maithili
, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi
, Nepali
, Oriya
, Punjabi
, Sanskrit
, Santali
, Sindhi
, Tamil
, Telugu
and Urdu
.
English
gains favour due to its international prestige as well as its primary status in Indian state universities. Despite a lack of access to education often being a problem and low rates of literacy, education is conducted trilingually in the regional language, Hindi, and English - or in many cases, monolingually in English.
On the island of Hokkaido
, the indigenous and endangered Ainu language
is receiving new found interest with establishment of a small number of bilingual Ainu-Japanese elementary schools.
follow dual or triple language programmes. The triple language programme is most commonly found in Lebanon
, Syria
, and often implemented as well in Egypt
. History, grammar, literature and the Arabic language
are taught in the native language (Arabic), where as Mathematics and sciences are generally taught in English and/or French. In Lebanon, however, science and mathematics are taught in either French or English, depending on the school's administration or the grade level. It is not uncommon to find French- or English- only schools, though usually these institutions are primarily international establishments.
In most Gulf countries as well as Jordan
, English is introduced as a second language early on alongside the primary medium of instruction, Arabic. In Iraq
however, triple language programmes are, like in Lebanon and Syria, normal, except rather than using French, Kurdish
is taught alongside Arabic and English due to Iraq's considerably sized Kurdish minority in the north, and bilingual official language policy regarding Kurdish.
In Morocco
, Berber
can be used as a regional medium of elementary education, with widespread use of French and Arabic come later grades. Due to Morroco's long history with French colonialism, alongside neighbouring countries including Algeria
and Tunisia
, sole French-medium education is very widespread, with Arabic being introduced and taught as a second language, as well as the study of a third language later on, usually either English
, Spanish
, or Italian
(in Libya
).
Israel is also home to several international schools whereby the sole medium of education is either English
or French
. In general, as English is taught early on across all Israeli schools, most Israelis become comfortably bilingual, much like what one would see in The Netherlands or Scandinavian countries. This in combination with a large proportion of English-language programming on television that is merely subtitled and seldom dubbed.
Recent peace initiatives have also lead to a small number of bilingual and multi-religious schools in which both Hebrew and Arabic are used in equal emphasis. The Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish Arab Education in Israel
runs four bilingual schools, and the Neve Shalom peace village also hosts a local school.
moved towards mother-tongue based learning initially by issuing an order which allows two alternative three-year bridging plans. Depending on the bridging plan adopted, the Filipino
and English languages are to be phased in as the language of instruction beginning in the third and fourth grades. Other Philippine regional languages
are taught in schools, colleges and universities located in their respective provinces
.
and Malaysia where different models have been applied, from L2 immersion (content taught in a non-native language) to parallel immersion, where core subjects are taught in both the mother-tongue and a second language (usually English). The Malaysian government recently reversed its decision to have Maths and Science taught in English, but is implementing different programmes designed to improve English language teaching within schools. Wichai Wittaya Bilingual School in Chaing Mai (1995), Siriwat Wittaya Bilingual School in Bangkok(2004) , Chindemanee School English Program (2005), The Sarasas model, pioneered by the Sarasas schools affiliation in Thailand,are exemplars of parallel immersion. The English for Integrated Studies
project model at Sunthonphu Pittaya Secondary School(SPSS), Rayong, Thailand, is an exemplar of the use of English for integrated studies in Math, Science and IT, taught by non-native English speaking Thai teachers. This project is under the auspices of the International Study Program of Burapha University
. Panyaden School
is an example of a private bilingual school in North Thailand that provides its students with a Thai-English education (each class has a Thai teacher and native-English speaking teacher).
The difficulties and disputes characteristic of the US experience have not been replicated in these Asian countries, though they are not without controversy. Generally, it can be said that there is widespread acknowledgment of the need to improve English competence in the population, and bilingual approaches, where language is taught through subject content, are seen to be the most effective means of attaining this. The most significant limiting factors are the shortage of teachers linguistically competent to teach in a second language and the costs involved in use of expatriate native speakers for this purpose.
website, a bilingual education program is "an educational program for limited English proficient students". (The Office of English Language Acquisition, 2009). The term "limited English proficiency" remains in use by the federal government, but has fallen out of favor elsewhere. According to Bankstreet's Literacy Guide this shift is due to the fact that the term ELL represents a more accurate reflection of language acquisition. The term "English language learner" is now preferred in schools and educational research. An English Language Learner is a a term used to describe a student whose second language is English, and who needs language support services in order to succeed in school.
In the fifty states of the United States, proponents of the practice argue that it will not only help to keep non-English-speaking children from falling behind their peers in math, science, and social studies while they master English, but such programs teach English better than English-only programs. For many students, the process of learning literacy and a new language simultaneously is simply an overwhelming task, so bilingual programs began as a way to help such students develop native language literacy first - research by Cummins, a central researcher in the field, shows that skills such as literacy developed in a first language will transfer to English. Opponents of bilingual education argue that it delays students' mastery of English, thereby retarding the learning of other subjects as well. In California
, where at least one-third of students are enrolled in bilingual classes, there has been considerable politicking for and against bilingual education.
The very first instance of bilingual education in the United States occurred with Polish immigrants in the first permanent English settlement of Virginia
in what is now the United States. The Poles provided the community with manufactured pitch necessary to prevent the sinking of ships, and glass works among other industries. When the House of Burgesses
met in 1619, the rights extended only to Englishmen. The Poles, in turn, launched the first recorded strike in the New World. In dire need of their skills and industries, the Poles received the "rights of Englishmen
," and established the first bilingual schools with subjects taught in English and Polish. From this first documented historic beginning, bilingual education existed in some form or another in the United States. During the 18th century, Franciscan missionaries from California to Texas used indigenous languages for translating and teaching the Catholic catechism to Native Americans. By the mid-19th century, private and public bilingual schools had include such native languages as Czech, Dutch, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. Ohio became the first state in 1839, to adopt a bilingual education law, authorizing German-English instruction at parents' request. Louisiana enacted an identical provision for French and English in 1847, and the New Mexico Territory did so for Spanish and English in 1850. By the end of the 19th century, about a dozen states had passed similar laws. Elsewhere, many localities provided bilingual instruction without state sanction, in languages as diverse as Norwegian, Italian, Polish, Czech, and Cherokee. Beginning in 1959, public schools in Miami introduced bilingual programs. In 1968 the U.S., with Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or, informally, the Bilingual Education Act
, Congress first mandated bilingual education in order to give immigrants access to education in their "first" language. The Act was amended in 1988. Federal spending on bilingual education jumped from $7.5 million in 1968 to $150 million by 1979.
A 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Lau v. Nichols
, gave further momentum to bilingual education. Here, the Court held that San Francisco schools violated minority language students' rights when they educated students in the same classes as other students without special provisions.
Taken together, the Bilingual Education Act
and the Lau v. Nichols ruling mandated that schools needed to at least provide some type of services to support English language learners, though neither specified what type of educational program needed to be provided. As such, both bilingual and English-only programs flourished after the law's passage and the court ruling.
The Bilingual Education Act
was terminated in 2001 by new federal education policy, with the passage of No Child Left Behind by the U.S. Congress
. This law offers no support for native language learning, but rather emphasized accountability in English only, and mandates that all students, including ELLs, are tested yearly in English.
The majority of U.S. high school students in the United States are required to take at least one to two years of a second language. The vast majority of these classes are either French or Spanish. In a large number of schools this is taught in a manner known as FLES
, in which students learn about the second language in a manner similar to other subjects such as mathematics or science. Some schools use an additional method known as FLEX in which the "nature of the language" and culture are also taught. High school education almost never uses "immersion" techniques.
, the majority opinion stated, "Research on ELL instruction indicates there is documented, academic support for the view that SEI (Structured English Immersion
) is significantly more effective than bilingual education."
Proponents of bilingual education claim that it is not only easier for students to learn English if they are literate in their first language, but that such students will learn English better and become bilingual and biliterate. Proponents further claim that effective bilingual programs strive to achieve proficiency in both English and the students' home language. Dual language or Two-Way bilingual programs are one such approach, whereby half of the students speak English and half are considered English language learners (ELLs). The teacher instructs in English and in the ELLs' home language. The dual purpose of this type of classroom is to teach the children a new language and culture, and language diversity in such classrooms is seen as a resource. Programs in English only eradicate the native languages immigrants bring to this country, while dual language bilingual programs serve to maintain such languages in an "additive" context, where a new language is added without the first being lost. One paper states that two-way developmental bilingual education programs in elementary school have the most success in language minority students' long term academic achievement. These students will maintain their gains in academic performance in secondary level academic classes. Another study shows the positive results of a two-way bilingual education program.
Some people make the mistake that once a student can converse in English (Basic interpersonal communication skills - BICS), they will naturally perform well academically (cognitive academic language proficiency - CALP) in English. It has been postulated that BICS and CALP are two different sets of skills.
Opponents of bilingual education claim that students with other primary languages besides Spanish are placed in Spanish classes rather than taught in their native languages and that many bilingual education programs fail to teach students English. Critics of bilingual education have claimed that studies supporting bilingual education tend to have poor methodologies and that there is little empirical support in favor of it.
The controversy over bilingual education is often enmeshed in a larger political and cultural context. Opponents of bilingual education are sometimes accused of racism
and xenophobia
. This is especially so in the case of such groups as English First, which is a conservative organization that promotes the stance that English should be the official language of the United States. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin
and other cities, Minister of education of the Young Lords, Tony Baez and others held marches and other activities to promote bilingual education. Proponents of bilingual education are frequently accused of practicing identity politics
, to the detriment of children and of immigrants.
is the state with the highest number of English Learners (ELs) in the United States. One out of three students in California is an EL. In June 1998, Proposition 227 was passed by 61% of the California electorate. This proposition mandates that ELs be placed in structured English immersion for a period "not normally to exceed one year", then be transferred to mainstream classrooms taught "overwhelmingly in English." This proposition also gave parents the possibility to request alternative programs for their children, however, the availability of waivers and information to parents have been a challenge in the implementation of this proposition.
In 2000, the California Department of Education contracted with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and WestEd to conduct a five-year evaluation of the effects of Proposition 227. The study methodology focused on "A combination of student achievement analysis, phone interviews, case study site visits, and written surveys was used to examine such questions as how the proposition was implemented, which EL services are most and least effective, and what unintended consequence
s resulted from Proposition 227's implementation."
The authors caution about the limitations in the statewide data. California does not have the capacity to link student academic progress over time across years; however, using student-level linked data over time from the Los Angeles Unified School District, and complementing that analysis with surveys, site visits and interviews, the study found "no conclusive evidence favoring one instructional program over another." Students who remained in bilingual education have similar academic growth trajectories when compared with students who switched to English Immersion.
in the passage of similar legislation, Arizona Proposition 203, which ended several programs previously available to ESL students. Arizona was the first state to provide bilingual education in the 1960s.
increased its foreign born population by 233%. That was the second largest increase in the country, and presently Georgia is the sixth fastest growing state in the United States. Georgia has the seventh largest illegal immigrant population in the country; in the 2000 census 228,000 illegal immigrants lived in the state. During the 1980s and 1990s a labor shortage in the carpet
industry contributed to an increase in the Hispanic population of Whitfield County, Georgia. Today almost half of the students in the Dalton (the hub of Whitfield County) public schools are Hispanic.
Erwin Mitchell, a local Dalton lawyer, founded the Georgia Project in 1996 to help teach the influx of Hispanic students who have moved into the Dalton public schools. The Georgia Project partners with the University of Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico
to bring teachers from Mexico to Georgia Schools. Sixty teachers from the University of Monterrey have taught in Georgia since 1997, and they typically teach for two to three years on H-1B visa
s. The Georgia Project also has a Summer Institute that trains American teachers to speak Spanish and learn about Mexican culture. The Georgia Project is a bilingual/bicultural program that is primarily funded from federal education appropriations.
' models to Canada
, academic linguists throughout the United States
are working closely with Native American
reservations communities to establish immersion and second-language programs for a number of respective tribal languages including Navajo
, Hopi
, Cherokee
, Ojibwe, Lakhota, and Sioux
, among others. Due to the combination of often a violent and isolative relationship between European settlers and Native Americans, their languages and communities have suffered dramatically in terms of facing extreme endangerment or extinction. The success of these programmes is mixed, depending largely on how healthy the status of the language in question is.
However, English-medium education still remains most widely used. Native programs often suffer a lack of state support in terms of funding or encouragement due in large part to the strong preference towards a melting-pot society. Native American boarding schools
, which enforced white American values and the English language were extensively used as late as the 1990s, and were notorious for implementing corporal punishment if a Native child was caught speaking his or her language or freely practicing their tribal faith.
Bilingual education program models
The following are several different types of bilingual education program models:- Transitional Bilingual EducationTransitional bilingual educationTransitional Bilingual Education is an educational theory that states that children can most easily acquire fluency in a second language by first acquiring fluency in their native language. Fluency is defined as linguistic fluency as well as literacy Transitional Bilingual Education is an...
. This involves education in a child's native language, typically for no more than three years, to ensure that students do not fall behind in content areas like math, science, and social studies while they are learning English. Research has shown that many of the skills learned in the native language can be transferred easily to the second language later. The goal is to help students transition to mainstream, English-only classrooms as quickly as possible, and the linguistic goal of such programs is English acquisition only. In a transitional bilingual program, the student's primary language is used as a vehicle to develop literacy skills and acquire academic knowledge. It is used to develop literacy and academic skills in the primary language - Two-Way or Dual Language Immersion Bilingual Education. These programs are designed to help native and non-native English speakers become bilingual and biliterate. The two-way bilingual immersion program has 90% of the instructions in grade K-1 in minority language which is less supported by the broader society and 10% in the majority language . This proportion gradually changes in the majority language until the curriculum is equally divided in both the language by 5th grade. The two-way bilingual immersion program is based on the principle of clear curriculum separation of the two languages of instruction. Teachers do not repeat or translate the subject matter in second language but strengthen concepts taught in one language across the two languages in a spiral curriculum in order to provide cognitive challenge(Thomas & Collier. 1997). The languages of instructions are alternated by theme or content area. This type of immersion is required to develop the dual language proficiency, as social language can be mastered in couple of years, but a higher level of competency is required to read social studies texts or solve mathematics word problems, roughly around 5 to 7 years (Collier, 1987).
Dual Language programs are less common in US schools, although research indicates they are extremely effective in helping students learn English well and aiding the long-term performance of English learners in school. Native English speakers benefit by learning a second language. English language learners (ELLs) are not segregated from their peers.
- Another form of Bilingual Education is a type of Dual Language program that has students study in two different ways: 1) A variety of academic subjects are taught in the students' second language, with specially trained bilingual teachers who can understand students when they ask questions in their native language, but always answer in the second language; and 2) Native language literacy classes improve students' writing and higher-order language skills in their first language. Research has shown that many of the skills learned in the native language can be transferred easily to the second language later. In this type of program, the native language classes do not teach academic subjects. The second-language classes are content-based, rather than grammar-based, so students learn all of their academic subjects in the second language.
- Late-Exit or Developmental Bilingual Education. Education is in the child's native language for an extended duration, accompanied by education in English. The goal is to develop literacy in the child's native language first, and transfer these skills to the second language.
Australia
In AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, some schools teach bilingual programs which cater to children speaking languages other than English. Baldauf explains that these programs are now beginning to benefit from more government support. Bilingual education for Indigenous students, however, has only received intermittent official backing. In the Northern Territory, for example, bilingual programs for Indigenous students were begun with Federal Government support in the early 1970s but by December 1998 the Northern Territory Government had announced its decision to shift $3 million away from the 21 bilingual programs to a Territory-wide program teaching English as a second language. Within 12 months though the government had softened its position. Most bilingual programs were allowed to continue under the guise of two-way education. Then on 24 August 2005, the Minister for Employment, Education and Training announced that the government would be "revitalizing bi-lingual education" at 15 Community Education Centres: Alekerange, Angurugu
Angurugu, Northern Territory
Angurugu is a community located on Groote Eylandt in the Northern Territory, Australia, just off the mainland. The main languages spoken there are Anindilyakwa, an Australian Aboriginal language, and English. A permit is required before travelling to Angurugu....
, Borroloola
Borroloola, Northern Territory
Borroloola is a town in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located on the McArthur River, about 50 km upstream from the Gulf of Carpentaria. At the 2006 census, Borroloola had a population of 773, of whom 579 declared themselves indigenous....
, Gapuwiyak
Gapuwiyak, Northern Territory
Gapuwiyak is an Australian Aboriginal community located in north-eastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, 25 km south of the head of Buckingham Bay and about the same distance south-west of Arnhem Bay. It is adjacent to Lake Evella...
, Gunbalunya, Kalkaringi, Lajamanu
Lajamanu, Northern Territory
Lajamanu is a small town of the Northern Territory in Australia. It has a population of 669 , of which a significant amount are of Aboriginal origin...
, Maningrida
Maningrida, Northern Territory
Maningrida is a self-governing indigenous community in the heart of the Arnhem Land region of Australia's Northern Territory. Maningrida is located 500 km east of Darwin and 300 km north east of Jabiru. It is on the North Central Arnhem Land coast of the Arafura Sea, on the estuary of the Liverpool...
, Milingimbi
Milingimbi Island
Milingimbi Island is an island off the coast of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. It is located approximately 500 km east of Darwin and 250 km west of Nhulunbuy. Its largest community is also called Milingimbi. The island is approximately half a kilometer off the mainland and forms part...
, Ramingining
Ramingining, Northern Territory
Ramingining is an Indigenous community in the Northern Territory, Australia, 560 km east of Darwin. It is on the edge of the Arafura Swamp in Arnhem Land...
, Ngkurr, Shepherdson College, Numbulwar
Numbulwar, Northern Territory
Numbulwar is a small, primarily Aboriginal community on the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory of Australia.Permanent settlement began in 1952 with the founding of the Rose River Mission by local Aboriginal communities and the Church Missionary Society.The Mission operated until the...
, Yirrkala
Yirrkala, Northern Territory
Yirrkala is a well-known indigenous community in Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia, at , 18 km South-East from the large mining town of Nhulunbuy...
and Yuendumu. This revitalisation is conceived as part of an effort aimed at "providing effective education from pre-school through to senior secondary at each of the Territory's 15 Community Education Centres". As Harris & Devlin (1986) observe, "Aboriginal bilingual education in Australia represents much more than a range of education programs. It has been a measure of non-Aboriginal commitment to either assimilation or cultural pluralism". In 2008 it again shifted with the government attempting to force the nine remaining bilingual schools to teach the first four hours of classes in English.
English and French
In CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, education is under provincial jurisdiction. However, the federal government has been a strong supporter of establishing Canada as a bilingual country and has helped pioneer the French immersion
French immersion
French immersion is a form of bilingual education in which a child who does not speak French as his or her first language receives instruction in school in French...
programs in the public education systems throughout Canada. In French-immersion, students with no previous French language training, usually beginning in Kindergarten or grade 1, do all of their school work in French. Depending on provincial jurisdiction, some provinces also offer an Extended French program that begins in grade 5 which offers relatively more courses in French. In this case the student takes French immersion until grade nine but may continue throughout their high school education. Similar English-immersion programmes also exist for Francophone children.
Currently, education is generally monolingual in either English or French according to the majority population within which a school is located. The second official language is introduced with a minimal amount of allocated time provided each week in the form of just one single subject.
Québec
Quebec is Canada's only legally monolingual French-speaking province. Based on section 59 of Canada's Constitution Act of 1982, provides that not all of the language rights listed under Canada's official bilingualism policy in previous section 23 will apply in Quebec. Specifically:(1) In Quebec, a child may be educated in English only if at least one parent or a sibling was educated in Canada in English.
(2) In the rest of Canada, a child may be educated in French if at least one parent or a sibling was educated in Canada in French, or if at least one parent has French as his or her mother tongue (defined in section 23 as "first language learned and still understood").
One practical consequence of this asymmetry is that all migrants who arrive in Quebec from foreign countries are required to place their children in French-language schools. This includes immigrants whose mother tongue is English and immigrants who received their schooling in English.
On the other hand, Section 23 provides a nearly universal right to English-language schooling for the children of Canadian-born anglophones living in Quebec.
Section 23 also provides, in theory, a nearly universal right to French-language schooling for the children of all francophones living outside Quebec, including immigrants from French-speaking countries who settle outside Quebec, and who are Canadian citizens.
Another element of asymmetry between Quebec and most anglophone provinces is that while Quebec provides public English-language primary and secondary education throughout the province, most other provinces provide French-language education only "where numbers warrant."
First Nations and Inuit reservations
Canada also has bilingual programmes for first nationsFirst Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
' languages on numerous Canadian aboriginal
Aboriginal peoples in Canada
Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" have fallen into disuse in Canada and are commonly considered pejorative....
reservations in combination with either English, French, or both. Some programmes are gradually being established, whilst others are already long established. Most notable bilingual programmes that exist include Inuktitut
Inuktitut
Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...
, Inuinnaqtun
Inuinnaqtun
Inuinnaqtun , is an indigenous Inuit language of Canada and a dialect of Inuvialuktun. It is related very closely to Inuktitut, and some scholars, such as Richard Condon, believe that Inuinnaqtun is more appropriately classified as a dialect of Inuktitut...
, Cree
Cree
The Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...
, Blackfoot
Blackfoot
The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....
, Ojibwe, Mohawk
Mohawk language
Mohawk is an Iroquoian language spoken by around 2,000 people of the Mohawk nation in the United States and Canada . Mohawk has the largest number of speakers of the Northern Iroquoian languages; today it is the only one with greater than a thousand remaining...
, Mi'kmaq
Mi'kmaq language
The Mi'kmaq language is an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by nearly 9,100 Mi'kmaq in Canada and the United States out of a total ethnic Mi'kmaq population of roughly 20,000. The word Mi'kmaq is a plural word meaning 'my friends' ; the adjectival form is Míkmaw...
, and pacific coast Salish languages.
Many of these programmes were initially set up in the late 1980s and early 1990s by academic linguists wishing to preserve the languages, respectively - especially in areas where there either is a healthy speaking base, or an endangerment of as low as two remaining speakers of a language. Prior to this, as late as the 1970s and early 80s, First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
and Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
in Canada, as Native Americans in the United States, were forced into residential schools imposed on them by the Canadian government to integrate indigenous cultures into European-Canadian society. This came with the dramatic loss of the languages, religious beliefs, and cultures themselves due to widespread use of corporal punishment and mental abuse. As of 2010, new programmes are mushrooming across Canada to try and save what is left, but are often met with mixed success and funding challenges at federal, provincial, and reservation levels.
Other minority languages
In the province of British ColumbiaBritish Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, the city of Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
since 2002 has established a new bilingual Mandarin Chinese-English immersion programme at the elementary school level in order accommodate Vancouver's both historic and present strong ties to the Chinese-speaking world, already in itself having a very sizeable Chinese population local to the city. Six Vancouver schools have thusfar adopted the programme, and a secondary school track to continue thereupon is presently being designed. Other suburbs within what is referred to as the Greater Vancouver Regional District
Greater Vancouver Regional District
Metro Vancouver is the brand name of the board of the inter-municipal administrative body known as the Greater Vancouver Regional District , a regional district in British Columbia, Canada...
are also considering adopting the programme into a small number of schools. Similar programmes are being developed for both Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and Punjabi
Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
to serve in representing the large South Asian cultural community and its interests in the City of Surrey. By default, most schools in British Columbia teach through English, with French immersion options available. In both English and French-medium schools, one can study and take government exams in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, Punjabi
Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
, Mandarin Chinese, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
at the secondary level.
In Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
communities have played an extensive role in the development and history of the province. Bilingual Ukrainian-English education programmes have therefore long been established, alongside smaller programmes introducing and implementing French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
in the town of Gimli
Gimli, Manitoba
Gimli is a a rural municipality located in the Interlake region of south-central Manitoba, Canada, on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg. It is about north of the provincial capital Winnipeg...
, and First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
' languages.
Private Islamic and Jewish schools across Canada also have bilingual and trilingual programmes that include Arabic or Hebrew, respectively.
In Cape Breton
Cape Breton Island
Cape Breton Island is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America. It likely corresponds to the word Breton, the French demonym for Brittany....
and other parts of Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, a number of secondary schools now offer the option of taking introductory courses in Scottish Gaelic, as reflecting upon the province's both intimate and dark history with the Gaelic language and Highland Scottish diaspora.
China
In the Autonomous regions of ChinaAutonomous regions of China
An autonomous region is a first-level administrative subdivision of People's Republic of China. Like Chinese provinces, an autonomous region has its own local government, but an autonomous region theoretically has more legislative rights. An Autonomous Region is a minority entity which has a...
many children of the country's major ethnic minorities attend public schools where the medium of instructions is the local language, such as e.g. Uyghur
Uyghur language
Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...
or Tibetan
Tibetan language
The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...
. Traditionally, the textbooks there were little different from merely a translated version of the books used in the Chinese schools throughout the country; however, as of 2001, a move was on foot to create more teaching materials with locally-based content.
Classes of Mandarin as second language are also offered in these minority schools, and the central government makes increasing efforts to make them more effective. A law passed in February 2001 provided for the Mandarin-as-second-language classes in the ethnic-minority schools to start in the early years of elementary school whenever local conditions permit, rather than in the senior years of elementary school, as it was practiced before.
On the other hand, it has been reported that Chinese has been used as the medium of instructions in some autonomous counties
Autonomous counties of China
Autonomous counties and autonomous banners are one kind of Autonomous areas of China.There are 117 autonomous counties and 3 autonomous banners. The latter are found in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the former are found everywhere else. The two are essentially identical except in...
even though less than 50% of the population "spoke and understood some Chinese"; this mismatch was though to have contributed to the low grades earned by the students on the math and Chinese exams. Presumably, the state's failure to offer instruction in the language of the county's titular ethnic group
Titular nation
The titular nation is the single dominant ethnic group in the state, typically after which the state was named.-Soviet Union:The notion was used in the Soviet Union to denote nations that give rise to titles of autonomous entities within the union: Soviet republics, autonomous republics, autonomous...
was due to the ethnic group in question being too small and/or remote to possess qualified teachers or instruction materials in their language.
Hong Kong
In Hong KongHong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
where both English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Cantonese
Cantonese
Cantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province...
are official, both languages are taught in school and are mandatory subjects. Either English or Cantonese is used as the medium of instruction for other subjects. Increasingly, there are a large number of Mandarin Chinese-speaking schools in operation throughout Hong Kong as well since 1996. Study of Mandarin is mandatory in junior years (from Grade 1 to Grade 9).
European Union
Near most of the various European UnionEuropean Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
institution sites, European School
European School
The European Schools are co-educational schools providing nursery, primary and secondary. They are established to provide free education for children of personnel of the European Institutions and leading to the European Baccalaureate. Other children may be admitted subject to the availability of...
s have been created to allow staff to have their children receive their education in their mother tongue, and at the same time to foster European spirit by (among other things) teaching at least two other European languages.
Basic instruction is given in the eleven official languages of the European Union: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. In the expansion of the Union with 10 countries in 2004 and two more in 2007, the new official languages of the EU are added. The pupil's mother tongue (L I) therefore remains his/her first language throughout the School.
Consequently, each school comprises several language sections. The curricula and syllabuses (except in the case of mother tongue) are the same in all sections.
In the Schools where the creation of a separate language section cannot be justified based on the number of students, teaching of the mother tongue and possibly mathematics is provided.
To foster the unity of the School and encourage genuine multicultural education, there is a strong emphasis on the learning, understanding and use of foreign languages. This is developed in a variety of ways:
The study of a first foreign language (English, French, or German, known as L II) is compulsory throughout the school, from first year primary up to the Baccalaureate. In secondary school, some classes will be taught in L II.
All pupils must study a second foreign language (L III), starting in the second year of secondary school. Any language available in the School may be chosen.
Pupils may choose to study a third foreign language (L IV) from the fourth year of secondary school.
Language classes are composed of mixed nationalities and taught by a native speaker.
A weekly "European Hour" in the primary school brings together children from all sections for cultural and artistic activities and games.
In the secondary school, classes in art, music and sport are always composed of mixed nationalities.
From the third year of secondary school, history and geography are studied in the pupil's first foreign language, also called the "working language" (English, French, or German). Economics, which may be taken as an option from the fourth year of the secondary school, is also studied in a working language. From the third year, therefore, all social science subjects are taught to groups of mixed nationalities.
Belgium
BelgiumBelgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
has three official languages, Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. Belgian children are constitutionally protected with the right to receive their education through any of the three official languages. Belgian education, like that of Canada, is taught in the medium that represents the majority language of a given population, i.e. schools in Flanders teach through Dutch, schools in Waloonia teach through French.
Even though Belgium has two major languages (i.e. Dutch in Flanders, and French in Wallonia), bilingual instruction does not occur since Belgian law only permits education in one official language. in Flanders, bilingual instruction is only allowed as a short-term project.
France
FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
has one sole official language, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. However, regional provincial languages such as Corsican
Corsican language
Corsican is a Italo-Dalmatian Romance language spoken and written on the islands of Corsica and northern Sardinia . Corsican is the traditional native language of the Corsican people, and was long the vernacular language alongside the Italian, official language in Corsica until 1859, which was...
, Occitan, and Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
do have charter protection, and respectively there are bilingual education programmes and regional language course electives established. However, due to the strict French-language policy imposed by national government, there is no centrally-allocated funding towards any of these programmes. All funding is done at the municipal level, with more often than not regional languages themselves facing extreme endangerment.
Republic of Ireland
The Republic of Ireland has two official languages, IrishIrish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. With the Irish language
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
facing endangerment, as well as the presence of regions where Irish is still spoken as native (referred to as the Gaeltacht
Gaeltacht
is the Irish language word meaning an Irish-speaking region. In Ireland, the Gaeltacht, or an Ghaeltacht, refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant language, that is, the vernacular spoken at home...
), the Irish constitution protects and reserves the right for education to be established through the medium of either official language, and it thus is.
An Irish-medium school is referred to as Gaelscoil
Gaelscoil
A gaelscoil is an Irish-medium primary school in Ireland, of a sort found outside the traditionally Irish-speaking regions, especially in urban areas....
(plural, Gaelscoileanna) This movement has been met with some success in that 10% of the schooling in Ireland is conducted in Irish. The movement has also been successful in setting up schools in both urban and rural areas, ranging from Dublin and Cork, to the traditional Gaeltacht regions.
Netherlands
In the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, there are around 100 bilingual schools. In these schools, the first language (L1) is Dutch, whereas the second language (L2) is usually English and occasionally German. In the province of Friesland
Friesland
Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...
, which has its own official language (West Frisian language
West Frisian language
West Frisian is a language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. West Frisian is the name by which this language is usually known outside the Netherlands, to distinguish it from the closely related Frisian languages of Saterland Frisian and North Frisian,...
), some trilingual primary schools exist. In those schools, the children are taught in Dutch, Frisian, and English. Most bilingual secondary schools are TVWO (Tweetalig Voorbereidend Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs or Bilingual Preparatory Scientific Education), but there is THAVO (Tweetalig Hoger Algemeen Voorbereidend Onderwijs or Bilingual Higher General Secondary Education), too. The following subjects are taught in English: arts, chemistry, physics, biology, geography, economics, physical education, drama, English, mathematics, history, music, social sciences and religious studies, but some variation may exist among schools.
Andalusia
In Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
(Spain's southernmost region), things have changed drastically concerning bilingual education since the introduction of the Plurilingualism Promotion Plan by the autonomous government. The plan was born as the realization for the Andalusian territory of the European language policies regarding the teaching and learning of languages. With special strength in the past ten years bilingual education has worked at most elementary schools.
In addition to this new European scene, the Scheme for the Promotion of Plurilingualism has learned a lot from the first experimental bilingual sections set up in some schools by the Andalusian government in 1998. Following the content-based approach, French and German were used to partly teach other subjects. This successful experience, as show the international tests that the students have been given, is the starting point for a more ambitious scene, where 400 schools will be involved in the next four years, more languages, especially English, will take part, and a lot of investigation and implementation of the Integrated Curriculum of languages must be carried out.
Being aware of the necessity of the Andalusian people to adapt to the new scenario, a major government plan, called "strategies for the second modernization of Andalusia", was designed in 2003. The document also underlined language diversity as a source of richness and a valuable heritage of humankind which needs to be looked after.
It was then clear that a scheme was needed to carry out this new language policy in our territory, especially affecting education, with clear goals, timing and funding.
The scheme is to be developed through 5 major programmes and also an organization and assessment plan.
The programmes are:
- Bilingual schools
- Official Schools of Languages
- Plurilingualism and teachers
- Plurilingualism and society
- Organization and assessment plan.
Full version in English of the Plurilingualism Promotion Plan
Basque Country, Navarre, Galicia, Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands
In addition to Castilian Spanish
Castilian Spanish
Castilian Spanish is a term related to the Spanish language, but its exact meaning can vary even in that language. In English Castilian Spanish usually refers to the variety of European Spanish spoken in north and central Spain or as the language standard for radio and TV speakers...
being the primary official language
Official language
An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, the kingdom also has several co-official regional languages which enjoy equal and unbiased constitutional protection and promotion: Catalan/Valencian
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
(in Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, Valencia
Valencian Community
The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
and the Balearic Islands
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
), Galician
Galician language
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
(in Galicia), Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
(in the Basque Country
Basque Country (autonomous community)
The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....
and Navarre
Navarre
Navarre , officially the Chartered Community of Navarre is an autonomous community in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and Aquitaine in France...
) and Aranese (in Val d'Aran
Val d'Aran
The Val d'Aran is a valley in the Pyrenees mountains and a comarca in the northwestern part of the province of Lleida, in Catalonia, northern Spain. Most of the valley constitutes the only part of Spain, and of Catalonia, on the north face of the Pyrenees, hence the only part of Catalonia whose...
, Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
).
Many schools are bilingual in the regional language as well as Castilian at both the elementary and secondary levels. Regional universities also often provide programmes through the regional medium. Education in all co-official languages uses to receive both national and regional funding. Currently in Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
the education has become monolingual in Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
only.
Unlike France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in which regional languages face incredible endangerment and possible extinction, Spain's long-established approach to making regional bilingual education mandatory has served often as a model for both the survival and thriving state of the languages indigenous to the country.
United Kingdom
Great BritainGreat Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
has several languages indigenous to the territory aside English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, which include Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
(official in Wales), Manx Gaelic, Cornish
Cornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...
, Scottish Gaelic, and the Scots language
Scots language
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
.
Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, and the Isle of Mann, respectively, have established bilingual programmes through which one can receive their education through the medium of that regional language. Most often, except for the cases of Manx and Cornish, these programmes exist where the language is spoken communally as a first language.
Wales
Roughly a quarter of schoolchildren in Wales now receive their education through the medium of Welsh, and children wishing to join a Welsh medium school do not have to speak Welsh to go to one if they are young enough to learn the language quickly. Welsh has been met with great success across Wales with the first Welsh medium schools opening in the 1940s and have since grown on a phenomenal rate. There are current plans to extend further provision in urban centres such as Cardiff, Newport, Swansea and Llanelli to cater for growing Welsh medium demand, this has caused controversy in some areas.
Respectively, traditional Welsh-speaking areas implement the use of Welsh-medium education almost exclusively. Parents have a legal right for their children to receive education in Welsh and each local authority have provisions to cater these needs. In the Western flank of Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Gwynedd, and Anglesey most primary and secondary schools are Welsh medium or have bilingual streams. Some 75-80% of all pupils in Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion receive their education through the medium of Welsh, with this figure increasing in Gwynedd to around 90%.
In English-medium education schools, the study of Welsh is compulsory and must be taught from the age of 5 - 16 in all state funded schools.
Northern Ireland
As Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
is British territory, English is recognised as the de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
official
Official language
An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
of the country, however, both Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
and Ulster Scots have been recognised as regional languages and are protected under the constitution.
Ulster Scots is often treated as a dialect of English, and as a result no education is provided through it. However, the Irish language is enjoying a vibrant resurgence, especially in the city of Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
. Northern Ireland also borders County Donegal
County Donegal
County Donegal is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Ulster. It is named after the town of Donegal. Donegal County Council is the local authority for the county...
, which is home to a number of the Irish Republic's traditional Gaeltacht
Gaeltacht
is the Irish language word meaning an Irish-speaking region. In Ireland, the Gaeltacht, or an Ghaeltacht, refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant language, that is, the vernacular spoken at home...
(Irish-speaking) communities. With that, Northern Ireland has happily adopted and established numerous Irish-medium education programmes as seen in mainland Ireland. Children can complete their entire base education through the medium of either Irish or English.
The study of Irish as a second language is compulsory up until the end of tenth year in all Catholic grammar and secondary schools. This does not apply to Protestant schools.
India
IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
has only one official language, Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, with English as the language for official communication till 1965.There are a web of recognized regional languages which also hold official status including: Assamese
Assamese language
Assamese is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language. It is used mainly in the state of Assam in North-East India. It is also the official language of Assam. It is also spoken in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and other northeast Indian states. Nagamese, an Assamese-based Creole language is widely used in...
, Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, Bodo
Bodo language
Bodo is a language that belongs to the branch of Barish section under Baric division of the Tibeto-Burman languages and spoken by the Bodo people of north-eastern India and Nepal...
, Dogri, Gujarati
Gujarati language
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
, Kannada, Kashmiri
Kashmiri language
Kashmiri is a language from the Dardic sub-group and it is spoken primarily in the Kashmir Valley, in Jammu and Kashmir. There are approximately 5,554,496 speakers in Jammu and Kashmir, according to the Census of 2001. Most of the 105,000 speakers or so in Pakistan are émigrés from the Kashmir...
, Konkani
Konkani language
KonkaniKonkani is a name given to a group of several cognate dialects spoken along the narrow strip of land called Konkan, on the west coast of India. This is, however, somewhat an over-generalisation. Geographically, Konkan is defined roughly as the area between the river Damanganga to the north...
, Maithili
Maithili language
Maithili language is spoken in the eastern region of India and South-eastern region of Nepal. The native speakers of Maithili reside in Bihar, Jharkhand,parts of West Bengal and South-east Nepal...
, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
, Nepali
Nepali language
Nepali or Nepalese is a language in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.It is the official language and de facto lingua franca of Nepal and is also spoken in Bhutan, parts of India and parts of Myanmar...
, Oriya
Oriya language
Oriya , officially Odia from November, 2011, is an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is mainly spoken in the Indian states of Orissa and West Bengal...
, Punjabi
Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
, Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, Santali
Santali language
Santhali is a language in the Santhali subfamily of Austro-Asiatic, related to Ho and Mundari. It is spoken by about six million people in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan . Most of its speakers live in India, in the states of Jharkhand, Assam, Bihar, Orissa, Tripura, and West Bengal. It has...
, Sindhi
Sindhi language
Sindhi is the language of the Sindh region of Pakistan that is spoken by the Sindhi people. In India, it is among 22 constitutionally recognized languages, where Sindhis are a sizeable minority. It is spoken by 53,410,910 people in Pakistan, according to the national government's Statistics Division...
, Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, Telugu
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
and Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
.
English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
gains favour due to its international prestige as well as its primary status in Indian state universities. Despite a lack of access to education often being a problem and low rates of literacy, education is conducted trilingually in the regional language, Hindi, and English - or in many cases, monolingually in English.
Japan
In Japan, the need for bilingualism (mostly Japanese and English) has been pointed out, and there are some scholars who advocate teaching children subjects such as mathematics using English rather than Japanese. As part of this proposal, subjects such as history, however, would be taught solely in Japanese.On the island of Hokkaido
Hokkaido
, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...
, the indigenous and endangered Ainu language
Ainu language
Ainu is one of the Ainu languages, spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
is receiving new found interest with establishment of a small number of bilingual Ainu-Japanese elementary schools.
The Arab World
Schools in the Middle EastMiddle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
follow dual or triple language programmes. The triple language programme is most commonly found in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, and often implemented as well in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. History, grammar, literature and the Arabic language
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
are taught in the native language (Arabic), where as Mathematics and sciences are generally taught in English and/or French. In Lebanon, however, science and mathematics are taught in either French or English, depending on the school's administration or the grade level. It is not uncommon to find French- or English- only schools, though usually these institutions are primarily international establishments.
In most Gulf countries as well as Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, English is introduced as a second language early on alongside the primary medium of instruction, Arabic. In Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
however, triple language programmes are, like in Lebanon and Syria, normal, except rather than using French, Kurdish
Kurdish language
Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....
is taught alongside Arabic and English due to Iraq's considerably sized Kurdish minority in the north, and bilingual official language policy regarding Kurdish.
In Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, Berber
Berber languages
The Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...
can be used as a regional medium of elementary education, with widespread use of French and Arabic come later grades. Due to Morroco's long history with French colonialism, alongside neighbouring countries including Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
and Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
, sole French-medium education is very widespread, with Arabic being introduced and taught as a second language, as well as the study of a third language later on, usually either English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, or Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
(in Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
).
Israel
Normally, Israelis are taught in either Hebrew or Arabic depending on religion and ethnicity. Within the standard education system, thorough study of English is compulsory, and depending on the primary medium of education, Arabic or Hebrew are introduced as third languages with significantly lesser emphasis placed on achieving solid proficiency. Within Hebrew-medium programmes, other foreign languages such as French, German, Russian, or Yiddish can often be studied as well.Israel is also home to several international schools whereby the sole medium of education is either English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
or French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. In general, as English is taught early on across all Israeli schools, most Israelis become comfortably bilingual, much like what one would see in The Netherlands or Scandinavian countries. This in combination with a large proportion of English-language programming on television that is merely subtitled and seldom dubbed.
Recent peace initiatives have also lead to a small number of bilingual and multi-religious schools in which both Hebrew and Arabic are used in equal emphasis. The Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish Arab Education in Israel
Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish Arab Education in Israel
Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel is a network of award-winning bilingual schools where Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel can study together...
runs four bilingual schools, and the Neve Shalom peace village also hosts a local school.
Philippines
In July 2009 Department of EducationDepartment of Education (Philippines)
The Department of Education , is the executive department of the Philippine government responsible for the management and governing of the Philippine system of basic education. It is the chief formulator of Philippine educational policy and is responsible for the Philippine primary and secondary...
moved towards mother-tongue based learning initially by issuing an order which allows two alternative three-year bridging plans. Depending on the bridging plan adopted, the Filipino
Filipino language
This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
and English languages are to be phased in as the language of instruction beginning in the third and fourth grades. Other Philippine regional languages
Philippine languages
The Philippine languages are a 1991 proposal by Robert Blust that all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi—except Sama–Bajaw and a few languages of Palawan—form a subfamily of Austronesian languages...
are taught in schools, colleges and universities located in their respective provinces
Provinces of the Philippines
The Provinces of the Philippines are the primary political and administrative divisions of the Philippines. There are 80 provinces at present, further subdivided into component cities and municipalities. The National Capital Region, as well as independent cities, are autonomous from any provincial...
.
Southeast Asia (Thailand, Malaysia)
Since the mid-1990s bilingual approaches to schooling and higher education have become popular in parts of South-east Asia, especially in ThailandThailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
and Malaysia where different models have been applied, from L2 immersion (content taught in a non-native language) to parallel immersion, where core subjects are taught in both the mother-tongue and a second language (usually English). The Malaysian government recently reversed its decision to have Maths and Science taught in English, but is implementing different programmes designed to improve English language teaching within schools. Wichai Wittaya Bilingual School in Chaing Mai (1995), Siriwat Wittaya Bilingual School in Bangkok(2004) , Chindemanee School English Program (2005), The Sarasas model, pioneered by the Sarasas schools affiliation in Thailand,are exemplars of parallel immersion. The English for Integrated Studies
English for Integrated Studies
English for Integrated Studies is a new model of bilingual education first introduced in the Kingdom of Thailand.In the EIS project Thai teachers instruct their classes in English language using English textbooks...
project model at Sunthonphu Pittaya Secondary School(SPSS), Rayong, Thailand, is an exemplar of the use of English for integrated studies in Math, Science and IT, taught by non-native English speaking Thai teachers. This project is under the auspices of the International Study Program of Burapha University
Burapha University
Burapha University is one of Thailand's major public universities located in the coastal town of Bangsaen, Chonburi Province. The campus hosts approximately 36,245 students , aided by 992 teaching staff and 300 general employees. The university offers degrees in more than 50 programs of study,...
. Panyaden School
Panyaden School
Panyaden School is a privately-owned bilingual primary school in the south of Chiang Mai . The school was founded by Yodphet Sudsawad to deliver a holistic education that integrates Buddhist principles and green awareness with the International Primary Curriculum.The whole school has been built...
is an example of a private bilingual school in North Thailand that provides its students with a Thai-English education (each class has a Thai teacher and native-English speaking teacher).
The difficulties and disputes characteristic of the US experience have not been replicated in these Asian countries, though they are not without controversy. Generally, it can be said that there is widespread acknowledgment of the need to improve English competence in the population, and bilingual approaches, where language is taught through subject content, are seen to be the most effective means of attaining this. The most significant limiting factors are the shortage of teachers linguistically competent to teach in a second language and the costs involved in use of expatriate native speakers for this purpose.
United States of America
Bilingual education in the U.S. focuses on English Language Learners (ELL). According to the U.S. Department of EducationUnited States Department of Education
The United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...
website, a bilingual education program is "an educational program for limited English proficient students". (The Office of English Language Acquisition, 2009). The term "limited English proficiency" remains in use by the federal government, but has fallen out of favor elsewhere. According to Bankstreet's Literacy Guide this shift is due to the fact that the term ELL represents a more accurate reflection of language acquisition. The term "English language learner" is now preferred in schools and educational research. An English Language Learner is a a term used to describe a student whose second language is English, and who needs language support services in order to succeed in school.
In the fifty states of the United States, proponents of the practice argue that it will not only help to keep non-English-speaking children from falling behind their peers in math, science, and social studies while they master English, but such programs teach English better than English-only programs. For many students, the process of learning literacy and a new language simultaneously is simply an overwhelming task, so bilingual programs began as a way to help such students develop native language literacy first - research by Cummins, a central researcher in the field, shows that skills such as literacy developed in a first language will transfer to English. Opponents of bilingual education argue that it delays students' mastery of English, thereby retarding the learning of other subjects as well. In California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where at least one-third of students are enrolled in bilingual classes, there has been considerable politicking for and against bilingual education.
The very first instance of bilingual education in the United States occurred with Polish immigrants in the first permanent English settlement of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
in what is now the United States. The Poles provided the community with manufactured pitch necessary to prevent the sinking of ships, and glass works among other industries. When the House of Burgesses
House of Burgesses
The House of Burgesses was the first assembly of elected representatives of English colonists in North America. The House was established by the Virginia Company, who created the body as part of an effort to encourage English craftsmen to settle in North America...
met in 1619, the rights extended only to Englishmen. The Poles, in turn, launched the first recorded strike in the New World. In dire need of their skills and industries, the Poles received the "rights of Englishmen
Rights of Englishmen
The rights of Englishmen are the perceived traditional rights of British subjects. The notion refers to various constitutional documents that were created throughout various stages of English history, such as Magna Carta, the Declaration of Right , and others...
," and established the first bilingual schools with subjects taught in English and Polish. From this first documented historic beginning, bilingual education existed in some form or another in the United States. During the 18th century, Franciscan missionaries from California to Texas used indigenous languages for translating and teaching the Catholic catechism to Native Americans. By the mid-19th century, private and public bilingual schools had include such native languages as Czech, Dutch, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. Ohio became the first state in 1839, to adopt a bilingual education law, authorizing German-English instruction at parents' request. Louisiana enacted an identical provision for French and English in 1847, and the New Mexico Territory did so for Spanish and English in 1850. By the end of the 19th century, about a dozen states had passed similar laws. Elsewhere, many localities provided bilingual instruction without state sanction, in languages as diverse as Norwegian, Italian, Polish, Czech, and Cherokee. Beginning in 1959, public schools in Miami introduced bilingual programs. In 1968 the U.S., with Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or, informally, the Bilingual Education Act
Bilingual Education Act
The Bilingual Education Act, Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968 was the first piece of United States federal legislation that recognized the needs of Limited English Speaking Ability students. The BEA was introduced in 1967 by Texas senator Ralph Yarborough and was...
, Congress first mandated bilingual education in order to give immigrants access to education in their "first" language. The Act was amended in 1988. Federal spending on bilingual education jumped from $7.5 million in 1968 to $150 million by 1979.
A 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Lau v. Nichols
Lau v. Nichols
Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 , was a civil rights case that was brought by Chinese American students living in San Francisco, California who had limited English proficiency...
, gave further momentum to bilingual education. Here, the Court held that San Francisco schools violated minority language students' rights when they educated students in the same classes as other students without special provisions.
Taken together, the Bilingual Education Act
Bilingual Education Act
The Bilingual Education Act, Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968 was the first piece of United States federal legislation that recognized the needs of Limited English Speaking Ability students. The BEA was introduced in 1967 by Texas senator Ralph Yarborough and was...
and the Lau v. Nichols ruling mandated that schools needed to at least provide some type of services to support English language learners, though neither specified what type of educational program needed to be provided. As such, both bilingual and English-only programs flourished after the law's passage and the court ruling.
The Bilingual Education Act
Bilingual Education Act
The Bilingual Education Act, Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968 was the first piece of United States federal legislation that recognized the needs of Limited English Speaking Ability students. The BEA was introduced in 1967 by Texas senator Ralph Yarborough and was...
was terminated in 2001 by new federal education policy, with the passage of No Child Left Behind by the U.S. Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
. This law offers no support for native language learning, but rather emphasized accountability in English only, and mandates that all students, including ELLs, are tested yearly in English.
The majority of U.S. high school students in the United States are required to take at least one to two years of a second language. The vast majority of these classes are either French or Spanish. In a large number of schools this is taught in a manner known as FLES
Language immersion
Language immersion is a method of teaching a second language in which the target language is used as the means of instruction. Unlike more traditional language courses, where the target language is simply the subject material, language immersion uses the target language as a teaching tool,...
, in which students learn about the second language in a manner similar to other subjects such as mathematics or science. Some schools use an additional method known as FLEX in which the "nature of the language" and culture are also taught. High school education almost never uses "immersion" techniques.
Controversy in the United States
There has been much debate over bilingual education in recent times. In the 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Horne v. FloresHorne v. Flores
Horne v. Flores, 129 S.Ct. 2579 , is a case in which the United States Supreme Court remanded the case to determine whether Arizona’s general education funding budget supports Equal Educational Opportunities Act -compliant English Language Learner programming.-Background:The case was brought by...
, the majority opinion stated, "Research on ELL instruction indicates there is documented, academic support for the view that SEI (Structured English Immersion
Structured English Immersion
Structured English Immersion is a technique for rapidly teaching English to English Language Learners. The term was coined by Keith Baker and Adriana de Kanter in a 1983 recommendation to schools to make use of Canada's successful French immersion programs. In the 2009 U.S. Supreme Court...
) is significantly more effective than bilingual education."
Proponents of bilingual education claim that it is not only easier for students to learn English if they are literate in their first language, but that such students will learn English better and become bilingual and biliterate. Proponents further claim that effective bilingual programs strive to achieve proficiency in both English and the students' home language. Dual language or Two-Way bilingual programs are one such approach, whereby half of the students speak English and half are considered English language learners (ELLs). The teacher instructs in English and in the ELLs' home language. The dual purpose of this type of classroom is to teach the children a new language and culture, and language diversity in such classrooms is seen as a resource. Programs in English only eradicate the native languages immigrants bring to this country, while dual language bilingual programs serve to maintain such languages in an "additive" context, where a new language is added without the first being lost. One paper states that two-way developmental bilingual education programs in elementary school have the most success in language minority students' long term academic achievement. These students will maintain their gains in academic performance in secondary level academic classes. Another study shows the positive results of a two-way bilingual education program.
Some people make the mistake that once a student can converse in English (Basic interpersonal communication skills - BICS), they will naturally perform well academically (cognitive academic language proficiency - CALP) in English. It has been postulated that BICS and CALP are two different sets of skills.
Opponents of bilingual education claim that students with other primary languages besides Spanish are placed in Spanish classes rather than taught in their native languages and that many bilingual education programs fail to teach students English. Critics of bilingual education have claimed that studies supporting bilingual education tend to have poor methodologies and that there is little empirical support in favor of it.
The controversy over bilingual education is often enmeshed in a larger political and cultural context. Opponents of bilingual education are sometimes accused of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
and xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
. This is especially so in the case of such groups as English First, which is a conservative organization that promotes the stance that English should be the official language of the United States. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...
and other cities, Minister of education of the Young Lords, Tony Baez and others held marches and other activities to promote bilingual education. Proponents of bilingual education are frequently accused of practicing identity politics
Identity politics
Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
, to the detriment of children and of immigrants.
California
CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
is the state with the highest number of English Learners (ELs) in the United States. One out of three students in California is an EL. In June 1998, Proposition 227 was passed by 61% of the California electorate. This proposition mandates that ELs be placed in structured English immersion for a period "not normally to exceed one year", then be transferred to mainstream classrooms taught "overwhelmingly in English." This proposition also gave parents the possibility to request alternative programs for their children, however, the availability of waivers and information to parents have been a challenge in the implementation of this proposition.
In 2000, the California Department of Education contracted with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and WestEd to conduct a five-year evaluation of the effects of Proposition 227. The study methodology focused on "A combination of student achievement analysis, phone interviews, case study site visits, and written surveys was used to examine such questions as how the proposition was implemented, which EL services are most and least effective, and what unintended consequence
Unintended consequence
In the social sciences, unintended consequences are outcomes that are not the outcomes intended by a purposeful action. The concept has long existed but was named and popularised in the 20th century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton...
s resulted from Proposition 227's implementation."
The authors caution about the limitations in the statewide data. California does not have the capacity to link student academic progress over time across years; however, using student-level linked data over time from the Los Angeles Unified School District, and complementing that analysis with surveys, site visits and interviews, the study found "no conclusive evidence favoring one instructional program over another." Students who remained in bilingual education have similar academic growth trajectories when compared with students who switched to English Immersion.
Arizona
California was followed by ArizonaArizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
in the passage of similar legislation, Arizona Proposition 203, which ended several programs previously available to ESL students. Arizona was the first state to provide bilingual education in the 1960s.
Georgia
During the 1990s the state of GeorgiaGeorgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
increased its foreign born population by 233%. That was the second largest increase in the country, and presently Georgia is the sixth fastest growing state in the United States. Georgia has the seventh largest illegal immigrant population in the country; in the 2000 census 228,000 illegal immigrants lived in the state. During the 1980s and 1990s a labor shortage in the carpet
Carpet
A carpet is a textile floor covering consisting of an upper layer of "pile" attached to a backing. The pile is generally either made from wool or a manmade fibre such as polypropylene,nylon or polyester and usually consists of twisted tufts which are often heat-treated to maintain their...
industry contributed to an increase in the Hispanic population of Whitfield County, Georgia. Today almost half of the students in the Dalton (the hub of Whitfield County) public schools are Hispanic.
Erwin Mitchell, a local Dalton lawyer, founded the Georgia Project in 1996 to help teach the influx of Hispanic students who have moved into the Dalton public schools. The Georgia Project partners with the University of Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
to bring teachers from Mexico to Georgia Schools. Sixty teachers from the University of Monterrey have taught in Georgia since 1997, and they typically teach for two to three years on H-1B visa
H-1B visa
The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 101. It allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations...
s. The Georgia Project also has a Summer Institute that trains American teachers to speak Spanish and learn about Mexican culture. The Georgia Project is a bilingual/bicultural program that is primarily funded from federal education appropriations.
Massachusetts
In 2002, more than two-thirds of Massachusetts' voters supported an initiative replacing bilingual education programs with "one-year" English Immersion instruction. The initiative was supported by the ProEnglish campaign and the Republican Mitt Romney, who at the time was campaigning for governor. The close to 30,000 bilingual education students within Massachusetts were forced to enter classrooms where they would be instructed specifically and intensively in English.Native American Reservations
Following similar First NationsFirst Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
' models to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, academic linguists throughout the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
are working closely with Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
reservations communities to establish immersion and second-language programs for a number of respective tribal languages including Navajo
Navajo language
Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
, Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
, Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
, Ojibwe, Lakhota, and Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
, among others. Due to the combination of often a violent and isolative relationship between European settlers and Native Americans, their languages and communities have suffered dramatically in terms of facing extreme endangerment or extinction. The success of these programmes is mixed, depending largely on how healthy the status of the language in question is.
However, English-medium education still remains most widely used. Native programs often suffer a lack of state support in terms of funding or encouragement due in large part to the strong preference towards a melting-pot society. Native American boarding schools
Native American boarding schools
An Indian boarding school refers to one of many schools that were established in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to educate Native American children and youths according to Euro-American standards...
, which enforced white American values and the English language were extensively used as late as the 1990s, and were notorious for implementing corporal punishment if a Native child was caught speaking his or her language or freely practicing their tribal faith.
See also
- English as a foreign or second language
- Intercultural bilingual educationIntercultural bilingual educationIntercultural bilingual education or bilingual intercultural education is an intercultural and bilingual model of education designed for contexts with two cultures and languages in contact, in the typical case a dominant and an underprivileged culture...
- Multilingual EducationMultilingual EducationMultilingual Education typically refers to "first-language-first" education, that is, schooling which begins in the mother tongue and transitions to additional languages...
- National Association for Bilingual EducationNational Association for Bilingual EducationThe National Association for Bilingual Education is an American advocacy group that provides teacher training, educational leadership, and lobbying efforts on behalf of legislation regarding individuals learning English as a second language. They oppose Structured English Immersion and favor...
- Secondary Level English Proficiency testSecondary Level English Proficiency testThe Secondary Level English Proficiency Test is a test created by ETS and administered by American middle and high schools to applicants whose first language is not English...
Further reading
- Baldauf, R.B. (2005). Coordinating government and community support for community language teaching in Australia: Overview with special attention to New South Wales. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 8 (2&3): 132–144
- Carter, Steven. (November 2004). "Oui! They're only 3." Oregon Live.com
- Crawford, J. (2004). Educating English Learners: Language Diversity in the Classroom (5th edition). Los Angeles: Bilingual Educational Services (BES).
- Cummins, J. & Genzuk, M. (1991). Analysis of Final Report: Longitudinal Study of Structured English Immersion Strategy, Early Exit and Late-Exit Transitional Bilingual Education Programs for Language-Minority Children. USC Center for Multilingual, Multicultural Research.
- Dean, Bartholomew (Ed.) (2004) "Indigenous Education and the Prospects for Cultural SurvivalCultural SurvivalCultural Survival is a nonprofit group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA which is dedicated to defending the human rights of indigenous peoples. Their stated mandate is to promote the rights, voices and visions, of indigenous people. For 37 years, Cultural Survival has partnered with...
", Cultural Survival Quarterly, (27) 4. - del Mazo, Pilar (2006) "The Multicultural Schoolbus: Is Bilingual Education Driving Our Children, and Our Nation, Towards Failure?" [2006 Education Law Consortium]. The article is available at: http://www.educationlawconsortium.org/forum/2006/papers/delMazo2006_1.pdf
- Dutcher, N., in collaboration with Tucker, G.R. (1994). The use of first and second languages in education: A review of educational experience. Washington, DC: World Bank, East Asia and the Pacific Region, Country Department III.
- Gao, Helen. (November 2004). "Fight over bilingual education continues." The San Diego Union-Tribune.
- Gonzalez, A. (1998). Teaching in two or more languages in the Philippine context. In J. Cenoz & F. Genesee (Eds.), Beyond bilingualism: Multilingualism and multilingual education (pp. 192–205). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
- Grimes, B.F. (1992). Ethnologue: Languages of the world Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- Hakuta, K. (1986).Mirror of language: The debate on bilingualism. New York: Basic Books.
- Harris, S.G. & Devlin, B.C. (1996). "Bilingual programs involving Aboriginal languages in Australia". In Jim Cummins and David Corso (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education, vol 5, pp. 1–14. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
- Kalist, David E. (2005). "Registered Nurses and the Value of Bilingualism." Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 59(1): 101-118.
- Kloss, Heinz (1977, reprinted 1998). The American Bilingual Tradition. (Language in Education; 88) McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems. ISBN 1-887744-02-9
- Krashen, S.D. (1999). Bilingual Education: Arguments for and (Bogus) Arguments Against [sic] University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of Southern CaliforniaThe University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
professor's article is available online at - Parrish, T.; Perez, M; Merickel, A.; and Linquanti, R.(2006). "Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 on the Education of English Learners, K-12, Findings from a Five-Year Evaluation: Final Report." Washington, DC: AIR and San Francisco: WestEd. The complete report is available free at http://www.WestEd.org/cs/we/view/rs/804. An abbreviated, more accessible summary of the findings is available at http://www.WestEd.org/cs/we/view/rs/825
- Seidner, Stanley S.(1981–1989) Issues of Language Assessment. 3 vols. Springfield, Il.: State Board of Education.
- Summer Institute of Linguistics. (1995). A survey of vernacular education programming at the provincial level within Papua New Guinea. Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea: Author.
- Swain, M. (1996). Discovering successful second language teaching strategies and practices: From program evaluation to classroom experimentation." Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 17," 89-104.