The Multicultural Classroom: Learning from Australian First Nations Perspectives. Jasmin Peskoller
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СКАЧАТЬ concise overview of types of bilingual education models, Table 1 depicts an extract from Baker’s comprehensive typology of bilingual education to exemplify one way of classifying the various existing approaches to, and sub-branches of, bilingual education.

Monolingual Forms of Education
Type of Program Typical Type of Child Language of the Classroom Societal and Educational Aim Aim in Language Outcome
Mainstreaming / Submersion Language Minority Majority Language Assimilation Monolingualism
Weak Forms of Bilingual Education
Type of Program Typical Type of Child Language of the Classroom Societal and Educational Aim Aim in Language Outcome
Transitional Language Minority Moves from minority to majority language Assimilation/ Subtractive Relative Monolingualism
Mainstream (with [Foreign] Language Teaching) Language Majority Majority language with second/foreign language lessons Limited Enrichment Limited Bilingualism
Strong Forms of Bilingual Education
Type of Program Typical Type of Child Language of the Classroom Societal and Educational Aim Aim in Language Outcome
Immersion Language Majority Bilingual with initial emphasis on L2 Pluralism and Enrichment Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Maintenance/ Heritage Language Language Minority Bilingual with emphasis on L1 Maintenance, Pluralism and Enrichment Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Two Way/Dual Language Mixed Language Minority & Majority Minority & Majority Maintenance, Pluralism and Enrichment. Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Mainstream Bilingual Language Majority Two Majority Languages Maintenance, Pluralism and Enrichment. Bilingualism

      While weak forms of bilingual education include the risk of fostering a subtractive form of bilingualism (see Figure 2), strong forms, on the contrary, encourage additive bilingualism. Connecting the concepts of language and culture, Baker (2011, 249) states that “bilingual education ideally develops a broader enculturation, a more sensitive view of different creeds and cultures” and it “will usually deepen an engagement with the cultures associated with the languages, fostering a sympathetic understanding of differences”.

      Two approaches that are classified as strong forms of bilingual education in the typology presented in Table 1, immersion education and two-way education, will now be investigated more deeply. In addition, the two-way concept is explored further in connection with contemporary Australian educational discourse in Chapter IV.4.1.

      Linguist François Grosjean (2010, 239) describes a two-way program as a form of bilingual education “that promotes bilingualism and biliteracy, as well as a very real understanding of the people and cultures involved.” Both languages are actively implemented in class and used throughout schooling with students who usually come from one of two main language groups (Grosjean 2010, 239).

      In the context of the United States, Baker (2011) outlines that this strong form of bilingual education is typically applied when an almost equal number of minority and majority language speakers exists in one classroom. Baker exemplifies this with a group of learners in which one half speaks Spanish as their home language while the other half speaks English as their L1. Generally, ensuring a language balance in both status and number of speakers in order to prevent one language variety from becoming dominant is paramount in two-way schools (Baker 2011, 222–223).

      The major goal of such types of schooling is to foster bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism for all students. In order to achieve this aim, several practices are employed such as assigning both languages equal status, implementing a bilingual school ethos, and making use of bilingual staff members and language minority parents as teacher aides (Baker 2011, 225–226).

      Another possibility for actively acknowledging various linguistic and cultural backgrounds in educational settings is immersion education, which qualifies as a strong form of bilingual education (Baker 2011, 222) (see Table 1). Various scholars have demanded that educational approaches only qualify as immersion education if at least 50% of class time is spent on subject-specific education using a language other than students’ L1 for instruction (Surkamp 2017, 134; Tedick, Christian & Fortune 2011, 2).

      Generally, Brown (2007) outlines that immersion education is predominantly adopted in additive bilingual contexts in which learners normally share the same home language and show close levels of proficiency in the target language. Frequently, the teachers in immersion education know or even share the students’ linguistic or cultural background (Brown 2007, 141). In this regard, García (2009, 149) emphasizes that “[d]espite the immersion of the child in the other language for education, the child’s home language is honoured, respected, used throughout the school, and taught right after the immersion period.”

      Differentiating between programs, Tedick, Christian, and Fortune (2011) name foreign language immersion, bilingual immersion, and Indigenous language immersion as the three major types of immersion education. These as well as their respective characteristics are consolidated in Table 2:

Foreign language immersion programs (one-way) Bilingual immersion programs (two-way) Indigenous language immersion programs
linguistically homogenous students; speaking majority language additive bilingualism and biliteracy academic achievement fostering development of intercultural understanding language minority and language majority students learning each other’s languages additive bilingualism and biliteracy academic achievement СКАЧАТЬ