Biliteracy - the use of two or more languages in and around writing- is an inescapable feature of lives and schools worldwide, yet one which most educational policy and practice continue blithely to ignore. The continua of biliteracy featured in the present volume offers a comprehensive yet flexible model to guide educators, researchers, and policy-makers in designing, carrying out, and evaluating educational programs for the development of bilingual and multilingual learners, each program adapted to its own specific context, media, and contents.
This volume introduces the reader to ongoing research on the study of biliteracy, and highlights recent trends in the promotion of biliteracy and multiliteracies in education. Literacy issues have come under the microscope of researchers in recent decades. The very concept of literacy includes skills such as understanding, interpreting, and managing different text types in different sociocultural environments. Therefore, the pioneers in the study of literacy characterize it as one multidimensional concept with social and cultural components, or go even further by talking about pluriliteracies/multiliteracies, which emerge through the complex linguistic and value practices adopted by speakers of multilingual societies in the 21st century. The contributions gathered here will give the reader a general idea of where research is heading in the areas of biliteracy and multiliteracies, especially in view of multilingualism and its ever-changing conditions. The authors situate their research within current debates in terms of theory and empirical data. In this volume, the reader will find several chapters discussing issues of biliteracy and multiliteracies in a wide variety of settings, countries, and orientations, including Brazil, Cyprus, Greece, Iceland, Malta, Portugal, and the USA.
Social justice language teacher education is a response to the acknowledgement that there are social/societal inequities that shape access to learning and educational achievement. In social justice language teacher education, social justice is the driving force and primary organizational device for the teacher education agenda. What does “social justice” mean in diverse global locations? What role does English play in promoting or denying equity? How can teachers come to see themselves as advocates for equal educational access and opportunity? This volume begins by articulating a view of social justice teacher education, followed by language teacher educators from 7 countries offering theorized accounts of their situated practices. Authors discuss powerful components of practice, and the challenges and tensions of doing this work within situated societal and institutional power structures.
This book is the first to propose an integrated approach to the study of bilingual education in minority and majority settings. Contributions from well-known scholars working in eight different countries in Europe and the Americas show that it is possible to bridge the gap between prestigious elite bilingualism and the bilingualism of minority communities and work towards the construction of multilingual spaces.
Bilingual Education in the 21st Century examines languages and bilingualism as individual and societal phenomena, presents program types, variables, and policies in bilingual education, and concludes by looking at practices, especially pedagogies and assessments. This thought-provoking work is an ideal textbook for future teachers as well as providing a fresh view of the subject for school administrators and policy makers. Provides an overview of bilingual education theories and practices throughout the world Extends traditional conceptions of bilingualism and bilingual education to include global and local concerns in the 21st century Questions assumptions regarding language, bilingualism and bilingual education, and proposes a new theoretical framework and alternative views of teaching and assessment practices Reviews international bilingual education policies, with separate chapters dedicated to US and EU language policy in education Gives reasons why bilingual education is good for all children throughout the world, and presents cases of how this is being carried out
Biliteracy is an inescapable feature of lives and schools worldwide, yet is often ignored by educational policymakers. This volume offers an extensive yet flexible model to guide educators, researchers, and policymakers in designing, carrying out, and evaluating educational programs for the development of bilingual and multilingual learners.
This book examines the linkage between literacy and linguistic diversity, embedding them in their social and cultural contexts. It illustrates that a more complete understanding of literacy among diverse populations and in multicultural societies requires attention to issues of literacy per se as well as to improving an educational process that has relevance beyond members of majority cultures and linguistic groups. The focus of the book is on the social and cultural contexts in which literacy develops and is enacted, with an emphasis on the North American situation. Educators and researchers are discovering that cognitive approaches, while very valuable, are insufficient by themselves to answer important questions about literacy in heterogeneous societies. By considering the implications of family, school, culture, society, and nation for literary processes, the book answers the following questions. In a multi-ethnic context, what does it mean to be literate? What are the processes involved in becoming and being literate in a second language? In what ways is literacy in a second language similar and in what ways is it different from mother-tongue literacy? What factors must be understood to better describe and facilitate literacy acquisition among members of ethnic and linguistic minorities? What are some current approaches that are being used to accomplish this? These are vital questions for researchers and educators in a world that has a large number of immigrants, a variety of multi-ethnic and multi-lingual societies, and an increasing degree of multinational activity. Beyond addressing applied concerns, attending to these questions can provide new insights into basic aspects of literacy.
What educational approaches best serve language-minority children? What policies, programmes, and circumstances encourage or contribute to minority-language maintenance? How do we make sense of the ecology of language development and socialization in non-traditional settings? And what is the relationship of language, learning, and technology? These are the kinds of dizzying questions addressed by those working in educational linguistics. The subdiscipline first came to prominence in the 1970s, and in recent decades it has expanded rapidly. It is now a well-established field of teaching and scholarly research. As serious academic thinking about and around educational linguistics continues to flourish and develop, this new title in the Routledge Major Works series, Critical Concepts in Linguistics, meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the subject 's vast literature and the continuing explosion in research output. Edited by Nancy H. Hornberger, Goldie Anna Professor of Education and Director of the Educational Linguistics Program at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, this Routledge Major Work is a six-volume collection of foundational and cutting-edge contributions. With a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Educational Linguistics is an essential work of reference. It is destined to be valued by specialists and scholars working in the area as well as by educational policy-makers and professionals as a vital one-stop research tool.
Bilingualism and Language Pedagogy brings an understanding of language as a social practice and bilingualism as the study of bidirectional transitioning to the examination of bilingual settings in the US, Europe, and the developing countries. Focusing both on bilingual linguistic competence and educational politics and practice, the volume provides valuable practical proposals and models for developing sociocultural and linguistic competencies among bilingual practitioners and students.
The research in this unique collection lies at the interface between the fields of bilingualism and literacy. It deepens our understanding of the significance of reading and writing as social practices and opens up new lines of inquiry for research on multilingualism. The authors incorporate theoretical and methodological insights from both fields and provide detailed accounts of everyday practices of reading and writing in different multilingual settings. The focus is primarily on linguistic minority groups in Britain and on the language and literacy experiences of children and adults in rural and urban communities. Together, the chapters of the volume build up a rich and illuminating picture of specific ways in which literacy is bound up with cultural practices and with different ways of seeing the world. They also address fundamental questions about the relationship between language, literacy and power in multi-ethnic contexts.
