In recent years, numerous educational programmes have been developed that have been aimed at raising the academic achievement and wider participation of Pasifika students in New Zealand society. One example of this, which has to date only been explored at local school level, is bilingual/immersion education. The arguments underlying this paper are…

The Northern Territory's bilingual education programmes, in which local Australian Aboriginal languages and English were used side by side in a minority of Aboriginal primary schools in remote northern Australia, came into being in 1973 under the broader federal government policy imprimatur of "self-determination" for Indigenous…

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the traditional division between bilingual education programmes offered to speakers of majority languages and those available to minority language speakers in Colombia should be reconsidered within a wider, integrated vision of bilingual provision. Initially, developments will be situated in relation to…

This paper discusses bilingual education model types in South America with a special focus on the Andean region, and examines the recent language planning decisions by one Ecuadorian indigenous group to formally instruct Quichua as a second language in community schools. Specifically I argue that this type of localised planning--which promotes an…

Using available data from Singapore's national census and economic reports, national exams, international comparison studies and small-scale studies, this paper examines the sociohistorical circumstances that led to the creation of Singapore's bilingual education policy, the results of this policy on recent academic achievement and implications…

This paper explores recent changes in Peruvian national education policy and the effects these have had on indigenous populations. Situating Peruvian education reforms within a context of international multicultural development, the paper traces the history of reforms as implemented by national and international actors in varying degrees and…

Studies investigating the role gesture plays in communication claim gesture has a minimal role, while others claim that gesture carries a large communicative load. In these studies, however, the role of gesture has been assessed in a context where speech is understood and could easily carry the entire communicative burden. We examine the role of…

This paper concerns the relationship between learning English as an additional language (EAL) and school mathematics. In bilingual education, Cummins has proposed a distinction between coercive and collaborative power-relations as an important consideration in the education of such students, advocating collaboration as a means to empower such…

This paper presents an analysis of Bilingual Deaf Education in Brazil, with particular reference to the South of the country. This subject is presented in context, and takes into account research carried out over the last 5-7 years. We consider the spread of bilingual = bicultural models, changes in the representation of Deaf people and…

In Spanish-monolingual Colombia, social pressures push for access to early 50 = 50% Spanish-English medium instruction from the age of five. Parents and school administrators consider this the best way to achieve bilingualism. This article takes a first general look at the effects of this type of bilingual education on the Spanish and English…

In 1991, the Bilingual Bicultural Education Program (BBEP) was launched in Chihuahua, Mexico, as a way of responding to the educational needs of the indigenous Tarahumara populations and the growing threat to their language and culture. Using a conceptual framework based on the literatures of curriculum inquiry, language shift and maintenance,…

This paper examines the teaching and use of, as well as the attitude towards, English among China's ethnic minorities. Starting with a critique of China English, a term used with increasing frequency in the literature on World Englishes and English nativised in the Chinese context, the paper attempts to show that English has yet to find its way…

Professional development for bilingual teachers has traditionally been viewed as a neutral site for training teachers. In the present study, a professional development for bilingual teachers in the United States is explored through ethnographic methods, specifically focusing on both the content delivery, and the interactions between teacher…

The continual model of biliteracy offers a framework in which to situate research, teaching, and language planning in linguistically diverse settings; bilingual teacher education represents a conjunction of all three of these and hence, a good candidate for applying the continual model. This paper uses selected experiences in language teacher…

This paper is an analysis of two conceptions of bilingualism that exist in parallel in China. One is traditional bilingualism referring to the use of a native minority language and standard Chinese by minority groups and the other, seen as bilingualism with modern characteristics, is a modern-day phenomenon in which the majority Han group aspire…