There is an ever-increasing trend in the world today to adopt English as the language of instruction in higher education. The increase is in part due to the views that such adoption constitutes the key to competitiveness in a globalized higher education market. Thus, a growing number of universities in non-English-speaking countries switch to…

The present study was undertaken to find ways to help bilingual preservice teachers become more aware of diversity and more questioning of methods for literacy development in order to address issues of critical literacy. Twenty-five bilingual preservice teachers, enrolled in a Spanish Reading Methods at the university tutored 25 kindergarten…

This paper examines the impact of the Basque Law of 1986 on the status of Basque in schools in the Autonomous Community of Navarre. The sociolinguistic situation of Navarre is outlined, and changes in enrollment figures for the three principal language models (A, D and G) in infant and primary school in the different linguistic zones are examined…

An overview of the field of language planning and an updated bibliography are presented. Language planning is defined as the planning of deliberate changes in the form or use of a language or language variety and viewed as a subdiscipline of sociolinguistics. Among the topics discussed are the scope of language planning, an ideal language planning…

Discussed are some of the problems of bilingual programs (lack of funds, personnel, and evaluated programs). Four broad categories of bilingual programs are (1) Transitional Bilingualism, in which Spanish is used in the early grades to help pupils "adjust to school" and/or "master subject matter" until their skill in English is developed; (2)…

The article reviews some of the controversial issues regarding macro- and micro-ethnographic approaches and their implications for validity of ethnographic description, discusses the notion of context and its application to various research settings, and gives an account of the various problems encountered by researchers working in bilingual…

Presents model using elements of status, social group or speech community, and values for treating literacy as a sociolinguistic phenomenon and in support of bilingual education. Uses Navajo and medieval Jewish languages as examples. (BK)

The establishment and growth of Irish-medium education has been central to the revitalisation of the language in Northern Ireland in recent years. Historically, the struggle by the minority of Irish speakers in the region to provide all-Irish schools has been both the goal and the engine of renewal and expansion during a period of community and…

The theme of this book cuts across disciplines. Contributors to this volume are specialized in education and especially classroom research as well as in linguistics, most being transdisciplinary themselves. Around 65 sub-Saharan languages figure in this volume as research objects: as means of instruction, in connection with teacher training,…

The potential contribution of linguistics to the cause of bilingual-bicultural education is of profound importance, and the utilization of linguistic knowledge and research is critical if bilingual programs are to be of the quality needed to achieve their goals. (Author/NQ)

Both sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics are relatively recent areas of study and they tend to overlap. One way in which they overlap is in the selection of topics, among them bilingualism and linguistic relativity. Studies of linguistic relativity demonstrate that, although there are clear surface distinctions between the way languages map…

The validity of the consensus paradigm dominant in sociolinguistics is questioned. Social scientists working in this paradigm take the perspective of society as an aggregate operating through agreement between its constituent elements, working to the benefit of the aggregate. The best-known of the consensus-oriented theories is…

In Wales, bilingual education in Welsh and English has an increasingly high profile and Wales shares international leadership of bilingual education policies and practices alongside other countries where bilingual education flourishes. Ever since the first designated Welsh-medium primary school was opened in 1939, Welsh-medium and bilingual…

"Bilingual education" is among the new technical terms which claim to add efficiency, precision, and clarity to an otherwise complex existence. The practitioner has the responsibility of making its definition useful--precise and comprehensive. For Alaska, a useful definition of "bilingual education" must be flexible enough to…