Multilingual Education

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Multilingual Education typically refers to "first-language-first" education, that is, schooling which begins in the mother tongue and transitions to additional languages. Typically MLE programs are situated in developing countries where speakers of minority languages tend to be disadvantaged in the mainstream education system.

Contents

[edit] Components of Multilingual Education (MLE)

  • "Strong Foundation" - Research shows that children whose early education is in the language of their home tend to do better in the later years of their education (Thomas and Collier, 1997). For more information about the effect of "Language of Instruction", see Bilingual Education.
  • "Strong Bridge" - an essential difference between MLE programs and rural "mother tongue education" programs is the inclusion of a guided transition from learning through the mother tongue to learning through another tongue.

Why language in education is important to understand before understanding multilingual education. NOw UNESCO has emphasized on multicultural educationfor the type of schools where children from different cateories of social groups assembl ethere and their culture is knowingly or unknowingly neglected by the school system. Use of language is necesaary in primary education but why to use thwe the language and how it represent culture is most importyant. Children's language as well as culture is important.BUt only language os not sufficient.


[edit] Stages of an MLE Program

A widespread understanding of MLE programs (UNESCO, 2003, 2005) suggests that instruction take place in the following stages:

  1. Stage I - learning takes place entirely in the child's home language
  2. Stage II - building fluency in the mother tongue. Introduction of oral L2.
  3. Stage III - building oral fluency in L2. Introduction of literacy in L2.
  4. Stage IV - using both L1 and L2 for life long learning.

MLE proponents stress that the second language acquisition component is seen as a "two-way" bridge, such that learners gain the ability to move back and forth between their mother tongue and the other tongue(s), rather than simply a transitional literacy program where reading through the mother tongue is abandoned at some stage in the education.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Malone, Susan. 2006. "Bridging languages in education". id21 insights. Available online at [1]

UNESCO. 2003. Education in a multilingual world. Available online here.

UNESCO. 2005. First Language First: community based literacy programmes for minority language contexts in Asia. Available online here.

Walter, Steven. 2000. Explaining Multilingual Education:. Information on Some Tough Questions, University of North Dakota Working Papers in Linguistics. Available online here.