This article looks at multilingual, mother-tongue-based language policies influenced by colonial and postcolonial histories and globalization processes. We use multiscalar analysis to show these policies as creative responses to problems affected by national and international forces. Our study focuses on Timor-Leste, specifically a pilot…

While most primary school education in Hong Kong (China) is in the native language, Cantonese, and most university-level instruction is conducted in English, the language of secondary school instruction has begun to shift from English to Cantonese. The decision to increase Cantonese use is controversial. Four studies of this situation are…

Assesses Nigeria's efforts to achieve mother-tongue literacy for its citizens. Describes Nigeria's complicated sociolinguistic landscape, national language policies, and the Ife experimental project, studying the use of the mother tongue in primary schools. Points to nonlinguistic factors in educational success, including parental background,…

A Massachusetts two-way bilingual education program provides initial first-language (L1) literacy development for all students, teaches half of the curriculum in L1 and half in L2 by third grade, and selectively integrates native and non-native speakers of the target language. Both target groups meet academic and linguistic goals by fifth grade.…

Discusses the limitations of immersion programs for minority-language children and examines submersion, transitional bilingual education, and reverse immersion approaches according to three criteria: theoretical consistency, fairness to children, and empirical support. Reverse immersion in which children acquire literacy skills in their native…

Two adaptations of Success for All, a comprehensive instructional reform program for elementary schools, have been used with students acquiring English as a second language. One is a Spanish bilingual version called "Exito para Todos," in which students are taught to read in Spanish and then transitioned to English reading, usually in…

The value of transitional bilingual education (TBE) is discussed in the context of two competing theories of second language learning: (1) first language (L1) knowledge facilitates second language (L2) learning, and (2) the best way to learn English is to maximize time spent using it. First, the facilitation theory is examined in light of recent…

The PEBIMO project was designed to determine whether bilingual education could improve the quality of primary education in Mozambique, recognizing that Portuguese is not the native language of the majority of Mozambican students. The project began in 1992 with 8 cohorts of first grade in 2 provinces; during this investigation, students were in…

Reports on a study of an innovative secondary bilingual program for preliterate immigrant adolescents. Researchers compared classroom processes used in the bilingual program to those in English-as-a-Second-Language classrooms. Observations indicated no significant differences in off-task behavior. Neither group participated in many higher level…

The local-language-medium schools of North Solomons Province are described and evaluated. The Viles Tok Ples Skuls (VTPS) provide education in both the indigenous languages (tok ples) and English as a means of integrating the past with modern development, as is preferred by the local people. The report contains seven chapters. The first gives the…

A study addressed educational and psychological issues raised by the phenomenal growth of Irish-medium pre-schools ("naionrai"). Data were gathered in surveys of almost 2,000 parents, over 170 teachers and advisors, and 225 children in 25 Irish-medium pre-schools in both "Gaeltacht" (Irish-speaking districts) and…

The multiethnic situation in American schools in the 1980s can be compared to that of Britain in the 1960s, when a sudden influx of non-English-speaking children in great numbers taxed the resources of an educational system dedicated to the English language. Arguments favoring multicultural education are increasing in both countries, and the need…

The roles of first and second languages were studied, using ethnographic methods, in a middle school two-way bilingual education program that served Mexican-background students. The primary stated program goal was to develop bilingualism and biliteracy in both minority and majority language students. Classes were taught using English and Spanish…

The position taken in this paper is that the basic debate concerning the effectiveness of bilingual education has been totally "socially naive." A study investigated the concept that the ethnolinguistic vitality of a community determines the quality and quantity of linguistic contacts with one's own linguistic group and with other…

This paper describes a limited bilingual approach developed for Vietnamese immigrants whose formal schooling had been interrupted due to extended periods in refugee camps, and its implementation in the Milpera Special School (Queensland, Australia), a secondary school for children of Non-English-Speaking Backgrounds (NESB). The initiative was…