Models of Bilingual Education

The study Models of Bilingual education focuses on the application of dual-medium and parallel-medium instruction in two historically disadvantaged schools in the Western Cape. It tested two assumptions: (1) that parallel-medium teaching in practice uses only one language of learning and teaching (LoLT) and therefore leads to monolingual classroom practice; and (2) that dual-medium teaching offers the best route to bilingualism but in practice it s applied haphazardly, leading to the loss of much pedagogical and language learning benefits. The study, based on a Master s dissertation completed at the University of the Western Cape (South Africa), questions the very nature of implementing bilingual education at the two historically disadvantaged schools, in the context of post-apartheid South Africa.

Autorentext

Quentin E. Williams is a PHD candidate in the Linguistics Department. His primary field of expertise is on the politics of language and his current research focuses on the dialectics of language and space,with special attention to popular culture, multilingualism and English in South Africa.