The Development of Literacy and Biliteracy in Bilingual Education

literacy, which is considered to be one of the main goals of formal education. Datta (2000, 14) explains that ‘[i]n every society literacy carries a “power status” and is perceived as enhancing economic, social and political opportunities for the

individuals.’ Hamers and Blanc (2000, 318–19) also comment on the prominent role of literacy in society:

The importance attached to the development of literacy is based on a worldwide conviction that literacy is an instrument for changing the individual’s perception and organisation of cognition, and that this leads to economic improvement and is a prerequisite for all functional education.

Biliteracy, that is ‘the use of two or more languages in or around writing’

(Hornberger 2003, xii), is a particularly prominent issue in bilingual education. The ideology of the bilingual education programme will influence strongly the

development of literacy in the languages involved; that is to say that literacy will be developed in the language or languages deemed to be desirable.

The issue of literacy can become complicated with regard to minority languages, in particular in cases where the language involved has not traditionally been associated with writing. Jaffe (2003, 43) describes literacy as a symbol of ‘languageness’, and therefore the act of writing a language is perceived as raising its status. Baker (2011, 320) explains the positive influence that literacy has with regard to promoting an endangered language:

Literacy in the minority language not only provides a greater chance of survival at an individual and group level for that language. It also may encourage rootedness, self- esteem, the vision and world-view of one’s heritage culture, self-identity and intellectual empathy.

The issue of literacy and biliteracy will be an important consideration in the closer examination of RL bilingual education programmes in Alsace. It is especially interesting owing to the dual nature of the RL, as was discussed in chapter three.

4.2.3 Bilingual Education as a Means of Language Revitalisation

Although it has been argued that learning a language in school is not as effective as mother tongue acquisition (Fishman 1991, 372; Fishman 2000, 458; Spolsky 2008, 158), the presence of a minority language in an educational setting is nevertheless highly influential with regard to its status. Romaine (1995, 242) highlights the impact that education has on the behaviour of its participants: ‘As one of society’s main socializing instruments, the school plays a powerful role in exerting social control over its students. It endorses mainstream and largely middle-class values.’ This reminds us that education is, on the whole, an example of top-down policy-making. However, some bilingual education programmes, in particular heritage language programmes, are established as the result of bottom-up movements, led by language activists or parents. The language ideology of the group that establishes and

financially supports the education programme is likely to influence the language management strategies that are implemented. Cummins (2001, 300) suggests that ‘[p]ublic schools serve the societies that fund them and they aim to graduate students with the knowledge, skills and values that will contribute most effectively to their societies.’ That is to say, pupils will learn the languages and varieties of language that education planners believe to be most beneficial.

Peter et al (2011, 187) state that the last two decades have witnessed a large increase in the number of bilingual programmes aimed at the maintenance and revitalisation of endangered minority languages ‘as speakers of those languages– or descendants of speakers– have recognized the cultural and intellectual loss that accompanies language death’. Since the 1960s, there has been a worldwide recognition of linguistic human rights and a rising awareness of the importance of language education (García 2009, 112). As minorised ethnic groups endeavoured to assert their rights and to defend their identities, their languages assumed a symbolic power (Hamers and Blanc 2000, 324). Traditionally associated with the practice of majority languages, the domain of education has become a target for minority language activists. However, not all parents wish for their children to learn these languages at school, their choice will depend on their own language attitudes. Echoing the viewpoint of Fishman (cf. section 2.2) that education has a limited power, Genesee (2011, 274) argues that unless parents practise the endangered language in the home domain, ‘the language is just another thing that is taught and used at school by their children’. Hence the language beliefs and practices of parents play a crucial role in the language behaviour of the next generation.

4.2.4 What Counts as Bilingual Education?

De Mejía (2002, 32) warns that the formulation of firm definitions of bilingual education ‘seems doomed to failure’, owing to the interdisciplinary nature of this field of study. In the light of this, the aim of this section is not to provide one restrictive definition of what bilingual education is, but to consider a number of definitions in order to aid the development of this chapter and the chapter five case study. As a general rule, bilingual education is accepted as referring to education

programmes where two languages act as the media of instruction at school, that is to say that the languages are employed to teach the content of non-language related subjects, such as mathematics, geography, or history (Cummins 2009, 19). Bilingual education therefore constitutes a specific type of acquisition planning, different to other second-language or foreign-language teaching approaches where the language is taught as a subject (García 2009, 6), regardless of the number of hours devoted to its teaching.

The term ‘bilingual education’ can be employed when more than two

languages are employed as the media of instruction (Cummins 2009, 19); this is also labelled multilingual education (Skutnabb-Kangas et al 2009, xvii). On the

definitions of bilingual education Romaine (1995, 241) argues:

The term ‘bilingual education’ can mean different things in different contexts. If we take a common sense approach and define it as a program where two languages are used equally as media of instruction, many so-called bilingual education programs would not count as such.

Although it may appear to be logical, the requirement for the term ‘bilingual

education’ to only refer to the use of the two languages for a strictly equal amount of time in the school timetable is very restrictive. Furthermore, as it will be explained in section 4.3.1, education can be described as being bilingual even when only one language is used as a medium of instruction, if it is the case that the language

employed is different to the majority language of a community; although in principle the majority language is not taught at school in these cases, it is accepted that the pupils will become bilingual as it is learnt elsewhere owing to its dominance in other domains. May (2008, 20) contends that school programmes can only be described as providing bilingual education when bilingualism is achieved as the result of

already bilingual when they enter school, perhaps as the result of two languages being spoken in the home. Therefore the achievement, or in some cases the maintenance, of bilingualism through instruction in the relevant language or

languages should be the aim of an education programme in order to be described as constituting bilingual education.

4.3 The Distribution of Languages in Bilingual Education Programmes