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2 Bilingualism in School This chapter outlines the basic principles for understanding bilingual and L2 learning , applicable to multilingual and multicultural educational institutions. Chapter 3 will bring this focus down to one bilingual school in particular. The study of how children learn second languages and how the L1 and L2 subsystems interact under different conditions of development should be an important part of an informed discussion of language-teaching practices. Often, though, debates on school language policy suffer from a restricted perspective that elevates sociopolitical questions above all others. Setting aside the developmental principles of bilingualism in this way renders the discussion incomplete and incoherent. Language policy-making needs to reckon with the internal constraints on language learning in addition to external social factors. On the other hand, the application of language-learning principles in real time, in actual language-learning situations, and across diverse populations, offers important evidence for cognitive scientists. Converging conclusions from research are not far off on three important practical applications: 1. A consensus is emerging on the most productive approaches to L2 teaching. Inefficient and unreliable methods impose an onerous cost when valuable resources are squandered. What are the conditions that maximize the learning potential of young L2 learners? 2. Since language is an indispensable tool for higher-order thinking, the most advantageous conditions for intellectual and academic development are closely related to the optimal development of language abilities. Specifically, when there is a “mismatch ” between language of instruction and the child’s linguistic competence, what measures are necessary to ensure comprehension and maximize engagement with meaningful instruction? 3. Especially in situations of intense contact among languages resulting in language shift and attrition, what policies and practices might yield tangible results for revitalizing or preserving a national, regional, or ethnic minority language? 26 Chapter 2 If the promotion of a nondiscriminatory societal bilingualism comes to be an actual planning objective, basic acquisition and learning principles, especially concerning child bilingual development, should be at the heart of any public policy debate. Critical social justice issues come to the fore when language-learning resources are not distributed equitably and when sociolinguistic imbalances coincide with economic inequalities. These issues are easier to understand if research findings from cognitive science are included in the discussion. As globalization increasingly leads to labor force migration, fewer and fewer school systems in labor-receiving countries can afford to maintain their former “one state–one language” educational policies (J. Anderson 2008; Wright 2007). The progressive shift toward more pluralistic language policies is an irresistible consequence of the new immigration trends. (See the discussion in Spolsky 1999 on the breakdown of the monolingual ideal of early Zionist language policy in Israel; Glastra and Schedler 2004 on the question of citizenship and language in Europe; and T. Wiley 2002 for a historical note on language pluralism in the United States that puts the current “English-only” restrictions into a broader perspective.) Among the labor-exporting countries, recent proposals for pluralistic language models have offered alternatives to highly centralized integrationist educational models inherited from the past. The continuing crisis of equal access to school literacy in receiving and exporting countries alike will require a better understanding of both social relations in language contact and the principles of language learning. Especially in regard to the latter, questions related to child development during the primaryschool years most urgently demand our attention. Two dimensions of child language development in bilingual and multilingual contexts are fundamental to the debate over language policy. The debate is often framed in terms of linguistic rights to which all individuals should be able to lay claim: access to effective L2-learning opportunities, and the use and development of one’s own primary language. In the literature on this question, often the second prerogative is emphasized. However, as this chapter will show, a one-sided emphasis would result in only partially affirming the school’s responsibility in language learning. For multilingual institutions that face changing relations of language contact (e.g., a new official-national language), a continuing challenge is to ensure unimpeded access to academic texts and other didactic materials, especially Internet resources. This problem will continue to be critical in the coming years in a number of countries as they apply the above-mentioned principles. The recent language policy reforms in South Africa offer the broadest lessons, in part because the scope of the reforms is so ambitious. This chapter will consider the options that the concept of diglossia...

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