ELT World » Bilingualism

Does the NCLB act promote monolingualism?

david — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:57:36 +0000

The United States is now eight years into the No Child Left Behind Act and educators, researchers, and advocates remain locked in heated debate over the effects of the law’s testing and accountability mandates on students, many from immigrant homes where a language other than English is spoken.

Edweek notes how two recently reported developments reveal that the NCLB Act is an impediment to fostering bilingual skills and bicultural understandings…

Read the full story here.

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Malaysia: Government mulls 2011 implementation of new policy to teach science and maths

david — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:53:51 +0000

The Malaysian government, still not content about the amount of damage it’s done, is considering bringing forward the implementation of the new policy to replace the Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI) to 2011 for Year One pupils. However, notes The Sun Daily, this will depend on ’several factors’ such as availability of teachers, new curriculum and textbooks for the two subjects by end of 2010, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has said.

“Based on our experience with the PPSMI, the ministry had only six months to prepare for its implementation and this had led to many problems, including in getting enough teachers. For the new policy, we need for example some 13,000 additional teachers for all the schools. We also need more English language expert teachers which we will start by recruiting some 1,000 beginning next year until 2012.”

Got no qualifications? You know where to head for a guaranteed job.

Read the full debacle here.

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South Korea: British Dulwich to Offer 3 Language Courses

david — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 08:25:16 +0000

Not that offering courses in three (that’s 3) different languages is any kind of record, but prospective students of Dulwich College, scheduled to open in Seoul in 2010 will have a chance to learn three languages at the same time. I know, you can scare contain your excitement.

Fraser White, executive chairman of the Dulwich College Management International (DCMI) said that the school, which already runs three international schools in China, will provide English, Korean and Mandarin courses.

Bilingual babies get a head start before they can even talk

david — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 11:05:07 +0000

Here’s an interesting finding from the National Geographic:

Even before they can babble a single word, babies in bilingual households may get a head start in life, according to a team of scientists in Italy. Rather than confusing babies, hearing more than one language gives newborns a mental boost, according to the new study, which tested seven-month-old infants.

“In many European countries, parents are wary of giving a bilingual education to their kids and try to speak only one language,” said study author Jacques Mehler of the Language, Cognition, and Development Lab at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy. “They are afraid [their children] might suffer when they get to school and so on,” Mehler said. “Because of our results, I doubt that very much.”