Medium of Instruction Policies: Which Agenda? Whose Agenda?

by Tollefson, James W.; Tsui, Amy B.M.; Tsui, Amy B.M.; May, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780805842777
• ISBN10: 0805842772
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Lawrence Erlbau

Summary

Medium of instruction policies in education have considerable impact not only on the school performance of students and the daily work of teachers, but also on various forms of social and economic (in)equality. In many multiethnic and multilingual countries, the choice of a language for the medium of instruction in state educational systems raises a fundamental and complex educational question: what combination of instruction in students' native language(s) and in a second language of wider communication will ensure that students gain both effective subject-content education, as well as the second-language skills necessary for higher education and employment? Beyond this educational issue of choice of language(s) of instruction, medium of instruction policies are also linked to a range of important sociopolitical issues, including globalization, migration, labor policy, elite competition, and the distribution of economic resources and political power. The contributors to this volume examine the tension between the educational agendas and other social and political agendas underlying medium of instruction policies in different countries around the world, and unravel the connections between these policies and the related, critically important educational, social, political, and economic issues. Medium of Instruction Policies: Which Agenda? Whose Agenda?is intended for scholars and specialists in education, language policy, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and language teaching, and is intended for use in graduate and advanced undergraduate courses on language education and language policy.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Contributors	xi
1 The Centrality of Medium-of-Instruction Policy in Sociopolitical Processes	1	(20)
Amy B.M. Tsui and James W. Tollefson
Part I Minority Languages in English-Dominant States
2 Mãori-Medium Education in Aotearoa/New Zealand	21	(22)
Stephen May
3 Bilingual Education and Language Revitalization in Wales: Past Achievements and Current Issues	43	(28)
Dylan V. Jones and Marilyn Martin-Jones
4 Dangerous Difference: A Critical-Historical Analysis of Language Education Policies in the United States	71	(26)
Teresa L. McCarty
Part II Language in Post-Colonial States
5 Medium of Instruction in Hong Kong: One Country, Two Systems, Whose Language?	97	(20)
Amy B.M. Tsui
6 Medium-of-Instruction Policy in Singapore	117	(18)
Anne Pakir
7 Medium-of-Instruction Policy in Higher Education in Malaysia: Nationalism Versus Internationalization	135	(18)
Saran Kaur Gill
8 Rural Students and the Philippine Bilingual Education Program on the Island of Leyte	153	(24)
Iluminado Nical, Jerzy J. Smolicz, and Margaret J. Secombe
9 Medium of Power: The Question of English in Education in India	177	(18)
E. Annamalai
10 Medium of Instruction in Post-Colonial Africa	195	(22)
Hassam Alidou
Part III Managing and Exploiting Language Conflict
11 Language Policy in Post-Apartheid South Africa	217	(24)
Vic Webb
12 Indigenous Language Education in Bolivia and Ecuador: Contexts, Changes, and Challenges	241	(22)
Kendall A. King and Carol Benson
13 Medium of Instruction in Slovenia: European Integration and Ethnolinguistic Nationalism	263	(20)
James W. Tollefson
14 Contexts of Medium-of-Instruction Policy	283	(12)
James W. Tollefson and Amy B.M. Tsui
Author Index	295	(6)
Subject Index	301