Language Policy and Planning in Bilingual and Multilingual Education

• In Event: 65.043 - Bilingual and Multilingual Education: Current Practices and Future Prospects for Promoting Justice, Culture, Language, and Heritage in Education

Abstract

This paper considers the political contexts of bilingual and multilingual education programs through the framework of language policy and planning. The author notes that in institutional contexts, “policies and practices related to prescribing and governing behaviors are instruments of social control.” Traditionally language planning has been viewed as institutional policymaking to “prescribe or influence language(s) … that will be used and the purposes for which they will be used.” However, the author raises a number of important questions about this process: “Who gets to define what language problems are? How, why and for whom, have they become problems? And does the process of language planning itself cause language and communication problems? In other words, why should we assume that the process is only for benevolent purposes?” To address these questions, the author, extending Kloss (1998), provides a useful framework for classifying and analyzing language policies as promotion-oriented, expediency-oriented, tolerance-oriented, restriction-oriented, or repression-oriented; in addition there may be policies of erasure and null policies (i.e., the absence of policy). The author argues that teachers must be aware of the negative consequences of harmful language policies, and also must become familiar with positive examples of culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and learning. With such awareness and knowledge, teachers can “play a significant role in advocating for students and mitigating the effects of poorly conceived or inappropriate educational language policies.”

Author

• Terrence G. Wiley, Center for Applied Linguistics