Sociolinguistics of Literacy, Bilingual Education, and Tesol

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10817954
AutoresBernard Spolsky (0000-0002-2990-5490, autor de correspondencia)
Año1982
Volumen16
Número2
Páginas141
Fecha de publicación1982-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaTESOL Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0039-8322 • E-ISSN: 1545-7249
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3586788
OpenAlexW2089365154
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas4

Recent sociolinguistic studies suggest a method for understanding more clearly the many complex relations between literacy and language education in general. Three cases are described to demonstrate this. In the history of Jewish education, the change in attitude to literacy, involving the acceptance of literacy for recording and learning the Oral Law as well as the Written Law may be seen as one of the factors that kept Hebrew alive even after it was no longer a spoken language. The contemporary bilingual program at Rock Point Community School works for biliteracy in a community that until now has been bilingual but monoliterate. The Pacific Northwest Indian Reading Program uses reading in the standard language to achieve a measure of community access to the curriculum that is usually only possible with a bilingual program. The sociolinguistics of literacy provides a method for understanding how and why each of these varied curricular approaches suited the situation in which they were developed. The continuing controversy over the language education of minority children provides a seemingly inexhaustible supply of evidence for those of us who see Bilingual Education as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon. Among the labyrinth of issues, it is easy to lose one's way. Those teachers who are working in the classrooms with minority children can be forgiven for their readiness to grasp at simple solutions, but there is little that can excuse scholars who offer a simple new analysis or label as a quick and easy remedy for complex problems. As a consequence, I am not going to suggest that the sociolinguistics of literacy is the ultimate weapon to solve the problems of language education for minority children or others. My claim is much more modest: I will try to demonstrate that it helps us understand one important factor that we might otherwise not be able to account for, in order to see why some approaches to education are successful in some circumstances and others are not. In this article, I plan to do three things: first, to show the place of literacy in language education in general and bilingual education and TESOL in particular; second, to

Bilingual education · Linguistics · Literacy · Pedagogy · Sociolinguistics · Sociology · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Psychology