Building a Bridge to English Literacy in Aboriginal Bilingual Education Programs

Abstract

The aim of bilingual education is to develop a person who can think, speak, read, write and act appropriately in the language and culture of both his home and the wider society. Therefore, although for sound educational reasons the first formal reading experiences of children in a bilingual program are provided in their mother-tongue and these activities are maintained and extended throughout the child’s school life, at an appropriate time a bridge to English literacy needs to be built. Once this is done the world of English literature should be explored as far as is possible for each individual child. Sarah Gudschinsky stresses the importance of the addition of English literacy skills for pre-literate groups within a wider society when she reminds us that people who are deprived of this opportunity will find it difficult to take their rightful place in modern society. (1973, p.138)She has defined a literate person as one who in language that he speaks, can read and understand anything he could have understood if it had been spoken to him and can write, so that it can be read, anything that he can say. (1973, p.5)