The experience of bilingual school education in England and Wales in the early 21st century

Abstract

Due to fast globalization development, the place of bilingual education becomes rather drastic, gaining the role of an urgent importance in modern society which daily puts out the solutions for the educational demands. Mass bilingualism, deformation of the linguistic situation, conflict of speech problems can have consequences of social consolidation loss, dangerous processes of assimilation both linguistic and national-cultural. The purpose of this study is an attempt to investigate the phenomenon of bilingualism, the causes of its origin; to show some aspects of the problem of bilingualism, which is the key to solving the whole complex of problems through modern innovative teaching methods related to the functioning of languages in Ukraine as well as abroad. The analysis of recent research methods and publications have been trying to reveal this issue and find a sound solution for it. Modern Ukrainian researchers are paying close attention to bilingual education. Foreign experience in this area was analyzed by many wise scholars and their apprentices. The problem of multilingualism is of particular importance today because it is primarily caused by socio-economic and political changes in the world that require the more active involvement of different countries in the global geopolitical multicultural dialogue. One of the factors in activating such a dialogue is the need to be fluent in at least one foreign language, which has led to the emergence of such a phenomenon in the world of educational practice, as bilingual education. To solve this problem, one must take into account the whole complex of features of the language and different aspects of the relation of the cultural components of the language with its levels. For Ukraine, the development of bilingual education is driven, first and foremost, by a general tendency towards integration into the European space, a desire for cultural dialogue and intercultural communication. Key words: bilingualism, bilingual education, knowledge, languages, culture, curriculum.