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Developing a language-in-education planning model
Abstract
All education systems are charged with improving the language abilities of the students for whom they have responsibility. The challenge is particularly acute for policy makers when the issue as to which languages are to feature in the curriculum is politicized. Language planning has provided educators with many insights into language-in-education issues and how to successfully respond to those issues. However, the contribution of language planning is piecemeal and scattered, and it is the need for a coherent and integrated view that underlies this study. This study has three aims. The first aim is to bring together, as a language-in-education planning model, the processes that occur from when a language-in-education issue emerges from a linguistic environment to when the issue is resolved in an education system by the successful implementation of an appropriate plan. The second aim focuses on part of the model, specifically on ascertaining the resources, by required languages, for each option. The concern is to establish (a) the interrelationship between language linked identity aims, curriculum programs (i.e. mediums of instruction and curriculum subjects) and resources and (b) the consequence for resources when a change in these aims causes a change in the curriculum programs. Resources, by required languages, refers to all those resources which need to have language specific attributes, e.g. the languages that teachers and advisors need to speak and materials need to be written in. The third aim is to apply the language-in-education planning model to the complex, politicized linguistic situation in New Hebrides and Vanuatu from the 1820s to 1991 and to the education system as it was in 1990. Five relevant options are presented and analyzed. The analysis shows that the model successfully discriminates along several important language-in-education planning dimensions. Consequently, the use of the model can result in more explicit advocacy, development of superior options, more informed decision making about the demand for personnel with skills in specific languages, and improved implementation of plans.
Subject Area
Educational administration|Public administration|Multicultural Education
Recommended Citation
Matthews, Philip W, "Developing a language-in-education planning model" (1994). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9420661.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9420661