Bilingual Education: Australian Case Studies

This assignment delves into the complex landscape of bilingual education in Australia. Students will analyze historical developments, policy frameworks, and pedagogical approaches to understanding how different languages are integrated into educational systems. Case studies of specific programs and communities will shed light on the successes, challenges, and impact of bilingual education on individual learners and society as a whole.

Running head: BILINGUAL EDUCATION 1
Integrated business management project
Student Name: - Harmandeep kaur Jawanda
Student id: -CCC3085
Topic: - Bilingual education in schools

BILINGUAL EDUCATION 2
Contents
1.0 Introduction..............................................................................................................3
1.1 Aim and scope......................................................................................................3
2.0 Literature review......................................................................................................4
2.1 Infant or Child bilingualism.................................................................................4
2.2 Role of bilingualism in Australia.........................................................................5
2.3 Bilingual education at home.................................................................................6
2.5 Benefits of bilingual education............................................................................6
2.6 Challenges in Bilingual education.......................................................................8
2.6.1 Lack of bilingual teacher training.................................................................8
2.6.2 Lack of managerial support...........................................................................9
2.6.3 Failure to use language..................................................................................9
2.6.4 Low expectations........................................................................................10
2.6.5 Rules and regulations..................................................................................10
2.7 Recommendations..............................................................................................10
3.0 Final Report on Bilingual Education in Schools (colleges and universities).........11
3.1 Executive Summary...........................................................................................11
3.2 Objectives...........................................................................................................12
3.2.1 The specific objectives are:.........................................................................12
3.2.2 Research questions......................................................................................12
3.3 Scope and limitation of the report......................................................................13
3.4 Background information....................................................................................13
3.4.1 Research Design..........................................................................................13
3.4.2 Research Instruments..................................................................................14
3.4.3 Pilot Test.....................................................................................................14

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3.4.4 Reliability of the measuring instrument......................................................15
3.4.5 Data Collection Procedure..........................................................................15
3.4.6 Data Analysis and Presentation...................................................................15
3.5 Proposed operative suggestion...........................................................................15
3.5.1 Japanese in Australia...................................................................................16
3.5.2 Programs for improving bilingual education in the early childhood..........17
3.5.3 Importance of Bilingual Language Use......................................................19
3.5.4 Strategies to improve bilingual education language...................................21
References....................................................................................................................23

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1.0 Introduction
Changes in the Bilingual education have important influence on education
around the world. This report provides some of the major research related to purpose
and effectiveness of the bilingual education. Bilingual education includes the active
practices of learning based on two languages used by the educational institutions of
countries in the society where various languages exist. It may be the situation where
two different languages exist. On the other hand, it may be the situation that rather
than the state language, other languages are present. In present time, bilingual
programs is used in the colleges, schools and universities where they are paying
attention on the study of the foreign language and international cultures. Along with
this, bilingual programs are meant to enhance student interaction in intercultural
environment. Now, bilingual education can be found in the pre-school institutions.
There is vast contribution to the bilingual education system at an early stage. For
instance, popular and famous project ‘LIGHT’ is actively supported by many
countries i.e. France, Germany, Finland and Austria. It is perceived that bilingual
education in the early stage is most effective for children as children are more open to
the new and they do not have any kind of obstruction and typecast. For instance, there
is one of the Australian school focusing on the bilingual education i.e. Huntingdale
Primary school. In this education system, school is providing different curriculum to
develop bilingual skills in the students (Pray & Jimenez, 2009).
1.1 Aim and scope
The main objective of this report is to build and analyse issue of bilingual in
education system across Australia and find out the most possible solution to deal with
this issue. It synthesizes and summarizes the appropriate empirical work on bilingual

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education in schools at early stages. This report evaluates the quality of these studies
and focuses on the improvement if bilingual education system in the schools. The
driving force for this research is to create the understandings of how immersion
childhood education contributes is beneficial in bilingualism and early school
improvements for success. For the research, recent relevant studies on the bilingual
and immerse early childhood programs would be focused.
2.0 Literature review
The term bilingualism is quite difficult and controversial to define. According
to Baker (1993), bilingualism is a kind of child who is able to speak two languages
smoothly. Some other researchers argued that bilingualism starts immediately the
student is able to produce complete and meaningful speech in other languages.
Further, bilingualism begins when someone starts to understand other languages
without any barriers. In bilingualism, there is one more term i.e. infant or child
bilingualism. According to the Saunders (1988), infant bilingual can be described as
the immediate acquirement of two languages from birth. Child bilingualism is
successive fluency in two languages i.e. child learns first language within the family
and then learns second language in preschool or early school years. Those children
who are bilingual before four years of age have more chances of using the two
languages fluently. Along with this, they have awareness of language; they have high
level of level of adeptness at divergent thinking, creative thinking and concept
formation. There should be bilingual education system in the Australian schools as in
the country, majority of the Australian born households are not bilingual and
immigrant households. So, for the development of children, there must be bilingual
education system in the schools (Lin & García, 2016).

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2.1 Infant or Child bilingualism
Child bilingual is one who has successive fluency in two languages. Those
types of children acquire first language within the family and then learn second
language in the school years. If a child has not get exposure of another language from
birth or within the family, then he or she will not be classified as an infant bilingual as
he or she is not learning those two languages by birth. In the Australia, there is the
multicultural society and bilingual education is actively debated in the society.
Bilingual education must be provided at childhood to enhance adoption. Park (2007)
argued that foreign women who are working in the country must adopt language in
which they can raise their children comfortably. According to her, proficiency in the
mother tongue is helpful in the development of children in terms of learning skills.
The world is changing at the continuous level and there is the need of highly
developed skills for the students for becoming successful global citizen. There are
various situations those are essential for the students to become successful. In the
schools of Australia, teachers are teaching different ways of learning and thinking to
the students. Those skills can be transferred in the daily life and everyday situations
for lifelong learning. It is crucial to understand the role of bilingual education in the
Australian society (Skerrett & Gunn, 2011).
2.2 Role of bilingualism in Australia
At all the levels of education system i.e. advisors, educators, teachers,
ministry, school management, boards of trustees, and classroom teachers, there must
be an effective message of maximizing bilingual education for the children or infants
who speak only one language. The use of various languages affects bilingual
education and education result for bilingual people. It is considered by the researchers
that combination of languages improves the skill base of a person. Bilingual

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education entails the practice of teaching children in their native language and
secondary language concurrently. There are many forms of bilingual education
basically and the implementation of the program in the education system is very
effective (Umansky & Reardon, 2015). Bilingual education has crucial role to provide
the opportunities to the children to progress in their subjects including science,
mathematics, and social studies in their native language. Along with this, they learn
second language in the separate classrooms. The objective of bilingual education is to
make the student fluent in two different languages. Bilingual education system plays a
very vital role in the world as common language is crucial for good communication
and understanding. Due to the multicultural societies and existence of various
languages in these societies, bilingual education has great importance. The role of
bilingual education will establish harmony and stillness among the people in the
society (Mongeau, 2016).
In Australia, many schools have bilingual programs for children and students
who are speaking community languages other than English. These programs are
conducted from the support of the government. There is bilingual education for native
students. For instance, in the Northern region, bilingual programs for the native
students were started in the early 1970s. Furthermore, the government of Northern
region announced to start 21 bilingual programs to teach English as the second
language in 1998. Along with this, bilingual programs were continuing under the
pretext of two-way education. After that, in 2005, The Minister of Education,
Employment and Training announced for renewal bilingual education at 15
community education centres. The aim of renewal was to provide effective education
from pre-school to every region.

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2.3 Bilingual education at home
Using two languages in households is not an easy job. It needs lots of
discipline and patience from the parents. In Australia, there are around 5 million
people who uses other languages rather than English at home. The most possible
languages spoken by people include Italian (2%), Mandarin (2%), Greek (1%),
Vietnams (1%) and Cantonese (1%) and Arabic (1%). If someone grew up in France
in a bilingual family in which father is French-speaking and mother is English-
speaking, then there is the need to speak in their respective languages by the parents
as their children wants to benefit in each culture and communicate with others in the
society (Department of Immigration and Border Protection, 2012). By using both the
languages, child will get fluency in English as well as France language and will
become bilingual. Raising a child with two languages needs continuous and sustained
efforts by the parents. But there are some families that may not follow bilingual
system in the households. Some might have geographical rules within the house.
Therefore, it is important to enhance the bilingual education system in schools so that
children can learn one language in home and another language in schools (Skutnabb-
Kangas & McCarty, 2008).
2.4 Bilingual education at school-
The child can easily learn new language starting from birth to approximately e
years old. From 2 to 3 years old, children know that language they can express and
expose themselves by tongue and most of the languages are introduced in the schools.
In the bilingual programs, language is considered to be integrated into curriculum. In
the schools, teachers teach something by the language. Being bilingual basically
means speaking two languages without necessarily learning them. There are some

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models in the bilingual education to teach second languages to the students (Disbray,
2017).
2.5 Benefits of bilingual education
Bilingual education has many advantages for the society. The attitude to the
bilingual education should be treated delicately, professionally and carefully. There
are many benefits of the bilingual education in schools for those who are not bilingual
and immigrant households. Bilingual education allows the students to adjust in the
multilingual world and different cultures. In the bilingual education, training provides
the opportunity to the students to learn one of the languages of world without leaving
the touch with the traditional language group. For instance, if any student is going to
study in abroad, bilingual training will be very helpful for him to adjust in the new
environment. Further, bilingual education is helpful in improving the area of teaching,
thinking and art of analysis. Along with this, bilingual education is helpful for the
person to deal with the language misunderstanding barriers and making the student
adaptable of other languages, expanding vocabulary and developing the culture of
speech (Johnson & Johnson, 2015).
Learning various languages contributes in developing memory,
communication skills and making the student more tolerant, flexible, and relaxed to
deal with the difficulties of the complex world. Australia is highly multicultural
nation. According to data gathered by The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 28%
of Australian people were born overseas so the young Australians are losing their
interest in learning the foreign languages (Bonfiglio, 2016).
Bilingual education is helpful in providing an excellent basis of learning for
children. It basically has benefits for numeracy and literacy development in the

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language along with improving the experience and understanding of the children in
the world. Bilingual education should be available in all the schools in Australia.
Bilingualism is effective in many ways that is described in figure.
Figure 1: Advantage of Bilingual education
(Source: Bonfiglio, 2016)

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2.6 Challenges in Bilingual education
Although Bilingual education has various benefits for the young learners and
children as it includes more creative thought process and mental flexibility. Numbers
of students are taking language education in Australia but it is quite low. Australia is
linguistically diverse nation having more than 250 languages spoken in the Australian
homes. But there are some challenges in providing Bilingual education to the
students. By addressing those problems and challenges, schools would be able to
improve bilingual education in the course structured.
2.6.1 Lack of bilingual teacher training
It is the common practice to assign the teachers for the bilingual educations in
the schools. For this manner, there is the need of little preparation for using bilingual
methodologies and methods. But it is observed that there is the lack of training among
the bilingual teachers. American Institute of Research conducted the evaluation of
bilingual education and revealed that there are about one-half teachers who had not
received the bilingual training proper over a five-year span. Although there are some
improvements on training of the bilingual education, still there is the critical need of
bilingual training to the teachers at some points (Li, 2006).
2.6.2 Lack of managerial support
There is the continuous absence of administrative support which can be
measured by the resource allocation in the bilingual education for the various
programs. Since last few years, Texas state initiated allocation of finance provided to
the schools to enhance adoption of bilingual education. But the state law is not
focusing on increasing the fund support for bilingual and ESL programs. It is
therefore important for legislators to make laws that provide for financial assistance to

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bilingual support of programs. There is the need of hardship and bilingual funds to
spend on the educational programs for the language minority students.
2.6.3 Failure to use language
The concept of bilingual education system is rooted on using native language
for the permanent growth along with other second language for the students. But, due
to the lack of large number of the trained teachers, bilingual education is not much
effective in schools. The school should focus on education al leadership having
fluency on the two different languages. Teachers with different language are very
crucial in the schools for the bilingual education. Sometimes, teachers are not able to
develop the extensive fluency which is necessary to be present in the academic work.
Along with this, sometimes State Level agency use culturally-biased test for the entry
of teachers into the teacher’s preparation programs for bilingual education. As the
result, poor performance can be seen (Kim, 2015). Further, there is one weaker pint in
the bilingual program as schools import teachers from the second language countries
and giving them responsibility to be teacher in the bilingual education. This action is
the cause of many problems in the education system i.e. many imported teachers do
not have proper and adequate skills to present the bilingual curriculum and the
pronunciation and vocabulary of the teacher might be different from the student’s
language so students have to face many difficult situations during the education
system. The recruitment of teachers in the bilingual education is tough task for the
schools in the Australian society as well other parts of the world. Rather than
importing the teachers from various places, use of the local teachers would be
beneficial as native language is appropriate for teaching so that student would not be
confused due to the variation of the languages. Further, perfection of the intuitive
language is important though it must be separate in terms of bilingual education.

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Countries are making second language as the optional and due to this fact; students
are losing their fluency on the languages (Lucero, 2015).
2.6.4 Low expectations
The most apparent failure of Australian schools is that it does not recognize
mental inabilities of some students. Poor performances of the marginal, immigrant
school population, disadvantages are the factors affecting the bilingual education in
the Australian schools. There is the lack of language competency which can be seen
commonly as the lack of mental competency. There is the requirement of civil rights
to address the lack of language skills in the bilingual programs. Along with this, there
is the issue that bilingual educations in the schools are seen as option al education
programs for the low mental capability students in the society. so, unfortunately
parents, teachers and the students themselves consider the bilingual education as the
low level opportunity and convert it into low level of the performance.
2.6.5 Rules and regulations
There are various laws that affect the execution of bilingual education in the
schools. Such rules and policies are becoming handicap in the success of the
implementation the bilingual programs. The restrictions are affecting the
characteristics of the teachers along with the languages used by them. The restrictions
are also impacting the relationship with the donors and the use of native languages
and many others (Cárdenas, 2017).
2.7 Recommendations
To get success in the implementation of bilingual education, schools in the
Australia society must address these problems. Society must widen the learning
opportunities for most of the school populations and students, especially for the

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language minority students and limited language proficient students. Importance of
language learnings must be improved due to competing demands of the crowded
prospectus. Some immersion programs such as language integrated learning programs
and content related programs should be delivered as the second language that would b
e helpful for the students to become bilingual along with learning more subjects. The
national curriculum authority should support the language achievement by following
the model of compulsory language funding and learning in the Australian schools.
Language learning should be considered as the key part of 21st century skills.
Speaking in more than one language provides high level of benefit to the students who
want to grow in the increasingly connected world. If learning becomes essential, there
would be great chance to raise the status of Australian schools and motivate more
people to move into language teachings (Dabrowski, 2015).
2.8 Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is observed that bilingual education has great
importance to raise the students in the growing world. Basically, bilingual programs
are aims on creating favourable environments for the students to adjust in the
intercultural language environment. There are many forms of bilingual education
basically and the enactment of the program in across all levels of is very effective. So,
high level of authorities and management should focus on finding and improvement
of the bilingual education system.
3.0 Final Report on Bilingual Education in Schools (colleges and
universities)
3.1 Executive Summary

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The colleges and universities have a bigger role in transforming the society by
increasing student employability and imparting them with knowledge. However, it has
to embrace diversity necessitating use of more language to accommodate more
students. This is more necessary in colleges and universities that deal with
international students. This report gives an overview on how bilingual education can
be incorporated into early childhood education to improve language diversity. Review
of secondary data is the best methodology so far applicable in conducting this current
research. Furthermore, primary data can be collected by adopting interview and
questionnaires to better performance by collecting data that indicate performance. The
current study indicated that there are various ways for engaging institutional
administration, parents and students to promote bilingual education. Interaction
among bilingual peer is enhance through open communication. In order to improve
student ability to speak more than one language, efforts need to be geared towards
addressing difficulties associated with adoption of bilingual education programs in
both primary, secondary and tertiary institutions.
3.2 Objectives
The main objective of this study is to examine challenges facing bilingual
education programs in Australian learning institutions and contribute to knowledge
integrated management practices to enhance its success.
3.2.1 The specific objectives are:
i) To determine the most common languages used for teaching in Australian
institutions (primary secondary and universities)

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ii) To determine programs for improving bilingual education in the early
childhood
iii) Major challenges affecting adoption of bilingual education in Australian
institutions
iv) Importance of bilingual language around the globe
3.2.2 Research questions
i) Which languages are commonly used for teaching in Australian
institutions (primary secondary and universities)?
ii) Which programs can be adopted for improving bilingual education in the
early childhood?
iii) What are the challenges affecting adoption of bilingual education in
Australian institutions?
iv) What roles does bilingual language play around the globe?
3.3 Scope of the research paper report
This report is restricted to learning institution in Australia including primary,
secondary and tertiary learning institutions. The information relating problems
identified in the learning institution is reinforced by the secondary data from books
and journals. This report depicts an overall view of challenges and offer framework
for possible answer to the underlined problems. The recommendation from this study
assist government and learning institutions management to improve on their
competitiveness by managing language diversity thereby attracting students from all
over the world.
3.4 Background information

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This chapters covers how this research could be steered to gather pertinent
data that isolates root causes of problems. Valuable information is also outlined due to
good good data analysis methods used.
3.4.1 Research Design
The major data and information for this project is from secondary sources. In
order to collect primary data, descriptive survey research design is adopted for
colleges and universities. This design will involve both qualitative and quantitative
methods. Qualitative helps in ascertaining level of perception of the participants while
the quantitative focuses on prediction. Questionnaires are use to collect primary data
from students at universities and colleges.
The target population depends on the aim of study and the data required. The
respondent for this study comprises the staff and student in primary, secondary and
tertiary institutions. In this case the students who reside in hostels and the staffs
working in institution must be chosen for the study.
3.4.2 Research Instruments
The tool adopted for the collection of data is structured questionnaires that will
be delivered physically to the identified participant at learning institutions as hard
copy sent them through mail. In that close and open ended questions can be used to
solicit extensive information. The Likert scale best suits closed ended questions as the
respondent rate parameters of the study (Mercer et al., p. 2). Furthermore, there is a
section where participants provide extra relevant information for open ended
questions

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3.4.3 Pilot Test
Pilot study is usually carried out with different participants from those that
will participate in the main study (Kimberlin and Winterstein, p. 2277). The pilot
study helps in identifying challenges that are likely to be met in the main study.
3.4.5 Data Collection Procedure
The questionnaires will be delivered to the study participants and allowed
adequate time to fill. The researcher can make a call as a reminder to the interviewee
to enhance response rate.
3.4.6 Data Analysis and Presentation
The raw data will be coded and analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences
(SPSSS). Descriptive and inferential statistics helps in describing the results of the
findings relating bilingual programs in schools.
3.5 Proposed operative suggestion
Most common languages used for teaching in Australian institutions (primary,
secondary and universities)
In most Australian teaching institutions, they use English. However, in the
state of Victoria some schools use Greek and Italian while others teach in French,
Japanese, Irish and Chinese. These languages are used as the main languages of
instructions. Bilingual education basically allow use of two different languages for
learning.
3.5.1 Japanese in Australia

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Japanese is most taught language in Australia especially to both colleges and
universities since 1970s until the early 2000s (Smolicz p.12). This is a unique
situation in Australia especially within the western world. Australia-japan relationship
partly derived the impetus for this expansion due to its economic and strategic
importance. The teaching of Japanese lead to great growth and development of the
government investments. The fame of the committed teachers, opportunities of
students to travel to japan and good resources among other factors supported the
spread of Japanese in the country.
Currently, the study of Japanese in Australia must fulfil essential factors:
a. Ensuring individual in Australia can understand japan and communicate in
Japanese
At normal standards large number of Australian are taught to relate well with
the Japanese people at their institutions of work and social lives. These skills can be
developed at school and further achieved through study in tertiary and education
beyond.
b. Provide educational benefits of language learning
Language learning basically enhances many social, cognitive and other
advantages not bound to fluency of the aim language (Scarino p.298). As the most
taught language, Japanese provides an entry to the wider world which prepares them
to be more diverse and for an increasingly globalized world.
In remarks, Japanese has several growth factors and successes behind for those
student is conversant with it. They have a solid backing base at university and college
to enable locally able trained teachers of Japanese language. They are also privileged
to have financial support from the Japanese government. Government has taken

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important measures to ensure proper growth of a National Council for Japanese
Education that provide advocacy and leadership across primary to tertiary level.
3.5.2 Programs for improving bilingual education in the early childhood
Necessary program has been established to improve children skills at their
early age especially the disadvantaged children. They enable children to be more
competent in literacy and academic skills in English. Preschools and early school
enrichment among other programs are in place currently to improve lower quality
model programs (Scarino p.300). This report generally discusses prompt juvenile
education curricula, content, timing and their associated benefits. Some of these
program models include:
 Transitional bilingual education
It occurs to children of age older than three years who are taught in their
native language, to guarantee that the children progress well in learning conducted at
local language at school as for subjects such as social studies, science and
mathematics. Previous studies indicate that most skills and knowledge gained in the
native language can certainly be conveyed to the second language. The main
objective of this program assist the pupils transition to many other known languages.
In the transitional bilingual language program, the pupils’ principal language is used
to help them develop skills and acquire academic knowledge. Basically, it aims at
developing literacy and academic skills in the native language.
 Dual language immersion Bilingual Education
This program is designed to help English speakers become learn other
languages. This program has 90% of the instructions reinforced by the larger culture
and 10% in the minority language (Lo Bianco p.10). In the 5th grade the language is

BILINGUAL EDUCATION 21
now divided into equal proportions involving curriculum split to be taught in two
langauges. Leaders normally strengthen concepts taught across the two languages to
enhance learning. The theme of content is being used to alternate language
instructions. It aims at improving language proficiency, and a higher level of
competency in solving mathematics word problems.
 Developmental maintenance
These programs are learner focused and aim to develop skills in one language
while at the same time, maintaining the skills of another. The main objective is to
develop and maintain competency in two languages as the learner progresses through
schooling. This is the underlying nationale of bilingual language.
 Language remedial
This is program that leads to the mainstream language curriculum and their
concepts. They usually occur in various building, annex and settings the langue used
may not necessarily be involved at mainstream (Smolicz p.52).
These programs have substantial benefits especially for the disadvantaged
children. Other programs have been supported in the aim of improving educational
achievement, earning and reducing welfare dependency and crime. Some of these
programs are meant to enhance instructional practices for linguistically and culturally
diverse children and provide high-quality professional development opportunities.
3.5.3 Importance of Bilingual Language Use
1. Research
Researchers and educators view bilingualism as a major hindrance to
youngster’s academic and intellectual development. Previous studies came to realize

BILINGUAL EDUCATION 22
bilingualism created extensive forces in the brain of the learner making it stressful in
getting concepts. Having the ability to speak many languages is beneficial to the
student in terms of interaction with diverse culture. Bilingualism has greatly improved
the body of research and students possessing this gift have greatly been advantaged in
terms of literacy development and adoption of problem solving skills and many extra
areas of intellect. This has brought by a potent change in our historic perspective.
2. Self-understanding and community understanding
Bilingualism is increasingly getting attention due to globalization that has
increased movement of people around the world. This can enhance learning new
cultures. It makes one smarter and it has a profound effect on one’s brain, improves
cognitive skills and has a shielding effect in old age against dementia
We also clearly understand that bilingualism has brought self-awareness and
community in students. Nelson favourable quote: “if you talk to a man in a language
he understands it will go to his head and if you talk to a man in his language it will go
to his heart.” This a very powerful statement proving the importance of bilingualism.
3. Business field
Competitiveness, not only in the country but also in the world depends on
achievement of the goal of use of bilingual language in institutions. A recent survey
indicates that many organizations prefer diverse employment and prefer workers who
can speak more than one language. The advancement in technology has enhanced
competition forcing multinational companies to train its staff to be bilingual.
4. Brain development
In a study by physiologists Ellen and Martin-Rhee on the bilingual and
monolingual pre-schoolers where the students were requested to differentiate two
shapes depicted in different colours displayed in the computer screen (Copland

BILINGUAL EDUCATION 23
p.740). In the first task had to sort the shapes based on colour and it was evident that
both groups performed this perfectly. They were also asked to sort in reference to
shape and it was quit challenging because they were to place in a bin marked with a
conflicting colour. The bilinguals were quicker in performing this task.
5. Control of dementia
In recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the
neurophysiologist Tamar Gollan of university of California, san Diego, concluded that
individuals using comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language-were most
resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer
disease. Bilingualism therefore is a remedy to dementia.
Challenges affecting adoption of bilingual language
Bilingual programs face a lot of challenge in adoption especially when
disadvantaged children are concerned. This is because it occurs via different channels
since it is bimodal also. This is very challenging especially when the most children
are deaf because they are not likely to have full access to the language, culture or
experience of their parents (Bianco p.2). This makes the culture to be acquired from
the surrounding context rather than acquired from family generations. Deaf children
may come to school without a strong first language base from which to develop a
second language thus, unable to adopt spoken language of the dominant communities
(Alidou p.130).
3.5.4 Strategies to improve bilingual education
 Funding the programs
The main funding source has been grants from special education and Equity
within the that including the department of Education and training. The imaginative

BILINGUAL EDUCATION 24
and flexibility of the available funds contributes major achievement of these
programs. These sources are not permanent though reliable by continued reports by
clear documentation.
 Providing for the diverse needs of Deaf students and hearing impaired
Campaign have been conducted to ensure that all student have general awareness
of the bilingual education. They access the curriculum through english and others
through Auslan. Programs such as speech therapy among others such as auditory
intervention is provided to negotiation with parents and speech pathology assessment.
These students have a balanced emphasis on acquisition of skills in the bilingual
curriculum (Baker p.69). The provision of the primary language upon which a secondary language
could be built
It has been achieved through enlarging Auslan tuition to hearing
students as well as the general school community (De Oliveira p.65). Deaf
students are also provided with specific extensions and Auslan intervention
taught by a Deaf teacher which address specific needs of a student. This
becomes the foundation for the teaching and learning of English literacy.

BILINGUAL EDUCATION 25
References
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