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International Journal of Bilingual
Education and Bilingualism
Editor: Colin Baker, University of Wales, Bangor
Review Editor: Aneta Pavlenko, Temple University, Philadelpia


Volume: 7  Number: 2  Page: 155–171

The Continua of Biliteracy and the Bilingual Educator: Educational Linguistics in Practice
Nancy H. Hornberger

The continua model of biliteracy offers a framework in which to situate research, teaching, and language planning in linguistically diverse settings; bilingual teacher education represents a conjunction of all three of these and hence, a good candidate for applying the continua model. This paper uses selected experiences in language teacher education as practised at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education to illustrate the potential of the continua model as heuristic in continually (re)writing the bilingual or language educator's knowledge base in response to the demands of educational policy and practice. A series of vignettes serves as a means for exploring dilemmas confronting bilingual (and language) educators and ways in which the continua model might shape a response: the global/local dilemma – global social, cultural, and political trends as contexts for biliteracy; the standard/nonstandard dilemma – media of biliteracy as reflected in evolving views of language and literacy in the world; the language/content dilemma – enquirybased teacher education as an approach to the development of biliteracy; and the language/culture/identity dilemma – teachers' and learners' identities and cultures as they relate to biliteracy content. The paper concludes with a few comments on bilingual educators as researchers, teachers, and language planners and on the need, now more than ever, for bilingual educators to be advocates.

Keywords: LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY, LANGUAGE AND CONTENT, GLOBAL ENGLISH, LANGUAGE, PLANNING, LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION, NONSTANDARD LANGUAGES IN EDUCATION

© Multilingual Matters 2004

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