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Teaching for Transfer in Multilingual School Contexts

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Bilingual and Multilingual Education

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Language and Education ((ELE))

Abstract

This chapter discusses the theoretical issues and empirical research relevant to instructional language use in bilingual and L2 teaching programs. In most contexts, language teaching is still largely based on monolingual instructional assumptions that view languages as separate and autonomous. Optimal instructional practice is frequently characterized as exclusive use of the target language with minimal or no reference to students’ home or dominant language. In contrast to these common assumptions, there is overwhelming research evidence that languages interact in dynamic ways in the learning process and that literacy-related skills transfer across languages as learning progresses. When we free ourselves from monolingual instructional assumptions, a wide variety of opportunities emerge for developing students’ L1 and L2 proficiencies by means of bilingual/multilingual instructional strategies that acknowledge the reality of, and strongly promote, cross-language transfer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. OISE/Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, M5S 1V6, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Jim Cummins

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  1. Jim Cummins
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Correspondence to Jim Cummins .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. City University of New York The Graduate Center, New York, New York, USA

    Ofelia Garcia

  2. Faculty of Education The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Angel Lin

  3. Faculty of Education, University of Auckland Faculty of Education, Auckland, New Zealand

    Stephen May

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Cummins, J. (2016). Teaching for Transfer in Multilingual School Contexts. In: Garcia, O., Lin, A., May, S. (eds) Bilingual and Multilingual Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02324-3_8-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02324-3_8-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-02324-3

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