Not much about computers or writing but definitely about language learning.
reviewed by Lynn Zimmerman — January 04, 2011
Title: Educating Emergent Bilinguals: Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Language Learners. Search for book at Amazon.com
Author(s): Ofelia Garcia and Jo Anne Kleifgen
Publisher: Teachers College Press, New York
ISBN: 0807751138, Pages: 192, Year: 2010
For Garcia and Kleifgen the question: What’s in a name? is more than an existential question. In their book, Educating Emergent Bilinguals: Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Language Learners, they assert that how the question is answered not only gives a different meaning to the experience of people who are labeled in various ways as learners of English, but also has profound implications for educational policies and practices that impact them. Rather than using the “deficit model” of naming which has been the norm in the education of non-English speaking learners, Garcia and Kleifgen suggest calling them “emergent bilinguals.” This critical act of “re-naming” shifts the focus to the knowledge that they have and to the possibilities of bilingualism instead of focusing on their lack of English and the narrow goal of learning English.
