Bilingualism in the Primary School

Over the past few years bilingualism has come to be seen not as a hinderance to assimiliation but as an asset which, properly nurtured, will benefit children's linguistic awareness, cultural sensitivity and cognitive functioning. Bilingualism in the Primary Classroom gives primary teachers a window on the experience of the bilingual children in their care and by doing so helps them to make the most of what the children and their parents have to offer as well as giving them a good start in the National Curriculum. Many of the contributors to the book are themselves bilingual and are thus able to understand the children's experience from within, but they are also particularly careful to show monolingual teachers how they too can make use of children's mother tongue experience. The book is based throughout on rich case study material of individual children at various stages on the bilingual spectrum.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.